On April 19, 2013, after what was undoubtedly an intensive series of international bargaining and negotiation sessions, Toyota announced that it would begin manufacturing its Lexus luxury car in the United States for the first time. The Japanese automaker planned to invest $360 million in a new production line for its Georgetown, Kentucky, plant, which was expected to create about 750 jobs and churn out 50,000 Lexus ES sedans annually. The automaker would spend another $170 million on upgrades to the Georgetown plant, its largest outside Japan, the New York Times reported.

In response to the news, Kentucky governor Steven L. Beshear said he felt as if the state had “just won the Kentucky Derby.” Toyota’s decision was another sign that American auto manufacturing was on the road to recovery in the aftermath of the 2008 recession.

For Toyota, the decision fulfilled at least two primary strategic goals. First, the new production line would meet growing demand for the Lexus within the United States. In addition, shifting more production overseas would better insulate Toyota from a strong yen, which had increased production costs in Japan and eroded the value of the company’s earnings overseas. Along these lines, Toyota was also planning to invest $2 billion to expand and upgrade factories in Indiana, West Virginia, and Canada.

Toyota’s Lexus announcement was likely the culmination of several negotiations, as various states reportedly competed for the prize. Ultimately, Toyota appears to have been convinced to expand in Georgetown by $146.5 million in state tax benefits from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.

Whenever they are investing capital internationally, businesses and individuals typically must engage in intensive contract negotiations with numerous foreign parties. In his book, The Three Laws of International Investment: National, Contractual, and International Frameworks for Foreign Capital (Oxford University Press, 2013), Tufts University professor Jeswald W. Salacuse explains that such international bargaining can be especially complex, consisting of direct foreign investments such as Toyota’s, acquisitions, loans, privatizations, and joint ventures and other partnerships.

Four challenges common in international bargaining scenarios

Cross-border deals can present several challenges. Here’s advice from Salacuse on managing four of the most common challenges.

Challenge #1: An unfamiliar locale.
When negotiators do business abroad, they typically plunge into an unfamiliar environment, complete with different laws and business practices and often a foreign language. Add on the travel costs, time differences, and distance from home, and the prospect of negotiating an international investment can seem daunting.

But consider that traveling to negotiate investments with foreign partners has its advantages. When you make the effort to visit your counterpart’s turf, you signal your serious intention to do a deal. Even more important, you gain a unique opportunity to learn about the other parties and the local context, writes Salacuse in The Three Laws of International Investment. The knowledge you acquire from listening and observing will prove invaluable in helping you assess the other side’s expectations and constraints. It will also help you build the strong relationships that are necessary for the deal to thrive long after the contract has been signed.

Salacuse does offer one warning when it comes to negotiating international investments abroad: To avoid delays and stalling tactics from your foreign counterparts, make your travel plans clear and understate the amount of time you have available to do business.

Challenge #2: Cultural differences.
Cultural differences between negotiators from different countries can obstruct negotiations in several ways, according to Salacuse.

First, they can create misunderstandings that lead your negotiations offtrack. A Western executive who responds to a counterpart’s proposal by saying, “That’s difficult,” for instance, probably means that the door is still open to further discussion. By contrast, in some Asian cultures, where negotiators may be reluctant to deliver bad news directly, the same words may signal that a proposal is unacceptable and will no longer be considered. Western negotiators may miss this cue and believe that the proposal is still on the table.

Cultural differences can also affect the form and substance of your desired deal, including the language you use. In Muslim cultures where Islamic law prohibits the taking of interest on loans, for instance, a negotiator from another culture might need to refer to finance charges as “administrative fees” to gain his counterpart’s acceptance.

Books and articles can lead you through the intricacies of negotiating with members of different cultures and working through interpreters. But keep in mind that relying too much on information about cultural norms can lead us to stereotype those we encounter. To avoid this trap, when possible, take time to build rapport with your fellow negotiators and get to know them as individuals.

Challenge #3: Negotiations with foreign governments.
Even if your international investment primarily involves negotiations with a private party, you may still need to do business with officials from the host country’s government. Governments sometimes intervene to delay or halt private negotiations because of public concerns, and they often act as regulators who must sign off on whatever deal you reach.

