We often approach negotiations with new counterparts full of optimism. Yet those expectations can quickly fade when a negotiating partner behaves in ways that feel puzzling, unsettling, or downright baffling. A trio of articles by negotiation scholars offers guidance on how to respond effectively to counterparts whose behavior threatens to throw us off our game.

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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.

Good news about competitive negotiators

You are likely familiar with the abundant benefits of negotiating cooperatively—the opportunities for problem solving, mutual gains, and relationship building. So, you might be disappointed when you find yourself negotiating with counterparts who seem to be in it only for themselves. In fact, self-interested individuals may turn out to be ideal negotiating partners, according to a study by Sinem Acar-Burkay, Vidar Schei, and Luk Warlop of the University of South-Eastern Norway published in the journal Group Decision and Negotiation.

In their study, the researchers paired up business school students for a 25-minute negotiation exercise as buyer and seller. Several issues were at stake, with opportunities for mutually beneficial tradeoffs based on parties’ differing preferences. Participants assigned to the individualistic condition were told they should be concerned only about maximizing their own profit and should act purely out of self-interest. And participants in the cooperative condition were encouraged to maximize joint profit for both themselves and their counterpart. Some pairs were made up of two individualists, some included two cooperatives, and some were individualist-cooperative pairs.

We might have expected pairs of cooperatives to come out on top, but in fact, the mixed individualist-cooperative pairs achieved the best economic outcomes in the short term as well as the strongest long-term relational benefits, as measured by their desire to negotiate together in the future in a survey conducted seven months later.

The mixed-motive pairs excelled at both problem solving and relationship building. Their different motivations “brought out the best in the other member of the dyad,” the authors write, “creating an optimal mixture of cooperation and competition that drove [them] toward mutually beneficial agreements.” That is, the cooperators became less compliant, and the individualists more cooperative.

As these results remind us, cooperative and competitive behaviors complement each other in negotiation—both within individual negotiators and between negotiators with different motivations. Ideally, each negotiator will recognize the benefits of using both value-claiming and value-creating moves. But when you place a premium on cooperation, and your partner leans toward competition, you may find that your strengths rub off on each other to mutual benefit.

Detecting insincere negotiators

When launching a negotiation, we tend to assume that the other party is as eager to try to reach a deal as we are. In fact, that is not always the case: Individuals and organizations sometimes enter negotiations with ulterior motives and no intention of closing a deal, as researchers Polly Kang (the Wharton School), Krishnan S. Anand (University of Utah), Pnina Feldman (Boston University), and Maurice E. Schweitzer (the Wharton School) note in a study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Companies sometimes enter partnership talks solely to acquire proprietary information about a competitor. A consumer might negotiate with a car salesperson simply to gather information and get an offer they can take to another dealership. And in 2017, Amazon lured 238 North American cities and regions into an auction for its second headquarters that later appeared to be aimed only at maximizing the online retailer’s tax incentives and government subsidies.

To insincere negotiators, negotiation is a tool for “gaining leverage by gathering information, stalling for time, blocking a competitor, or managing impressions,” write Kang and her team. They conducted experiments to get a better sense of what happens in a negotiation when one party has incentives to not reach agreement with the other. In one study, participants playing the buyer in a buyer-seller negotiation simulation had financial incentives to not reach an agreement with their assigned counterpart. Other buyers had incentives to reach an agreement that maximized their own profits. Sellers, meanwhile, were primed to be either suspicious or not suspicious of their counterpart’s motives.

Relative to sincere buyers, those who had incentives to be insincere engaged in more stalling tactics, such as deflecting questions and asking tangential questions, and they also prolonged the negotiation. Interestingly, while most insincere buyers (56%–61%) did not reach agreement, between 9% and 15% acted counter to their financial incentives and reached agreement anyway. It seems that even insincere negotiators are susceptible to the agreement bias—the common tendency to reach a deal even when we’d be better off with an impasse. Finally, sellers who were primed to be suspicious of their counterpart’s motives were more likely to exit the negotiation than those who were not.

When you place a premium on cooperation, and your partner leans toward competition, you may find that your strengths rub off on each other to mutual benefit.

In another experiment, Kang and her colleagues gave some participants the opportunity to gather information from a first negotiation to use in a second negotiation—thus making those negotiators in the first negotiation who were uninterested in reaching agreement insincere. In their first negotiation, the insincere negotiators prolonged talks and reached agreement less often than sincere negotiators, though some insincere negotiators still reached agreement. In a third experiment, negotiators who were encouraged to be suspicious of their counterpart’s motives asked more questions, were more assertive, and reached agreement less often than those who were not.

Clearly, insincere negotiators waste our time and money, and can lead us to miss out on genuine deals with other partners. How can we detect their ulterior motives? Be wary of those who slow a negotiation to a crawl or ask for sensitive information. Insincere negotiators may also make irrelevant statements, ramble, or mention constraints on their ability to reach agreement, Edy Glozman (Columbia Law School) and his colleagues found in a 2015 study.

There are also steps we can take to discourage insincere negotiators from wasting our time. In real estate negotiations, prospective buyers typically need to put down earnest money to solidify their intent to close a deal. In other realms, deposits, promises, and penalties might be contractually specified to ensure that negotiators are bargaining in good faith. Similarly, nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements can be used to protect you from bargainers whose aim is to gain privileged information from you. If you are concerned about being taken advantage of by an insincere negotiator, ask your lawyer to suggest protections specific to the context that you might employ to protect yourself or your organization.

Dealing with difficult personalities

At times, you may find yourself confronting a counterpart whose behavior or personality seems truly extreme and dysfunctional. An estimated 10% of working adults have “personality styles or behavioral tendencies that can make interactions with them especially challenging,” ranging from “odd idiosyncratic tendencies to full- blown personality disorders,” write Marc-Charles Ingerson and Kristen Bell DeTienne of Brigham Young University, Jill M. Hooley of Harvard University, and Nathan A. Black of the University of Iowa in a article in the Negotiation Journal.

We all need to be wary of playing armchair psychologist and give negotiating counterparts the benefit of the doubt when their behavior seems irrational. Angry outbursts, sabotage, and other off-putting behaviors might be triggered by hidden constraints, personal struggles, or just a bad day. That said, an awareness of common difficult personality styles can help us understand a counterpart’s behavior at times. This knowledge may also help us decide whether a negotiation is worth pursuing and how we might adapt to the other party’s personality and behavior. Here’s an overview of four difficult styles.

