In negotiation, we bring our unique personalities and styles to the table. A reserved, cautious person is likely to bargain differently than someone who is outgoing and proactive, for example. There is much we can do to improve our negotiation performance—such as preparing thoroughly and using proven persuasion strategies. But can we also improve our value creation outcomes by adapting our negotiating style to our partner?

A set of experiments by Scott Wiltermuth, Associate Professor of Management and Organization at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, Larissa Z. Tiedens, Jonathan B. Lovelace Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University, and Margaret Ann Neale The Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, Emerita at Stanford University, suggests that the answer is sometimes yes. The researchers were interested in determining whether taking on a dominant or submissive style would help or harm negotiators with value creation. They defined dominant behaviors as verbal and nonverbal behaviors that negotiators use to influence others, whether consciously or unconsciously. Negotiators might convey dominance through expansive body postures, gesturing, speaking loudly, guiding the conversation, and expressing their preferences openly and with confidence.

By contrast, negotiators who use a submissive style can be described as cooperative and agreeable, and they influence their partners in ways that avoid direct conflict. They tend to make themselves physically compact, speak softly, use mild language, and express themselves less directly or forcefully than their more dominant counterparts. The researchers were careful to note that the submissive style they studied was more active than passivity or withdrawal.

Past research has found that negotiators who behave dominantly claim more value than their counterparts; however, their style can stand in the way of value creation if they are perceived as tough. In their experiments, Wiltermuth and his colleagues looked more closely at what happens when negotiators using complementary or similar styles, in terms of dominance and submission, get together.

Is value creation and value claiming all about personality?

In the experiments, participants were paired off to engage in a simulated negotiation over a merger or job offer. Some participants were asked to show dominance by taking charge of the conversation, speaking loudly, using expansive postures, and so on. Those in the submission condition were instructed to treat their counterparts respectfully, make them feel competent, agree with them when possible (without sacrificing their own goals), speak softly, and maintain a compact physical space. Participants in a control group received no such instructions about their negotiating style. Negotiators were paired with partners in their same condition or a different one, and their outcomes were assessed using a point system.

Interestingly, pairs in which one party behaved dominantly and the other submissively outperformed pairs who were in the same condition (whether dominance, submission, or control). The pairs of dominant/submissive negotiators benefited from their complementary communication style. A pattern in which one person stated her preferences directly and the other asked questions enabled the negotiators to improve their value creation.

We might expect that the submissive negotiators lost ground to their dominant counterparts, but that was not the case. Rather, the submissive negotiators assessed, through their questioning, how to meet their own goals. In the process, they helped their dominant counterparts feel respected and competent.

Toward a natural adaptation

Intuitively, the findings make sense. Imagine a negotiation in which both individuals are trying to dominate the discussion. Now picture one in which both are agreeably encouraging the other. Neither arrangement seems like a recipe for a winning deal, does it?

The idea of adapting our personal negotiating style to complement that of our counterpart may seem both off-putting and difficult to achieve. Behaving contrary to our instincts can feel unnatural and downright difficult to pull off. Yet consider that we often adapt to our fellow negotiators quite naturally—taking the lead when the other party seems reticent, for example, or adopting a more backseat role when someone seems determined to guide the conversation. Perhaps the lesson is not so much that we need to contort our behavior unnaturally to succeed as negotiators, but that we should be reassured rather than concerned when we find ourselves behaving out of character in an attempt to complement our partner’s style. In addition, the research highlights the fact that negotiation is a fluid, improvisatory process that requires us to think and react on the fly.

How have you found competing or complementary personalities to impact value creation in negotiations?

Negotiators who adapt their behavior to the other party may reap gains.

In negotiation, we bring our unique personalities and styles to the table. A reserved, cautious person is likely to bargain differently than someone who is outgoing and proactive, for example. There is much we can do to improve our negotiation performance—such as preparing thoroughly and using proven persuasion strategies. But should we also try to adapt our negotiating style to our partner?

A new set of experiments by Scott Wiltermuth of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and Larissa Z. Tiedens and Margaret Neale of Stanford University suggests that the answer is sometimes yes. The researchers were interested in determining whether taking on a dominant or submissive style would help or harm negotiators. They defined dominant behaviors as verbal and nonverbal behaviors that negotiators use to influence others, whether consciously or unconsciously. Negotiators might convey dominance through expansive body postures, gesturing, speaking loudly, guiding the conversation, and expressing their preferences openly and with confidence.

By contrast, negotiators who use a submissive style can be described as cooperative and agreeable, and they influence their partners in ways that avoid direct conflict. They tend to make themselves physically compact, speak softly, use mild language, and express themselves less directly or forcefully than their more dominant counterparts. The researchers were careful to note that the submissive style they studied was more active than passivity or withdrawal.

Past research has found that negotiators who behave dominantly claim more value than their counterparts; however, their style can stand in the way of value creation if they are perceived as tough. In their experiments, Wiltermuth and his colleagues looked more closely at what happens when negotiators using complementary or similar styles, in terms of dominance and submission, get together.

