Does Using Technology in Negotiation Change Our Behavior?

The use of technology in negotiation has introduced new ways of communicating and interacting and could have a profound effect on our negotiation behavior.

PON Staff • October 16, 2025

It’s not hard to picture the use of technology in negotiation. Imagine that two people are introduced to each other via email by a mutual friend. They begin discussions on the phone regarding a potential business partnership, which lead to several in-person meetings during which their laptops are open and their smartphones are on the table, available for checking facts and tracking down data. In between the meetings, the two negotiators email and text ideas to each other at all hours of the day and night. When logistics make it difficult to meet in person, they have a videoconference and, later, a teleconference to introduce various members of their teams. They finalize their agreement with an in-person meeting and, in the end, sign a contract that one party’s lawyer photographs and texts to the other’s on her phone.

As this hypothetical but typical scenario shows, technology has infiltrated almost every element of our negotiations, as it has almost every aspect of our lives. Negotiation scholars have studied how negotiating via technological media affects the way we negotiate—concluding, for example, that doing business via email can increase misunderstandings and heighten conflict as compared to face-to-face meetings. But the ubiquity of technology in society inevitably affects not only how we negotiate but also who we are, even when we are negotiating in person, writes Creighton University School of Law professor Noam Ebner in an article in the Missouri Journal of Dispute Resolution.

Our use of technology in negotiation and in life is altering the pathways in our brains in ways that scientists are just beginning to understand. And research from outside the field of negotiation is identifying changes in behaviors, psychology, and emotions that are highly relevant to negotiation. According to Ebner, our use of technology is affecting our focus, empathy, and trust in ways that could require negotiation scholars to reconsider even bedrock beliefs about the field.

How technology in negotiation changes our attention and empathy

In his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (W. W. Norton, 2011), journalist Nicholas Carr draws on neuroscientific research to argue that the way we use technology is impairing our ability to focus, learn, and think deeply. More than ever, we “multitask,” even as science shows that the human brain is incapable of focusing on more than one input at a time. Rather than reading text from start to finish, we scan it for key words and highlights, gathering just enough information to back up our arguments at a meeting or to tell an amusing anecdote at a dinner party.

The very presence of technology in negotiation and in life can lessen our attention and empathy, Virginia Tech professor Shalini Misra and her colleagues found in a study called “The iPhone Effect.” The researchers paired up 200 people, some of whom were already friends, and randomly assigned them to discuss either a casual or a meaningful topic for 10 minutes in a coffee shop. Research assistants monitored whether participants held their smartphones or put them on the table, or kept them out of sight.

Analyzing the conversations, the researchers found that when a cell phone was in view, the quality of interactions suffered. Specifically, people who spoke to each other with a cell phone present reported less empathetic concern for one another and found the conversation less fulfilling, whether their topic was deep or shallow. The negative impact of a cell phone was even stronger on people who already knew each other. The researchers concluded that the mere presence of a smartphone can distract us from one another and make us miss subtle but important communication cues, such as facial expressions, eye contact, and changes in tone.

Changes in trust

The results of Misra’s study and other research suggest that technology may be reducing our attention and consequently our ability to empathize with others in negotiation and other realms. It may also be altering the degree to which we trust others, writes Ebner.

Trust, an essential element in successful negotiation, enables cooperation, problem-solving, and conflict resolution. Yet “trust is literally under attack, in some spheres,” writes Ebner—think of the “fake news” that proliferated during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and President Donald Trump’s frequent dismissal of the news media’s accuracy. A 2016 Gallup survey indicated that trust in traditional institutions hit its lowest point ever.

Meanwhile, what Ebner refers to as “peer trust”—our willingness to get into a stranger’s car (Lyft) or even bunk in his spare bedroom (Airbnb)—is thriving. At the same time that we greet traditional sources of information with increasing skepticism, we may find ourselves blindly trusting unfamiliar negotiation counterparts.

A negotiation challenge

It would be impossible to put the digital genie back into the bottle, even if we wanted to. As the Internet seems to make us more shallow and distracted, it continues to create unprecedented new ways of collaborating and connecting with one another, from watching Snapchat videos to hailing rides from Lyft to donating to GoFundMe campaigns.

At the same time, it’s important to stay vigilant to the potentially deleterious effects of our near-constant technology use on our focus, fellow feeling, and trust. So in your next negotiation, try this little challenge. Hand out pads of paper and pencils. Encourage everyone to silence and put away their phones and pack up their laptops; remind them that you can look up data later. Then see what happens when you talk, think, and write for the duration of the meeting using nothing but your brains.

Adapted from “How Technology is Changing Us and the Way We Negotiate” in the June 2017 issue of Negotiation Briefings.

Are there changes you’ve noticed with the frequent use of technology in negotiation?

Business Negotiations

5 Ways to Be a More Strategic Business Partner

Kraft Heinz’s offer to purchase Unilever ended in a rare public retreat for investor Warren Buffett—and generated useful business negotiation tips for the rest of us who want to be a strategic business partner.

PON Staff • April 3, 2025

If you’re looking to be a strategic business partner, you need to have your eyes and ears open at all times.

