When weighing offers in negotiation, we try to focus on what matters most to us over the short and long term—but irrelevant factors can lead us astray. Here are some common pitfalls, plus advice on how to improve your decision making in negotiation.

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Build powerful negotiation skills and become a better dealmaker and leader. Download our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

Challenge No. 1: Information Overload

We’re generally taught that the more choices we have in a negotiation, the better off we’ll be. Having multiple options encourages us to make valuable trade-offs and promotes mutually beneficial agreements.

But this commonsense logic overlooks the fact that an excess of information can overload our minds and lead to poor decision making in negotiation. In a classic study by Georgia Tech Professor Naresh Malhotra, heads of household were asked to make a hypothetical home purchase based on their actual preferences. Those asked to choose among five houses were much better at picking a house that reflected their true preferences than those given 25 houses to consider. When we feel overwhelmed by options, our thinking becomes more simplistic and intuitive. We might become paralyzed by indecision or make rash choices that we later regret.

Remedies: Offer clients and customers no more choices than they can reasonably be expected to weigh thoughtfully. In general, making three offers that vary on different dimensions is a good rule of thumb.

When you’re the decision maker, notice when you feel overwhelmed by choices. Try to eliminate options (or ask the seller to do so), and start fresh when the decision is more manageable.

Challenge No. 2: Perfectionistic Decision Making in Negotiation

When choosing among options, people have different goals. Some are maximizers: They aim to get the very best deal possible. Others are satisficers: They settle for “good enough,” economist Herbert Simon observed in the 1950s. A maximizer who’s booking an island vacation might spend weeks researching locations, resorts, and airfare. A satisficer, meanwhile, may devote just an hour or two to comparison shopping.

“The goal of maximizing is a source of great dissatisfaction” due to the “tyranny of overwhelming choices” in modern life, writes Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. Maximizers are much more likely than satisficers to suffer buyer’s remorse, even if they end up with objectively better results, he found in his research.

Remedies: To make the most of our time, we need to become comfortable accepting “good enough” options, writes Schwartz. That can mean spending less time making decisions that don’t matter much, while giving weighty choices—such as which job to take, how best to save for retirement, and where to live—the close attention they deserve.

Challenge No. 3: The Outsized Influence of Scarcity

According to the scarcity principle, “opportunities seem more valuable to us when they are less available,” writes Robert Cialdini in his book The Paradox of Choice: Whey More is Less. If encountering a plethora of options can paralyze us into inaction, facing seemingly scarce commodities can propel us toward rash decision making in negotiation. Impatience, fear of missing out, loss aversion, and our competitive instincts explain why commodities seem more attractive when they’re scarce.

Negotiators often capitalize on the power of scarcity to prompt impulse decisions. Stores that have no intention of closing hold going-out-of-business sales. Shopping networks tick down the number of available items to prompt viewers to grab their phones. In job negotiations, hiring organizations make exploding offers.

Sadly, the thrill of acquiring a rare item tends to be fleeting. “The joy is not in the experiencing of a scarce commodity but in the possessing of it,” writes Cialdini.

Remedies: Take note of the panicky feeling that floods you when you crave a scarce resource, recommends Cialdini. Then think about why you crave it. Will it add value to your life? Remind yourself that it will function the same whether it’s scarce or plentiful. Then assess whether it’s really the right purchase for you—and if it is, resist the urge to overpay.

Challenge No. 4: The Status Trap

In a 1998 study, researchers Sara J. Solnick and David Hemenway presented participants with pairs of choices in which the objectively inferior option was superior to what others were receiving, and the objectively superior option was inferior to what others were receiving.

For example, participants were asked whether they’d prefer to earn (a) $50,000 annually when others earn $25,000 or (b) $100,000 a year when others earn $200,000.

For most pairs, the majority of respondents chose the option with the worse objective outcome but the better relative position. Believe it or not, they said they’d take $50,000 rather than $100,000 so they could earn more than others.

In negotiation and beyond, we care a lot about how we measure up to others—so much so that we sacrifice money, time, and other valued resources just to feel superior. Unfortunately, the quest for status never ends, and we never quite feel satisfied.

Remedies: Not surprisingly, people who care less about how they stack up relative to others tend to be happier than those who engage in more frequent social comparisons, University of California, Riverside Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky has found. In addition, maximizers tend to be more prone to making social comparisons than satisficers, according to Schwartz. Consciously narrowing our decision set can reduce a status fixation. Contemplating what we value most—such as time with family and friends—can also help us reprioritize negotiation goals.

What other strategies have you found useful for improving decision making in negotiation?

Claim your FREE copy: Negotiation Skills

Build powerful negotiation skills and become a better dealmaker and leader. Download our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

In the United States, the gender wage gap for full-time workers amounts to women earning about 80 cents on the dollar as compared to men; similar or greater disparities can be found across the globe. Hannah Riley Bowles, the Roy E. Larsen Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School, and a leading researcher on gender and negotiation, explains in an interview that taking a broader view of career negotiations may help close the gap.

Claim your FREE copy: Negotiation Skills

Build powerful negotiation skills and become a better dealmaker and leader. Download our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

Program on Negotiation: What changes can help close the gender wage gap?

Hannah Riley Bowles: Economic studies show that the gender wage gap is explained more by differences in men’s and women’s career trajectories than by how men and women are paid for the same work. I encourage women to think about negotiation as a tool not only for increasing their pay in a particular role but also for advancing their careers—whether that means navigating their way into better jobs or remaining employed during periods of work-family conflict. Women—really, everyone—should take a broader view of what they negotiate to advance their careers beyond pay bargaining.