A harmonious pairing

In the experiments, participants were paired off to engage in a simulated negotiation over a merger or job offer. Some participants were asked to show dominance by taking charge of the conversation, speaking loudly, using expansive postures, and so on. Those in the submission condition were instructed to treat their counterparts respectfully, make them feel competent, agree with them when possible (without sacrificing their own goals), speak softly, and maintain a compact physical space. Participants in a control group received no such instructions about their negotiating style. Negotiators were paired with partners in their same condition or a different one, and their outcomes were assessed using a point system.
Interestingly, pairs in which one party behaved dominantly and the other submissively outperformed pairs who were in the same condition (whether dominance, submission, or control). The pairs of dominant/submissive negotiators benefited from their complementary communication style. A pattern in which one person stated her preferences directly and the other asked questions enabled the negotiators to claim the most value.

We might expect that the submissive negotiators lost ground to their dominant counterparts, but that was not the case. Rather, the submissive negotiators assessed, through their questioning, how to meet their own goals. In the process, they helped their dominant counterparts feel respected and competent.

Toward a natural adaptation

Intuitively, the findings make sense. Imagine a negotiation in which both individuals are trying to dominate the discussion. Now picture one in which both are agreeably encouraging the other. Neither arrangement seems like a recipe for a winning deal, does it?

The idea of adapting our personal negotiating style to complement that of our counterpart may seem both off-putting and difficult to achieve. Behaving contrary to our instincts can feel unnatural and downright difficult to pull off. Yet consider that we often adapt to our fellow negotiators quite naturally—taking the lead when the other party seems reticent, for example, or adopting a more backseat role when someone seems determined to guide the conversation. Perhaps the lesson is not so much that we need to contort our behavior unnaturally to succeed as negotiators, but that we should be reassured rather than concerned when we find ourselves behaving out of character in an attempt to complement our partner’s style. In addition, the research highlights the fact that negotiation is a fluid, improvisatory process that requires us to think and react on the fly.

Resource: “The Benefits of Dominance Complementarity in Negotiations,” by Scott Wiltermuth, Larissa Z. Tiedens, and Margaret Neale, Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 2015.

A string of recent deals between longtime opponents could give you the inspiration you need to reach agreement with your most difficult partners.

Republicans and Democrats. North and South Korea. The United States and China. All of these pairs have a reputation for conflict, rivalry, and impasse. Yet despite their ongoing differences, each pair recently managed to come to an agreement on an issue important to both sides.

In this article, we review the three recent deals and discuss the lessons they offer to negotiators who are having trouble seeing eye to eye. How did these parties become willing to compromise and collaborate, and how can you foster similar breakthroughs in dealmaking and disputes with your toughest counterparts?

Bridging the divide on criminal justice reform

If there’s one thing Republicans and Democrats in Congress might agree on, it’s that they’ve agreed on very little in recent years. The parties’ shared tendency to exaggerate their differences, view each other’s concessions with suspicion, and focus on stating their positions rather than revealing their underlying interests has led them to impasse on legislative initiatives important to their constituents time and again.

In October 2015, however, the adversaries reached a rare breakthrough on an issue of significance to many Americans: criminal justice reform. Politicians on both sides of the aisle had come to believe that a mandatory-sentencing program for drug crimes, imposed in the 1980s and 1990s, had backfired, the New York Times reports. Liberals argued that locking up nonviolent offenders for minor drug offenses was destroying families and communities. Conservatives saw value in trying to reduce prison populations and spending on the overstrained criminal justice system.

Often in such situations, longtime adversaries are so suspicious of one another that they fail to recognize when their preferences on an issue are compatible. In fact, when two sides want the exact same outcome, they nonetheless often settle on a different outcome or come to impasse, Northwestern University professor Leigh Thompson has found in her research. In this case, over the course of months, an influential group of bipartisan senators was able to recognize the two parties shared similar goals and were able to come together to negotiate the federal justice overhaul. Although there was broad support in the Senate for an agreement, the negotiations were tense and threatened to derail over key details, the Times reports.
The Senate’s lead dealmakers on the issue, Illinois Democrat Richard J. Durbin and Utah Republican Mike Lee, faced a critical task: negotiate an endorsement from Iowa Republican Charles E. Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Grassley’s support would be needed to steer the bill through committee and up for a vote in the Senate. Durbin and Lee lobbied for across-the-board reductions in mandatory minimum sentencing, but Grassley had reservations about loosening sentences for repeat offenders. In the end, he persuaded Durbin and Lee to retain set sentences for certain violent and gun crimes, in addition to winning other concessions.

To gain the backing of lawmakers who feared being viewed as soft on crime, the bill included new mandatory minimum sentences for certain rare crimes, including interstate domestic violence and weapons aid to terrorists. A similar bill is being put together in the House of Representatives; passage of a new federal criminal justice law is expected to occur in 2016.
Negotiators who adhere to different principles and values often disparage the other party’s viewpoint, a reaction that prevents them from recognizing their shared goals. Politicians who value being “tough on crime” may assume they could never reach common ground with those who advocate for prisoners’ rights. In this case, the parties were able to look past their positions to identify a shared interest in reforming the judicial system—both for financial and societal reasons.

Other tips from these talks? Make an extra effort to win over potential deal spoilers during your negotiations, perhaps by reaching side deals on issues that are especially important to them. In addition, brainstorm relatively minor concessions that might help the other side sell the deal to its constituents and other stakeholders.