In the world of mergers and acquisitions, some acquirers try to improve the companies they purchase by expanding them and emphasizing innovation, while others choose to focus on cutting costs. Due in part to millennials’ lack of appetite for prepackaged food, consumer-goods companies lately have been focused more on slashing budgets than on innovating. Many are exploring mergers to achieve greater efficiencies and scale, according to the New York Times.

In 2013, for example, the Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital purchased Heinz and took it private, with financing from Berkshire Hathaway chief Warren Buffett. The legendary “Oracle of Omaha” had watched with admiration as 3G principal Jorge Paulo Lemann transformed a small Brazilian brewing company into Anheuser-Busch InBev through increasingly bold acquisitions and cost-cutting. Two years after their Heinz deal, Lemann and Buffett teamed up to buy Kraft, then took the combined business public as Kraft Heinz.

After making an acquisition, 3G follows a time-tested script that involves replacing most of the target’s executives with its own leaders, who then carry out mass layoffs, close factories, and institute internal penny-pinching. It’s been a recipe for success: Kraft Heinz saw its market value rise from about $63 billion to approximately $105 billion in two years.

Because innovation has not proven to be one of its strengths, to sustain its impressive gains, 3G instead repeatedly acquires companies and institutes cost-cutting measures. “It’s like the shark that can’t stop swimming,” one industry director told Fortune.

The latest big fish 3G set its sights on? Unilever—but the British-Dutch consumer-goods giant turned out to be the one that wriggled away. Our analysis of the deal reveals five lessons negotiators contemplating new partnerships should bear in mind before they approach the table.

4 Ways to prepare for a business partnership

1. To become a strategic business partner in negotiation, sometimes it starts with polite conversation.

In a February 27, 2017 interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, Buffett recounted that in recent months, he, 3G’s Lemann, and Kraft Heinz CEO Alexandre Behring (a 3G cofounder) privately agreed to make a friendly offer for Unilever, as long as the company was “open to it.” (Buffett has said in the past that hostile takeovers are outside his area of expertise.) Unilever, whose brands include Hellmann’s, Dove, Knorr, and Lipton, was in a sales slump despite a strong presence in the developing world. The 3G-Berkshire team believed Unilever could give Kraft Heinz an international platform for its brands.

Buffett was happy to let 3G run the negotiation, despite owning a slightly larger stake than 3G in Kraft Heinz. (Together, Berkshire and 3G own just under 50% of the company.) “I’m not embarrassed to admit that Heinz is run far better under [3G] than would be the case if I were in charge,” he has said, according to Fortune. It’s a marked departure from Buffett’s usual strategy of trying to grow the companies he purchases through added investments in infrastructure and innovation. But his low-key role has allowed him to keep the “bloodletting” of American jobs and shuttered factories from staining his reputation, even as Berkshire’s $9.8 billion investment in Kraft Heinz more than tripled, writes Fortune.

Behring traveled to London to quietly float the idea of a buyout to Unilever’s Dutch CEO, Paul Polman. “He didn’t get a yes, he didn’t get a no,” Buffett told CNBC. “He got perfectly polite conversation. And so [Behring] came back and said that he hadn’t been thrown out.”

Two weeks after that meeting, sometime in February 2017, Behring returned to London, this time with a letter outlining a possible deal. Lemann, Buffett, and Behring agreed that if Behring again raised the possibility of a deal with Polman and got a neutral response, he would hand over the letter, but if he got a negative response, he would not. “He went over and felt he got a neutral response, and therefore gave the letter,” Buffett recalled to CNBC.

2. To become a strategic business partner in negotiation, sometimes you must predict your WATNA, or Worst Alternative to a Negotiation.

On February 17, the Financial Times’ Alphaville blog leaked rumors of a Kraft Heinz bid for Unilever in a live market chat.

“If this had involved only American companies, probably nothing would have happened, as the companies would have just declined to comment,” explains Steven Davidoff Solomon in the New York Times. But in Britain, where Unilever is traded, companies are legally required to announce the status of any potential acquisitions as soon as rumors emerge.

Likely not terribly surprised by the leak, the 3G-Buffett team went public with its takeover offer of $143 billion (roughly $50 per share). If completed, it would have been the largest cross-border merger since 2000, and shares of both Kraft Heinz and Unilever surged at the news.

But the Kraft Heinz team seemed caught off guard when Unilever immediately released a statement rejecting the Kraft Heinz bid, which it said “fundamentally undervalue[d]” Unilever’s worth; had “no merit, either financial or strategic, for Unilever’s shareholders”; and created no “basis for any further discussions.”

3. To become a strategic business partner in negotiation, consider the deal environment.

Despite Behring’s earlier overtures, Unilever executives seemed to have been not only shocked by the offer but also horrified. Behind the scenes, they tried to persuade shareholders that Kraft Heinz’s cost-cutting culture and “lack of vision for cultivating brands” would be disastrous for Unilever, according to Bloomberg. The executives were also concerned about weighing down Unilever with a buyout funded largely by debt, the Guardian reports.