When planning for a potential international bargaining situation, businesspeople and lawyers should ask themselves the following key questions, says Salacuse:

• To what extent does a government have an actual or potential interest in the deal?
• How and to what extent will the government be involved in the talks?
• How might the government intervene in a negotiation to protect its interests?

It’s not unusual for government officials to say that they have no authority to negotiate—that they can carry out only the laws and regulations they have sworn to uphold. Bureaucrats may feel uncomfortable with the term “negotiation,” believing it suggests the possibility of favoritism and corruption. But, in fact, they may have considerable leeway to interpret existing rules.

You can encourage government officials to negotiate with you by (1) finding a justification for your transaction in the law or in regulations or standards that will convince the public, civic groups, and the government’s opponents; (2) engaging in a negotiation process that the government can publicly support, namely one that is more open and transparent than your business deals back at home might be; and (3) avoiding the word “negotiation” in favor of terms such as “discussions,” “conversations,” and “requests.”

Challenge #4: A long time horizon.
In our era of globalization, one-off foreign trade transactions have increasingly been replaced by joint ventures, strategic alliances, global franchising arrangements, and the like, according to Salacuse. As a result, international investors often become long-term partners with a foreign entity, even if not by name. Toyota, for example, clearly hopes that its Kentucky plant will grow and thrive for decades to come.

Unfortunately, businesses are often overly optimistic about the likelihood of their new international partnership’s long-term success. According to one study, the average international alliance collapses after just 3.4 years. Common problems include mistrust and lack of information sharing between partners, disagreement on the scope of activities, and different management styles.

In addition, in a rapidly changing international environment, you may find that you have to cope with civil strife, political upheavals, monetary fluctuations, and technological change. The Argentine financial crisis of 2001–2002, for example, upended scores of major foreign investments in the country, resulting in extensive litigation. It’s unrealistic to assume that you can head off all these problems through provisions in your initial contract. Moreover, many cultures give much less weight to contracts than North Americans do, making contract terms less important over the long term than you might like them to be.

By contrast, it generally will be helpful to consider the following “non-legal and non-contractual” questions from Salacuse:

• How well do the parties know each other?
• What mechanisms might foster communication between the parties after the contract is signed?
• Is the deal balanced and beneficial to both parties?
• Do the parties understand and respect each other’s interests, values, and cultures?

When you acknowledge the inevitability of change from the outset, you equip yourself to manage it. That might mean stipulating in your contract that you will renegotiate specific issues at defined times. When conditions change, negotiation will be your best tool for managing the evolving deal. And if the deal breaks down, “negotiations may be the only means to mend it,” writes Salacuse.

In the aftermath of the December 2012 killing of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, then-president Barack Obama moved gun control to the top of his legislative agenda. By April 2013, the Senate was considering requiring universal criminal background checks for all gun purchases and banning assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines. Despite having the support of 90% of Americans, the measures failed to attract the 60 votes needed in the Senate. The defeat highlighted the following three negotiation skills and strategies for winning over reluctant counterparts.

3 Negotiation skills and strategies that can move reluctant counterparts to your side

1. Get Your Own House in Order

In 2013, powerful factions on both sides of the gun-control issue lobbied hard for and against the bill. The National Rifle Association pressured Republicans and moderate Democrats to vote against any new restrictions on guns. Meanwhile, Obama flanked himself with victims of gun violence, including former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, in public appearances and sent them to lobby members of the Senate.

In their negotiations, Democratic senator Chuck Schumer and Republican senator Tom Coburn, the original cosponsors of the bill, clashed on the issue of whether the government should create records of gun sales that did not involve gun stores. Schumer and other gun-control advocates argued that the records were needed for effective background checks, but Coburn, facing pressure from gun-rights groups, balked, saying he feared the creation of a national gun registry, according to the New York Times.

Schumer and the White House considered dropping the record-keeping component of the bill but backed down in the face of opposition from gun-control groups. Ultimately, many senators who voted against the bill cited the record-keeping measure as their primary objection.

In negotiation, discussions among parties on the same side can exert at least as much influence as the talks that happen across the table can. That’s why your toolbox of negotiation skills and strategies should put heavy emphasis on internal discussions and negotiations. Both before external negotiations and throughout the process, assess whether others on your negotiation team agree with your priorities; if not, try to negotiate a compromise.