PON: What should we be negotiating?

HRB: Negotiating for resources and opportunities that support your professional growth may be most important. In our research, Bobbi Thomason from Pepperdine’s Graziadio Business School, Julia Bear from Stony Brook University, and I asked hundreds of midcareer professionals and senior executives to describe a recent career negotiation they had initiated. Again and again, they shared stories about negotiating their roles—leadership opportunities, expanded scope of authority, professional development, etc. Only a small percentage of the examples related primarily to negotiating pay.

PON: But what about research showing a backlash against women who ask for more?

HRB: In studies of what managers and executives negotiate to advance their careers, we observed no evidence of gender differences in the propensity to negotiate roles, but men reported more pay negotiations than women, and women reported more workload negotiations than men, particularly to manage work-family conflicts.

The clearest evidence of greater resistance to female than to male negotiators (“backlash”) comes from studies of pay bargaining. There is also evidence that men sometimes face more backlash than women when negotiating flexible work arrangements or paid leave. This suggests that it’s hard for both men and women to self-advocate in a counter-stereotypical way.

What men and women negotiate is important to the story of the gender wage gap. Let’s say you have a young professional couple that aims to have a 50-50 relationship. However, at work, she has more potential to negotiate for family leave or flexible work, and he has more potential to negotiate for higher pay. With the birth of their first child, they might find themselves slipping into a more traditional relationship than they had planned.

PON: What differences have you observed in men’s and women’s career negotiations?

HRB: To our surprise, we found that, across studies in different types of work contexts, women were more likely than men to recount initiating what we refer to as “bending” negotiations—requests for personal exceptions or nonstandard work arrangements, such as a special opportunity for professional development or an unusually flexible work situation. Digging deeper, we realized that women may be trying to reconcile their “lack of fit” with traditionally male-dominated career paths.

It was inspiring to see how women had negotiated to remain professionally employed during times of work-family conflict or to carve out counter-stereotypical career paths. For example, in a firm where most senior managers are also engineers, a woman who is not an engineer might argue, “You need a leader with my experience building cross-functional teams. Give me six months to see if I can make a difference.”

PON: Adopting this wider view, what can organizational leaders do to enhance gender equity in career negotiations?

HRB: For practical and ethical reasons, it isn’t right to imagine that women will close the gender pay gap simply by negotiating harder. Social change requires top-down leadership as well as pressure from the bottom up. Organizational leaders should look critically at how work norms and culture shape career advancement and whether some current practices might contribute to gender inequality.

For example, it is well documented that lack of transparency about what is potentially negotiable increases the potential for gender differences in negotiation outcomes. Organizational leaders should make sure that all employees have the same quality of information and advice about what is negotiable—for instance, by increasing transparency about potential resources and opportunities for career advancement, and ensuring that everyone has colleagues to go to for professional support.

How have you navigated career negotiations that went against typical gender expectations?

Claim your FREE copy: Negotiation Skills

Build powerful negotiation skills and become a better dealmaker and leader. Download our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

In the United States, the gender wage gap for full-time workers amounts to women earning about 80 cents on the dollar as compared to men; similar or greater disparities can be found across the globe. Hannah Riley Bowles, the Roy E. Larsen Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School, and a leading researcher on gender and negotiation, explains why salary negotiations are only part of the story.

Negotiation Briefings: Beyond encouraging women to negotiate more assertively for higher pay, what more is needed to close the gender wage gap?

Hannah Riley Bowles: Economic studies show that the gender wage gap is explained more by differences in men’s and women’s career trajectories than by how men and women are paid for the same work. I encourage women to think about negotiation as a tool not only for increasing their pay in a particular job but also for advancing their career trajectories. We will make faster progress toward closing the gender wage gap by getting more women into high-paying jobs than by negotiating a little more money in lower-paid occupations. Women—really, everyone— should take a broader view of what they negotiate to advance their careers.

NB: What should we be negotiating?

HRB: Negotiating for resources and opportunities that support your professional growth may be most important. In recent research, my coauthors—Bobbi Thomason from Pepperdine’s Graziadio Business School and Julia Bear from Stony Brook University—and I asked hundreds of midcareer professionals and senior executives to describe a recent career negotiation they’d initiated. Again and again, they shared stories about negotiating their roles—leadership opportunities, expanded scope of authority, professional development, etc. Only a small percentage of the examples related primarily to negotiating pay.

NB: But what about research showing a backlash against female negotiators who ask for more?

HRB: The strongest evidence of backlash is in the realm of pay. We associate men with being the high earners and family breadwinners, which makes pay negotiations counterstereotypical for women. There’s growing evidence that men face more backlash than women when negotiating flexible work arrangements or paid leave, which are feminine-stereotyped benefits. This suggests the problem isn’t that “women don’t ask” but that it’s hard for both men and women to self-advocate in a counterstereotypical way. In our recent research, we observed no evidence of gender differences in the propensity to negotiate roles, but men reported more pay negotiations than women, and women reported more workload negotiations than men, particularly to manage work-family conflicts.

What men and women negotiate is important to the story of the gender wage gap. Let’s say you have a young professional couple that aims to have a 50-50 relationship. However, at work, she has more potential to negotiate for family leave or flexible work, and he has more potential to negotiate for higher pay. With the birth of a first child, they might find themselves slipping into a more traditional relationship than they had planned.

NB: What differences have you observed in how men and women negotiate?