The political climate also discouraged a deal. Following the pound’s decline after the June 2016 Brexit vote, British lawmakers had been warning that foreign invaders might try to take advantage of “fire sales” of British companies, according to the New York Times. U.K. prime minister Theresa May had criticized Kraft in a speech for breaking promises not to close factories after its 2010 acquisition of British chocolate-maker Cadbury. As a result of Kraft’s behavior, British takeover law had been modified to require acquirers to be clear about their intentions during acquisition negotiations.

Unilever CEO Polman reportedly called Buffett and Lemann after the leak to warn them that neither the company’s board nor its investors were likely to support the proposed acquisition. For his part, Buffett said he told Unilever not to worry about receiving a hostile or unfriendly offer.

4. To become a strategic business partner in negotiation, anticipate long-term clashes.

Buffett and Lemann, who would have had to put up significant new capital to help fund the deal, were reportedly “spooked” by Unilever’s response, according to the Financial Times. Neither was used to having offers rejected, let alone so publicly and so soundly.

The odds of winning a public battle for their target were steep, they calculated. They would be pressured to commit to saving jobs and facilities in the United Kingdom, a promise at odds with 3G’s standard operating procedure. And any deal reached would face an uphill battle for regulatory approval in both Britain and the Netherlands, where Unilever is jointly based and nationalist fervor is also high.

Then, Kraft Heinz and Unilever released a joint statement saying that Kraft Heinz had “amicably agreed to withdraw its proposal for a combination of the two companies.” Unilever’s shares plummeted, and industry talk turned to guessing which consumer-goods company the Kraft Heinz shark would pursue next.

5 Ways to Be a Strategic Business Partner and Set Yourself up for a Strong Partnership

The following lessons from Kraft Heinz’s failed bid for Unilever apply to any negotiation dance between two potential partners.

1. Swing in your sweet spot.

Buffett famously formed his investment philosophy around baseball great Ted Williams’s observation that he tended to hit at an All-Star level at pitches thrown down the middle of the plate but swing poorly when balls came in low and outside the strike zone. “The trick in investing is to just sit there and watch pitch after pitch go by and wait for the one right in your sweet spot,” Buffett said in the HBO documentary Becoming Warren Buffett. “And if people are yelling, ‘Swing, you bum!’ ignore them.”

In investing, this means that Buffett is comfortable making friendly offers but not hostile ones. He also is not a price haggler: “I’m not a negotiator,” the famous dealmaker told CNBC. He “pays what he thinks something is worth and rarely stretches,” Jeff Matthews, who has written books on Berkshire Hathaway, told Bloomberg. “People tend to want to sell to him, so he usually gets his price.” And when he doesn’t, he is apparently ready to walk away.

When we play to our negotiating strengths and acknowledge our weaknesses, we can end up waiting patiently for the right deal or walking away from one we dearly want—and we avoid serious errors.

2. Prepare for cultural barriers at the table.

Buffett and Lemann had felt confident enough in Behring’s assessment of his early meetings with Polman to believe that Unilever was open to weighing an offer. When that seemed not to be true, Buffett was left trying to explain what had happened. He speculated to CNBC that cultural barriers may have played a role. Specifically, he suggested that the Brazilian Behring, who speaks English as a second language, may have misinterpreted Polman’s politeness in their earliest meetings as interest. Because even minor cultural differences can lead to major confusion, it’s wise to learn about cultural norms before sitting down at the negotiating table.

3. Anticipate long-term culture clashes.

Unilever has a reputation for investing in long-term sustainable environmental practices, a vision that many observers perceive to be at odds with 3G’s ruthless focus on short-term cost cutting. Although the two teams might have found a way to capitalize on the best of both worlds, it’s perhaps more likely that they would have had difficulty integrating. Before rushing into a deal, analyze how well your and your counterpart’s cultures—including your corporate, national, regional, and industry cultures—will mesh.

4. Consider the deal environment.

Current protectionist trends both in the United States and abroad mean that interested observers, including governments and citizens, are likely to view would-be international corporate raiders with alarm. In negotiation, it’s important to research not only your counterpart but also the deal’s broader environment. Ask and answer questions such as these: Who might try to block a deal? How likely are they to be successful? Are there ways to win them over? Who’s in power? Should we wait a year or two, when the political climate might be different? Who might intercede on our behalf?

5. Expect leaks to change the game.

Once a sensitive negotiation goes public, the way parties react to one another will fundamentally shift. In particular, scrutiny is likely to increase nervousness and competitive behavior. It could even change the rules of the game. Kraft Heinz, for example, was legally obligated to take its offer public in the United Kingdom after rumors of the offer emerged. Think hard about how you and your counterpart might be affected if your negotiations gain an audience. Do what you can to ward off leaks, but also have your response to them ready to go if word gets out, and anticipate how parties are likely to react.

What do you do to become a more strategic business partner?

This article was originally published in 2017 and has been updated.

Dealmaking

Negotiation Ethics: What’s Gender Got to Do with It?

The strength of our negotiation ethics may vary depending on our gender, according to one study. Here’s why this may be the case—and advice on how we can all live up to our high standards.