• 1. Narcissistic personality disorder.
  People who score high on narcissism tend to view themselves as superior to others. Desiring admiration and lacking in empathy, they often have difficulty forming meaningful relationships. To impress others and build themselves up, they often brag or steal credit from others. Narcissistic individuals also often have desirable traits, including charm, leadership, and assertiveness. When negotiating with someone who brags, charms, and commands attention, it can be useful to challenge them to meet difficult goals that fuel their competitiveness and allow them to affirm their high status, write Ingerson and his coauthors. In addition, you may be able to gain their trust by establishing your competence and skill early in the negotiation, and by showing genuine concern for their welfare.
• 2. Antisocial personality disorder.
  Those diagnosed with this personality disorder (which is closely related to sociopathy and psychopathy) have a blatant disregard for others’ rights that manifests as rule breaking, criminal behavior, and deception. Perhaps surprisingly (or not), they often succeed in business. Pathological liars, people with this disorder are “extremely potent and cunning negotiators,” according to Ingerson and his coauthors. You would do well to avoid negotiating with these deceivers altogether; if you must, try approaching them as part of a team. People with this disorder tend to fear teams and unity, perceiving them as threatening, and may back down when facing them.
• 3. Borderline personality disorder.
  This pattern of psychological symptoms is marked by antagonism, low self-image, mistrust, and emotional outbursts. Due to their neediness and difficulty trusting others, people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder often lash out at others in anger and have intense, unstable relationships, according to Ingerson and his colleagues. To avoid overwhelming such individuals, keep the negotiating environment calm, methodical, and structured. Focus continually on building and maintaining trust with them throughout your negotiation.
  If they erupt in anger, express empathy, and apologize for any mistakes or perceived slights. But if their behavior is too erratic for you to bear, move on, if at all possible.
• 4. Passive-aggressive behavior.
  Viewing themselves as helpless victims, people engaging in passive-aggressive behavior conceal hostile and destructive acts beneath a façade of innocence. In organizations, hallmarks of passive- aggressiveness include procrastination, working slowly, and doing poor-quality work. When confronted with their obstructionism, passive-aggressive individuals blame others for making unreasonable demands and resist suggestions for improvement. If you are faced with seemingly passive-aggressive behavior from a counterpart in a negotiation, strive to be clear, direct, calm, and assertive, recommend Ingerson and his team. Try to reduce your counterpart’s anxiety by making them feel important and comfortable, praising them when they do well, and attempting to understand their perspective. Carefully document the negotiation, and make expectations and deadlines clear so that you can hold your counterpart accountable for their behavior.

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.

Negotiation Briefings: How do video negotiations differ from in-person negotiations, both in terms of what the experience feels like and what we achieve?

Noam Ebner: When it comes to negotiating at a distance, we’re in the middle of a global natural experiment. There are hardly any research findings on negotiating via video yet. So, it should be reassuring that there’s no toolbox or set of tricks that everyone else knows but you. We are all muddling through and will figure it out together; right now, everybody is working off of a little bit o∫research, intuition, and anecdotes.

That said, how the process feels will depend on what you’re used to. Research conducted by Jennifer Parlamis [University of San Francisco] and Ingmar Geiger [Aalen University, Germany] on email negotiations shows that simple experience in using the medium will improve your results,
and the same can be expected of video negotiations.

Even people who frequently negotiate using video have been discovering new aspects of the process since the pandemic started and the whole world jumped onto video. One example is so-called Zoom fatigue: the sense of depletion that we get from being in video-based group meetings and one-on-one conversations all day long. People are starting to experience a draining of energy that they didn’t necessarily experience when they had long days of in-person meetings or an occasional video-based meeting.

Research is showing that communicating via video imposes a cognitive burden on us. There is a cognitive clash between reality and our expectation that it’ll feel just like being together in a room. When we lose some of our trepidation about negotiating via video, two things happen. First, we’re only seeing what’s in the video “box,” but we have the illusion that we’re seeing it all—body language, expressions, different angles. We create mental images to fill in for what’s missing.

Second, we’re faced with new cognitive tasks. For example, in most video calls, there is a slight video or audio lag—maybe just an eighth of a second. We don’t notice it, but our minds do. Our brains try to piece together what someone said with a facial expression that isn’t matching up. You hear something, then receive their smile too late. Your brain tries to adjust. All of this is very taxing. Brain scientists are trying to figure out just how this affects us.

To take another example, we’re used to seeing humans at a certain set of proportions. Now we find ourselves speaking to giant heads. For our primal brains, on a level we don’t consciously recognize, there’s something threatening about that, as if they’re getting in our space—literally, in our face!—with a spear or a club. Our fight-or-flight instincts, functioning covertly, tax and slow down other brain functions.

NB: How can we try to overcome such drawbacks?

NE: First, we need time off. If you’re working a full day on videoconference, every moment you can turn off your video camera or look away from the screen will be beneficial. You might try to build such breaks into your negotiations: “Let me think about that. I’m going to switch off my video while I review the documents.” People will understand why you wouldn’t want them looking at you while you’re trying to concentrate.

Second, the default setting in most video platforms has us seeing ourselves as we talk. This is a fundamentally unnatural form of interpersonal communication. We don’t yet know how this affects negotiation, but it seems likely to increase self-awareness. Whatever we see about ourselves will be magnified, such as any hang-ups we have about our physical appearance. My sense is that we would do well to avoid looking into our own eyes while negotiating with others. Some video platforms allow you to hide your video so that you can focus on the other person.

Third, rapport building remains important when negotiating via video, yet we need to be more intentional about it. Luckily, the situation we’re all in offers opportunities to connect. “How are things where you are?” is a natural question to lead off with during the pandemic. It’s easy to be empathic when someone tells you what they’re facing. We can also raise the strangeness of the situation: “I’d hoped to meet you in person, but I’m sure we can still reach a great deal. The process may be a little strange, but I hope you’ll be patient with me.” In this way, you prime your counterpart— and yourself, too—to recognize the differences of video-based negotiation and the patience you’ll need to deal with hiccups. Down the line, you might say, “Maybe this isn’t coming over because of the medium, so let me expand on that to make sure we understand each other.” Remind the other person that the unnatural setting may be affecting your communication and rapport.

Fourth, be very aware of what you’re showing the other person, in terms of your physical background and body language. For example, I personally gesticulate a lot as I speak, so on video, I intentionally lift my hands so they can be seen in the video box.

NB: Other ways of communicating at a distance are available, including phone calls, emails, and texts. How do you recommend we combine these different formats?

NE: This question is so much better than the questions researchers have been asking for years: “What is the best communication medium?” or “What is the best channel for this negotiation?” as if we use only one communication channel over the course of any negotiation. I use three or four channels just to communicate with the people in my house. So, conducting any negotiation, we need to make good channel choices at many points of this multistage relationship.

