Have you ever wondered if humor in business negotiation is appropriate, and when? We spoke with Alison Wood Brooks, O’Brien Associate Professor of Business Administration and Hellman Faculty Fellow in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School to find out.
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Discover step-by-step techniques for avoiding common business negotiation pitfalls when you download a copy of the FREE special report, Business Negotiation Strategies: How to Negotiate Better Business Deals, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
business negotiation
What is Business Negotiation?
Business negotiation can be for a range of items, including but not limited to: employee compensation, business acquisitions, vendor pricing and sales, real estate leases, and the fulfillment of contract obligations.
Negotiators are more satisfied with the outcome of a business negotiation when they think the process has been fair, research shows. To maximize satisfaction and build a strong working relationship, don’t leave the process of business negotiation up to chance.
Bargaining research has identified three fairness norms that negotiators frequently invoke: equality (a 50-50 split), equity (a split in proportion to input), and need.
However, there is much more to a business negotiation than the immediate issue of fairness. A business deal of any significant duration is a continuing negotiation between parties, who must apply their agreement to unforeseen circumstances and adjust their relationship to a constantly changing environment. No negotiation can achieve perfect understanding, especially when you and your partners come from different cultures or business sectors.
Fortunately, there are at least three ways to strengthen a deal and reach a mutually beneficial agreement that lasts:
- Talk to your lawyers. In a business negotiation, communicate the motivations behind your deal to your legal team. This step keeps your lawyers from having to guess your intentions and thus could save you time and money in the long run.
- Read the fine print. Resist the common tendency to merely glance over deal documents and file them away. Instead, read them through carefully—including drafts and memos—to determine whether they accurately reflect the negotiated terms as you understand them.
- Double-check contract language. Set up a time for your lawyers to read the deal back to you in plain English, free of legal jargon. Ask questions about any potential ambiguities, and “stress test” hypothetical scenarios that could arise.
Discover how to boost your power at the bargaining table in this free special report, Dealmaking: Secrets of Successful Dealmaking in Business Negotiations, from Harvard Law School.
We will send you a download link to your copy of the report and notify you by email when we post new business negotiation advice and information on how to improve your dealmaking skills to our website.
The following items are tagged business negotiation:
Salary Negotiation: How to Negotiate Salary: Learn the Best Techniques to Help You Manage the Most Difficult Salary Negotiations and What You Need to Know When Asking for a Raise
Salary negotiations are often stressful and challenging. But with the right strategies, you can negotiate your employment terms with ease. In Salary Negotiation: How to Negotiate Salary: Learn the Best Techniques to Help You Manage the Most Difficult Salary Negotiations and What You Need to Know When Asking for a Raise, you’ll discover innovative ways … Read More
The Best New Simulations
Looking to update your curriculum with innovative new simulations? Check out these new simulations from the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC).
Discord at the Daily Herald – New Simulation
This two-party, three-hour, multi-issue negotiation is between the co-owners of the Daily Herald newspaper over how to resolve ongoing management issues and implement structural reforms in the face … Read The Best New Simulations
Overcoming Cultural Barriers in Negotiation: Cross Cultural Communication Techniques and Negotiation Skills From International Business and Diplomacy
Learn how to better understand cultural differences—and improve your working relationships—with Overcoming Cultural Barriers in Negotiation: Cross Cultural Communication Techniques and Negotiation Skills From International Business and Diplomacy.
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Writing the Negotiated Agreement
Some negotiations end with a negotiated agreement that is a plan of action rather than a signed contract – for example, a plumber agrees to fix the tile damage caused by his work. Other negotiations wouldn’t be appropriate to commemorate in writing, such as how you and your spouse decide to discipline your young … Read Writing the Negotiated Agreement
Negotiation Training: How Harvard Negotiation Exercises, Negotiation Cases and Good Negotiation Coaching Can Make You a Better Negotiator
Discover how to refine your negotiation skills with this free special report, Negotiation Training: How Harvard Negotiation Exercises, Negotiation Cases and Good Negotiation Coaching Can Make You a Better Negotiator, from Harvard Law School.