PON Staff • October 1, 2024

Are there gender differences in our negotiation ethics? Women generally are less accepting of unethical behavior than men are and tend to behave more ethically than men in a wide variety of contexts, past studies have found. In the context of negotiation ethics, women have been found to be less tolerant overall of a wide array of unethical strategies as compared with men. In a 2012 study by Michael P. Haselhuhn and Elaine M. Wong of the University of California, Riverside, 25% of men used deception to negotiate a deal via email as compared with only 11% of women.

In a 2017 study published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Jessica A. Kennedy (Vanderbilt University), Laura J. Kray (University of California, Berkeley), and Gillian Ku (London Business School) looked more closely at possible gender differences in negotiation ethics and found nuanced results.

Relationship goals

The researchers hypothesized that women internalize morality into their identities more strongly than men do. As compared with men, women are more likely to view themselves as interdependent with others and to be more attuned to relationships and others’ emotions. Generally speaking, men tend to define themselves as more independent and less reliant on others.

“Because being moral helps people build and maintain relationships,” Kennedy and her colleagues write, “women are likely to adopt goals and values that promote the welfare of others. Over time, these goals and values may translate into identifying strongly as a moral person.” Because people with stronger moral identities tend to behave more ethically, the researchers hypothesized that women also would care more about ethics in negotiation.

The researchers found support for their theorizing in several experiments—at least, under certain conditions. In one experiment, the researchers measured participants’ sense of moral identity, in part by asking how important it was for them to have certain characteristics associated with morality, such as being caring, fair, generous, helpful, and so on. Next, participants read a negotiation scenario involving the sale of a used car that had one minor and one major mechanical problem. The researchers then measured participants’ degree of moral disengagement—the extent to which they rationalized away unethical decisions—and assessed how committed participants were to negotiating ethically with a potential buyer of the used car.

Female participants internalized moral traits more strongly than male participants and were less likely than men to morally disengage from unethical negotiating strategies, the results showed. In addition, the women were significantly less supportive than the men of unethical negotiating tactics.

When money trumps negotiation ethics

Women don’t always display superior negotiation ethics. In a follow-up experiment, participants played the role of a hiring manager negotiating the salary of a job candidate. The participants were told that the job would be eliminated in six months due to a restructuring, a fact that the candidate did not know.

When participants didn’t have explicit financial incentives to reveal the information, women were more forthright than men about the short-term nature of the job in the simulation that followed. However, when participants were told they would receive $100 for negotiating the lowest salary, women were just as likely as men to behave unethically. Financial incentives eroded the women’s negotiation ethics.

The risks of unethical negotiating behavior

Overall, the findings suggest that women may be socialized to be more ethical negotiators than men. To the extent that unethical behavior by men helps them with value claiming in negotiation, this apparent gender difference may lead women to worse negotiation outcomes than men in some situations, the authors note. However, men could pay more of a price in the long term, as a pattern of unethical negotiating behavior can damage one’s reputation and limit negotiating opportunities.

In addition, when financial incentives to lie or cheat loom large, women may be tempted to focus more on maximizing profit than on adhering to their moral standards, the study by Kennedy, Kray, and Ku shows. This means that women, too, could eventually suffer the consequences of unethical negotiating tactics.

Toward stronger negotiation ethics and ethical behavior

How can we prompt more ethical behavior in ourselves, and how can our leaders encourage negotiators in their organization to behave more morally, regardless of their gender? In their book Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It, Harvard Business School professor Max H. Bazerman and University of Notre Dame professor Ann E. Tenbrunsel note that when we focus on the business rationale for a deal, its ethical dimensions tend to fade from our consciousness. And the less salient our ethics are, the more likely we will be to justify unethical behavior.

Thus, Bazerman and Tenbrunsel advise us to make ethical concerns salient in negotiation. Consider any financial or other motivations you might have to behave unethically, such as lying about a product’s capabilities to make a sale. Acknowledging this motivation should enable you to come up with a sales strategy that’s more aligned with your negotiation ethics.

What pitfalls surrounding ethics and negotiation have you learned to avoid?

Dealmaking

Creative Negotiation Moves: When a Couple’s Deals Became One

Creative negotiation examples offer useful lessons for business negotiators. The Obamas’ 2017 book deal shows possible advantages to combining two negotiations into one.

PON Staff • June 12, 2023

Creative negotiation involves thinking outside the box—seeing the broader possibilities available beyond conventional practice. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that industry outsiders often are best positioned to negotiate creatively because they are less familiar with “how things are done.”

After Barack and Michelle Obama left the White House in 2017, they hired lawyer Robert Barnett to sell their memoirs of their time as president and first lady. Barnett’s “outsider” status in publishing may help to explain his creative negotiation and auction moves on their behalf.

Following the Script

Far from a traditional New York publishing agent, Barnett is a Washington, D.C., lawyer who has fostered a healthy “side business,” as he calls it, representing politicians in their book auctions and negotiations with publishers, writes Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School professor Guhan Subramanian in his book Dealmaking: The New Strategy of Negotiauctions. Luminaries on Barnett’s client list include Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. and Laura Bush, and U.S. senators. Rather than charging his clients 15% of their earnings, as most literary agents do, Barnett bills by the hour, an arrangement that can save his clients considerable money.