HRB: To our surprise, we found that, across studies in different types of work contexts, women were more likely than men to recount initiating what we refer to as “bending” negotiations—requests for personal exceptions or nonstandard work arrangements, such as a special opportunity for professional development or an unusually flexible work situation. Digging deeper, we realized that women may be trying to reconcile their “lack of fit” with traditionally male-dominated career paths. It was inspiring to see how women had negotiated to remain professionally employed during times of work-family conflict or to carve out counterstereotypical career paths. For example, in a firm where most senior managers are also engineers, a woman who is not an engineer might argue, “You need a leader with my experience building cross-functional teams. Give me six months to see if I can make a difference.”

NB: Adopting this wider view, what can organizational leaders do to enhance gender equity in career negotiations?

HRB: For practical and ethical reasons, it isn’t right to imagine that women will close the gender pay gap simply by negotiating harder. Social change requires top-down leadership, as well as pressure from the bottom up. Organizational leaders should look critically at how work norms and culture shape career advancement and whether some current practices might contribute to gender inequality. For example, it is well documented that lack of transparency about what is potentially negotiable increases the potential for gender differences in negotiation outcomes. Organizational leaders should make sure that all employees have the same quality of information and advice about what is negotiable—for instance, by increasing transparency about potential resources and opportunities for career advancement, and ensuring that everyone has colleagues to go to for professional support.

When weighing our options in negotiation, we try to focus on what matters most to us over the long term. Yet aspects of the decision-making process, many of them irrelevant, can interfere with our best judgment. In particular, the number of options we’re facing, the quest for the “perfect” choice, and status concerns can all get in the way of making a good decision.

Challenge No. 1:
Information overload

We’re generally taught in negotiation that the more choices we have, the better off we’ll be. The presence of multiple options encourages us to make valuable tradeoffs across issues and increases our odds of reaching a mutually beneficial agreement.

But there’s something this commonsense logic overlooks: An excess of information can overload our minds and lead us to make poor choices. In a study by Georgia Tech College of Management professor Naresh Malhotra, heads of household were asked to make a hypothetical home purchase based on their actual preferences. Those who were given five houses to choose among were much better at picking a house that reflected their true preferences than were those who were given 25 houses to consider. When we feel overwhelmed by options, our thinking becomes more simplistic and intuitive. We might become paralyzed by indecision or make rash choices that we quickly regret.

Remedies: The negative effects of information overload have clear implications for agents, marketers, and salespeople: Offer clients and customers no more choices than they can reasonably be expected to weigh thoughtfully and deliberately. Though it depends on the context, making three offers that vary on different dimensions tends to be a sound rule of thumb.

When you’re the decision maker, notice when you feel overwhelmed by an array of choices, as that’s a sign you’re headed toward making a subpar decision. Take a step back, try to eliminate irrelevant and undesirable options from your choice set (or ask the seller to do so), and start fresh when the size of the decision is manageable.

Challenge No. 2:
Perfectionistic decision making

When choosing among options, people have different goals. Some people tend to be maximizers—they set the goal of choosing the absolute best option for themselves or getting the very best deal possible. Others tend to be satisficers— that is, they settle for what seems “good enough” without worrying about whether an even better option lurks around the corner, Nobel Prize–winning economist Herbert Simon observed in the 1950s. A maximizer who’s booking an island vacation online might spend days or even weeks researching locations, resorts, and airfare. A satisficer, meanwhile, may devote just an hour or two comparison-shopping across websites and reading reviews.

“The goal of maximizing is a source of great dissatisfaction” due to the “tyranny of overwhelming choices” in modern life, writes Swarthmore College professor Barry Schwartz in his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less (Ecco, 2005). Sifting through the dizzying array of choices available to today’s consumers, maximizers may vacillate between feeling bored and feeling anxious. They’re also much more likely than satisficers to suffer buyer’s remorse, even if they end up with objectively better results, Schwartz has found in his research.

Remedies: To make the most of our limited time and maximize our contentment, we need to become comfortable with the idea of accepting “good enough” options, writes Schwartz. That can mean spending less time making decisions that don’t matter much, while giving weighty choices—such as which job to take, how best to save for retirement, and where to live—the close attention they deserve. By spending less time searching and negotiating for the “perfect” choice, we can free up time for more important matters—and be happier with our decisions.

Challenge No. 3:
The outsized influence of scarcity

Imagine that you have a child who, over the course of several years, has talked you into agreeing to get a dog. (You are a cat person.) You head to the local animal shelter, reminding your child that you will choose a small, quiet, full-grown, well-trained dog or no dog at all. The only dog at the shelter that day is Susie, a large, enthusiastic puppy who barks a lot and loves jumping on you and licking your face. You are about to deliver a valuable life lesson to your child on patience and discernment when a shelter volunteer tells you that another family is planning to come back later in the day to give Susie a second look. You then learn that there haven’t been many dogs at the shelter lately. “Is she up to date on her shots?” you find yourself asking the volunteer.

Though she doesn’t check off any of your boxes, Susie could turn out to be the perfect dog for your family. But there’s also the real risk that you’re tempted to adopt her because she’s the only dog staring (and licking) you in the face.

According to the scarcity principle, “opportunities seem more valuable to us when they are less available,” writes Arizona State University professor Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: Science and Practice (Pearson, 2009). If encountering a plethora of options can paralyze us into inaction, facing seemingly scarce commodities can propel us toward rash decisions. Impatience, fear of missing out, aversion to suffering a loss, and our competitive instincts are just some of the factors that explain why commodities seem more attractive when they’re scarce.

Marketers often capitalize on the power of scarcity to provoke impulse purchases. Stores that have no intention of closing hold going-out-of-business sales. Shopping networks tick down the number of available items to jolt viewers into picking up their phones.