2. Induce Compliance with Carrots and Sticks

In March 2013, Alaska Democratic senator Mark Begich asked Obama for a favor: Send the new interior secretary, Sally Jewell, to discuss a dispute over the construction of a road in a wildlife refuge, the Times reports. Begich wanted to show his constituents that he was pressuring the government to approve the road. Obama agreed. Four weeks later, despite Obama’s pleas, Begich, who is running for reelection this year, voted against the gun bill. Yet Jewell’s trip to Alaska was still on. Obama had missed a clear opportunity to use the Jewell visit as leverage in his gun-control negotiations with Begich.

Unlike some past presidents, Obama “rarely demonstrated an appetite for ruthless politics that instills fear in lawmakers,” write Michael D. Shear and Peter Baker in the Times. To get his way as president, Obama instead relied primarily on reasoned discussions.

This negotiating strategy was somewhat effective during his early years in office, when Democrats controlled the House and Senate, but required adjustment after Republicans took control of the House. Yet rather than changing how he dealt with his opposition, the president switched from an “inside” approach—centered on backroom policy discussions with lawmakers—to an “outside” approach aimed at putting pressure on Congress through campaign-style rallies, according to his aides.

To pass significant initiatives, Obama might have imposed consequences on those who crossed him—in Begich’s case, for example, by canceling Jewell’s Alaska trip. The former president’s gun-bill failure serves as a reminder that negotiators have many negotiation skills and strategies at their disposal. Threats, coercion, punishment, and rewards all have their time and place.

3. Avoid Competing Negotiations

According to Joe Biden, vice president in 2013, several senators from conservative states told him they felt they had to choose between supporting the gun-control bill or a pending bill on immigration reform. Their constituents, they claimed, would turn on them if they reversed their previous course on both issues. That may explain why some senators waffled until the final days before the gun-control vote: They wanted to support it but backed down for fear of the reaction at home.

Following the Sandy Hook tragedy, Obama took the risk of bumping gun control ahead of immigration as the political cause of the moment. In doing so, he put conservative senators who wanted to support both bills in a difficult political situation. (A 2013 bipartisan Senate immigration bill died in the House of Representatives.)

The story reminds us of the importance of carefully juggling initiatives in government negotiations and beyond. In your own negotiations, factor in the possibility that your counterparts’ attention and allegiance may be divided when they are facing multiple deal-making opportunities. Your negotiation skills and strategies should clarify which priorities you would like the other side to support and avoid trying to spread those priorities too thin. 

What negotiation skills and strategies have you found to be effective at persuading a reluctant counterpart?

Q: I run a midsized retail sports-apparel chain located in the southwestern United States. I’ve been searching for a seasoned executive to lead new store expansion in our fast-growing market. I finally found the perfect candidate, and we’ve agreed to most terms. The one sticking point is that she is obligated to give her current employer six months’ notice. I confided in her that such a delay would undermine our expansion strategy relative to an aggressive competitor. Her response has been a bit vague; she says that she feels compelled to honor her word to her current employer but will join us as soon as she can. She assures me that she is excited about my offer, but given her hesitation to leave her old firm, I’m not convinced. I’ve thought about resuming the search, but finding and hiring another perfect candidate will likely take more than six months. Should I consider a deal sweetener, such as an early-start bonus?

A: Although there may be legal consequences if you induce someone to break a contractual obligation, it is not unusual for an employee to negotiate new terms of her separation once she has served notice of her resignation. Often the employer is eager to move ahead with a replacement rather than hold on to a lame duck. But if the departing employee is in the midst of an important project, keeping that person on board through its completion makes sense.

Getting a clearer picture of what is motivating this candidate’s reluctance to negotiate a shorter notice period with her current employer is key. Since you have already amicably agreed to most terms of her employment, it seems unlikely that she is leveraging your desperation into a more lucrative deal for herself or buying time while she waits for clarity on another job opportunity.

Taken at face value, a prospective employee who honors her word and her commitments is demonstrating integrity and character. If she wants to tie up some loose ends with her project team, that would be a good long-term signal for you and your organization.

Of course, it won’t solve your urgent managerial vacuum. Should you offer the candidate a financial incentive to negotiate an early release from her current employment agreement? My advice is a cautious yes. However, how you frame that offer is very important.