Barnett has an established process that he follows with his book clients, writes Subramanian. First, he accompanies them on a tour of major New York publishers to describe the book. Next, he sends editors a letter describing the rules of his auction. Barnett instructs them to submit a detailed offer in writing by a certain date, which should include information about the advance, a payment schedule, royalty levels, and advertising and promotion commitments. He also explains how the auction will unfold: “On [date], I will call the low offeror and ask if he/she will top the high offeror. That process will continue for as long as necessary.” It’s a simple, straightforward auction process.

Rising Action

Executives at top publishing houses met separately with the Obamas in February 2017, according to the New York Times. Interest was likely at a fever pitch. Memoirs by departing presidents typically sell very well, and Barack Obama’s two previously published memoirs were runaway bestsellers.

Early in the negotiation process, it appeared that Barnett, working with his colleague Deneen C. Howell, was going to auction the Obamas’ books separately. At some point, however, the two books were combined into one deal, according to the Times.

The prospect of a joint book deal “propelled the auction to record-breaking levels and has set the publishing industry alight,” according to the Financial Times. HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Penguin Random House reportedly all competed with opening offers for the two books (combined) in the $18 million to $20 million range.

On February 28, the news broke that Penguin Random House was the winning bidder, with a staggering offer of $65 million. Even with the sum divided between the two books, it was a record-breaking deal for a presidential memoir, according to the Financial Times.

Was the Winner Cursed?

The Obamas’ choice of publisher was not a shock, given that Penguin Random House published the couple’s previous four books, but the size of the bid raised eyebrows. Could the publisher recoup such a staggering advance? Or would Penguin Random House be a victim of the “winner’s curse”—the tendency for the winning bidder in an auction to overestimate the commodity’s value?

The deal appears to have been a good bet. The first volume of the former president’s memoir, A Promised Land (published in 2020) and the former first lady’s 2018 memoir, Becoming, sold a combined 25 million copies by 2022 and are expected to sell strongly for years to come, according to Vox. As the former president presumably works on the next volume of his memoir, Michelle Obama has gone on to publish another best-selling book with Penguin Random House, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times.

3 Guidelines for Creative Negotiation:

Question convention. The decision to auction the two books as a package was a creative negotiation that capitalized on the popularity of the Obamas as individuals and as a couple. Combining two or more linked negotiations has the ability to enhance your bargaining power in negotiations by generating a buzz that drives up the price.

Try a “negotiauction.” Barnett favors a negotiation-auction hybrid process—dubbed a negotiauction by Subramanian—in which he and his client(s) negotiate individually with publishers to assess interest and compatibility before holding an auction on price. With negotiauctions, you often can get the best of both worlds: negotiation across multiple issues and the price competition of an auction.

Beware the winner’s curse. Because the highest bidder in an auction often pays more than the commodity is worth, be sure to craft your bid with care. This is especially important when the commodity for sale has a similar value to all bidders rather than having unique value to you.

What other creative negotiation strategies have you observed or participated in lately?

International Negotiation

Dear Negotiation Coach: When Time is Not Money at the Negotiation Table

The perception of time is a critical cultural difference that, though often invisible at the negotiation table, has an important impact on whether you can seal the deal.

PON Staff • June 22, 2021

Q: I have been doing a lot of business deals in the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia. With all due respect, negotiations seem to drag on and on in that part of the world. How can I negotiate effectively in this situation at the negotiation table?

A: You’ve picked up on a critical cultural difference that, though often invisible at the negotiation table, has an important impact on whether you can seal the deal: the perception of time. Cultures around the world vary tremendously in how they view time, and these differences can lead to frustration and lost value at the table.

Americans in general are socialized to view time as money. In negotiation, this means that once the clock starts ticking, we’re focused on getting to yes as efficiently as possible. When talks move slowly (by our standards), we can get frustrated and impatient.

In one study, Elizabeth Salmon and I and our team found that American negotiators, as compared to Middle Eastern negotiators, such as the Lebanese, tend to view time as more condensed and are more impatient as a result. Sensing the ticking clock, we try to minimize small talk and move quickly to substantive issues. Unfortunately, our research also shows that the more impatient American negotiators are, the worse their personal financial outcomes. In our rush to the finish line, we tend to concede more, earn less profit, and insult our counterparts from less hurried cultures in the process.

Ultimately, leaving your watch at home and being patient at the negotiation table when negotiating abroad will help you gain value at the table. As you think about your personal approach to time, keep these four guidelines in mind:

1. Improve your cultural intelligence in advance.

In cross-cultural negotiations, your cultural intelligence quotient, or CQ, is a primary key to success. You can cultivate your CQ by educating yourself about other cultures, interacting with people from different cultures, and being willing to adapt your strategies to the situation. Far beyond negotiators’ cognitive abilities or personalities, having a high CQ helps them create win-win solutions, we’ve found in our research.