The Koreas agree to softer rhetoric

In August 2015, the decades-long conflict between South Korea and North Korea threatened to reach a breaking point. The South accused the North of planting land mines that seriously injured two South Korean border guards. South Korea retaliated with an old tactic designed to irritate its enemy: blaring propaganda into the North through loudspeakers lined up along the border. The North declared the provocation to be an “act of war” and threatened to take “strong military action,” including an attack on the speakers, if the South didn’t shut them off, the New York Times reports.

With their militaries exchanging artillery fire, the two governments agreed to emergency talks. Armed forces from the two nations were on standby as the South’s chief national security adviser and a leading military officer from the North met on the border to negotiate a resolution to the crisis. Talks lasted three days, with North Korean officials reportedly taking frequent breaks to consult with their supreme leader, Kim Jong-un.

South Korean president Park Geun-hye said the loudspeakers would continue to blare until North Korea apologized for the land mine incident. The North Korean government refused, creating an impasse. A compromise ultimately emerged when the North agreed to express “regrets,” not responsibility, for the explosions.

In return for the South’s concession (accepting less than a full apology), the North agreed to hold a new round of reunions of families separated by the Korean War, which ended up taking place in the fall. The embattled neighbors also said they were planning to meet in Seoul or Pyongyang for “dialogue and negotiations on various issues to improve relations.” South Korea shut off its loudspeakers but warned it might turn them on again if an unspecified “abnormal case” developed.

For the North’s young and inexperienced leader, Kim Jong-un, the negotiation provided an opportunity to demonstrate statesmanship and authority. One North Korea expert, Kim Dong-yup, speculated to the Times that the North was only feigning distress about the loudspeakers, whose impact has never been proven, to “drag the South into talks.” As for South Korea’s President Park, the compromise may have been designed to quell criticism that her tough rhetoric escalated tensions with the North.

In negotiation, actions and statements designed to convey toughness can backfire by launching an escalatory spiral that is difficult to contain. Carefully negotiating and crafting the language of public statements can help parties save face. Similarly, recognizing that your adversary’s provocations could be intended to bring you together rather than drive you further apart might inspire you to soften your position.

A U.S.-China pledge on cybertheft

For years, the U.S. government has been frustrated by China’s refusal to address the theft of U.S. intellectual property by hackers in China, many of them believed to be government sponsored. In early September 2015, the Obama administration began preparing a package of sanctions aimed at punishing China and other nations for the cybertheft of commercial secrets, the Associated Press reports.

That threat, along with the knowledge that the United States was getting better at identifying the source of cyberattacks, motivated China to send a high-level delegation to Washington to work out a deal in the lead-up to a state visit to the U.S. capitol by Chinese president Xi Jinping.

On September 24, as their teams were still wrapping up the framework of a deal, Obama and Xi jointly announced an agreement to curtail cybertheft of each other’s intellectual property for commercial gain, according to the New York Times. Obama said he had threatened Xi that the United States was prepared to pursue and punish hackers and that he reserved the right to impose sanctions if Chinese hacking didn’t diminish.

The two leaders had been seeking opportunities to overcome their distrust and disagreements on key issues, such as human-rights violations in China. In 2014, Obama and Xi surprised the world with a climate accord in which they pledged to reduce carbon emissions. During his White House visit, Xi solidified that commitment by announcing a new cap-and-trade system in China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As this story suggests, a carefully timed threat can bring a reluctant counterpart to the table, as long as you fully intend to follow through on it. The deal also shows the value of following through on commitments to build trust.

An incremental approach

Business negotiators typically increase their odds of reaching a mutually beneficial agreement by bringing multiple issues to the table and discussing them simultaneously. By expanding the array of interests, we position ourselves to make tradeoffs among them. Yet as all three negotiations discussed in this article suggest, when certain issues have become so controversial that it seems impossible to come together, there may be advantages to narrowing our focus. By restricting our attention to a subset of issues on which compromise and collaboration appear possible, while setting aside more difficult problems, we may be able to make incremental headway and lay the groundwork for more complex discussions.

A string of recent deals between longtime opponents could give you the inspiration you need to reach agreement with your most difficult partners.

Republicans and Democrats. North and South Korea. The United States and China. All of these pairs have a reputation for conflict, rivalry, and impasse. Yet despite their ongoing differences, each pair recently managed to come to an agreement on an issue important to both sides.

In this article, we review the three recent deals and discuss the lessons they offer to negotiators who are having trouble seeing eye to eye. How did these parties become willing to compromise and collaborate, and how can you foster similar breakthroughs in dealmaking and disputes with your toughest counterparts?

Bridging the divide on criminal justice reform

If there’s one thing Republicans and Democrats in Congress might agree on, it’s that they’ve agreed on very little in recent years. The parties’ shared tendency to exaggerate their differences, view each other’s concessions with suspicion, and focus on stating their positions rather than revealing their underlying interests has led them to impasse on legislative initiatives important to their constituents time and again.

