For 19 years, the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School has grown and thrived under the leadership of Managing Director Susan Hackley. As PON’s chief administrative and financial officer, Hackley has overseen all activities, including academic events, executive education, interdisciplinary programs, and publications, including Negotiation Briefings. Hackley, who has taught negotiation seminars around the world, is widely admired for her ability to create new programming, build consensus, and collaborate to spread the word about negotiation best practices and new research findings. On the eve of her retirement, we asked Hackley to reflect on the negotiation skills she draws on to advance PON’s mission.

Negotiation Briefings: What was a key challenge you faced as managing director of PON?

Susan Hackley: Before coming to PON, I cofounded an Internet company that helped people connect to causes they cared about, and before that, I was communications director of the Massachusetts Democratic Party—two jobs where I had to innovate and be nimble. As managing director, I was determined to bring entrepreneurial energy to PON. It was exciting to give a fresh look to every part of PON, showcasing hidden gems and starting some new enterprises, like the PON Film Series, Negotiation Briefings, the Harvard Negotiation Data Repository, and PON Global, the negotiation training program we have offered in 15 countries.

As I’ve learned from negotiation studies, it’s important to take into account the interests of all stakeholders. I would consider what we were doing from the vantage point of a wide spectrum of people who look to PON for help and information, including faculty, students, and events attendees, but also diplomats, businesspeople, nonprofit organizations, mediators, lawyers, and others who seek advice on how to build peace in their own communities.

NB: What do you regard as your greatest accomplishments at PON?

SH: As a consortium program of Harvard, MIT, and Tufts universities, PON is an amazing community of faculty, fellows, authors, trainers, students, and staff who represent a wide array of interests and disciplines, including law, business, public policy, psychology, economics, and education. It would be easy for such a diverse community to lose its cohesiveness. I’m proud that the PON community is stronger than ever.

We all have a shared belief that deploying negotiation skills leads to sustainable agreements, personal transformation, and a better world. Keeping that vision front and center mattered when we had disagreements about where to spend our resources or focus our attention.

I’m also very proud of our Great Negotiator program, which has honored leaders around the world for significant results they achieved through negotiation. Our Great Negotiators have ranged from Senator George Mitchell to President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

And I’m especially proud to have developed PON Global, a negotiation course that we have held in countries ranging from Saudi Arabia to China. Working with in-country partners, we have reached people who might never have come to a course in Cambridge, Mass.

NB: During your tenure, what positive shifts have you noticed in the negotiation field?

SH: I gave a talk at a conference a while back in Durban, South Africa, titled “Gandhi Was a Great Negotiator.” Making an explicit connection between the fields of negotiation and nonviolent action, two of the best methods for engaging constructively with conflict, has been gratifying. It has also been exciting to see the growth of the global peace-building community, of which PON is a part.

All great leaders are also great negotiators, whether they know it or not. Leaders such as Gandhi know how to persuade, strategize, and build coalitions. To underline the importance of leadership, we incorporated leadership training into our executive education programs and renamed our core offering, Negotiation & Leadership.

NB: What pressing societal problem is on your mind, and how can negotiation help to address it?

SH: We see the disconnect throughout the United States between police and the communities they serve, between Democrats and Republicans, and between rich and poor. For decades, PON has examined what works and what doesn’t in dealing with conflict, and we strive to share these ideas and research as broadly as possible. I started as managing director the week after the horrific events of 9/11, and this work has always felt relevant and important to me.

NB: What’s next for you, and what role will negotiation play in your future?

SH: Negotiation is the secret sauce in everything I do, and I am always delighted when I realize how much my family has picked up along the way—concepts like “confirmation bias,” “going to the balcony,” and “role reversal.” On the other hand, it’s dismaying to see how many people don’t know how to negotiate effectively.

I have a particular interest in bringing together civilians and military people to discuss the shared costs of war using the short documentary film I produced, Veteran Children: When Parents Go To War. War is a sign of failed negotiations, and I believe that veterans and civilians should collaborate on trying to avoid war. When a war ends, there are always negotiations over the terms of surrender or agreement. I like to say, let’s just skip the war and get to those negotiations!