2. Change your mindset at the negotiation table.

In the West, we often think about negotiations in terms of sports metaphors, but in many other cultures, relationship cultivation is a more appropriate metaphor. When negotiating in the Middle East, for example, understand that you likely will not cover the tangible aspects of the deal during your first few meetings. Rather, you’ll be negotiating intangibles—such as how to attain the other party’s trust and show that you are an honorable and respectful person. Focusing on such intangibles in the Middle East is critical for attaining win-win agreements, my colleagues and I have found.

3. Understand the roots of cultural differences at the negotiation table.

Cultural differences in negotiation often relate to long-standing ecological and historical conditions. For example, a traditionally Western negotiating style—in which counterparts trust each other swiftly, separate the people from the problem, and get right down to business—is well suited to the ecology of the United States, with its strong legal institutions (which protect us from cheaters), abundant natural resources (which make us less reliant on others), and high mobility (which makes us feel comfortable with strangers). In cultures with weak institutions, unpredictable resources, and low mobility (and thus few interactions with strangers), by contrast, it is more rational to be distrustful of new counterparts and to devote considerable time to assessing their trustworthiness. Understanding why cultural differences evolved can give us greater empathy for our counterparts’ cultural reflexes—and they for ours.

4. Demonstrate trust and signal your reputation early on.

Trust and reputation are your real currency in the Middle East and many other cultures, and they will ultimately reap high dividends at the negotiation table. Our research on professional negotiators in the Middle East from a wide variety of sectors, for example, shows that even simple behaviors—such as demonstrating humility, dressing in professional attire, and arriving on time—communicate that you are a person of honor who respects your counterpart. By comparison, appearing selfish or arrogant, interrupting others, or even looking at your phone can signal a lack of respect that will sour the deal.

Understanding the rational basis of seemingly frustrating behaviors, such as a relaxed approach to time, will help you negotiate effectively anywhere around the globe.

Michele Gelfand
Professor of Psychology and Affiliate of the RH Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland

How do you handle the pressure of time at the negotiation table? Do you handle it differently in other countries?

Negotiation Briefings Articles

Dear Negotiation Coach: When Time is Not Money

What happened when Michelle and Barack Obama teamed up to sell their books.

PON Staff • May 12, 2017

Q: I have been doing a lot of business deals in the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia. With all due respect, negotiations seem to drag on and on in that part of the world. How can I negotiate effectively in this situation?

A: You’ve picked up on a critical cultural difference that, though often invisible at the negotiation table, has an important impact on whether you can seal the deal: the perception of time. Cultures around the world vary tremendously in how they view time, and these differences can lead to frustration and lost value at the table.

Americans in general are socialized to view time as money. In negotiation, this means that once the clock starts ticking, we’re focused on getting to yes as efficiently as possible. When talks move slowly (by our standards), we can get frustrated and impatient. In one study, Elizabeth Salmon and I and our team found that American negotiators, as compared to Middle Eastern negotiators, such as the Lebanese, tend to view time as more condensed and are more impatient as a result. Sensing the ticking clock, we try to minimize small talk and move quickly to substantive issues. Unfortunately, our research also shows that the more impatient American negotiators are, the worse their personal financial outcomes. In our rush to the finish line, we tend to concede more, earn less profit, and insult our counterparts from less hurried cultures in the process.

Ultimately, leaving your watch at home and being patient when negotiating abroad will help you gain value at the table. As you think about your personal approach to time, keep these four guidelines in mind:

1. Improve your cultural intelligence in advance.

In cross-cultural negotiations, your cultural intelligence quotient, or CQ, is a primary key to success. You can cultivate your CQ by educating yourself about other cultures, interacting with people from different cultures, and being willing to adapt your strategies to the situation. Far beyond negotiators’ cognitive abilities or personalities, having a high CQ helps them create win-win solutions, we’ve found in our research.

2. Change your mindset.

In the West, we often think about negotiations in terms of sports metaphors, but in many other cultures, relationship cultivation is a more appropriate metaphor. When negotiating in the Middle East, for example, understand that you likely will not cover the tangible aspects of the deal during your first few meetings. Rather, you’ll be negotiating intangibles—such as how to attain the other party’s trust and show that you are an honorable and respectful person. Focusing on such intangibles in the Middle East is critical for attaining win-win agreements, my colleagues and I have found.

3. Understand the roots of cultural differences.

Cultural differences in negotiation often relate to long-standing ecological and historical conditions. For example, a traditionally Western negotiating style—in which counterparts trust each other swiftly, separate the people from the problem, and get right down to business—is well suited to the ecology of the United States, with its strong legal institutions (which protect us from cheaters), abundant natural resources (which make us less reliant on others), and high mobility (which makes us feel comfortable with strangers). In cultures with weak institutions, unpredictable resources, and low mobility (and thus few interactions with strangers), by contrast, it is more rational to be distrustful of new counterparts and to devote considerable time to assessing their trustworthiness. Understanding why cultural differences evolved can give us greater empathy for our counterparts’ cultural reflexes—and they for ours.