In October 2015, however, the adversaries reached a rare breakthrough on an issue of significance to many Americans: criminal justice reform. Politicians on both sides of the aisle had come to believe that a mandatory-sentencing program for drug crimes, imposed in the 1980s and 1990s, had backfired, the New York Times reports. Liberals argued that locking up nonviolent offenders for minor drug offenses was destroying families and communities. Conservatives saw value in trying to reduce prison populations and spending on the overstrained criminal justice system.

Often in such situations, longtime adversaries are so suspicious of one another that they fail to recognize when their preferences on an issue are compatible. In fact, when two sides want the exact same outcome, they nonetheless often settle on a different outcome or come to impasse, Northwestern University professor Leigh Thompson has found in her research. In this case, over the course of months, an influential group of bipartisan senators was able to recognize the two parties shared similar goals and were able to come together to negotiate the federal justice overhaul. Although there was broad support in the Senate for an agreement, the negotiations were tense and threatened to derail over key details, the Times reports.
The Senate’s lead dealmakers on the issue, Illinois Democrat Richard J. Durbin and Utah Republican Mike Lee, faced a critical task: negotiate an endorsement from Iowa Republican Charles E. Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Grassley’s support would be needed to steer the bill through committee and up for a vote in the Senate. Durbin and Lee lobbied for across-the-board reductions in mandatory minimum sentencing, but Grassley had reservations about loosening sentences for repeat offenders. In the end, he persuaded Durbin and Lee to retain set sentences for certain violent and gun crimes, in addition to winning other concessions.

To gain the backing of lawmakers who feared being viewed as soft on crime, the bill included new mandatory minimum sentences for certain rare crimes, including interstate domestic violence and weapons aid to terrorists. A similar bill is being put together in the House of Representatives; passage of a new federal criminal justice law is expected to occur in 2016.
Negotiators who adhere to different principles and values often disparage the other party’s viewpoint, a reaction that prevents them from recognizing their shared goals. Politicians who value being “tough on crime” may assume they could never reach common ground with those who advocate for prisoners’ rights. In this case, the parties were able to look past their positions to identify a shared interest in reforming the judicial system—both for financial and societal reasons.

Other tips from these talks? Make an extra effort to win over potential deal spoilers during your negotiations, perhaps by reaching side deals on issues that are especially important to them. In addition, brainstorm relatively minor concessions that might help the other side sell the deal to its constituents and other stakeholders.

The Koreas agree to softer rhetoric

In August 2015, the decades-long conflict between South Korea and North Korea threatened to reach a breaking point. The South accused the North of planting land mines that seriously injured two South Korean border guards. South Korea retaliated with an old tactic designed to irritate its enemy: blaring propaganda into the North through loudspeakers lined up along the border. The North declared the provocation to be an “act of war” and threatened to take “strong military action,” including an attack on the speakers, if the South didn’t shut them off, the New York Times reports.

With their militaries exchanging artillery fire, the two governments agreed to emergency talks. Armed forces from the two nations were on standby as the South’s chief national security adviser and a leading military officer from the North met on the border to negotiate a resolution to the crisis. Talks lasted three days, with North Korean officials reportedly taking frequent breaks to consult with their supreme leader, Kim Jong-un.

South Korean president Park Geun-hye said the loudspeakers would continue to blare until North Korea apologized for the land mine incident. The North Korean government refused, creating an impasse. A compromise ultimately emerged when the North agreed to express “regrets,” not responsibility, for the explosions.

In return for the South’s concession (accepting less than a full apology), the North agreed to hold a new round of reunions of families separated by the Korean War, which ended up taking place in the fall. The embattled neighbors also said they were planning to meet in Seoul or Pyongyang for “dialogue and negotiations on various issues to improve relations.” South Korea shut off its loudspeakers but warned it might turn them on again if an unspecified “abnormal case” developed.

For the North’s young and inexperienced leader, Kim Jong-un, the negotiation provided an opportunity to demonstrate statesmanship and authority. One North Korea expert, Kim Dong-yup, speculated to the Times that the North was only feigning distress about the loudspeakers, whose impact has never been proven, to “drag the South into talks.” As for South Korea’s President Park, the compromise may have been designed to quell criticism that her tough rhetoric escalated tensions with the North.

In negotiation, actions and statements designed to convey toughness can backfire by launching an escalatory spiral that is difficult to contain. Carefully negotiating and crafting the language of public statements can help parties save face. Similarly, recognizing that your adversary’s provocations could be intended to bring you together rather than drive you further apart might inspire you to soften your position.

A U.S.-China pledge on cybertheft

For years, the U.S. government has been frustrated by China’s refusal to address the theft of U.S. intellectual property by hackers in China, many of them believed to be government sponsored. In early September 2015, the Obama administration began preparing a package of sanctions aimed at punishing China and other nations for the cybertheft of commercial secrets, the Associated Press reports.

That threat, along with the knowledge that the United States was getting better at identifying the source of cyberattacks, motivated China to send a high-level delegation to Washington to work out a deal in the lead-up to a state visit to the U.S. capitol by Chinese president Xi Jinping.

On September 24, as their teams were still wrapping up the framework of a deal, Obama and Xi jointly announced an agreement to curtail cybertheft of each other’s intellectual property for commercial gain, according to the New York Times. Obama said he had threatened Xi that the United States was prepared to pursue and punish hackers and that he reserved the right to impose sanctions if Chinese hacking didn’t diminish.