You might be tempted to simply put forth an “exploding” or “evaporating” bonus (one that would disappear either at a specific point in time or over a stretch of time). This would provide a clear extrinsic reward to the candidate to join your company as quickly as possible. But this type of bonus could also be interpreted as an inducement for the candidate to do something she would perceive to be unethical.

Instead, frame your proposal around the strategic imperatives of your business. Explain that there is a real upside to your company if the candidate were to join sooner rather than later. Since she is a valued prospective member of your team, you want to share some of that upside with her. The sooner she is able to join, the greater this shared upside can be. This argument will likely create a loftier self-narrative for her—as a principal of your team rather than as a mercenary.

Andrew Wasynczuk
MBA Class of 1953
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration Harvard Business School 

On April 19, Toyota announced that it would begin manufacturing its Lexus luxury car in the United States for the first time. The Japanese automaker is planning to invest $360 million in a new production line for its Georgetown, Kentucky, plant, which is expected to create about 750 jobs and churn out 50,000 Lexus ES sedans annually. The automaker will spend another $170 million on upgrades to the Georgetown plant, its largest outside Japan, the New York Times reports.

In response to the news, Kentucky governor Steven L. Beshear said he felt as if the state had “just won the Kentucky Derby.” Toyota’s decision is another sign that American auto manufacturing is recovering in the aftermath of the recession.

For Toyota, the decision fulfills at least two primary strategic goals. First, the new production line will meet growing demand for the Lexus within the United States. In addition, shifting more production overseas will better insulate Toyota from a strong yen, which has increased production costs in Japan and eroded the value of the company’s earnings overseas. Along these lines, Toyota is also investing $2 billion to expand and upgrade factories in Indiana, West Virginia, and Canada.

Toyota’s Lexus announcement was likely the culmination of several negotiations, as various states reportedly competed for the prize. Ultimately, Toyota appears to have been convinced to expand in Georgetown by $146.5 million in state tax benefits from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.

Whenever they are investing capital internationally, businesses and individuals typically must engage in intensive contract negotiations with numerous foreign parties. In his new book, The Three Laws of International Investment: National, Contractual, and International Frameworks for Foreign Capital (Oxford University Press, 2013), Tufts University professor Jeswald W. Salacuse explains that such negotiations can be especially complex.

International investments can include direct foreign investments such as Toyota’s, acquisitions, loans, privatizations, and joint ventures and other partnerships. (See the box below.) In this article, we summarize advice from Salacuse on managing four of the challenges these cross-border deals can present.

Challenge #1: An unfamiliar locale.
When negotiators do business abroad, they typically plunge into an unfamiliar environment, complete with different laws and business practices and often a foreign language. Add on the travel costs, time differences, and distance from home, and the prospect of negotiating an international investment can seem daunting.

But consider that traveling to negotiate investments with foreign partners has its advantages. When you make the effort to visit your counterpart’s turf, you signal your serious intention to do a deal. Even more important, you gain a unique opportunity to learn about the other parties and the local context, writes Salacuse in The Three Laws of International Investment. The knowledge you acquire from listening and observing will prove invaluable in helping you assess the other side’s expectations and constraints. It will also help you build the strong relationships that are necessary for the deal to thrive long after the contract has been signed.

Salacuse does offer one warning when it comes to negotiating international investments abroad: To avoid delays and stalling tactics from your foreign counterparts, make your travel plans clear and understate the amount of time you have available to do business.

Challenge #2: Cultural differences.
Cultural differences between negotiators from different countries can obstruct negotiations in several ways, according to Salacuse.

First, they can create misunderstandings that lead your negotiations offtrack. A Western executive who responds to a counterpart’s proposal by saying, “That’s difficult,” for instance, probably means that the door is still open to further discussion. By contrast, in some Asian cultures, where negotiators may be reluctant to deliver bad news directly, the same words may signal that a proposal is unacceptable and will no longer be considered. Western negotiators may miss this cue and believe that the proposal is still on the table.

Cultural differences can also affect the form and substance of your desired deal, including the language you use. In Muslim cultures where Islamic law prohibits the taking of interest on loans, for instance, a negotiator from another culture might need to refer to finance charges as “administrative fees” to gain his counterpart’s acceptance.