For 19 years, the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School has grown and thrived under the leadership of Managing Director Susan Hackley. As PON’s chief administrative and financial officer, Hackley has overseen all activities, including academic events, executive education, interdisciplinary programs, and publications, including Negotiation Briefings. Hackley, who has taught negotiation seminars around the world, is widely admired for her ability to create new programming, build consensus, and collaborate to spread the word about negotiation best practices and new research findings. On the eve of her retirement, we asked Hackley to reflect on the negotiation skills she draws on to advance PON’s mission.

Negotiation Briefings: What was a key challenge you faced as managing director of PON?

Susan Hackley: Before coming to PON, I cofounded an Internet company that helped people connect to causes they cared about, and before that, I was communications director of the Massachusetts Democratic Party—two jobs where I had to innovate and be nimble. As managing director, I was determined to bring entrepreneurial energy to PON. It was exciting to give a fresh look to every part of PON, showcasing hidden gems and starting some new enterprises, like the PON Film Series, Negotiation Briefings, the Harvard Negotiation Data Repository, and PON Global, the negotiation training program we have offered in 15 countries.

As I’ve learned from negotiation studies, it’s important to take into account the interests of all stakeholders. I would consider what we were doing from the vantage point of a wide spectrum of people who look to PON for help and information, including faculty, students, and events attendees, but also diplomats, businesspeople, nonprofit organizations, mediators, lawyers, and others who seek advice on how to build peace in their own communities.

NB: What do you regard as your greatest accomplishments at PON?

SH: As a consortium program of Harvard, MIT, and Tufts universities, PON is an amazing community of faculty, fellows, authors, trainers, students, and staff who represent a wide array of interests and disciplines, including law, business, public policy, psychology, economics, and education. It would be easy for such a diverse community to lose its cohesiveness. I’m proud that the PON community is stronger than ever.

We all have a shared belief that deploying negotiation skills leads to sustainable agreements, personal transformation, and a better world. Keeping that vision front and center mattered when we had disagreements about where to spend our resources or focus our attention.

I’m also very proud of our Great Negotiator program, which has honored leaders around the world for significant results they achieved through negotiation. Our Great Negotiators have ranged from Senator George Mitchell to President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

And I’m especially proud to have developed PON Global, a negotiation course that we have held in countries ranging from Saudi Arabia to China. Working with in-country partners, we have reached people who might never have come to a course in Cambridge, Mass.

NB: During your tenure, what positive shifts have you noticed in the negotiation field?

SH: I gave a talk at a conference a while back in Durban, South Africa, titled “Gandhi Was a Great Negotiator.” Making an explicit connection between the fields of negotiation and nonviolent action, two of the best methods for engaging constructively with conflict, has been gratifying. It has also been exciting to see the growth of the global peace-building community, of which PON is a part.

All great leaders are also great negotiators, whether they know it or not. Leaders such as Gandhi know how to persuade, strategize, and build coalitions. To underline the importance of leadership, we incorporated leadership training into our executive education programs and renamed our core offering, Negotiation & Leadership.

NB: What pressing societal problem is on your mind, and how can negotiation help to address it?

SH: We see the disconnect throughout the United States between police and the communities they serve, between Democrats and Republicans, and between rich and poor. For decades, PON has examined what works and what doesn’t in dealing with conflict, and we strive to share these ideas and research as broadly as possible. I started as managing director the week after the horrific events of 9/11, and this work has always felt relevant and important to me.

NB: What’s next for you, and what role will negotiation play in your future?

SH: Negotiation is the secret sauce in everything I do, and I am always delighted when I realize how much my family has picked up along the way—concepts like “confirmation bias,” “going to the balcony,” and “role reversal.” On the other hand, it’s dismaying to see how many people don’t know how to negotiate effectively.

I have a particular interest in bringing together civilians and military people to discuss the shared costs of war using the short documentary film I produced, Veteran Children: When Parents Go To War. War is a sign of failed negotiations, and I believe that veterans and civilians should collaborate on trying to avoid war. When a war ends, there are always negotiations over the terms of surrender or agreement. I like to say, let’s just skip the war and get to those negotiations!

In our information age, buyers have squeezed sellers’ profit margins by collecting readily available data about the value of goods and services. Car buyers can easily identify the dealership cost of their preferred vehicle online and use it to negotiate a great price, for example. And more than 94% of business buyers surveyed by Accenture said they conduct extensive Internet research on products and pricing before contacting potential vendors.