The two leaders had been seeking opportunities to overcome their distrust and disagreements on key issues, such as human-rights violations in China. In 2014, Obama and Xi surprised the world with a climate accord in which they pledged to reduce carbon emissions. During his White House visit, Xi solidified that commitment by announcing a new cap-and-trade system in China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As this story suggests, a carefully timed threat can bring a reluctant counterpart to the table, as long as you fully intend to follow through on it. The deal also shows the value of following through on commitments to build trust.

An incremental approach

Business negotiators typically increase their odds of reaching a mutually beneficial agreement by bringing multiple issues to the table and discussing them simultaneously. By expanding the array of interests, we position ourselves to make tradeoffs among them. Yet as all three negotiations discussed in this article suggest, when certain issues have become so controversial that it seems impossible to come together, there may be advantages to narrowing our focus. By restricting our attention to a subset of issues on which compromise and collaboration appear possible, while setting aside more difficult problems, we may be able to make incremental headway and lay the groundwork for more complex discussions.

Virtually all of us experience feelings of anger from time to time during our negotiations. Past research findings reassured business negotiators that their displays of anger could benefit them by conveying toughness and motivating their counterparts to make concessions. But a new research study by professors Hajo Adam of Rice University and Jeanne M. Brett of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management suggests anger may be beneficial in fewer negotiation situations than was previously believed.

In two experiments, the researchers had participants engage in an online negotiation simulation. Unbeknownst to the participants, they did not negotiate with a real person; rather, they received preprogrammed statements and responses. The researchers varied whether the context of the negotiation was primarily competitive, primarily cooperative, or a balance between the two.

In one of the experiments, for example, participants played the role of a chef who was negotiating with a small-business entrepreneur to (1) set up a new catering business together (a situation described as cooperative), (2) dissolve a catering business they had set up together by dividing assets (a competitive situation), or (3) negotiate the sale of the jointly formed business to the entrepreneur (a situation with opportunities for both cooperation and competition). During the negotiation, the computer-programmed counterpart expressed anger when making offers in the anger condition (for example, “This is really getting on my nerves”) and did not express anger when making the same offers in the no-anger condition.

The results of both experiments showed that when participants were focused primarily on either competing or cooperating, they did not make greater concessions to a counterpart who expressed anger than to a counterpart who did not.

However, when the situation involved both cooperation and competition, their counterpart’s display of anger motivated participants to make greater concessions to angry as compared with neutral counterparts. The researchers determined that when negotiators expect bargaining to be cooperative, they view anger displays as hostile rather than tough, which leads them to feel hostile in return and retaliate; the same is true when they expect negotiations to be competitive. In contrast, when negotiators expect both cooperation and competition, they are less certain about the motives behind a counterpart’s anger and more likely to interpret it as an appropriate sign of toughness, and thus respond with concessions.

Based on their results, Adam and Brett conclude that the range of situations in which anger will benefit negotiators is much smaller than previously believed. Rather than trying to capitalize on our anger or feign anger, they advise, we should assume that showing anger will not be a very effective negotiation tactic, particularly because it can be difficult to predict the degree to which our counterparts will view the negotiation as cooperative or competitive.

Resource: “Context Matters: The Social Effects of Anger in Cooperative, Balanced, and Competitive Negotiation Situations,” by Hajo Adam and Jeanne M. Brett. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2015.

Virtually all of us experience feelings of anger from time to time during our negotiations. Past research findings reassured business negotiators that their displays of anger could benefit them by conveying toughness and motivating their counterparts to make concessions. But a new research study by professors Hajo Adam of Rice University and Jeanne M. Brett of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management suggests anger may be beneficial in fewer negotiation situations than was previously believed.

In two experiments, the researchers had participants engage in an online negotiation simulation. Unbeknownst to the participants, they did not negotiate with a real person; rather, they received preprogrammed statements and responses. The researchers varied whether the context of the negotiation was primarily competitive, primarily cooperative, or a balance between the two.

In one of the experiments, for example, participants played the role of a chef who was negotiating with a small-business entrepreneur to (1) set up a new catering business together (a situation described as cooperative), (2) dissolve a catering business they had set up together by dividing assets (a competitive situation), or (3) negotiate the sale of the jointly formed business to the entrepreneur (a situation with opportunities for both cooperation and competition). During the negotiation, the computer-programmed counterpart expressed anger when making offers in the anger condition (for example, “This is really getting on my nerves”) and did not express anger when making the same offers in the no-anger condition.

The results of both experiments showed that when participants were focused primarily on either competing or cooperating, they did not make greater concessions to a counterpart who expressed anger than to a counterpart who did not.

However, when the situation involved both cooperation and competition, their counterpart’s display of anger motivated participants to make greater concessions to angry as compared with neutral counterparts. The researchers determined that when negotiators expect bargaining to be cooperative, they view anger displays as hostile rather than tough, which leads them to feel hostile in return and retaliate; the same is true when they expect negotiations to be competitive. In contrast, when negotiators expect both cooperation and competition, they are less certain about the motives behind a counterpart’s anger and more likely to interpret it as an appropriate sign of toughness, and thus respond with concessions.