4. Demonstrate trust and signal your reputation early on.

Trust and reputation are your real currency in the Middle East and many other cultures, and they will ultimately reap high dividends. Our research on professional negotiators in the Middle East from a wide variety of sectors, for example, shows that even simple behaviors—such as demonstrating humility, dressing in professional attire, and arriving on time—communicate that you are a person of honor who respects your counterpart. By comparison, appearing selfish or arrogant, interrupting others, or even looking at your phone can signal a lack of respect that will sour the deal.

Understanding the rational basis of seemingly frustrating behaviors, such as a relaxed approach to time, will help you negotiate effectively anywhere around the globe.

Michele Gelfand
Professor and Distinguished University Scholar Teacher
Department of Psychology
University of Maryland
Visiting Scholar, Harvard Kennedy School and the Middle East Institute

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Negotiation Briefings Articles

When Two Deals are Better than One

What happened when Michelle and Barack Obama teamed up to sell their books.

PON Staff • May 12, 2017

When you have multiple negotiations to conduct with one or more partners, should you combine them into one big deal? In negotiations for the sale of new books by Barack and Michelle Obama, the answer was an emphatic yes.

Cast of characters

When famous political figures have a book to sell, they turn to one person: Robert B. Barnett. Far from a traditional New York publishing agent, Barnett is a partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm Williams & Connolly. He spends much of his time representing corporate clients in negotiation and litigation but has fostered a healthy “side business,” as he calls it, representing prominent politicians in their book auctions and negotiations with publishers, writes Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School professor Guhan Subramanian in his book Dealmaking: The New Strategy of Negotiauctions (W. W. Norton, 2011).

Luminaries on Barnett’s client list include Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. and Laura Bush, and Tony Blair, not to mention numerous U.S. senators and secretaries of state. Rather than charging his clients 15% of their earnings (including book advances and royalties), as most literary agents do, Barnett bills by the hour, an arrangement that can save his clients considerable money. (Barnett has yet another side business with politicians: He helps with their debate preparation by playing their competitors, including Dick Cheney and Bernie Sanders, in practice debates.)

So when the Obamas returned to Washington, D.C., from their post-presidential vacation earlier this year, it wasn’t surprising that one of their first orders of business was to arrange for Barnett to sell the books they are planning to write, which are expected to be memoirs of their time in the White House.

A tried-and-true story line

Barnett follows a very similar script with all his book clients. First, he accompanies his latest superstar politician on a tour of the major publishers in New York City, where the politician describes the book to “swooning editors,” according to Subramanian.

Next, Barnett gives the editors a letter describing the rules of the auction that will take place, which are the same every time, writes Subramanian. Specifically, Barnett instructs interested bidders to submit their offer in writing to him by a certain date in as much detail as possible. They are instructed to reveal the size of the advance they are willing to offer, a payment schedule, information on royalty levels, a description of how much they are willing to commit to advertising and promotion, and other financial and marketing details.

In the world of trade publishing, authors and their agents typically negotiate an advance from their publishers to be paid before or upon delivery of a book, or in installments. Often, books fail to sell well enough for the publisher to recoup the money paid out for the advance. If a book does earn back its advance, the publisher then begins paying the author royalties—a small percentage of earnings, such as $2 on a $25 book—for each book subsequently sold. In effect, a publisher counts on bestsellers and other successful books to subsidize those that sell less well.

Barnett’s letter explains to publishers how the auction will unfold: “On [date], I will call the low offeror and ask if he/she will top the high offeror. That process will continue for as long as necessary.” It’s a simple, straightforward auction process.

Rising suspense

Executives at top publishing houses met separately with the Obamas in February, according to the New York Times. Interest was likely at a fever pitch. Memoirs by departing presidents typically sell very well, earning back even high advances. Bill Clinton won a $15 million advance for his memoir, My Life, and George W. Bush earned $10 million for his, Decision Points.

There was reason for publishers to hope that the first African American U.S. president’s memoir could prove to be not only a hit, but an enduring classic. Obama’s two published memoirs, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope, were runaway bestsellers that have earned more than $10 million combined and secured his reputation as an introspective prose stylist. (While in office, Obama also wrote a successful children’s picture book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters, and donated his share of the proceeds to a scholarship fund for children of fallen and disabled soldiers.)

A plot twist emerges

Early in the negotiation process, it appeared that Barnett, working this time in tandem with another Williams & Connolly partner, Deneen C. Howell, was going to auction the Obamas’ books separately. At some point that changed, however, and the two books were combined into one deal, the New York Times reports.

The prospect of a joint book deal “propelled the auction to record-breaking levels and has set the publishing industry alight,” according to the Financial Times. HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Penguin Random House reportedly all competed with opening offers for the two books (combined) in the $18 to $20 million range.

A winning bidder

On February 28, the news broke that Penguin Random House was the winning bidder, with a staggering offer for the
two books: $65 million. Even with the sum divided between the two books, it was a record-breaking amount for a presidential memoir, according to the Financial Times. The fact that Barnett and Howell charge by the hour, rather than shaving off the standard 15%, likely saved the Obamas millions, according to the Associated Press.