As the “information asymmetry” between buyers and sellers has narrowed, sellers in many realms, including industrial machinery, computer hardware, prepackaged software, and auto sales, increasingly have come to rely on selling aftermarket services—such as financing, technical support, upgrades, and repairs—to drive profits. Sellers continue to maintain an information advantage over buyers on the back end of the sales process, where profit margins are generally higher. For instance, car dealers who are getting less from buyers on the front end typically more than make up the difference during the finance-and-insurance phase of the purchase. Similarly, business-to-business software vendors can earn more from back-end service and maintenance fees than from front-end license sales.

Salespeople who disclosed their bottom line early in a negotiation achieved significantly higher back-end profits than those who did not.

Nonetheless, companies often struggle to maximize aftermarket profits, according to a Bain & Company report. In a new study, University of Denver professor Yashar Atefi and his colleagues identified a somewhat counterintuitive strategy for sellers seeking to maximize profit: Reveal your reservation price, or bottom line, to the buyer during front-end price negotiations. Doing so, they found, makes buyers more trusting and leads them to spend more on the back end.

In an observational study conducted at a U.S. car dealership chain, the researchers found that salespeople who disclosed their bottom line early in a negotiation achieved significantly higher back-end profits than those who did not. In subsequent lab experiments, sellers either did or did not inform participants in the role of buyer about how much a product had cost them. When sellers disclosed this verifiable information, buyers trusted them more and spent more on aftermarket products and services—and more overall—than did participants who did not learn about the sellers’ costs.

Contradicting the usual prohibition against revealing your bottom line, these results suggest that information can be “strategically sacrificed” in negotiation to build trust and increase overall profits, according to the authors. This advice underscores two negotiation truisms: First, sharing verifiable information builds trust. Second, trust puts us at risk of overpaying or buying more than we need. Buyers need to devote the same careful attention they give to front- end negotiations to learning about aftermarket services—including the fact that they tend to predominantly profit the seller.

Resource: “Open Negotiation: The Back-End Benefits of Salespeople’s Transparency in the Front End,” by Yashar Atefi, Michael Ahearne, Sebastian Hohenberg, Zachary Hall, and Florian Zettelmeyer. Journal of Marketing Research, 2020.

In our information age, buyers have squeezed sellers’ profit margins by collecting readily available data about the value of goods and services. Car buyers can easily identify the dealership cost of their preferred vehicle online and use it to negotiate a great price, for example. And more than 94% of business buyers surveyed by Accenture said they conduct extensive Internet research on products and pricing before contacting potential vendors.

As the “information asymmetry” between buyers and sellers has narrowed, sellers in many realms, including industrial machinery, computer hardware, prepackaged software, and auto sales, increasingly have come to rely on selling aftermarket services—such as financing, technical support, upgrades, and repairs—to drive profits. Sellers continue to maintain an information advantage over buyers on the back end of the sales process, where profit margins are generally higher. For instance, car dealers who are getting less from buyers on the front end typically more than make up the difference during the finance-and-insurance phase of the purchase. Similarly, business-to-business software vendors can earn more from back-end service and maintenance fees than from front-end license sales.

Salespeople who disclosed their bottom line early in a negotiation achieved significantly higher back-end profits than those who did not.

Nonetheless, companies often struggle to maximize aftermarket profits, according to a Bain & Company report. In a new study, University of Denver professor Yashar Atefi and his colleagues identified a somewhat counterintuitive strategy for sellers seeking to maximize profit: Reveal your reservation price, or bottom line, to the buyer during front-end price negotiations. Doing so, they found, makes buyers more trusting and leads them to spend more on the back end.

In an observational study conducted at a U.S. car dealership chain, the researchers found that salespeople who disclosed their bottom line early in a negotiation achieved significantly higher back-end profits than those who did not. In subsequent lab experiments, sellers either did or did not inform participants in the role of buyer about how much a product had cost them. When sellers disclosed this verifiable information, buyers trusted them more and spent more on aftermarket products and services—and more overall—than did participants who did not learn about the sellers’ costs.

Contradicting the usual prohibition against revealing your bottom line, these results suggest that information can be “strategically sacrificed” in negotiation to build trust and increase overall profits, according to the authors. This advice underscores two negotiation truisms: First, sharing verifiable information builds trust. Second, trust puts us at risk of overpaying or buying more than we need. Buyers need to devote the same careful attention they give to front- end negotiations to learning about aftermarket services—including the fact that they tend to predominantly profit the seller.