Some of the considerations have to do with practicalities: Would this task be best served by a synchronous (live, real- time) or asynchronous (happening at different times) discussion? People work different hours and live in different time zones. The pace of events is also a factor. A two-year negotiation might be fine unfolding largely on email. A hostage negotiation will need real- time communication, such as voice or video, or near-synchronous texting. In addition, different media are simply more common in different places.

Prime your counterpart—and yourself, too—to recognize the differences of video- based negotiation and the patience you’ll need to deal with hiccups.

WhatsApp, for example, is used widely around the world but is catching on slowly in the United States.

Think about how you can bring your best self to each stage of the negotiation. Research has shown that face-to-face interaction and, likely, video work better for “storytellers”— people who express themselves emotionally, through stories and anecdotes. Text-based communication, such as email, may be more comfortable for so-called engineers—people who communicate more through data and logic.

NB: Facial expressions are important in communication. Any thoughts on how face masks might affect in-person negotiations?

NE: As human beings, we strain to pick up as much information as possible from other people and our environment. Consider how you physically strain to hear your counterpart on a poor phone connection. We don’t only work with what we get, though; we then fill in the blanks by inferring and imagining. That’s what we’re doing now with masks. Our heightened awareness of the micro-cues we can see or sense will help us pick up more than we think, but masks will also cause a range of mistakes when we fill in the blanks improperly. We will get better with practice, just as we did with email.

It can help to paint a picture of our facial expressions while wearing masks: “I wish you could see my smile right now.” We also need to be careful about using humor or sarcasm to try to build rapport. The risks of being misconstrued and causing offense are higher when the person can see only the top of our faces. We can also rely more on hand gestures to convey the emotion.

NB: What have your own experiences been like negotiating online during the pandemic?

NE: I’ve found it’s relatively easy to find opportunities for rapport and empathy. Tragedy offers us opportunities to be human. Everyone is a little more stressed than usual. It might help to mention that at some point or just be aware that you’re meeting people at this difficult stage in all of our lives. Also, I’ve noticed that politics used to be somewhat of a no-go zone in business, but some people are putting their opinions out there more. I’m no exception to this, although I try to remain mindful. That’s an area ripe for connection but also for flare-ups.

Finally, I have the sense that people are finding it hard to picture the future. We talk about the “new normal,” or “when this is all over,” but people have difficulty envisioning a world beyond Covid. I’ve had people ask me to do one-shot deals when they would have planned further ahead in the past. No one is looking more than a few months ahead.

Negotiation Briefings: How do video negotiations differ from in-person negotiations, both in terms of what the experience feels like and what we achieve?

Noam Ebner: When it comes to negotiating at a distance, we’re in the middle of a global natural experiment. There are hardly any research findings on negotiating via video yet. So, it should be reassuring that there’s no toolbox or set of tricks that everyone else knows but you. We are all muddling through and will figure it out together; right now, everybody is working off of a little bit o∫research, intuition, and anecdotes.

That said, how the process feels will depend on what you’re used to. Research conducted by Jennifer Parlamis [University of San Francisco] and Ingmar Geiger [Aalen University, Germany] on email negotiations shows that simple experience in using the medium will improve your results,
and the same can be expected of video negotiations.

Even people who frequently negotiate using video have been discovering new aspects of the process since the pandemic started and the whole world jumped onto video. One example is so-called Zoom fatigue: the sense of depletion that we get from being in video-based group meetings and one-on-one conversations all day long. People are starting to experience a draining of energy that they didn’t necessarily experience when they had long days of in-person meetings or an occasional video-based meeting.

Research is showing that communicating via video imposes a cognitive burden on us. There is a cognitive clash between reality and our expectation that it’ll feel just like being together in a room. When we lose some of our trepidation about negotiating via video, two things happen. First, we’re only seeing what’s in the video “box,” but we have the illusion that we’re seeing it all—body language, expressions, different angles. We create mental images to fill in for what’s missing.

Second, we’re faced with new cognitive tasks. For example, in most video calls, there is a slight video or audio lag—maybe just an eighth of a second. We don’t notice it, but our minds do. Our brains try to piece together what someone said with a facial expression that isn’t matching up. You hear something, then receive their smile too late. Your brain tries to adjust. All of this is very taxing. Brain scientists are trying to figure out just how this affects us.

To take another example, we’re used to seeing humans at a certain set of proportions. Now we find ourselves speaking to giant heads. For our primal brains, on a level we don’t consciously recognize, there’s something threatening about that, as if they’re getting in our space—literally, in our face!—with a spear or a club. Our fight-or-flight instincts, functioning covertly, tax and slow down other brain functions.

NB: How can we try to overcome such drawbacks?

NE: First, we need time off. If you’re working a full day on videoconference, every moment you can turn off your video camera or look away from the screen will be beneficial. You might try to build such breaks into your negotiations: “Let me think about that. I’m going to switch off my video while I review the documents.” People will understand why you wouldn’t want them looking at you while you’re trying to concentrate.

Second, the default setting in most video platforms has us seeing ourselves as we talk. This is a fundamentally unnatural form of interpersonal communication. We don’t yet know how this affects negotiation, but it seems likely to increase self-awareness. Whatever we see about ourselves will be magnified, such as any hang-ups we have about our physical appearance. My sense is that we would do well to avoid looking into our own eyes while negotiating with others. Some video platforms allow you to hide your video so that you can focus on the other person.

Third, rapport building remains important when negotiating via video, yet we need to be more intentional about it. Luckily, the situation we’re all in offers opportunities to connect. “How are things where you are?” is a natural question to lead off with during the pandemic. It’s easy to be empathic when someone tells you what they’re facing. We can also raise the strangeness of the situation: “I’d hoped to meet you in person, but I’m sure we can still reach a great deal. The process may be a little strange, but I hope you’ll be patient with me.” In this way, you prime your counterpart— and yourself, too—to recognize the differences of video-based negotiation and the patience you’ll need to deal with hiccups. Down the line, you might say, “Maybe this isn’t coming over because of the medium, so let me expand on that to make sure we understand each other.” Remind the other person that the unnatural setting may be affecting your communication and rapport.

Fourth, be very aware of what you’re showing the other person, in terms of your physical background and body language. For example, I personally gesticulate a lot as I speak, so on video, I intentionally lift my hands so they can be seen in the video box.

NB: Other ways of communicating at a distance are available, including phone calls, emails, and texts. How do you recommend we combine these different formats?