Sadly, the thrill that comes with acquiring a rare item tends to be fleeting. “The joy is not in the experiencing of a scarce commodity but in the possessing of it,” writes Cialdini.

Remedies: Take note of the panicky feeling that floods you when you crave a scarce resource, recommends Cialdini. Then think about why you crave it. Will it add value to your life? If it serves a useful purpose (whether a lawnmower, a rare book, or a loving puppy), remind yourself that it will function the same whether it’s scarce or plentiful. Then assess whether it’s really the right purchase for you—and if it is, resist the urge to overpay.

Challenge No. 4:
The status trap

In a 1998 study, University of Vermont professor Sara J. Solnick and Harvard School of Health Policy professor David Hemenway presented participants with pairs of hypothetical personal circumstances and asked them to make a choice for each one. For each pair, the objectively inferior option was superior to what others were receiving, and the objectively superior option was inferior to what others were receiving. For example, participants were asked whether they’d prefer to earn (a) $50,000 annually when others earn $25,000, or (b) $100,000 a year when others earn $200,000. For most pairs, the majority of respondents chose the option with the worse objective outcome but the better relative position. Believe it or not, they said they’d take $50,000 rather than $100,000 so they could earn more than others.

In negotiation and beyond, we care a lot about how we measure up to others—so much that we might sacrifice money, time, and other valued resources just to feel superior. Unfortunately, the quest for status never really ends, so we never quite feel satisfied. As our social media accounts remind us by the minute, there are always new, more elusive heights to aim for.

Remedies: Not surprisingly, people who care less about how they stack up relative to others tend to be happier than those who engage in more frequent social comparisons, University of California, Riverside professor Sonja Lyubomirsky has found in her research. In addition, maximizers tend to be more prone to making social comparisons than satisficers, writes Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice. Consciously narrowing our decision set should help reduce our fixation on status. Contemplating what we value most in life—such as time with family and friends—can also help us reprioritize our negotiation goals.

When your negotiating leverage seems to be nonexistent, you may need to enlist the help of an influential advocate. The owner of a venerable New York bar came to that realization just in the nick of time.

More than just a watering hole

Neir’s Tavern, which opened in the Woodhaven neighborhood of Queens in 1829, may be the oldest New York City bar to operate continually in the same location—except during Prohibition, when it reportedly became a speakeasy posing as a flower shop. Mae West is said to have staged early performances at the bar, which has been immortalized in several films, most notably Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mafia classic, Goodfellas.

In 2009, Loycent Gordon, a Jamaican immigrant and New York Fire Department lieutenant, bought and restored Neir’s, which he affectionately calls “the most famous bar you’ve never heard of,” the New York Times reports. Located in an unassuming building in a working-class neighborhood, the bar doesn’t have the same cachet as historic Manhattan bars. New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission declined to give the tavern landmark status in 2015.

But for many locals, Neir’s is more than just a bar. “This area doesn’t have the money to build their own community center, but they had Neir’s Tavern,” Gordon told the Times. He offers the bar up as a meeting space for local organizations and dreamed of buying the building and opening a museum and cultural center.

Those hopes were dashed in December 2018, when brothers Henry and Qing Shi bought the building, which includes a martial arts studio and several residential apartments, for $1.35 million. The new owners quickly raised Neir’s monthly rent from $2,000 to $3,000. Gordon struggled to keep the bar solvent. Then, near the end of 2019, the landlords told him they would be hiking his rent to $5,400.

Last call for alcohol?

In the middle of happy hour on Wednesday, January 8, Gordon tearfully announced to staff and customers that the tavern would close that Sunday “unless a miracle happens.” Gordon said he’d been losing money and didn’t see a way to keep Neir’s open.

But he wasn’t quite ready to give up. Gordon made a last-ditch appeal to New York mayor Bill de Blasio’s office, according to the New York Daily News. The mayor, City Councilman Robert Holden, New York Assemblyman Mike Miller, and Queens Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Grech gathered on Friday, January 10, with Gordon and the Shi brothers to try to hammer out a compromise.

“We spent two hours at the chamber of commerce today,” Grech later told the New York Post. “I locked the door, and I said we’re not going to leave until we have a deal.”

The talks were tense until Henry Shi revealed that he was having difficulty getting a mortgage on the building because it lacked a proper certificate of occupancy and didn’t comply with current zoning rules, Holden told the Times.

That knowledge led to a breakthrough. Shi agreed to a much lower rent increase for Neir’s in exchange for a promise from Holden that the building would get up to date with zoning requirements. The mayor promised Gordon a $90,000 small-business grant to spend on improvements to the business, according to the Daily News. Shi and Gordon shook on a new five- year lease with a renewal option.

Raise a glass

What was to have been the start of a farewell weekend turned into a victory party, combined with a rally led by proponents of commercial rent-stabilization measures aimed at protecting small New York businesses. De Blasio poured beer and accepted thanks for his intervention.

Gordon told Gothamist he was looking ahead to Neir’s 200th anniversary in 2029 and hoping the publicity would give the bar another chance at achieving landmark status. He also took a moment to reflect on the past, noting that Neir’s was just one of many New York businesses struggling to stay afloat amid “long-term speculation by landlords.”

Local businesses, Gordon said, “don’t have the same kind of leverage” in negotiations with landlords: “What are we going to say, we’ll walk away from our business? That’s not leverage.” Mayor de Blasio has declined to support proposed formal rent protections for small businesses, saying the courts were likely to overturn them, according to Gothamist.