Resource: “Open Negotiation: The Back-End Benefits of Salespeople’s Transparency in the Front End,” by Yashar Atefi, Michael Ahearne, Sebastian Hohenberg, Zachary Hall, and Florian Zettelmeyer. Journal of Marketing Research, 2020.

In the global pharmaceutical industry, companies often work in utter secrecy to be the first to bring moneymaking, lifesaving drugs to market. But when the novel coronavirus emerged in China in early 2020, many leading drugmakers quickly recognized that they would not be able to swiftly develop and mass- produce effective Covid-19 vaccines and treatments on their own.

Before countries even went on lockdown, organizations across the globe began teaming up to collaborate on research, clinical trials, and manufacturing. Focused on beating the virus rather than their rivals, they also openly shared data and advice. Their collaborations offer clues about how new business partners can set themselves up for success, even under intense time pressure.

Coming together to cooperate, not collude

As governments across the globe imposed lockdowns and stay-at-home orders this past spring, drugmakers faced difficult questions: Which workers should be deemed “essential” and continue to work on-site? Which clinical trials should continue? Which should be paused?

Hal Barron, the chief scientific officer and research and development president of British firm GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s largest vaccine developers, reached out to his friend Mathai Mammen, the head of drug R&D at Johnson & Johnson, to compare notes. Mammen invited Barron to join a group of R&D heads sharing information about the virus and strategies for drug development, according to the Wall Street Journal.

During their video calls, the group members made several informal commitments, including a promise to swiftly share clinical trial data on Covid-19 vaccines. Some of the leaders reportedly were concerned that their cooperation could be perceived as anticompetitive collusion, a fear that U.S. regulators alleviated to a degree by releasing a statement that encouraged businesses to work together to address the pandemic. In a bid for public trust, Glaxo and eight other pharmaceutical firms (including Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna) signed a public pledge not to seek regulatory approvals for their vaccines until after they had proven to be safe and effective in clinical trials.

Building a new team

In mid-March, Barron’s friend George Scangos, CEO of the small San Francisco firm Vir Biotechnology, approached him about partnering on a Covid-19 antibody drug. Within 18 days, Glaxo agreed to purchase a $250 million stake in Vir—a negotiation that normally would have taken up to a year. Barron recounted to the Journal how the deal got done: “‘OK, if that’s important to George—done.’ And [Scangos] would say, ‘OK, if that’s important to you, done.’ Let’s move this thing along. Can’t lose the big picture.” The companies expect their drug to be authorized in the first half of 2021.

Glaxo also knew that its adjuvant—a substance that can increase a vaccine’s potency by boosting the body’s immune response—was valuable to competitors. To identify who might want it, an internal team of “drug hunters” was tasked with identifying organizations working on an antigen, a key vaccine component. In PowerPoint, the team created a “digital quilt” of about 100 squares, each representing a potential partner working on a vaccine, according to the Journal. Glaxo reached out to some in the quilt and heard from others—a process that the company’s vaccine chief, Roger Connor, told the Journal was “quite, quite different” from usual practice.

Within 36 hours of Connor’s initial phone call with Thomas Triomphe, his counterpart at French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi, the two agreed to create a joint task force to share information and plan a partnership while a formal agreement was negotiated. Clinical trials have begun with the goal of generating an approved vaccine by summer 2021.

Speaking to the Journal, Triomphe described the cooperative spirit that pervaded negotiations with Glaxo: “When you’re facing a public-health crisis, there is no team with a blue T-shirt and a team with an orange T-shirt. Very quickly, there was only one team.”

Internal arm-twisting

On a Friday in late January 2020, Uğur Şahin, the Turkish-born cofounder and CEO of German firm BioNTech, read an article in the medical journal the Lancet that convinced him the new coronavirus spreading in China would likely explode into a pandemic, the New York Times reports. The following Monday, Şahin informed BioNTech’s board that the firm needed to go full throttle on developing a Covid-19 vaccine. His goal: Start human trials by April, when he expected Western nations might have to go on lockdown, according to the Journal.

Other leaders at BioNTech balked: After all, the biotech start-up primarily developed cancer treatments and had not yet launched a product. But Şahin and his wife, BioNTech Chief Medical Officer Özlem Türeci, believed a new technology they’d worked on for decades, messenger RNA (mRNA), would allow them to swiftly deliver an effective vaccine to market—and that they had a duty to try.