NE: This question is so much better than the questions researchers have been asking for years: “What is the best communication medium?” or “What is the best channel for this negotiation?” as if we use only one communication channel over the course of any negotiation. I use three or four channels just to communicate with the people in my house. So, conducting any negotiation, we need to make good channel choices at many points of this multistage relationship.

Some of the considerations have to do with practicalities: Would this task be best served by a synchronous (live, real- time) or asynchronous (happening at different times) discussion? People work different hours and live in different time zones. The pace of events is also a factor. A two-year negotiation might be fine unfolding largely on email. A hostage negotiation will need real- time communication, such as voice or video, or near-synchronous texting. In addition, different media are simply more common in different places.

Prime your counterpart—and yourself, too—to recognize the differences of video- based negotiation and the patience you’ll need to deal with hiccups.

WhatsApp, for example, is used widely around the world but is catching on slowly in the United States.

Think about how you can bring your best self to each stage of the negotiation. Research has shown that face-to-face interaction and, likely, video work better for “storytellers”— people who express themselves emotionally, through stories and anecdotes. Text-based communication, such as email, may be more comfortable for so-called engineers—people who communicate more through data and logic.

NB: Facial expressions are important in communication. Any thoughts on how face masks might affect in-person negotiations?

NE: As human beings, we strain to pick up as much information as possible from other people and our environment. Consider how you physically strain to hear your counterpart on a poor phone connection. We don’t only work with what we get, though; we then fill in the blanks by inferring and imagining. That’s what we’re doing now with masks. Our heightened awareness of the micro-cues we can see or sense will help us pick up more than we think, but masks will also cause a range of mistakes when we fill in the blanks improperly. We will get better with practice, just as we did with email.

It can help to paint a picture of our facial expressions while wearing masks: “I wish you could see my smile right now.” We also need to be careful about using humor or sarcasm to try to build rapport. The risks of being misconstrued and causing offense are higher when the person can see only the top of our faces. We can also rely more on hand gestures to convey the emotion.

NB: What have your own experiences been like negotiating online during the pandemic?

NE: I’ve found it’s relatively easy to find opportunities for rapport and empathy. Tragedy offers us opportunities to be human. Everyone is a little more stressed than usual. It might help to mention that at some point or just be aware that you’re meeting people at this difficult stage in all of our lives. Also, I’ve noticed that politics used to be somewhat of a no-go zone in business, but some people are putting their opinions out there more. I’m no exception to this, although I try to remain mindful. That’s an area ripe for connection but also for flare-ups.

Finally, I have the sense that people are finding it hard to picture the future. We talk about the “new normal,” or “when this is all over,” but people have difficulty envisioning a world beyond Covid. I’ve had people ask me to do one-shot deals when they would have planned further ahead in the past. No one is looking more than a few months ahead.

Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, people increasingly were staying home to watch movies on streaming services such as Netflix rather than heading out to the local multiplex. Film studios and other content providers were eager to capitalize on the trend by shortening the traditional “three-month theatrical window”— the exclusive period of time that theater companies reserve to show films before they can be released on the small screen.

But, as we wrote in our January 2020 issue, major North American theater chains—including AMC Theatres, Cineplex, and Regal Cinemas—resisted making changes to their business model that might give people more incentives to stay home. Just last year, in negotiations with Netflix, AMC agreed to shorten the theatrical window for Martin Scorsese’s film The Irishman to 60 days; with Netflix insisting on 45 days, the parties declared an impasse.

When the pandemic indefinitely shuttered theaters in North America and beyond this past spring, however, studios rebelled outright against the three-month window. Universal Pictures launched the first shot across the bow by releasing films (including Trolls World Tour and The King of Staten Island) on demand via cable TV and online stores.

In what was widely viewed as an empty threat, AMC CEO Adam Aron said AMC would boycott Universal and any other studio “contemplating a wholesale change to the status quo.” Other studios followed Universal’s lead, selling off smaller films to streaming services rather than waiting for theaters to reopen.

As the pandemic dragged on and its theaters remained closed, AMC, in a state of financial distress, became willing to negotiate new terms with Universal. Ultimately, AMC agreed to shorten the theatrical window for Universal’s Focus Features division, which specializes in small films, to 17 days, in exchange for a percentage of Universal’s earnings from premium on-demand rental revenue. “The movie business will never look the same,” Variety declared after the deal was announced, predicting other studios and theater chains would reach similar agreements.

In negotiation, fear of the unknown can prevent us from making needed adjustments to the status quo. After resisting change for years, AMC gained a first-mover advantage when it became willing to renegotiate industry standards—and carved out terms that its competitors likely will now need to accept. It’s a lesson that negotiators in other industries would be wise to heed.

Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, people increasingly were staying home to watch movies on streaming services such as Netflix rather than heading out to the local multiplex. Film studios and other content providers were eager to capitalize on the trend by shortening the traditional “three-month theatrical window”— the exclusive period of time that theater companies reserve to show films before they can be released on the small screen.

But, as we wrote in our January 2020 issue, major North American theater chains—including AMC Theatres, Cineplex, and Regal Cinemas—resisted making changes to their business model that might give people more incentives to stay home. Just last year, in negotiations with Netflix, AMC agreed to shorten the theatrical window for Martin Scorsese’s film The Irishman to 60 days; with Netflix insisting on 45 days, the parties declared an impasse.

When the pandemic indefinitely shuttered theaters in North America and beyond this past spring, however, studios rebelled outright against the three-month window. Universal Pictures launched the first shot across the bow by releasing films (including Trolls World Tour and The King of Staten Island) on demand via cable TV and online stores.

In what was widely viewed as an empty threat, AMC CEO Adam Aron said AMC would boycott Universal and any other studio “contemplating a wholesale change to the status quo.” Other studios followed Universal’s lead, selling off smaller films to streaming services rather than waiting for theaters to reopen.

As the pandemic dragged on and its theaters remained closed, AMC, in a state of financial distress, became willing to negotiate new terms with Universal. Ultimately, AMC agreed to shorten the theatrical window for Universal’s Focus Features division, which specializes in small films, to 17 days, in exchange for a percentage of Universal’s earnings from premium on-demand rental revenue. “The movie business will never look the same,” Variety declared after the deal was announced, predicting other studios and theater chains would reach similar agreements.

In negotiation, fear of the unknown can prevent us from making needed adjustments to the status quo. After resisting change for years, AMC gained a first-mover advantage when it became willing to renegotiate industry standards—and carved out terms that its competitors likely will now need to accept. It’s a lesson that negotiators in other industries would be wise to heed.