Books and articles can lead you through the intricacies of negotiating with members of different cultures and working through interpreters. But keep in mind that relying too much on information about cultural norms can lead us to stereotype those we encounter. To avoid this trap, when possible, take time to build rapport with your fellow negotiators and get to know them as individuals.

Challenge #3: Negotiations with foreign governments.
Even if your international investment primarily involves negotiations with a private party, you may still need to do business with officials from the host country’s government. Governments sometimes intervene to delay or halt private negotiations because of public concerns, and they often act as regulators who must sign off on whatever deal you reach.

When planning for a potential international investment, businesspeople and lawyers should ask themselves the following key questions, says Salacuse:

• To what extent does a government have an actual or potential interest in the deal?
• How and to what extent will the government be involved in the talks?
• How might the government intervene in a negotiation to protect its interests?

It’s not unusual for government officials to say that they have no authority to negotiate—that they can carry out only the laws and regulations they have sworn to uphold. Bureaucrats may feel uncomfortable with the term “negotiation,” believing it suggests the possibility of favoritism and corruption. But, in fact, they may have considerable leeway to interpret existing rules.

You can encourage government officials to negotiate with you by (1) finding a justification for your transaction in the law or in regulations or standards that will convince the public, civic groups, and the government’s opponents; (2) engaging in a negotiation process that the government can publicly support, namely one that is more open and transparent than your business deals back at home might be; and (3) avoiding the word “negotiation” in favor of terms such as “discussions,” “conversations,” and “requests.”

Challenge #4: A long time horizon.
In our era of globalization, one-off foreign trade transactions have increasingly been replaced by joint ventures, strategic alliances, global franchising arrangements, and the like, according to Salacuse. As a result, international investors often become long-term partners with a foreign entity, even if not by name. Toyota, for example, clearly hopes that its Kentucky plant will grow and thrive for decades to come.

Unfortunately, businesses are often overly optimistic about the likelihood of their new international partnership’s long-term success. According to one study, the average international alliance collapses after just 3.4 years. Common problems include mistrust and lack of information sharing between partners, disagreement on the scope of activities, and different management styles.

In addition, in a rapidly changing international environment, you may find that you have to cope with civil strife, political upheavals, monetary fluctuations, and technological change. The Argentine financial crisis of 2001–2002, for example, upended scores of major foreign investments in the country, resulting in litigation that continues to this day. It’s unrealistic to assume that you can head off all these problems through provisions in your initial contract. Moreover, many cultures give much less weight to contracts than North Americans do, making contract terms less important over the long term than you might like them to be.

By contrast, it generally will be helpful to consider the following “non-legal and non-contractual” questions from Salacuse:

• How well do the parties know each other?
• What mechanisms might foster communication between the parties after the contract is signed?
• Is the deal balanced and beneficial to both parties?
• Do the parties understand and respect each other’s interests, values, and cultures?

When you acknowledge the inevitability of change from the outset, you equip yourself to manage it. That might mean stipulating in your contract that you will renegotiate specific issues at defined times. When conditions change, negotiation will be your best tool for managing the evolving deal. And if the deal breaks down, “negotiations may be the only means to mend it,” writes Salacuse.

In the aftermath of the December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, President Barack Obama decided to move gun control to the top of his legislative agenda. By April 2013, the Senate was considering a bill that would implement universal criminal background checks for all gun purchases. Despite having the support of 90% of Americans, the bill failed. There are several explanations for the defeat.

1. A polarizing tug-of-war.
Powerful factions on both sides of the gun-control issue lobbied hard for and against the bill. The National Rifle Association (NRA) pressured Republicans as well as Democrats from conservative states to vote against any new restrictions on guns. Meanwhile, Obama flanked himself with victims of gun violence, including former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, in public appearances and sent them to lobby members of the Senate.

In their negotiations, Democratic senator Charles E. Schumer and Republican senator Tom Coburn, the original cosponsors of the bill, clashed on the issue of whether the government would create records of gun sales that did not involve gun stores. Schumer and other gun-control advocates argued that the records were needed for effective background checks, but Coburn, facing pressure from gun-rights groups, balked, saying he feared the creation of a national gun registry, according to the New York Times.

Schumer and the White House considered dropping the record-keeping component of the bill but backed down in the face of opposition from gun-control groups. Ultimately, many senators who voted against the bill cited the record-keeping measure as their primary objection.