Having convinced executives to put their ski holidays on hold, Şahin and Türeci launched Project Lightspeed. To minimize coronavirus transmission as they worked seven days a week, team members were separated into two groups. Soon BioNTech had identified four promising vaccine candidates using mRNA—but lacked the capability to test them or bring them to market.

Sidestepping a culture clash

On March 1, Şahin phoned Kathrin Jansen, a fellow German who heads U.S. pharmaceutical firm Pfizer’s vaccine R&D in New York. Two years prior, Şahin and Jansen had negotiated a joint venture to develop a more effective influenza vaccine using mRNA, which was going well. Jansen jumped at the chance to collaborate with BioNTech on a Covid-19 vaccine: “It’s probably the most important thing we’ll ever do,” she told the Journal.

After quickly agreeing to split the remaining development costs and profits down the middle, the companies dove into their project without a signed contract. “It was all based on trust,” Şahin told the Journal. Sixty members of their teams met via videoconference to negotiate some of the details.

The potential for culture clashes between 170-year-old U.S. behemoth Pfizer, which has about 100,000 employees, and German newcomer BioNTech, which employs about 1,800 people, was high. But, meeting daily via video, the teams resolved disagreements without regard for their corporate allegiance, the Journal reports. With so much on the line, “there is no place for egos,” said Şahin.

Even as they rushed to test their vaccine, the two companies hadn’t gotten around to finalizing their contract and continued to work from a draft term sheet. “Trust and personal relationship[s] [are] so important in [our] business, because everything is going so fast,” Şahin told the Times.

On November 9, Pfizer announced that the Covid-19 vaccine it had developed with BioNTech had proven more than 90% effective at preventing the disease among trial volunteers. Though, to date, the vaccine has been sold exclusively to wealthy nations, the news was met with excitement worldwide—and hope that other partnerships would achieve similar breakthroughs.

Guidelines for fast-paced talks

As organizations across industries struggle to stay afloat and even thrive during the pandemic, they find themselves pursuing innovative deals in a hurry. When there isn’t time for gradual rapport building, how can we build trust and lasting partnerships? Here are some guidelines from the drugmakers’ recent negotiations:

• Map potential partners… Before settling on Sanofi, Glaxo engaged in a comprehensive search to identify companies that might value its adjuvant. Generally speaking, it’s wise to map the universe of potential partners before narrowing down the field, lest you overlook those that might offer the best fit.
• …but weigh the benefits of established trust. That said, building on existing relationships isn’t a bad choice when there’s no time to build trust. Şahin of BioNTech immediately approached Pfizer about developing a coronavirus vaccine, and Barron of Glaxo and Scangos of Vir quickly made the most of their friendship. In both cases, strong trust between parties allowed them to launch projects before they negotiated a formal contract.
• Focus on your shared mission. Pfizer and BioNTech were able to overcome potentially significant cultural differences by keeping their shared mission of reducing the spread of the coronavirus top of mind. Similarly, Glaxo’s and Vir’s negotiators rose above an us-versus-them mentality by viewing themselves as part of a single virus- fighting team. Highlighting a shared goal, such as advancing public health, can enhance cooperation between rivals.

A final note: There can be a fine line between offering a competitor a helping hand and unlawful collusion, so research the letter and spirit of antitrust law before collaborating with competitors.

In the global pharmaceutical industry, companies often work in utter secrecy to be the first to bring moneymaking, lifesaving drugs to market. But when the novel coronavirus emerged in China in early 2020, many leading drugmakers quickly recognized that they would not be able to swiftly develop and mass- produce effective Covid-19 vaccines and treatments on their own.

Before countries even went on lockdown, organizations across the globe began teaming up to collaborate on research, clinical trials, and manufacturing. Focused on beating the virus rather than their rivals, they also openly shared data and advice. Their collaborations offer clues about how new business partners can set themselves up for success, even under intense time pressure.

Coming together to cooperate, not collude

As governments across the globe imposed lockdowns and stay-at-home orders this past spring, drugmakers faced difficult questions: Which workers should be deemed “essential” and continue to work on-site? Which clinical trials should continue? Which should be paused?