Planning is key in negotiation. That doesn’t mean memorizing a predetermined script, but being ready to roll with the punches. The negotiators who worked to transform the hit Broadway musical Hamilton into a feature film learned that lesson at a couple of different points in the process. Their resourcefulness—and ability to stand by their principles—should inspire anyone negotiating during these uncertain times.

If you had to choose…

In June 2016, Hamilton’s leads—creator Lin-Manuel Miranda (in the role of Alexander Hamilton), Leslie Odom Jr. (Aaron Burr), Phillipa Soo (Elizabeth Schuyler), and others—were preparing to leave the show after a history-making run. The hip-hop story of America’s first treasury secretary had just won 11 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and its productions in New York and elsewhere were selling out every night. Hoping to one day share the experience of watching the stellar cast perform with a general audience, the show’s producers made plans to film the theatrical version of the show for eventual release in movie theaters.

The plan was to shoot two live shows at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, Hamilton’s Broadway home, as well as close-ups without an audience, and then edit them into a seamless production. Every last detail of the so-called live capture was planned in advance, but one aspect of the project seemed to be an afterthought: cast salaries. Odom Jr. didn’t receive an offer until the day before the start of shooting, he recently recalled on actor Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. What’s more, the offer was less than he’d expected.

Odom Jr. asked his talent agency, Creative Arts Agency, to quickly do some research: “What does my White counterpart…Aaron Tveit make to do Grease Live! on TV?” (Tveit played the role of Danny Zuko in the January 31 television special.) After finding out, Odom Jr. recalled, “I didn’t ask for one penny more, but I said, ‘You must pay me exactly what that White boy got to do Grease Live! That’s the bottom line.”

Odom Jr. stressed to Shepard that this was not an idle bluff: “I was not kidding. I was not coming to work the next day to do the movie . . . . Sometimes they look at you and go, ‘We’re just not paying it,’ and you have to go, ‘That’s OK.’”

But the idea of filming Hamilton without Odom Jr., who had just won the Best Actor Tony for his mesmerizing portrayal of Hamilton’s killer, was clearly inconceivable to Miranda and the show’s producers. They agreed to Odom Jr.’s price.

Taking a stand with pride

Early in Hamilton’s Broadway run, Odom Jr. helmed a battle by the original cast to secure profits from the show. As recounted in our March 2019 cover story, when Hamilton was in development Off Broadway, the original cast agreed to forego royalties on possible future profits. They regretted that decision once the show’s producers, led by Jeffrey Seller, began raking in $500,000 per week and launching other productions of the show. Having made valuable contributions to the show’s look and feel, the cast believed they should be compensated accordingly.

Citing the profit-sharing deal reached by The Book of Mormon’s original cast, 22 of the 24 original Off Broadway Hamilton cast members asked for a small stake in the show’s gross box-office receipts and subsidiary-rights income. When Seller instead had lump-sum checks delivered to them for their past development work, Odom Jr. persuaded his castmates to reject the offer and stand firm. Lengthy negotiations followed, culminating in a profit-sharing agreement that Odom Jr. and 37 other Hamilton contributors could live with.

In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Odom Jr. said that residual income, or “mailbox money,” for small parts in syndicated shows such as CSI: Miami sustained him during his early lean years as an actor. He believes theater performers are similarly entitled to profit sharing, especially given the toll the grueling work takes on their bodies.

“We need to talk about racism and White supremacy in theater,” Odom Jr. told the Times. “You want to be an ally? You make sure that Black people and people of color and women are getting paid, that they’ll be able to take money home to their families. It’s not about revenge; it’s about equality.”

Who tells your story?

Hamilton’s lead producers—Seller, Sander Jacobs, and Jill Furman—shot the live-capture film for $10 million and put it in a vault. In 2018, they shopped it around Hollywood but weren’t happy with the offers they received, according to the New York Times. The following year, Kail reached out to Disney CEO Robert Iger, whom he had gotten to know through other work, to let him know the film was still available.

Many of Iger’s family members were huge fans of the show, and he was “extremely impressed” by the film version, he told the Times. Iger flew from California to New York and “pitched my heart out,” he recalls, promising to do the film “real justice.” The show’s producers and creators agreed to sell the film rights to Disney for $75 million. A percentage of profits would go to the original cast and crew, as well as the nonprofit Public Theater in Brooklyn, New York, where Hamilton was developed.

In February 2020, Disney announced it would release Hamilton in theaters on October 15, 2021. But as those plans were set, the coronavirus was spreading across the globe. By March, movie theaters and live theater had gone dark across the United States, and streaming services were eager for more content to share with those quarantining at home.

Iger emailed Kail and Miranda to ask if they’d consider renegotiating their deal to allow Hamilton to premiere on Disney Plus, the company’s new streaming service. The pair responded with a flat “No,” the Times reports.

But as the Covid-19 crisis worsened, the team behind Hamilton reconsidered. The film could serve as a morale booster for millions of Americans stuck at home. The two sides “adjusted” their deal—likely reducing the $75 million to account for lower expected profits for Disney. In a nod to the show’s era, the film was released on Independence Day weekend. By far the most-viewed content on any streaming service this year, the film raked in new subscribers to Disney Plus.

How the parties got to yes

The twists and turns in the “Hamilfilm” talks offer a few suggestions for all of us facing unpredictable negotiations:

• Factor in fairness and equity concerns. Rather than focusing on trying to get the best short-term financial deal possible, construct an agreement that accounts for all parties’ long-term interests. Otherwise, you are likely to face their dissatisfaction down the line.
• Cite objective data. Rather than simply sharing his opinions about inequities in the theater world, Odom Jr. justified what he believed he and his castmates were worth by citing comparable deals, including those reached by an actor in Grease Live! and The Book of Mormon’s cast. You can often make a compelling case by presenting such comparables.
• Adapt to the times. When circumstances change, be open to the idea of revisiting and possibly revising your agreement rather than staying rooted in the past. During an economic downturn, that may mean accepting lower profits than you’d anticipated in exchange for less tangible benefits— such as the opportunity to spread joy during dark times.

Planning is key in negotiation. That doesn’t mean memorizing a predetermined script, but being ready to roll with the punches. The negotiators who worked to transform the hit Broadway musical Hamilton into a feature film learned that lesson at a couple of different points in the process. Their resourcefulness—and ability to stand by their principles—should inspire anyone negotiating during these uncertain times.

If you had to choose…

In June 2016, Hamilton’s leads—creator Lin-Manuel Miranda (in the role of Alexander Hamilton), Leslie Odom Jr. (Aaron Burr), Phillipa Soo (Elizabeth Schuyler), and others—were preparing to leave the show after a history-making run. The hip-hop story of America’s first treasury secretary had just won 11 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and its productions in New York and elsewhere were selling out every night. Hoping to one day share the experience of watching the stellar cast perform with a general audience, the show’s producers made plans to film the theatrical version of the show for eventual release in movie theaters.