In negotiation, discussions among parties on the same side can exert at least as much influence as the talks that happen across the table. That’s why it’s often important to engage in internal discussions both before and during formal negotiations to ensure that your constituents will support you.

2. No consequences for noncooperation.
In March, Alaska Democratic senator Mark Begich asked Obama for a favor: Send the new interior secretary, Sally Jewell, to discuss a dispute over the construction of a road in a wildlife refuge, the Times reports. Begich wanted to show his constituents that he was pressuring the government to approve the road. Obama agreed. Four weeks later, despite Obama’s pleas, Begich, who is running for reelection this year, voted against the gun bill. Yet Jewell’s trip to Alaska was still on.

Unlike some past presidents, Obama “has rarely demonstrated an appetite for ruthless politics that instills fear in lawmakers,” write Michael D. Shear and Peter Baker in the Times. To get his way, Obama appears to rely primarily on reasoned discussions.

This strategy worked during his early years in office, when Democrats controlled the House and Senate. But after Republicans took control of the House, Obama’s approach became less effective. He switched from an “inside” approach—centered on backroom policy discussions with lawmakers—to an “outside” approach aimed at putting pressure on Congress through campaign-style rallies, say his aides.

To pass significant initiatives before leaving office, Obama may need to impose consequences on those who cross him, some advise—in Begich’s case, for example, by canceling Jewell’s Alaska trip.

Obama’s gun-bill failure serves as a reminder that negotiators have many tools at their disposal. Threats, coercion, punishment, and rewards can all have their time and place.

3. Competition with other agendas.
According to Vice President Joe Biden, several senators from conservative states told him that they felt they had to choose between supporting the gun-control bill or the pending bill on immigration reform. Their constituents, they claimed, would turn on them if they reversed their previous course on both issues. That may explain why some senators waffled until the final days before the vote: They wanted to support it but backed down for fear of the reaction at home.

Once again, the story suggests that negotiators may have difficulty making headway with counterparts who have failed to win the support of their constituents behind the table. It also serves as a reminder of the importance of carefully juggling negotiation initiatives. Following the Newtown tragedy, Obama took the risk of bumping gun control ahead of immigration as the political cause of the moment. In doing so, he put conservative senators who wanted to support both bills in a difficult political situation.

In your own negotiations, factor in the possibility that your counterparts’ attention and allegiance may be divided when they are facing more than one deal at a time.

Negotiating in high alert
Negotiation is often characterized as a physiologically arousing event marked by pounding hearts, queasy stomachs, and flushed faces. We might assume that heightened physiological arousal would mar our negotiation performance, but this is only true for some, researchers Ashley D. Brown and Jared R. Curhan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found in a new study.

In one experiment, Brown and Curhan assessed participants’ attitudes toward negotiation—whether they dread it or look forward to it.

Later, some participants took a walk while negotiating over the phone, while others sat in chairs. Among those with negative initial views of negotiation, the exertion of walking impaired their performance relative to sitting; by contrast, those with initially positive views of negotiation performed better while walking than they did while sitting. It seems that general attitudes toward negotiation influence whether people construe their subsequent physiological arousal during negotiation positively or negatively, which then affects their performance.

Overall, the findings suggest the value of trying to overcome negative feelings about negotiation through practice and confidence-boosting exercises. As for those who look forward to negotiating, your sweaty palms may be a sign that you are functioning at your best.

Resource: “The Polarizing Effect of Arousal on Negotiation,” by Ashley D. Brown and Jared R. Curhan. Psychological Science, in press.

When you know more (about negotiating) than they do
So you’ve had some negotiation training and understand the importance of collaborating with counterparts to create value. But what will happen when you negotiate with untrained counterparts? Will your training raise you both up, or will the untrained party drag you down?

Alfred Zerres of the University of Amsterdam and his colleagues examined this question in a new study. They paired up undergraduate business students, none of whom had received past negotiation training, for negotiation simulations. In some of the pairs, both parties remained untrained in negotiation. In some pairs, one party received thorough training in logrolling, or trading on different preferences across issues. In other pairs, both parties received logrolling training.

At their first meeting, all the pairs engaged in two buyer-seller simulations. A month later, to see whether the training “stuck,” the researchers had all the pairs engage in a third simulation. In all three simulations, parties could expand the pie of value through logrolling.