Hal Barron, the chief scientific officer and research and development president of British firm GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s largest vaccine developers, reached out to his friend Mathai Mammen, the head of drug R&D at Johnson & Johnson, to compare notes. Mammen invited Barron to join a group of R&D heads sharing information about the virus and strategies for drug development, according to the Wall Street Journal.

During their video calls, the group members made several informal commitments, including a promise to swiftly share clinical trial data on Covid-19 vaccines. Some of the leaders reportedly were concerned that their cooperation could be perceived as anticompetitive collusion, a fear that U.S. regulators alleviated to a degree by releasing a statement that encouraged businesses to work together to address the pandemic. In a bid for public trust, Glaxo and eight other pharmaceutical firms (including Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna) signed a public pledge not to seek regulatory approvals for their vaccines until after they had proven to be safe and effective in clinical trials.

Building a new team

In mid-March, Barron’s friend George Scangos, CEO of the small San Francisco firm Vir Biotechnology, approached him about partnering on a Covid-19 antibody drug. Within 18 days, Glaxo agreed to purchase a $250 million stake in Vir—a negotiation that normally would have taken up to a year. Barron recounted to the Journal how the deal got done: “‘OK, if that’s important to George—done.’ And [Scangos] would say, ‘OK, if that’s important to you, done.’ Let’s move this thing along. Can’t lose the big picture.” The companies expect their drug to be authorized in the first half of 2021.

Glaxo also knew that its adjuvant—a substance that can increase a vaccine’s potency by boosting the body’s immune response—was valuable to competitors. To identify who might want it, an internal team of “drug hunters” was tasked with identifying organizations working on an antigen, a key vaccine component. In PowerPoint, the team created a “digital quilt” of about 100 squares, each representing a potential partner working on a vaccine, according to the Journal. Glaxo reached out to some in the quilt and heard from others—a process that the company’s vaccine chief, Roger Connor, told the Journal was “quite, quite different” from usual practice.

Within 36 hours of Connor’s initial phone call with Thomas Triomphe, his counterpart at French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi, the two agreed to create a joint task force to share information and plan a partnership while a formal agreement was negotiated. Clinical trials have begun with the goal of generating an approved vaccine by summer 2021.

Speaking to the Journal, Triomphe described the cooperative spirit that pervaded negotiations with Glaxo: “When you’re facing a public-health crisis, there is no team with a blue T-shirt and a team with an orange T-shirt. Very quickly, there was only one team.”

Internal arm-twisting

On a Friday in late January 2020, Uğur Şahin, the Turkish-born cofounder and CEO of German firm BioNTech, read an article in the medical journal the Lancet that convinced him the new coronavirus spreading in China would likely explode into a pandemic, the New York Times reports. The following Monday, Şahin informed BioNTech’s board that the firm needed to go full throttle on developing a Covid-19 vaccine. His goal: Start human trials by April, when he expected Western nations might have to go on lockdown, according to the Journal.

Other leaders at BioNTech balked: After all, the biotech start-up primarily developed cancer treatments and had not yet launched a product. But Şahin and his wife, BioNTech Chief Medical Officer Özlem Türeci, believed a new technology they’d worked on for decades, messenger RNA (mRNA), would allow them to swiftly deliver an effective vaccine to market—and that they had a duty to try.

Having convinced executives to put their ski holidays on hold, Şahin and Türeci launched Project Lightspeed. To minimize coronavirus transmission as they worked seven days a week, team members were separated into two groups. Soon BioNTech had identified four promising vaccine candidates using mRNA—but lacked the capability to test them or bring them to market.

Sidestepping a culture clash

On March 1, Şahin phoned Kathrin Jansen, a fellow German who heads U.S. pharmaceutical firm Pfizer’s vaccine R&D in New York. Two years prior, Şahin and Jansen had negotiated a joint venture to develop a more effective influenza vaccine using mRNA, which was going well. Jansen jumped at the chance to collaborate with BioNTech on a Covid-19 vaccine: “It’s probably the most important thing we’ll ever do,” she told the Journal.

After quickly agreeing to split the remaining development costs and profits down the middle, the companies dove into their project without a signed contract. “It was all based on trust,” Şahin told the Journal. Sixty members of their teams met via videoconference to negotiate some of the details.