The plan was to shoot two live shows at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, Hamilton’s Broadway home, as well as close-ups without an audience, and then edit them into a seamless production. Every last detail of the so-called live capture was planned in advance, but one aspect of the project seemed to be an afterthought: cast salaries. Odom Jr. didn’t receive an offer until the day before the start of shooting, he recently recalled on actor Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. What’s more, the offer was less than he’d expected.

Odom Jr. asked his talent agency, Creative Arts Agency, to quickly do some research: “What does my White counterpart…Aaron Tveit make to do Grease Live! on TV?” (Tveit played the role of Danny Zuko in the January 31 television special.) After finding out, Odom Jr. recalled, “I didn’t ask for one penny more, but I said, ‘You must pay me exactly what that White boy got to do Grease Live! That’s the bottom line.”

Odom Jr. stressed to Shepard that this was not an idle bluff: “I was not kidding. I was not coming to work the next day to do the movie . . . . Sometimes they look at you and go, ‘We’re just not paying it,’ and you have to go, ‘That’s OK.’”

But the idea of filming Hamilton without Odom Jr., who had just won the Best Actor Tony for his mesmerizing portrayal of Hamilton’s killer, was clearly inconceivable to Miranda and the show’s producers. They agreed to Odom Jr.’s price.

Taking a stand with pride

Early in Hamilton’s Broadway run, Odom Jr. helmed a battle by the original cast to secure profits from the show. As recounted in our March 2019 cover story, when Hamilton was in development Off Broadway, the original cast agreed to forego royalties on possible future profits. They regretted that decision once the show’s producers, led by Jeffrey Seller, began raking in $500,000 per week and launching other productions of the show. Having made valuable contributions to the show’s look and feel, the cast believed they should be compensated accordingly.

Citing the profit-sharing deal reached by The Book of Mormon’s original cast, 22 of the 24 original Off Broadway Hamilton cast members asked for a small stake in the show’s gross box-office receipts and subsidiary-rights income. When Seller instead had lump-sum checks delivered to them for their past development work, Odom Jr. persuaded his castmates to reject the offer and stand firm. Lengthy negotiations followed, culminating in a profit-sharing agreement that Odom Jr. and 37 other Hamilton contributors could live with.

In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Odom Jr. said that residual income, or “mailbox money,” for small parts in syndicated shows such as CSI: Miami sustained him during his early lean years as an actor. He believes theater performers are similarly entitled to profit sharing, especially given the toll the grueling work takes on their bodies.

“We need to talk about racism and White supremacy in theater,” Odom Jr. told the Times. “You want to be an ally? You make sure that Black people and people of color and women are getting paid, that they’ll be able to take money home to their families. It’s not about revenge; it’s about equality.”

Who tells your story?

Hamilton’s lead producers—Seller, Sander Jacobs, and Jill Furman—shot the live-capture film for $10 million and put it in a vault. In 2018, they shopped it around Hollywood but weren’t happy with the offers they received, according to the New York Times. The following year, Kail reached out to Disney CEO Robert Iger, whom he had gotten to know through other work, to let him know the film was still available.

Many of Iger’s family members were huge fans of the show, and he was “extremely impressed” by the film version, he told the Times. Iger flew from California to New York and “pitched my heart out,” he recalls, promising to do the film “real justice.” The show’s producers and creators agreed to sell the film rights to Disney for $75 million. A percentage of profits would go to the original cast and crew, as well as the nonprofit Public Theater in Brooklyn, New York, where Hamilton was developed.

In February 2020, Disney announced it would release Hamilton in theaters on October 15, 2021. But as those plans were set, the coronavirus was spreading across the globe. By March, movie theaters and live theater had gone dark across the United States, and streaming services were eager for more content to share with those quarantining at home.

Iger emailed Kail and Miranda to ask if they’d consider renegotiating their deal to allow Hamilton to premiere on Disney Plus, the company’s new streaming service. The pair responded with a flat “No,” the Times reports.

But as the Covid-19 crisis worsened, the team behind Hamilton reconsidered. The film could serve as a morale booster for millions of Americans stuck at home. The two sides “adjusted” their deal—likely reducing the $75 million to account for lower expected profits for Disney. In a nod to the show’s era, the film was released on Independence Day weekend. By far the most-viewed content on any streaming service this year, the film raked in new subscribers to Disney Plus.

How the parties got to yes

The twists and turns in the “Hamilfilm” talks offer a few suggestions for all of us facing unpredictable negotiations:

• Factor in fairness and equity concerns. Rather than focusing on trying to get the best short-term financial deal possible, construct an agreement that accounts for all parties’ long-term interests. Otherwise, you are likely to face their dissatisfaction down the line.
• Cite objective data. Rather than simply sharing his opinions about inequities in the theater world, Odom Jr. justified what he believed he and his castmates were worth by citing comparable deals, including those reached by an actor in Grease Live! and The Book of Mormon’s cast. You can often make a compelling case by presenting such comparables.
• Adapt to the times. When circumstances change, be open to the idea of revisiting and possibly revising your agreement rather than staying rooted in the past. During an economic downturn, that may mean accepting lower profits than you’d anticipated in exchange for less tangible benefits— such as the opportunity to spread joy during dark times.

When people spend time together, they often begin to unconsciously mimic each other’s nonverbal behaviors, such as their body language and facial expressions, and verbal behaviors, including words, expressions, and phrases. While being deliberately mimicked for laughs is annoying (ask any parent of young kids), people actually tend to like those who subtly mimic them better than those who don’t, researchers have found.

Mimicry can also have benefits in negotiation. Individuals who intentionally mimicked their counterpart during a negotiation reached better outcomes than those who did not, University of North Carolina professor William Maddux and his colleagues found in a 2008 study. Mimicking the language of one’s counterpart also improved people’s outcomes during an online negotiation, a research team led by David A. Huffaker of Northwestern University discovered.

Some words have an especially positive effect on negotiations when mimicked, evidence suggests. Positive emotional language, such as “happy” or “joyful,” have been found to improve trust between negotiators and individual gain when mimicked, as have assent words, such as “yes” and “agree,” and words that indicate cognitive processing, including “insight,” “cause,” or “know.” On the flip side, mimicry of other words can be detrimental in negotiations, including negative emotional words (“angry,” “sad”).

Some words have an especially positive effect on negotiations when mimicked.