As revelers toasted Neir’s future, Teresa Cruz Arcos, who has lived above the bar with her daughter, sister, and nephew since 2013, headed downstairs, according to the Queens Daily Eagle. Cruz Arcos was happy for the bar but uneasy about her own future in the building. Benefiting from a New York state law that excludes small buildings from rent stabilization, the Shis have been trying to evict Cruz Arcos and her family. Cruz Arcos said they’re up to date on their rent but haven’t had a formal lease in years. A real-estate brochure produced when the Shis briefly put the building on the market suggested the next buyer might be able to charge $2,800 for the apartment—about double what Cruz Arcos’ family pays.

At Neir’s, Cruz Arcos approached de Blasio with advocates from a local nonprofit group that has been helping her fight the eviction in court. A representative from the mayor’s office later told the Eagle that the city would try to intervene to help keep Cruz Arcos and her family in their home.

Bellying up to the bargaining table

• Look for friends in high places. Gordon rightly calculated that, in New York’s current real estate market, he didn’t have much leverage in negotiations with his landlord. Seeking assistance from a much more powerful party—the mayor—was a bold move that gave Gordon the publicity and leverage he needed. Cruz Arcos then wisely took advantage of the focus on Neir’s to plead her own case to the mayor.
• Probe their underlying interests. Negotiators often miss out on a simple strategy for breaking through impasse: Ask questions aimed at better understanding the other party’s refusal to back down. Only after Henry Shi disclosed barriers the building was posing to his plans were the negotiators able to envision possible solutions.
• Level the playing field. The mayor’s office can’t come to the assistance of every New York tenant facing soaring rents. To help preserve the city’s character and appease the public, New York leaders would be wise to come up with more systemic ways of giving tenants greater power in dealings with landlords.

When your negotiating leverage seems to be nonexistent, you may need to enlist the help of an influential advocate. The owner of a venerable New York bar came to that realization just in the nick of time.

More than just a watering hole

Neir’s Tavern, which opened in the Woodhaven neighborhood of Queens in 1829, may be the oldest New York City bar to operate continually in the same location—except during Prohibition, when it reportedly became a speakeasy posing as a flower shop. Mae West is said to have staged early performances at the bar, which has been immortalized in several films, most notably Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mafia classic, Goodfellas.

In 2009, Loycent Gordon, a Jamaican immigrant and New York Fire Department lieutenant, bought and restored Neir’s, which he affectionately calls “the most famous bar you’ve never heard of,” the New York Times reports. Located in an unassuming building in a working-class neighborhood, the bar doesn’t have the same cachet as historic Manhattan bars. New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission declined to give the tavern landmark status in 2015.

But for many locals, Neir’s is more than just a bar. “This area doesn’t have the money to build their own community center, but they had Neir’s Tavern,” Gordon told the Times. He offers the bar up as a meeting space for local organizations and dreamed of buying the building and opening a museum and cultural center.

Those hopes were dashed in December 2018, when brothers Henry and Qing Shi bought the building, which includes a martial arts studio and several residential apartments, for $1.35 million. The new owners quickly raised Neir’s monthly rent from $2,000 to $3,000. Gordon struggled to keep the bar solvent. Then, near the end of 2019, the landlords told him they would be hiking his rent to $5,400.

Last call for alcohol?

In the middle of happy hour on Wednesday, January 8, Gordon tearfully announced to staff and customers that the tavern would close that Sunday “unless a miracle happens.” Gordon said he’d been losing money and didn’t see a way to keep Neir’s open.

But he wasn’t quite ready to give up. Gordon made a last-ditch appeal to New York mayor Bill de Blasio’s office, according to the New York Daily News. The mayor, City Councilman Robert Holden, New York Assemblyman Mike Miller, and Queens Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Grech gathered on Friday, January 10, with Gordon and the Shi brothers to try to hammer out a compromise.

“We spent two hours at the chamber of commerce today,” Grech later told the New York Post. “I locked the door, and I said we’re not going to leave until we have a deal.”

The talks were tense until Henry Shi revealed that he was having difficulty getting a mortgage on the building because it lacked a proper certificate of occupancy and didn’t comply with current zoning rules, Holden told the Times.

That knowledge led to a breakthrough. Shi agreed to a much lower rent increase for Neir’s in exchange for a promise from Holden that the building would get up to date with zoning requirements. The mayor promised Gordon a $90,000 small-business grant to spend on improvements to the business, according to the Daily News. Shi and Gordon shook on a new five- year lease with a renewal option.

Raise a glass

What was to have been the start of a farewell weekend turned into a victory party, combined with a rally led by proponents of commercial rent-stabilization measures aimed at protecting small New York businesses. De Blasio poured beer and accepted thanks for his intervention.

Gordon told Gothamist he was looking ahead to Neir’s 200th anniversary in 2029 and hoping the publicity would give the bar another chance at achieving landmark status. He also took a moment to reflect on the past, noting that Neir’s was just one of many New York businesses struggling to stay afloat amid “long-term speculation by landlords.”

Local businesses, Gordon said, “don’t have the same kind of leverage” in negotiations with landlords: “What are we going to say, we’ll walk away from our business? That’s not leverage.” Mayor de Blasio has declined to support proposed formal rent protections for small businesses, saying the courts were likely to overturn them, according to Gothamist.

