So, you’ve mastered the negotiation basics—BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement), ZOPA (zone of possible agreement), persuasion tactics, and so on—but you’re facing a challenge that seems to require something more. The following three new negotiation books explain how to learn from negotiation failure; build a fairer, more equitable workplace; and adapt to pressing challenges, from online negotiations to cross-cultural negotiations.
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Build powerful negotiation skills and become a better dealmaker and leader. Download our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
Learning from Negotiation Failure
Failures are the best learning opportunities, we’re often told. Yet negotiation training and advice often focuses on success stories—deals closed, relationships cemented. In his new book, Getting Back to the Table: 5 Steps to Reviving Stalled Negotiations, Harvard Negotiation Project senior fellow Joshua N. Weiss argues that we can learn at least as much from negotiations that don’t go as planned.
When things go awry, we need to overcome the common pitfalls of denial, rationalization, and destructive self-blame—and accept that “being a great negotiator is a journey of continual learning,” writes Weiss.
He defines failure in negotiation as “not meeting the objective or goal delineated at the outset of the negotiation process.” Notably, this definition sets a higher bar for negotiation success than simply reaching an agreement. After all, walking away from a deal that doesn’t meet your interests and goals isn’t a failure; it’s just smart.
In his book, Weiss identifies seven types of negotiation failures. Here are three of them:
- “Take a crack at it” failure. In such long-shot situations, failure seems likely, but the potential upside makes it “worth a shot.” In organizations, efforts to promote innovative products often fall into this category.
- “Slipping through our fingers” failure. Sometimes a strong agreement is within reach but slips away due to poor negotiating strategy. Weiss gives the example of how the Boston Red Sox botched what should have been a straightforward renegotiation with player Jon Lester by making him an insultingly low first offer.
- “Penny-wise and pound-foolish” failure. At times, we are so intent on getting good financial terms that we sacrifice our relationship with the other party—to our long-term detriment. Suppose you drive a hard bargain on price in a purchasing negotiation. You end up with what seems like a great deal, but the other side feels they have sacrificed so much that their customer service ends up being nonexistent.
In Getting Back to the Table, Weiss offers practical strategies for overcoming and learning from the negotiation failures all around us. Here’s a link to a recent PON Live! book talk with Weiss.
Making Work Fair
Bias, both conscious and unconscious, infects all stages of employment negotiations. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training in organizations tries to address bias by correcting individuals’ thinking and behavior. Although that’s a worthy goal, it can lead organizations to overlook systemic factors that create and maintain unfairness in the workplace.
In their new book, Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results, Harvard Kennedy School professors Iris Bohnet and Siri Chilazi write that many organizations invest in “short-term programmatic solutions instead of addressing unfair organizational processes that govern how we work every day.”
Taking the bias out of systems offers a more promising approach, according to the authors. For example, a facial recognition software that has difficulty recognizing darker-skinned women “can be reprogrammed to work better for all humans,” they write. Similarly, a policy that gives mothers much longer parental leave than fathers “can be changed to give everyone an equal opportunity to contribute at work and at home,” Bohnet and Chilazi note.
Ideally, they say, fairness initiatives should be built into organization-wide systems, such as hiring, performance evaluation, and meetings, rather than existing solely as stand-alone programs, such as DEI training and employee resource groups. “Programmatic approaches, even when well-intentioned, can send the message that making work fair is an optional add-on that only matters when other, more pressing priorities don’t get in the way,” write Bohnet and Chilazi.
In Make Work Fair, the authors offer practical advice on how to tweak existing hiring and promotion systems to more fairly and efficiently attract talent, screen job applicants, evaluate the finalist pool, and negotiate with candidates. Through April 21, 2025, Bohnet and Chilazi are hosting a free weekly virtual seminar series that offers evidence-driven advice on how to advance fairness at work.
Beyond the Negotiation Basics
Can you successfully negotiate with someone whose ethical standards differ from yours? When negotiating with someone from a different culture, how much do you need to adjust your strategy? What about if you’re negotiating via video?
In his new book, Negotiation: The Game Has Changed, Harvard Business School professor Max H. Bazerman tailors traditional negotiation advice to these and other contemporary contexts. In a chapter on online transactions, for example, Bazerman explains that negotiations conducted via Zoom and other videoconferencing platforms might differ from in-person negotiations due to the reduced “channel richness” of online communications—that is, “the amount of verbal and nonverbal information that can be transmitted from one person to another during any given communication.”
Zoom negotiations are a richer communication form than phone calls and text messages, which lack visuals, but are not as rich as in-person negotiations. The less enriched a communication medium is, the more difficult it can be to build trust and understanding. For this reason, “you might want to think about how you can pleasantly, yet efficiently, connect and build some trust” in online negotiations, while being respectful of people’s time, writes Bazerman.
In other chapters, Bazerman applies tried-and-true negotiation strategy to a variety of contexts, including multiparty negotiations, the pros and cons of “splitting the difference,” and the relative merits of auctions. You can learn more about The Game Has Changed by watching Bazerman’s PON Live! book talk.
What other negotiation books would you recommend for confronting specific negotiation challenges?
Claim your FREE copy: Negotiation Skills
Build powerful negotiation skills and become a better dealmaker and leader. Download our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