Based on their results, Adam and Brett conclude that the range of situations in which anger will benefit negotiators is much smaller than previously believed. Rather than trying to capitalize on our anger or feign anger, they advise, we should assume that showing anger will not be a very effective negotiation tactic, particularly because it can be difficult to predict the degree to which our counterparts will view the negotiation as cooperative or competitive.

Resource: “Context Matters: The Social Effects of Anger in Cooperative, Balanced, and Competitive Negotiation Situations,” by Hajo Adam and Jeanne M. Brett. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2015.

Dissatisfied with her first book contract, comedian Amy Schumer canceled it and negotiated a different one.

A better strategy? Lessen your odds of disappointment from the start.

In 2012, David Hirshey, senior vice president and executive editor of publisher HarperCollins, saw Amy Schumer’s stand-up comedy act and was so impressed by the rising star that he offered her a $500,000 advance to write a book, reports Alexandra Alter in the New York Times. Schumer accepted, saying she wanted to write a collection of personal essays.
Several months passed, however, without Schumer signing her contract. HarperCollins began to get nervous.

Eventually, Schumer’s literary agent, Yfat Reiss Gendell, told Hirshey that Schumer was interested in considering bids from other publishers. When one of them offered her $1 million, HarperCollins matched the bid. Schumer finally signed a contract with the publisher in the spring of 2013, around the time her TV show, Inside Amy Schumer, launched on Comedy Central.

With the help of a New Yorker staff writer, Schumer penned a few essays, but progress on the book stalled as her career kicked into high gear. In spring 2014, Gendell informed Hirshey that Schumer was too busy to work on the book and wanted to cancel the contract. The comedian returned her advance with interest, according to the Times, and also parted ways with her agent. In a GQ interview in July 2014, Schumer said of the book deal, “I decided to wait. I thought I would make more money if I waited.”

Have you ever regretted a negotiated agreement? Maybe you committed yourself to a difficult partner or got involved in a venture that wasn’t paying off as expected. Or maybe, as appears to have been the case for Schumer, you couldn’t stop thinking about the better deal you might have gotten if you had been more patient.

Regret is a common emotion for business negotiators. Because our satisfaction with our negotiated outcomes is highly subjective, circumstances may lead us to feel regretful even when we get an objectively great deal. In addition, we may go out of our way to avoid feeling regret in the future. Negotiators in one study sacrificed value simply to avoid receiving feedback that might make them feel regretful about their choices, professors Richard Larrick (Duke University) and Terry L. Boles (University of Iowa) found.

As you’ll see, Schumer rebounded from her first book deal to go on to make a bigger, better deal. Her story reminds us of the importance of taking steps to improve our satisfaction so that broken contracts aren’t necessary; it also suggests how to get out of a weak deal with grace and courtesy.

Book deal, take 2

By early 2015, the year after Schumer canceled her book deal, her career was red-hot. Her TV show had been nominated for seven Emmy awards, and the film she wrote and starred in, Trainwreck, was a critical and box office hit. Meanwhile, thanks to the literary success of comedians such as Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Mindy Kaling, publishers were eager to sign comics to write autobiographical books. The timing was right for Schumer to do a new and better book deal.

The comedian hired a new literary agent, David Kuhn, to help her sell the book of autobiographical essays she’d begun for HarperCollins. Interest in The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo was so intense that an auction was in order. Rather than sending out the proposal and risk having its content leaked, Kuhn “stoked the competition and interest” by requiring potential bidders to meet with him privately, according to the website Deadline Hollywood. Only in Kuhn’s office were editors allowed to read the highly confidential proposal.

In the lead-up to the 2015 Emmy Awards, the bids for Schumer’s book came in fast and furious. On September 21, the day after she won an Emmy, a last-minute frenzy spiked the bidding well above $5 million. Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, ultimately won the prize for an undisclosed figure estimated to be in the $8–$10 million range. Schumer had topped her earlier book advance by $7 million or more and also set a new record among her comic peers for the highest advance.

Getting the deal right the first time

Schumer was able to cancel a disadvantageously timed contract and negotiate one that suited her better when conditions were more favorable. But as we discuss below, this type of redo is tough to pull off in most business contexts. To avoid the need for a do-over, we need to increase our odds of getting the right deal from the start.

In negotiation, our decision making is often marred by impulsivity, which leads us to give too much weight to intuition, emotion, and immediate concerns. It’s easy to see how a $500,000 book deal may have seemed irresistible to a comedian who was just hitting her stride and was unsure where her career was headed, for example. Only on deeper reflection do we become capable of grasping the long-term implications of our choices.

The clearest path to reflection is to give yourself plenty of time to make decisions and negotiate. A methodical pace will allow you to build trust and rapport with the other party, take stock of her merit as a long-term partner, assess the best deal you can get, and thoroughly assess your alternatives and the potential risks.

As negotiators, we can also override the tendency to lean on intuition by engaging in rigorous, rational decision analysis. In their book Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions (Harvard Business School Press, 1999), John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, and Howard Raiffa present guidelines that will help negotiators and decision makers in other realms improve the quality of their decisions and, consequently, reduce their odds of experiencing regret.