The pairs in which only the party playing the role of seller had received negotiation training performed just as well as pairs in which both parties had received training. But when the only trained party was the buyer, the pairs didn’t perform as well as pairs of trained negotiators. In addition, participants performed just as well a month after their training—a sign that thorough negotiation training can produce lasting habits.

Resource: “Does It Take Two to Tango? Longitudinal Effects of Unilateral and Bilateral Integrative Negotiation Training,” by Alfred Zerres, Joachim Hüffmeier, Philipp Alexander Freund, Klaus Backhaus, and Guido Hertel. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2013.

Negotiating in high alert
Negotiation is often characterized as a physiologically arousing event marked by pounding hearts, queasy stomachs, and flushed faces. We might assume that heightened physiological arousal would mar our negotiation performance, but this is only true for some, researchers Ashley D. Brown and Jared R. Curhan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found in a new study.

In one experiment, Brown and Curhan assessed participants’ attitudes toward negotiation—whether they dread it or look forward to it.

Later, some participants took a walk while negotiating over the phone, while others sat in chairs. Among those with negative initial views of negotiation, the exertion of walking impaired their performance relative to sitting; by contrast, those with initially positive views of negotiation performed better while walking than they did while sitting. It seems that general attitudes toward negotiation influence whether people construe their subsequent physiological arousal during negotiation positively or negatively, which then affects their performance.

Overall, the findings suggest the value of trying to overcome negative feelings about negotiation through practice and confidence-boosting exercises. As for those who look forward to negotiating, your sweaty palms may be a sign that you are functioning at your best.

Resource: “The Polarizing Effect of Arousal on Negotiation,” by Ashley D. Brown and Jared R. Curhan. Psychological Science, in press.

When you know more (about negotiating) than they do
So you’ve had some negotiation training and understand the importance of collaborating with counterparts to create value. But what will happen when you negotiate with untrained counterparts? Will your training raise you both up, or will the untrained party drag you down?

Alfred Zerres of the University of Amsterdam and his colleagues examined this question in a new study. They paired up undergraduate business students, none of whom had received past negotiation training, for negotiation simulations. In some of the pairs, both parties remained untrained in negotiation. In some pairs, one party received thorough training in logrolling, or trading on different preferences across issues. In other pairs, both parties received logrolling training.

At their first meeting, all the pairs engaged in two buyer-seller simulations. A month later, to see whether the training “stuck,” the researchers had all the pairs engage in a third simulation. In all three simulations, parties could expand the pie of value through logrolling.

The pairs in which only the party playing the role of seller had received negotiation training performed just as well as pairs in which both parties had received training. But when the only trained party was the buyer, the pairs didn’t perform as well as pairs of trained negotiators. In addition, participants performed just as well a month after their training—a sign that thorough negotiation training can produce lasting habits.

Resource: “Does It Take Two to Tango? Longitudinal Effects of Unilateral and Bilateral Integrative Negotiation Training,” by Alfred Zerres, Joachim Hüffmeier, Philipp Alexander Freund, Klaus Backhaus, and Guido Hertel. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2013.

In early 2008, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg began thinking about hiring Sheryl Sandberg, a vice president at Google and a former chief of staff for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as the social-media company’s new chief operating officer. The two met several nights a week for almost two months to discuss Facebook’s mission and future.

Finally, Zuckerberg made an offer. Sandberg felt it was fair. What’s more, as she recounts in her recent bestseller, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (Knopf, 2013), she was “dying to accept the job.” But her husband urged her not to take the first offer on the table.

Sandberg balked: What if, by playing hardball, she antagonized Zuckerberg?
She was on the verge of accepting when words from her brother-in-law stopped her in her tracks: “Damn it, Sheryl! Why are you going to make less than any man would make to do the same job?”

Newly motivated, Sandberg told Zuckerberg that she couldn’t accept his offer. She noted that he was hiring her to run his deal teams. “This is the only time you and I will ever be on opposite sides of the table,” Sandberg said, then laid out what she wanted. The next day, Zuckerberg came back to her with a significantly better offer.