As revelers toasted Neir’s future, Teresa Cruz Arcos, who has lived above the bar with her daughter, sister, and nephew since 2013, headed downstairs, according to the Queens Daily Eagle. Cruz Arcos was happy for the bar but uneasy about her own future in the building. Benefiting from a New York state law that excludes small buildings from rent stabilization, the Shis have been trying to evict Cruz Arcos and her family. Cruz Arcos said they’re up to date on their rent but haven’t had a formal lease in years. A real-estate brochure produced when the Shis briefly put the building on the market suggested the next buyer might be able to charge $2,800 for the apartment—about double what Cruz Arcos’ family pays.

At Neir’s, Cruz Arcos approached de Blasio with advocates from a local nonprofit group that has been helping her fight the eviction in court. A representative from the mayor’s office later told the Eagle that the city would try to intervene to help keep Cruz Arcos and her family in their home.

Bellying up to the bargaining table

• Look for friends in high places. Gordon rightly calculated that, in New York’s current real estate market, he didn’t have much leverage in negotiations with his landlord. Seeking assistance from a much more powerful party—the mayor—was a bold move that gave Gordon the publicity and leverage he needed. Cruz Arcos then wisely took advantage of the focus on Neir’s to plead her own case to the mayor.
• Probe their underlying interests. Negotiators often miss out on a simple strategy for breaking through impasse: Ask questions aimed at better understanding the other party’s refusal to back down. Only after Henry Shi disclosed barriers the building was posing to his plans were the negotiators able to envision possible solutions.
• Level the playing field. The mayor’s office can’t come to the assistance of every New York tenant facing soaring rents. To help preserve the city’s character and appease the public, New York leaders would be wise to come up with more systemic ways of giving tenants greater power in dealings with landlords.

For decades, the United Methodist Church (UMC) has grappled with internal disagreement over its doctrine on LGBTQ rights, which prohibits same-sex marriage and noncelibate gay clergy. Methodists in the United States, who comprise more than half of the church’s 12.5 million members, increasingly have found those positions untenable, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in all 50 states in 2015. Meanwhile, many Methodists outside the United States, especially within the church’s growing African membership, strongly support the gay marriage and clergy ban, according to Christianity Today.

In February 2019, representatives of Methodist churches from across the globe gathered in
St. Louis for a special conference aimed at settling these issues. In a vote, 53% of delegates supported the “Traditional Plan,” which would maintain the status quo and impose new accountability measures to address policy violations; 47% favored the “One Church” plan, which would allow local churches, clergy, and regional bodies to choose whether to allow gay marriage and ordination. In the United States, the traditional plan’s victory was a blow to LGBTQ Methodists and their supporters, and was expected to further erode the church’s aging U.S. membership.

In the months that followed, church leaders increasingly came to believe that a formal schism was the only way for each faction to “remain true to its theological understanding,” Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey of Louisiana told the New York Times. To restore harmony, many concluded, the church would need to split in two.

The process of dissolving a once-fulfilling partnership can be wrenching and fraught with peril, whether the split is undertaken by a couple, a company, or a church. As we struggle to make rational decisions about finances and other key matters, anger and sadness can overwhelm us. The prospect of that pain, stress, and expense leads many people to postpone desired separations for years, even decades. If they decide to split, they may do so rashly, desperate to move on.

The good news is that there are proven ways to calm the turmoil that often accompanies partnership dissolutions and set parties up for a hopeful future. The process that the UMC followed in navigating its recent split offers a useful case study.

Preparing for a peaceful split

The UMC is not the first church in modern history to have undergone a painful break between traditional and progressive sects. After their own schisms, the U.S. Presbyterian and Episcopal churches both became mired in lengthy and costly legal battles over ownership of church property and other issues. UMC leaders were determined to make their own church’s split a clean one.

Church member Richard Godfrey, a partner at the Chicago-based law firm Kirkland & Ellis, believed he knew just the right person to mediate the UMC’s divorce: Kenneth Feinberg. As administrator of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Feinberg gained a reputation as the preeminent postcrisis mediator. He has faced the wrenching task of negotiating restitution for victims of the Archdiocese of New York’s sexual-abuse crisis, the Boston Marathon bombing, and many other complex crises.

Feinberg, who is Jewish, had been unaware of the Methodists’ dispute. But, concerned about growing political and cultural divisions in the United States, he offered to lead the mediation pro bono as a mitzvah, or good deed, according to United Methodist News Service (UM News). He set three ground rules for the mediation:

1. No media leaks. Feinberg wanted participants to feel comfortable candidly offering novel solutions without fearing their ideas would appear in the press.

2. The right people at the table. Representatives should have credibility, experience, respect, and the ability to persuade their constituencies to accept any agreement reached.

3. Thorough representation. Church progressives, centrists, and traditionalists should all have a seat at the table.

With these ground rules in place, a total of 16 UMC leaders from across the globe—a mix of bishops and church leaders with diverging views on LGBTQ inclusion—were chosen to represent the church. “In any effective mediation, we need the smallest group possible but with the credibility and authority to represent their constituents,” Feinberg told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Agreeing to disagree

Over three months in late 2019, the leaders met monthly at the Washington, D.C., offices of Kirkland & Ellis for two-day mediation sessions with videoconference calls in between.

“Don’t we want to try and find a way to maintain the current structure of the church?” Feinberg asked the representatives at the first session, he told the Post-Gazette.

“Ken, we’re way beyond that,” they responded. Conflict had so damaged the church that the various factions easily agreed on the need to divide.

With that decided, the process then became a “secular mediation,” Feinberg said. The prospect of years of lawsuits over unresolved governance and financial issues “was so uninviting that it provided leverage for successful mediation,” he told the Washington Post.