Specifically, the authors encourage you to follow these eight steps, which we illustrate with a hypothetical job seeker’s decision-making process:

1. Clearly define the decision you are facing (for example, deciding which job to accept).

2. Determine your explicit objectives (such as “To accept a job in my field that will maximize my time with my family and allow me to pay off my student loans within five years”).

3. Envision a range of imaginative alternatives for meeting your goals (“Instead of working in my field right away, I could wait tables to pay my loans off faster”).

4. Identify the consequences of each option to determine which options meet all your objectives best (“Waiting tables would require me to work nights, which would minimize my time with my family”).

5. Weigh the tradeoffs associated with various options (“Firm A pays less than Firm B but requires less travel”).

6. Identify uncertainties and risks (“As a start-up, Firm A could easily fail, but there is a small chance of a big payoff”).

7. Think about your risk tolerance (“I’d have serious regrets if Firm A collapsed after I’d taken a below-market salary for a couple of years”).

8. Consider linked decisions (“If I sign with Firm B, we likely would have to move closer to its headquarters in a few years”).

Though the future will always be uncertain, you can reduce your odds of regretting a deal by imagining the range of possible outcomes and determining which outcomes you can live with and which ones you can’t. You can perform decision analysis on your own, or you could enlist an expert trained in such tools, such as a financial adviser or lawyer, to guide you through it.

Should you undo the deal?

Suppose you come to have serious regrets about a deal. Should you walk away or tough it out?

You should always consult with your lawyer or legal team when considering such an important and potentially risky decision. Whether you realize it or not, your initial contract likely spelled out how you must make the other party “whole” if you breach the contract, such as paying a penalty. Schumer returned her advance with interest to HarperCollins after she decided not to work with the publisher, for example. If you want to get out because the other party has violated the terms of your contract—for example, by engaging in fraud or failing to meet its obligations—then your lawyers can advise you on next steps.

When the other party is not at fault, keep in mind that a canceled contract could cause her great hardship. For example, if you supply a part that a company needs to manufacture its signature product, your decision to walk away could devastate its business. In such cases, a broken contract could not only end the business relationship but also prompt a lawsuit, damage your reputation in your industry, or both. A better course in such situations may be to explain why you are dissatisfied with the contract and try to negotiate better terms.

At other times, you and your legal advisers may conclude that your counterpart would not be seriously harmed by an undone contract. Schumer, for example, had second thoughts about publishing with HarperCollins well before the company had committed significant resources to her book, such as production and marketing expenses.

If your partner would be only minimally harmed by a canceled deal and you would benefit greatly, he may well understand and even support your decision to move on. Hirshey, the editor who won Schumer’s first book auction only to see the deal crumble, joked that he was “thrilled to cost one of our competitors $9 million.” He added, “In publishing it sometimes makes sense to be behind the curve rather than ahead of it.”

Dissatisfied with her first book contract, comedian Amy Schumer canceled it and negotiated a different one.

A better strategy? Lessen your odds of disappointment from the start.

In 2012, David Hirshey, senior vice president and executive editor of publisher HarperCollins, saw Amy Schumer’s stand-up comedy act and was so impressed by the rising star that he offered her a $500,000 advance to write a book, reports Alexandra Alter in the New York Times. Schumer accepted, saying she wanted to write a collection of personal essays.
Several months passed, however, without Schumer signing her contract. HarperCollins began to get nervous.

Eventually, Schumer’s literary agent, Yfat Reiss Gendell, told Hirshey that Schumer was interested in considering bids from other publishers. When one of them offered her $1 million, HarperCollins matched the bid. Schumer finally signed a contract with the publisher in the spring of 2013, around the time her TV show, Inside Amy Schumer, launched on Comedy Central.

With the help of a New Yorker staff writer, Schumer penned a few essays, but progress on the book stalled as her career kicked into high gear. In spring 2014, Gendell informed Hirshey that Schumer was too busy to work on the book and wanted to cancel the contract. The comedian returned her advance with interest, according to the Times, and also parted ways with her agent. In a GQ interview in July 2014, Schumer said of the book deal, “I decided to wait. I thought I would make more money if I waited.”

Have you ever regretted a negotiated agreement? Maybe you committed yourself to a difficult partner or got involved in a venture that wasn’t paying off as expected. Or maybe, as appears to have been the case for Schumer, you couldn’t stop thinking about the better deal you might have gotten if you had been more patient.

Regret is a common emotion for business negotiators. Because our satisfaction with our negotiated outcomes is highly subjective, circumstances may lead us to feel regretful even when we get an objectively great deal. In addition, we may go out of our way to avoid feeling regret in the future. Negotiators in one study sacrificed value simply to avoid receiving feedback that might make them feel regretful about their choices, professors Richard Larrick (Duke University) and Terry L. Boles (University of Iowa) found.

As you’ll see, Schumer rebounded from her first book deal to go on to make a bigger, better deal. Her story reminds us of the importance of taking steps to improve our satisfaction so that broken contracts aren’t necessary; it also suggests how to get out of a weak deal with grace and courtesy.