Stories like this one from Sandberg’s book, which is aimed at motivating women to aspire to leadership positions, appear to be striking a chord among women professionals. In fact, evidence suggests that women who typically pass up opportunities to negotiate on their own behalf at work have found a new role model—and justification—for more assertive behavior.

Why women haven’t asked
In a chapter called “Success and Likeability” in Lean In, Sandberg sums up the catch-22 that confronts women professionals by citing a study by Frank Flynn (Columbia Business School) and Cameron Anderson (University of California, Berkeley). In the study, participants read a description of an outgoing, well-connected, and successful venture capitalist. Some participants were told that the person’s name was Howard; others were told it was Heidi.

When asked to judge Howard/Heidi based on the identical descriptions, the participants perceived them to be equally competent. Yet while Howard was judged to be pleasant to work with, Heidi was judged to be selfish and an unappealing colleague.

This and other research suggests that we tend to respond more favorably to successful men than to successful women. Why? When men focus on their careers, they fulfill familiar stereotypes of men as driven, decisive providers. But when women demonstrate drive and determination in the workplace, they violate gender stereotypes of women as sensitive, communal caregivers.

Internalizing this dilemma, women correctly intuit that they will be punished—in the form of being disliked by their coworkers—for negotiating on their own behalf. As discussed in past Negotiation articles, research bears out this expectation. In one study, Harvard Kennedy School professor Hannah Riley Bowles and her colleagues found that participants were less willing to work with women who negotiated for higher compensation and judged them to be less nice than women who didn’t ask for more.

No surprise, then, that women negotiate much less often than men for higher salaries, promotions, and plum assignments: They fear a very real backlash against traditionally unfeminine behavior.

Beyond the backlash
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Sandberg’s quest to empower women to advocate for themselves may already be having an impact in the workplace. In an article for the website BuzzFeed, Ben Smith writes that numerous women had mentioned Sandberg’s name in salary negotiations with him and other editors just weeks after the book’s publication. After negotiating a new role with Smith, one senior editor stood up to leave, then stopped herself and said, “Sheryl Sandberg would be disappointed in me if I didn’t ask you for a raise.”

The book and its ensuing publicity blitz “have emboldened some women to speak up more directly about compensation,” New York Times editor Jill Abramson told Smith. Negotiation researcher Bowles says that numerous women have told her they feel newly energized to negotiate for higher compensation and other career goals after reading Lean In.

“Think personally, act communally”
Women can increase their salaries and make other job advances by using what Bowles and her colleagues refer to as relational accounts— explanations for requests that both seem legitimate and display a concern for organizational relationships. For example, when requesting a raise, a woman might explain that her team leader advised her to try to improve her compensation because it is low for her position.

Along these lines, Sandberg advises women negotiators to “think personally, act communally” when negotiating on their own behalf, being careful to substitute “we” for “I”: “We had a great year” rather than “I had a great year.”

Women might even use the persistent gender gap in pay as a communal argument. Sandberg says she advises women to explain that they are negotiating for a higher salary because women in general are often paid less than men. In this case, women position themselves as showing concern for all women, not just themselves.

Bowles takes Sandberg’s argument a step further, pointing out that Lean In itself has become a powerful argument for a raise or other job-related goal. By citing Sandberg, women reference a known authority and potentially strengthen the legitimacy of their arguments.

Sandberg also advises women negotiators to “combine niceness with insistence,” a style that University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman calls “relentlessly pleasant.” They can do so by expressing concern and appreciation, drawing on common interests, and approaching the negotiation as a problem-solving task.

Toward a less biased workplace
Much of Sandberg’s advice aligns with broader negotiation theory, which finds that a cooperative approach is the surest path to understanding the other party and discovering new sources of value.

But why must women, and not men, bend over backward to appear likable and communal? Isn’t that unfair? It is, Sandberg admits, but “adhering to biased rules and expectations” is still the clearest path to advancement for most women for the time being.

Here, too, there are signs of change. In addition to motivating women to ask for more, Lean In also appears to be encouraging managers—men and women alike—to look for gender bias in their hiring and promotion practices. Bowles knows of one male executive whose high-tech company was having difficulty recruiting women despite an eagerness to do so.

After absorbing Sandberg’s message, the executive carefully reviewed his company’s recruitment materials and found numerous references (such as to the video game StarCraft) that suggested the company was a “boys’ club.” “He is changing that,” says Bowles.