A deal takes shape

A key question was whether the traditionalist or progressive wing would carry the banner of the UMC. Having won the February vote, the traditionalist faction had the upper hand. Nonetheless, its representatives offered to splinter off from the UMC and form a new denomination. Many conservative UMC churches, including in the United States, had been preparing for a separation for years and were ready to start over.

Ultimately, the parties agreed to support a new traditionalist denomination with $25 million in church funds. Regional church bodies, as well as local churches, would be able to decide for themselves which faction to join. Churches that left the UMC could take their properties with them. Progressives would be left to craft inclusive positions on LGBTQ issues within the UMC.

After reaching agreement, the mediation participants were tasked with selling the deal to their church communities. Delegates will vote on a more detailed version of the negotiated agreement at the church’s global conference in Minneapolis in May, but its bipartisan support made passage appear likely. Most of the U.S. flock is expected to stay in the UMC’s fold.

Mediation participants credited Feinberg with keeping them at the table, helping them accept possibilities they hadn’t considered or been ready to accept, and defusing tense moments with “humor and hard truths,” according to Religion News Service. Feinberg returned the compliment: “The group came together at great personal cost, expense, and political exposure to get to ‘yes,’ and they did.”

“When we started, there was a lot of distrust,” UMC bishop Thomas Bickerton of New York told the Post-Gazette. “I won’t say all that distrust has gone away, but there has been this amazing collaboration, this deepened respect for one another.”

Making up to break up

Only time will tell whether the two UMC factions can keep the peace as their separation moves forward, but they appear to be starting on a solid foundation. The UMC’s relatively positive experience springs from several wise decisions.

First, church leaders recognized when the time to resolve differences of opinion had passed and committed themselves to a thorough separation. Even when parties have argued over their differences for years, it can be hard to consider a split. Equating separation with failure, we’re loath to embark on it. At a certain point, however, the prospect of leaving the conflict behind can motivate the decision to move on.

Second, the UMC set itself up for a successful separation. Mediation is an ideal format for negotiating the painful decisions we face when splintering away from others. A professional mediator can help parties talk through what has gone wrong and whether or not they can work through their differences. If they can’t, mediators guide negotiators through the delicate task of deciding who gets what, who pays whom, and other important choices.

Third, the UMC followed Feinberg’s ground rule of getting the right people to the table. For separations involving large organizations, all factions need to be represented at the negotiating table, or parties who feel excluded may try to sabotage any deal that emerges. Ideally, representatives should be well respected not only by members of their own factions but also by those in other factions. Be careful to choose people who are known for building bridges with those who disagree with them.

Fourth, the UMC representatives abided by Feinberg’s “no leaks” admonition. Because of mutual distrust and animosity, parties in conflict typically don’t feel comfortable opening up about their concerns and brainstorming solutions. To build trust, they will need to promise to keep their conversations confidential.

Consider what happened after Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife, Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, released a statement in January announcing their intention to “step back” as senior members of the British royal family. Catching Queen Elizabeth and other family members off guard, the announcement may have deepened any existing hurt feelings or rifts, and it appeared to trigger a swift decision to remove the couple’s royal titles. If Harry and Meghan had kept discussions regarding their wishes private, they might have been more successful at meeting their goals.

Preparing for worst-case scenarios

Although the UMC appears to have done an excellent job of negotiating its split, the process likely would have been easier still if the church had anticipated and prepared for a possible schism when it was founded in 1968. In the happy flush of negotiating a new organization or relationship, partners often fail to take the important step of planning what will happen if things don’t work out as hoped. With a little forethought and good legal advice, they may be able to ensure that any eventual separation unfolds with as little rancor and expense as possible.

For decades, the United Methodist Church (UMC) has grappled with internal disagreement over its doctrine on LGBTQ rights, which prohibits same-sex marriage and noncelibate gay clergy. Methodists in the United States, who comprise more than half of the church’s 12.5 million members, increasingly have found those positions untenable, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in all 50 states in 2015. Meanwhile, many Methodists outside the United States, especially within the church’s growing African membership, strongly support the gay marriage and clergy ban, according to Christianity Today.

In February 2019, representatives of Methodist churches from across the globe gathered in
St. Louis for a special conference aimed at settling these issues. In a vote, 53% of delegates supported the “Traditional Plan,” which would maintain the status quo and impose new accountability measures to address policy violations; 47% favored the “One Church” plan, which would allow local churches, clergy, and regional bodies to choose whether to allow gay marriage and ordination. In the United States, the traditional plan’s victory was a blow to LGBTQ Methodists and their supporters, and was expected to further erode the church’s aging U.S. membership.

In the months that followed, church leaders increasingly came to believe that a formal schism was the only way for each faction to “remain true to its theological understanding,” Bishop Cynthia Fierro Harvey of Louisiana told the New York Times. To restore harmony, many concluded, the church would need to split in two.

The process of dissolving a once-fulfilling partnership can be wrenching and fraught with peril, whether the split is undertaken by a couple, a company, or a church. As we struggle to make rational decisions about finances and other key matters, anger and sadness can overwhelm us. The prospect of that pain, stress, and expense leads many people to postpone desired separations for years, even decades. If they decide to split, they may do so rashly, desperate to move on.

The good news is that there are proven ways to calm the turmoil that often accompanies partnership dissolutions and set parties up for a hopeful future. The process that the UMC followed in navigating its recent split offers a useful case study.

Preparing for a peaceful split

The UMC is not the first church in modern history to have undergone a painful break between traditional and progressive sects. After their own schisms, the U.S. Presbyterian and Episcopal churches both became mired in lengthy and costly legal battles over ownership of church property and other issues. UMC leaders were determined to make their own church’s split a clean one.