Book deal, take 2

By early 2015, the year after Schumer canceled her book deal, her career was red-hot. Her TV show had been nominated for seven Emmy awards, and the film she wrote and starred in, Trainwreck, was a critical and box office hit. Meanwhile, thanks to the literary success of comedians such as Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Mindy Kaling, publishers were eager to sign comics to write autobiographical books. The timing was right for Schumer to do a new and better book deal.

The comedian hired a new literary agent, David Kuhn, to help her sell the book of autobiographical essays she’d begun for HarperCollins. Interest in The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo was so intense that an auction was in order. Rather than sending out the proposal and risk having its content leaked, Kuhn “stoked the competition and interest” by requiring potential bidders to meet with him privately, according to the website Deadline Hollywood. Only in Kuhn’s office were editors allowed to read the highly confidential proposal.

In the lead-up to the 2015 Emmy Awards, the bids for Schumer’s book came in fast and furious. On September 21, the day after she won an Emmy, a last-minute frenzy spiked the bidding well above $5 million. Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, ultimately won the prize for an undisclosed figure estimated to be in the $8–$10 million range. Schumer had topped her earlier book advance by $7 million or more and also set a new record among her comic peers for the highest advance.

Getting the deal right the first time

Schumer was able to cancel a disadvantageously timed contract and negotiate one that suited her better when conditions were more favorable. But as we discuss below, this type of redo is tough to pull off in most business contexts. To avoid the need for a do-over, we need to increase our odds of getting the right deal from the start.

In negotiation, our decision making is often marred by impulsivity, which leads us to give too much weight to intuition, emotion, and immediate concerns. It’s easy to see how a $500,000 book deal may have seemed irresistible to a comedian who was just hitting her stride and was unsure where her career was headed, for example. Only on deeper reflection do we become capable of grasping the long-term implications of our choices.

The clearest path to reflection is to give yourself plenty of time to make decisions and negotiate. A methodical pace will allow you to build trust and rapport with the other party, take stock of her merit as a long-term partner, assess the best deal you can get, and thoroughly assess your alternatives and the potential risks.

As negotiators, we can also override the tendency to lean on intuition by engaging in rigorous, rational decision analysis. In their book Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions (Harvard Business School Press, 1999), John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney, and Howard Raiffa present guidelines that will help negotiators and decision makers in other realms improve the quality of their decisions and, consequently, reduce their odds of experiencing regret.

Specifically, the authors encourage you to follow these eight steps, which we illustrate with a hypothetical job seeker’s decision-making process:

1. Clearly define the decision you are facing (for example, deciding which job to accept).

2. Determine your explicit objectives (such as “To accept a job in my field that will maximize my time with my family and allow me to pay off my student loans within five years”).

3. Envision a range of imaginative alternatives for meeting your goals (“Instead of working in my field right away, I could wait tables to pay my loans off faster”).

4. Identify the consequences of each option to determine which options meet all your objectives best (“Waiting tables would require me to work nights, which would minimize my time with my family”).

5. Weigh the tradeoffs associated with various options (“Firm A pays less than Firm B but requires less travel”).

6. Identify uncertainties and risks (“As a start-up, Firm A could easily fail, but there is a small chance of a big payoff”).

7. Think about your risk tolerance (“I’d have serious regrets if Firm A collapsed after I’d taken a below-market salary for a couple of years”).

8. Consider linked decisions (“If I sign with Firm B, we likely would have to move closer to its headquarters in a few years”).

Though the future will always be uncertain, you can reduce your odds of regretting a deal by imagining the range of possible outcomes and determining which outcomes you can live with and which ones you can’t. You can perform decision analysis on your own, or you could enlist an expert trained in such tools, such as a financial adviser or lawyer, to guide you through it.

Should you undo the deal?

Suppose you come to have serious regrets about a deal. Should you walk away or tough it out?

You should always consult with your lawyer or legal team when considering such an important and potentially risky decision. Whether you realize it or not, your initial contract likely spelled out how you must make the other party “whole” if you breach the contract, such as paying a penalty. Schumer returned her advance with interest to HarperCollins after she decided not to work with the publisher, for example. If you want to get out because the other party has violated the terms of your contract—for example, by engaging in fraud or failing to meet its obligations—then your lawyers can advise you on next steps.

When the other party is not at fault, keep in mind that a canceled contract could cause her great hardship. For example, if you supply a part that a company needs to manufacture its signature product, your decision to walk away could devastate its business. In such cases, a broken contract could not only end the business relationship but also prompt a lawsuit, damage your reputation in your industry, or both. A better course in such situations may be to explain why you are dissatisfied with the contract and try to negotiate better terms.

At other times, you and your legal advisers may conclude that your counterpart would not be seriously harmed by an undone contract. Schumer, for example, had second thoughts about publishing with HarperCollins well before the company had committed significant resources to her book, such as production and marketing expenses.

If your partner would be only minimally harmed by a canceled deal and you would benefit greatly, he may well understand and even support your decision to move on. Hirshey, the editor who won Schumer’s first book auction only to see the deal crumble, joked that he was “thrilled to cost one of our competitors $9 million.” He added, “In publishing it sometimes makes sense to be behind the curve rather than ahead of it.”