In a new study of mimicry in negotiation, Kate Muir of the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and her team paired up participants for a simulated job negotiation with a list of eight issues to be negotiated, such as salary, location, and vacation time. In some pairs of candidates and recruiters, both participants were instructed to try to mimic the words their counterpart used without losing focus; in other pairs, one person was instructed to mimic and the other was not; and in other pairs, neither person was instructed to mimic. The negotiation was conducted via an online instant-messaging program.

Dyads in which both participants mimicked achieved the highest joint and individual outcomes, followed by dyads where one party mimicked; dyads in which neither mimicked performed the worst. Mimicry also built rapport between negotiators.

Mimicry of two particular categories of words was found to contribute to joint gain: interrogatives—or question words, such as “how,” “when,” and “what”—and assent words, such as “agree” or “OK.” The value of mimicking question words makes intuitive sense. When one party follows up the other party’s question with a question of their own, they set themselves up to share information that can help them create value through tradeoffs across issues.

Overall, research on mimicry in negotiation suggests that when your counterpart uses question words, as well as words expressing agreement or positive emotions, you might make a deliberate effort to echo them to promote a curious and upbeat conversation. Use linguistic mimicry judiciously, though, so the technique doesn’t call attention to itself or distract you from the substance of the negotiation.

Resource: “When Asking ‘What’ and ‘How’ Helps You Win: Mimicry of Interrogative Terms Facilitates Successful Online Negotiations,” by Kate Muir, Adam Joinson, Emily Collins, Rachel Cotterill, and Nigel Dewdney. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 2020.

When people spend time together, they often begin to unconsciously mimic each other’s nonverbal behaviors, such as their body language and facial expressions, and verbal behaviors, including words, expressions, and phrases. While being deliberately mimicked for laughs is annoying (ask any parent of young kids), people actually tend to like those who subtly mimic them better than those who don’t, researchers have found.

Mimicry can also have benefits in negotiation. Individuals who intentionally mimicked their counterpart during a negotiation reached better outcomes than those who did not, University of North Carolina professor William Maddux and his colleagues found in a 2008 study. Mimicking the language of one’s counterpart also improved people’s outcomes during an online negotiation, a research team led by David A. Huffaker of Northwestern University discovered.

Some words have an especially positive effect on negotiations when mimicked, evidence suggests. Positive emotional language, such as “happy” or “joyful,” have been found to improve trust between negotiators and individual gain when mimicked, as have assent words, such as “yes” and “agree,” and words that indicate cognitive processing, including “insight,” “cause,” or “know.” On the flip side, mimicry of other words can be detrimental in negotiations, including negative emotional words (“angry,” “sad”).

Some words have an especially positive effect on negotiations when mimicked.

In a new study of mimicry in negotiation, Kate Muir of the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and her team paired up participants for a simulated job negotiation with a list of eight issues to be negotiated, such as salary, location, and vacation time. In some pairs of candidates and recruiters, both participants were instructed to try to mimic the words their counterpart used without losing focus; in other pairs, one person was instructed to mimic and the other was not; and in other pairs, neither person was instructed to mimic. The negotiation was conducted via an online instant-messaging program.

Dyads in which both participants mimicked achieved the highest joint and individual outcomes, followed by dyads where one party mimicked; dyads in which neither mimicked performed the worst. Mimicry also built rapport between negotiators.

Mimicry of two particular categories of words was found to contribute to joint gain: interrogatives—or question words, such as “how,” “when,” and “what”—and assent words, such as “agree” or “OK.” The value of mimicking question words makes intuitive sense. When one party follows up the other party’s question with a question of their own, they set themselves up to share information that can help them create value through tradeoffs across issues.

Overall, research on mimicry in negotiation suggests that when your counterpart uses question words, as well as words expressing agreement or positive emotions, you might make a deliberate effort to echo them to promote a curious and upbeat conversation. Use linguistic mimicry judiciously, though, so the technique doesn’t call attention to itself or distract you from the substance of the negotiation.

Resource: “When Asking ‘What’ and ‘How’ Helps You Win: Mimicry of Interrogative Terms Facilitates Successful Online Negotiations,” by Kate Muir, Adam Joinson, Emily Collins, Rachel Cotterill, and Nigel Dewdney. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 2020.

We often enter negotiations with a new counterpart with excitement. Unfortunately, our high expectations are sometimes dashed when our new negotiating partner exhibits behavior that’s puzzling, upsetting, or downright bizarre. A trio of new articles by negotiation scholars offers advice that can help us respond effectively to bargaining partners who threaten to throw us off our game.

Good news about competitive negotiators

You are likely familiar with the abundant benefits of negotiating cooperatively—the opportunities for problem solving, mutual gains, and relationship building. So, you might be disappointed when you find yourself negotiating with counterparts who seem to be in it only for themselves. In fact, self-interested individuals may turn out to be ideal negotiating partners, according to a recent study by Sinem Acar-Burkay, Vidar Schei, and Luk Warlop of the University of South-Eastern Norway published in the journal Group Decision and Negotiation.

In their study, the researchers paired up business school students for a 25-minute negotiation exercise as buyer and seller. Several issues were at stake, with opportunities for mutually beneficial tradeoffs based on parties’ differing preferences. Participants assigned to the individualistic condition were told they should be concerned only about maximizing their own profit and should act purely out of self-interest. And participants in the cooperative condition were encouraged to maximize joint profit for both themselves and their counterpart. Some pairs were made up of two individualists, some included two cooperatives, and some were individualist-cooperative pairs.

We might have expected pairs of cooperatives to come out on top, but in fact, the mixed individualist-cooperative pairs achieved the best economic outcomes in the short term as well as the strongest long-term relational benefits, as measured by their desire to negotiate together in the future in a survey conducted seven months later.

The mixed-motive pairs excelled at both problem solving and relationship building. Their different motivations “brought out the best in the other member of the dyad,” the authors write, “creating an optimal mixture of cooperation and competition that drove [them] toward mutually beneficial agreements.” That is, the cooperators became less compliant, and the individualists more cooperative.

As these results remind us, cooperative and competitive behaviors complement each other in negotiation—both within individual negotiators and between negotiators with different motivations. Ideally, each negotiator will recognize the benefits of using both value-claiming and value-creating moves. But when you place a premium on cooperation, and your partner leans toward competition, you may find that your strengths rub off on each other to mutual benefit.