The potential for culture clashes between 170-year-old U.S. behemoth Pfizer, which has about 100,000 employees, and German newcomer BioNTech, which employs about 1,800 people, was high. But, meeting daily via video, the teams resolved disagreements without regard for their corporate allegiance, the Journal reports. With so much on the line, “there is no place for egos,” said Şahin.

Even as they rushed to test their vaccine, the two companies hadn’t gotten around to finalizing their contract and continued to work from a draft term sheet. “Trust and personal relationship[s] [are] so important in [our] business, because everything is going so fast,” Şahin told the Times.

On November 9, Pfizer announced that the Covid-19 vaccine it had developed with BioNTech had proven more than 90% effective at preventing the disease among trial volunteers. Though, to date, the vaccine has been sold exclusively to wealthy nations, the news was met with excitement worldwide—and hope that other partnerships would achieve similar breakthroughs.

Guidelines for fast-paced talks

As organizations across industries struggle to stay afloat and even thrive during the pandemic, they find themselves pursuing innovative deals in a hurry. When there isn’t time for gradual rapport building, how can we build trust and lasting partnerships? Here are some guidelines from the drugmakers’ recent negotiations:

• Map potential partners… Before settling on Sanofi, Glaxo engaged in a comprehensive search to identify companies that might value its adjuvant. Generally speaking, it’s wise to map the universe of potential partners before narrowing down the field, lest you overlook those that might offer the best fit.
• …but weigh the benefits of established trust. That said, building on existing relationships isn’t a bad choice when there’s no time to build trust. Şahin of BioNTech immediately approached Pfizer about developing a coronavirus vaccine, and Barron of Glaxo and Scangos of Vir quickly made the most of their friendship. In both cases, strong trust between parties allowed them to launch projects before they negotiated a formal contract.
• Focus on your shared mission. Pfizer and BioNTech were able to overcome potentially significant cultural differences by keeping their shared mission of reducing the spread of the coronavirus top of mind. Similarly, Glaxo’s and Vir’s negotiators rose above an us-versus-them mentality by viewing themselves as part of a single virus- fighting team. Highlighting a shared goal, such as advancing public health, can enhance cooperation between rivals.

A final note: There can be a fine line between offering a competitor a helping hand and unlawful collusion, so research the letter and spirit of antitrust law before collaborating with competitors.

In negotiations across the world, financial troubles brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic have left parties squabbling over smaller and smaller pies. The silver lining? Negotiators may have little choice but to get a deal done, and awareness of this reality can motivate creative thinking and cooperation. Negotiating the terms of their upcoming season, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and its players union moved steadily toward agreement while avoiding grandstanding and hardball tactics.

From bad to worse?

As was true for most professional sports, the NBA’s most recent season was marked by upheaval and uncertainty. Rather than wrapping up in May as scheduled, the season paused in April for a lockdown and then resumed in a protective “bubble” at Disney World in late July without fans in attendance—and without ticket sales. Ratings for games played in the bubble were low, in part because the NBA was competing with professional football and baseball for viewers.

In October, just weeks after the NBA finals, the parties needed to rush to negotiate the terms of the next season. The league set a sobering note by revealing that the disrupted season had fallen $1.5 billion short of projected $8 billion in revenues, reports Ben Golliver in the Washington Post. Game cancellations, lack of ticket sales for games played in the bubble, and a discontinuation of revenue from China as a result of an ongoing dispute were to blame, the New York Times reports. Under the league’s collective-bargaining agreement, teams spend about half of the league’s income on player salaries.

If the past season had been bad from a financial standpoint, the next one finish the finals before the Tokyo Olympics in July (which had been pushed back by a year), the season would need to be shortened. Due to these and other challenges, the league slashed revenue projections in half, to $4 billion, the Post reports.

A low-drama agreement

The parties realized they would need to maximize profits from televised games to staunch the bleeding. Owners and players had assumed the next season would start in mid-January 2021 at the very earliest and extend well into the summer. But NBA’s television partners, Disney and Turner, pushed for a December 2020 start. Disney wanted to continue its tradition of broadcasting five games on its networks—ABC and ESPN—on Christmas Day. And Turner was hoping to air its usual opening night doubleheader the Tuesday before Christmas, according to the Times. Starting in December would further shorten players’ off-season break, but it would generate an added $500 million in revenue, the league told the National Basketball Players Association.