Church member Richard Godfrey, a partner at the Chicago-based law firm Kirkland & Ellis, believed he knew just the right person to mediate the UMC’s divorce: Kenneth Feinberg. As administrator of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Feinberg gained a reputation as the preeminent postcrisis mediator. He has faced the wrenching task of negotiating restitution for victims of the Archdiocese of New York’s sexual-abuse crisis, the Boston Marathon bombing, and many other complex crises.

Feinberg, who is Jewish, had been unaware of the Methodists’ dispute. But, concerned about growing political and cultural divisions in the United States, he offered to lead the mediation pro bono as a mitzvah, or good deed, according to United Methodist News Service (UM News). He set three ground rules for the mediation:

1. No media leaks. Feinberg wanted participants to feel comfortable candidly offering novel solutions without fearing their ideas would appear in the press.

2. The right people at the table. Representatives should have credibility, experience, respect, and the ability to persuade their constituencies to accept any agreement reached.

3. Thorough representation. Church progressives, centrists, and traditionalists should all have a seat at the table.

With these ground rules in place, a total of 16 UMC leaders from across the globe—a mix of bishops and church leaders with diverging views on LGBTQ inclusion—were chosen to represent the church. “In any effective mediation, we need the smallest group possible but with the credibility and authority to represent their constituents,” Feinberg told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Agreeing to disagree

Over three months in late 2019, the leaders met monthly at the Washington, D.C., offices of Kirkland & Ellis for two-day mediation sessions with videoconference calls in between.

“Don’t we want to try and find a way to maintain the current structure of the church?” Feinberg asked the representatives at the first session, he told the Post-Gazette.

“Ken, we’re way beyond that,” they responded. Conflict had so damaged the church that the various factions easily agreed on the need to divide.

With that decided, the process then became a “secular mediation,” Feinberg said. The prospect of years of lawsuits over unresolved governance and financial issues “was so uninviting that it provided leverage for successful mediation,” he told the Washington Post.

A deal takes shape

A key question was whether the traditionalist or progressive wing would carry the banner of the UMC. Having won the February vote, the traditionalist faction had the upper hand. Nonetheless, its representatives offered to splinter off from the UMC and form a new denomination. Many conservative UMC churches, including in the United States, had been preparing for a separation for years and were ready to start over.

Ultimately, the parties agreed to support a new traditionalist denomination with $25 million in church funds. Regional church bodies, as well as local churches, would be able to decide for themselves which faction to join. Churches that left the UMC could take their properties with them. Progressives would be left to craft inclusive positions on LGBTQ issues within the UMC.

After reaching agreement, the mediation participants were tasked with selling the deal to their church communities. Delegates will vote on a more detailed version of the negotiated agreement at the church’s global conference in Minneapolis in May, but its bipartisan support made passage appear likely. Most of the U.S. flock is expected to stay in the UMC’s fold.

Mediation participants credited Feinberg with keeping them at the table, helping them accept possibilities they hadn’t considered or been ready to accept, and defusing tense moments with “humor and hard truths,” according to Religion News Service. Feinberg returned the compliment: “The group came together at great personal cost, expense, and political exposure to get to ‘yes,’ and they did.”

“When we started, there was a lot of distrust,” UMC bishop Thomas Bickerton of New York told the Post-Gazette. “I won’t say all that distrust has gone away, but there has been this amazing collaboration, this deepened respect for one another.”

Making up to break up

Only time will tell whether the two UMC factions can keep the peace as their separation moves forward, but they appear to be starting on a solid foundation. The UMC’s relatively positive experience springs from several wise decisions.

First, church leaders recognized when the time to resolve differences of opinion had passed and committed themselves to a thorough separation. Even when parties have argued over their differences for years, it can be hard to consider a split. Equating separation with failure, we’re loath to embark on it. At a certain point, however, the prospect of leaving the conflict behind can motivate the decision to move on.

Second, the UMC set itself up for a successful separation. Mediation is an ideal format for negotiating the painful decisions we face when splintering away from others. A professional mediator can help parties talk through what has gone wrong and whether or not they can work through their differences. If they can’t, mediators guide negotiators through the delicate task of deciding who gets what, who pays whom, and other important choices.

Third, the UMC followed Feinberg’s ground rule of getting the right people to the table. For separations involving large organizations, all factions need to be represented at the negotiating table, or parties who feel excluded may try to sabotage any deal that emerges. Ideally, representatives should be well respected not only by members of their own factions but also by those in other factions. Be careful to choose people who are known for building bridges with those who disagree with them.

Fourth, the UMC representatives abided by Feinberg’s “no leaks” admonition. Because of mutual distrust and animosity, parties in conflict typically don’t feel comfortable opening up about their concerns and brainstorming solutions. To build trust, they will need to promise to keep their conversations confidential.

Consider what happened after Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife, Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, released a statement in January announcing their intention to “step back” as senior members of the British royal family. Catching Queen Elizabeth and other family members off guard, the announcement may have deepened any existing hurt feelings or rifts, and it appeared to trigger a swift decision to remove the couple’s royal titles. If Harry and Meghan had kept discussions regarding their wishes private, they might have been more successful at meeting their goals.

Preparing for worst-case scenarios

Although the UMC appears to have done an excellent job of negotiating its split, the process likely would have been easier still if the church had anticipated and prepared for a possible schism when it was founded in 1968. In the happy flush of negotiating a new organization or relationship, partners often fail to take the important step of planning what will happen if things don’t work out as hoped. With a little forethought and good legal advice, they may be able to ensure that any eventual separation unfolds with as little rancor and expense as possible.