Detecting insincere negotiators

When launching a negotiation, we tend to assume that the other party is as eager to try to reach a deal as we are. In fact, that is not always the case: Individuals and organizations sometimes enter negotiations with ulterior motives and no intention of closing a deal, as researchers Polly Kang (the Wharton School), Krishnan S. Anand (University of Utah), Pnina Feldman (Boston University), and Maurice E. Schweitzer (the Wharton School) note in a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Companies sometimes enter partnership talks solely to acquire proprietary information about a competitor. A consumer might negotiate with a car salesperson simply to gather information and get an offer they can take to another dealership. And in 2017, Amazon lured 238 North American cities and regions into an auction for its second headquarters that later appeared to be aimed only at maximizing the online retailer’s tax incentives and government subsidies.

To insincere negotiators, negotiation is a tool for “gaining leverage by gathering information, stalling for time, blocking a competitor, or managing impressions,” write Kang and her team. They conducted experiments to get a better sense of what happens in a negotiation when one party has incentives to not reach agreement with the other. In one study, participants playing the buyer in a buyer-seller negotiation simulation had financial incentives to not reach an agreement with their assigned counterpart. Other buyers had incentives to reach an agreement that maximized their own profits. Sellers, meanwhile, were primed to be either suspicious or not suspicious of their counterpart’s motives.

Relative to sincere buyers, those who had incentives to be insincere engaged in more stalling tactics, such as deflecting questions and asking tangential questions, and they also prolonged the negotiation. Interestingly, while most insincere buyers (56%–61%) did not reach agreement, between 9% and 15% acted counter to their financial incentives and reached agreement anyway. It seems that even insincere negotiators are susceptible to the agreement bias—the common tendency to reach a deal even when we’d be better off with an impasse. Finally, sellers who were primed to be suspicious of their counterpart’s motives were more likely to exit the negotiation than those who were not.

When you place a premium on cooperation, and your partner leans toward competition, you may find that your strengths rub off on each other to mutual benefit.

In another experiment, Kang and her colleagues gave some participants the opportunity to gather information from a first negotiation to use in a second negotiation—thus making those negotiators in the first negotiation who were uninterested in reaching agreement insincere. In their first negotiation, the insincere negotiators prolonged talks and reached agreement less often than sincere negotiators, though some insincere negotiators still reached agreement. In a third experiment, negotiators who were encouraged to be suspicious of their counterpart’s motives asked more questions, were more assertive, and reached agreement less often than those who were not.

Clearly, insincere negotiators waste our time and money, and can lead us to miss out on genuine deals with other partners. How can we detect their ulterior motives? Be wary of those who slow a negotiation to a crawl or ask for sensitive information. Insincere negotiators may also make irrelevant statements, ramble, or mention constraints on their ability to reach agreement, Edy Glozman (Columbia Law School) and his colleagues found in a 2015 study.

There are also steps we can take to discourage insincere negotiators from wasting our time. In real estate negotiations, prospective buyers typically need to put down earnest money to solidify their intent to close a deal. In other realms, deposits, promises, and penalties might be contractually specified to ensure that negotiators are bargaining in good faith. Similarly, nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements can be used to protect you from bargainers whose aim is to gain privileged information from you. If you are concerned about being taken advantage of by an insincere negotiator, ask your lawyer to suggest protections specific to the context that you might employ to protect yourself or your organization.

Dealing with difficult personalities

At times, you may find yourself confronting a counterpart whose behavior or personality seems truly extreme and dysfunctional. An estimated 10% of working adults have “personality styles or behavioral tendencies that can make interactions with them especially challenging,” ranging from “odd idiosyncratic tendencies to full- blown personality disorders,” write Marc-Charles Ingerson and Kristen Bell DeTienne of Brigham Young University, Jill M. Hooley of Harvard University, and Nathan A. Black of the University of Iowa in a new article in the Negotiation Journal.

We all need to be wary of playing armchair psychologist and give negotiating counterparts the benefit of the doubt when their behavior seems irrational. Angry outbursts, sabotage, and other off-putting behaviors might be triggered by hidden constraints, personal struggles, or just a bad day. That said, an awareness of common difficult personality styles can help us understand a counterpart’s behavior at times. This knowledge may also help us decide whether a negotiation is worth pursuing and how we might adapt to the other party’s personality and behavior. Here’s an overview of four difficult styles.

• 1. Narcissistic personality disorder.
  People who score high on narcissism tend to view themselves as superior to others. Desiring admiration and lacking in empathy, they often have difficulty forming meaningful relationships. To impress others and build themselves up, they often brag or steal credit from others. Narcissistic individuals also often have desirable traits, including charm, leadership, and assertiveness. When negotiating with someone who brags, charms, and commands attention, it can be useful to challenge them to meet difficult goals that fuel their competitiveness and allow them to affirm their high status, write Ingerson and his coauthors. In addition, you may be able to gain their trust by establishing your competence and skill early in the negotiation, and by showing genuine concern for their welfare.
• 2. Antisocial personality disorder.
  Those diagnosed with this personality disorder (which is closely related to sociopathy and psychopathy) have a blatant disregard for others’ rights that manifests as rule breaking, criminal behavior, and deception. Perhaps surprisingly (or not), they often succeed in business. Pathological liars, people with this disorder are “extremely potent and cunning negotiators,” according to Ingerson and his coauthors. You would do well to avoid negotiating with these deceivers altogether; if you must, try approaching them as part of a team. People with this disorder tend to fear teams and unity, perceiving them as threatening, and may back down when facing them.
• 3. Borderline personality disorder.
  This pattern of psychological symptoms is marked by antagonism, low self-image, mistrust, and emotional outbursts. Due to their neediness and difficulty trusting others, people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder often lash out at others in anger and have intense, unstable relationships, according to Ingerson and his colleagues. To avoid overwhelming such individuals, keep the negotiating environment calm, methodical, and structured. Focus continually on building and maintaining trust with them throughout your negotiation.
  If they erupt in anger, express empathy, and apologize for any mistakes or perceived slights. But if their behavior is too erratic for you to bear, move on, if at all possible.
• 4. Passive-aggressive behavior.
  Viewing themselves as helpless victims, people engaging in passive-aggressive behavior conceal hostile and destructive acts beneath a façade of innocence. In organizations, hallmarks of passive- aggressiveness include procrastination, working slowly, and doing poor-quality work. When confronted with their obstructionism, passive-aggressive individuals blame others for making unreasonable demands and resist suggestions for improvement. If you are faced with seemingly passive-aggressive behavior from a counterpart in a negotiation, strive to be clear, direct, calm, and assertive, recommend Ingerson and his team. Try to reduce your counterpart’s anxiety by making them feel important and comfortable, praising them when they do well, and attempting to understand their perspective. Carefully document the negotiation, and make expectations and deadlines clear so that you can hold your counterpart accountable for their behavior.