In addition to winning a record-breaking advance for their political memoirs, the Obamas negotiated for Random House to donate one million books in their family’s name to First Book, a nonprofit that provides books to disadvantaged children. They plan to donate part of their advances to charity, including their newly formed Obama Foundation.

A Penguin Random House spokesperson said that the publisher looked forward to working with the Obamas to “make each of their books global publishing events of unprecedented scope and significance.”

Was the winner cursed?

The Obamas’ choice of publisher was not a great shock, given that Penguin Random House had published all four of the Obamas’ previous books, but the size of the bid raised eyebrows. Did the publisher have any hope of recouping such a staggering advance? Or would Penguin Random House be a victim of the “winner’s curse”—the tendency for the winning bidder in an auction to be the one who most overestimates the commodity’s value?

The fact that Penguin Random House bought worldwide rights to the books should help it avoid the winner’s curse. The Obamas remain popular abroad, and overseas interest in their books is expected to be significant.

Moreover, the former president, who is said to have kept a journal while in office, has already proven his ability to deliver profitable books. Even as Republicans work to dismantle signature legislation and initiatives from Obama’s presidency, the book will give Obama a chance to highlight his legacy—and perhaps settle some scores. And although Michelle Obama’s only book to date, American Grown, was about the White House garden, interest in the reminiscences of the popular first lady is also expected to be high.

In the end, Penguin Random House may have been willing to take a gamble on overpaying for the chance to burnish its reputation by securing the Obamas’ post White House memoirs.

3 guidelines for reaching a happy ending:

1. Be open to creative dealmaking. The decision to auction the two books as a package was a creative one that capitalized on the popularity of the Obamas as individuals and as a couple. Combining two or more linked negotiations can be a smart choice, potentially generating a buzz that drives up price.
2. Try a “negotiauction.” Barnett favors a negotiation-auction hybrid process—dubbed a negotiauction by Subramanian—in which he and his client(s) negotiate individually with publishers to assess interest and compatibility before holding an auction on price. With a negotiauction, you can often get the best of both worlds: negotiation across multiple issues and the price competition of an auction.
3. Beware the winner’s curse. Because the highest bidder in an auction often pays more than the commodity is worth, be sure to craft your bid with care. This is especially important when the commodity for sale has a similar value to all bidders rather than having unique value to you.

Negotiation Briefings Articles

How Technology is Changing Us and the Way We Negotiate

New ways of communicating and interacting unleashed by technological advances could have a profound effect on our negotiation behavior.

PON Staff • May 12, 2017

Imagine that two people are introduced to each other via email by a mutual friend. They begin discussions on the phone regarding a potential business partnership, which lead to several in-person meetings during which their laptops are open and their smartphones are on the table, available for checking facts and tracking down data. In between the meetings, the two negotiators email and text ideas to each other at all hours of the day and night. When logistics make it difficult to meet in person, they have a videoconference and, later, a teleconference to introduce various members of their teams. They finalize their agreement with an in-person meeting and, in the end, sign a contract that one party’s lawyer photographs and texts to the other’s on her phone.

As this hypothetical but typical scenario shows, technology has infiltrated almost every element of our negotiations, as it has almost every aspect of our lives. Negotiation scholars have studied how negotiating via technological media affects the way we negotiate—concluding, for example, that doing business via email can increase misunderstandings and heighten conflict as compared to face-to-face meetings. But the ubiquity of technology in society inevitably affects not only how we negotiate but also who we are, even when we are negotiating in person, writes Creighton University School of Law professor Noam Ebner in a new article in the Missouri Journal of Dispute Resolution.

Our use of technology is altering the pathways in our brains in ways that scientists are just beginning to understand. And research from outside the field of negotiation is identifying changes in behaviors, psychology, and emotions that are highly relevant to negotiation. According to Ebner, our use of technology is affecting our focus, empathy, and trust in ways that could require negotiation scholars to reconsider even bedrock beliefs about the field.

Changes in attention and empathy

In his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (W. W. Norton, 2011), journalist Nicholas Carr draws on neuroscientific research to argue that the way we use technology is impairing our ability to focus, learn, and think deeply. More than ever, we “multitask,” even as science shows that the human brain is incapable of focusing on more than one input at a time. Rather than reading text from start to finish, we scan it for key words and highlights, gathering just enough information to back up our arguments at a meeting or to tell an amusing anecdote at a dinner party.

The very presence of technology can lessen our attention and empathy, Virginia Tech professor Shalini Misra and her colleagues found in a study called “The iPhone Effect.” The researchers paired up 200 people, some of whom were already friends, and randomly assigned them to discuss either a casual or a meaningful topic for 10 minutes in a coffee shop. Research assistants monitored whether participants held their smartphones or put them on the table, or kept them out of sight.

Analyzing the conversations, the researchers found that when a cell phone was in view, the quality of interactions suffered. Specifically, people who spoke to each other with a cell phone present reported less empathetic concern for one another and found the conversation less fulfilling, whether their topic was deep or shallow. The negative impact of a cell phone was even stronger on people who already knew each other. The researchers concluded that the mere presence of a smartphone can distract us from one another and make us miss subtle but important communication cues, such as facial expressions, eye contact, and changes in tone.