On November 5, the union announced it had tentatively agreed to a truncated 72-game regular season lasting from just before Christmas to mid-May. The playoffs would end before the July Olympics. The league would be on track to resume its regular schedule for the 2021–22 season—when, with any luck, fans might be safely back in the stands.

Other issues remained unresolved, the Times reports. With teams planning to travel between stadiums, coronavirus protocols needed to be negotiated. Allocation of salaries was also in contention. Pre-Covid, about 10% of each player’s salary was held in escrow in case the league didn’t meet revenue projections, though it usually did. Given the huge projected revenue shortages for the upcoming season, players’ agents feared the league might want to withhold as much as 40% of salaries in escrow, according to ESPN. The latest figure being discussed is 18%, which could be spread over multiple seasons to lessen the impact on players.

The owners and players both “lacked meaningful leverage” in their negotiation because “the unrelenting pandemic holds all the cards,” writes Golliver in the Post. That lack of leverage likely contributed to relatively no-fuss dealmaking. The situation should be a reminder to business negotiators feeling trapped by disappointing circumstances that your counterparts may be in the exact same boat. That should motivate you to be open about the challenges ahead and try to solve them collaboratively.

In negotiations across the world, financial troubles brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic have left parties squabbling over smaller and smaller pies. The silver lining? Negotiators may have little choice but to get a deal done, and awareness of this reality can motivate creative thinking and cooperation. Negotiating the terms of their upcoming season, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and its players union moved steadily toward agreement while avoiding grandstanding and hardball tactics.

From bad to worse?

As was true for most professional sports, the NBA’s most recent season was marked by upheaval and uncertainty. Rather than wrapping up in May as scheduled, the season paused in April for a lockdown and then resumed in a protective “bubble” at Disney World in late July without fans in attendance—and without ticket sales. Ratings for games played in the bubble were low, in part because the NBA was competing with professional football and baseball for viewers.

In October, just weeks after the NBA finals, the parties needed to rush to negotiate the terms of the next season. The league set a sobering note by revealing that the disrupted season had fallen $1.5 billion short of projected $8 billion in revenues, reports Ben Golliver in the Washington Post. Game cancellations, lack of ticket sales for games played in the bubble, and a discontinuation of revenue from China as a result of an ongoing dispute were to blame, the New York Times reports. Under the league’s collective-bargaining agreement, teams spend about half of the league’s income on player salaries.

If the past season had been bad from a financial standpoint, the next one finish the finals before the Tokyo Olympics in July (which had been pushed back by a year), the season would need to be shortened. Due to these and other challenges, the league slashed revenue projections in half, to $4 billion, the Post reports.

A low-drama agreement

The parties realized they would need to maximize profits from televised games to staunch the bleeding. Owners and players had assumed the next season would start in mid-January 2021 at the very earliest and extend well into the summer. But NBA’s television partners, Disney and Turner, pushed for a December 2020 start. Disney wanted to continue its tradition of broadcasting five games on its networks—ABC and ESPN—on Christmas Day. And Turner was hoping to air its usual opening night doubleheader the Tuesday before Christmas, according to the Times. Starting in December would further shorten players’ off-season break, but it would generate an added $500 million in revenue, the league told the National Basketball Players Association.

On November 5, the union announced it had tentatively agreed to a truncated 72-game regular season lasting from just before Christmas to mid-May. The playoffs would end before the July Olympics. The league would be on track to resume its regular schedule for the 2021–22 season—when, with any luck, fans might be safely back in the stands.

Other issues remained unresolved, the Times reports. With teams planning to travel between stadiums, coronavirus protocols needed to be negotiated. Allocation of salaries was also in contention. Pre-Covid, about 10% of each player’s salary was held in escrow in case the league didn’t meet revenue projections, though it usually did. Given the huge projected revenue shortages for the upcoming season, players’ agents feared the league might want to withhold as much as 40% of salaries in escrow, according to ESPN. The latest figure being discussed is 18%, which could be spread over multiple seasons to lessen the impact on players.

The owners and players both “lacked meaningful leverage” in their negotiation because “the unrelenting pandemic holds all the cards,” writes Golliver in the Post. That lack of leverage likely contributed to relatively no-fuss dealmaking. The situation should be a reminder to business negotiators feeling trapped by disappointing circumstances that your counterparts may be in the exact same boat. That should motivate you to be open about the challenges ahead and try to solve them collaboratively.