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Ask Better Negotiation Questions
Asking questions can reveal a wealth of valuable information in negotiation. Yet most negotiators do not ask enough questions or share enough information, instead choosing to devote most of their time at the table to arguing or defending their positions.
… Read Ask Better Negotiation Questions
BATNA Basics: Boost Your Power at the Bargaining Table
Perfect your negotiation skills in this free special report, BATNA Basics: Boost Your Power at the Bargaining Table from Harvard Law School.
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Types of Negotiation for Business Professionals
An understanding of the most common types of negotiation used in the business world will help you prepare to get the best deal possible—while building a strong reputation as an honest and effective negotiating counterpart.
… Read Types of Negotiation for Business Professionals
Business Negotiation Strategies: How to Negotiate Better Business Deals
Written by some of the nation’s foremost experts in negotiation, Business Negotiation Strategies: How to Negotiate a Better Business Deal gives you the tools you need to navigate even the stickiest business deals.
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Negotiation in Business: Apple and Samsung’s Dispute Resolution Case Study
For two days in late May 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Gee-Sung Choi met with a judge in the U.S. District Court of Northern California in an attempt to reach a settlement in a high-profile U.S. patent case, a sobering example of negotiation in business.
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Dealmaking: Secrets of Successful Dealmaking in Business Negotiations
Discover how to boost your power at the bargaining table in this free special report, Dealmaking: Secrets of Successful Dealmaking in Business Negotiations, from Harvard Law School.
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Power Asymmetry and the Principal Agent Problem
This video simulation on power asymmetry and principal agent dynamics by Professor Lawrence Susskind and Robert Wilkinson was designed to give students insights into the challenges surrounding difficult conversations, both with people across the table, as well as with people on their own side.
… Read Power Asymmetry and the Principal Agent Problem
Harborco: Role-Play Simulation
Harborco is a consortium of development, industrial, and shipping concerns that are eager to proceed with the building of a new port, but face hurdles and potential opposition as they advance through the licensing process. The Federal Licensing Agency would like to see them work with other stakeholders to develop a project that is acceptable … Read Harborco: Role-Play Simulation
Renegotiate Salary to Your Advantage
As we prepare to renegotiate salary, most of us intend to ask for as much as we can without antagonizing our employer. But we sometimes undervalue our worth, with disappointing consequences.
… Read Renegotiate Salary to Your Advantage
International Negotiations: Cross-Cultural Communication Skills for International Business Executives
In this Special Report, we offer expert advice to help you in international negotiations. You will learn to cope with culture clashes, weigh culture against other important factors, prepare for possible cultural barriers and much more.
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The Right Negotiation Environment: Your Place or Mine?
Everyone knows the three rules of real estate: “Location! Location! Location!” When it comes to making deals, choosing the right negotiation environment can be just as important. The location you select can dramatically affect the ensuing process and, ultimately, the end result.
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Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator
Students who master business negotiation become better leaders. But it starts with building the right skills. And that’s where our latest free report comes in. In Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, you’ll learn:
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How to Negotiate a Business Deal
In late 2016 and early 2017, news stories abounded of companies that were having second thoughts about planned mega-mergers. Abbott Laboratories began looking for ways to exit its acquisition of Alere, citing investigations of the medical test maker, for example. And Verizon started rethinking its acquisition of Yahoo! following a data breach at the tech … Read How to Negotiate a Business Deal
What Is the Difference Between Leadership and Management?: Successful Leadership Strategies From Harvard’s Program on Negotiation
In this FREE special report, we offer advice to help you improve your leadership and negotiation skills.
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Negotiation Skills in Business Negotiation and Status Consciousness
Before and during your negotiation, think about who you’ve chosen as a reference group against which you measure yourself. Did you select the group purely to enhance your own status, or did you try to make a more appropriate comparison? What are your negotiation skills in business communication?
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Sales Negotiations: How to Get To Win-Win
In this Special Report, we offer expert advice to help you close your most important sales negotiations.
… Read Sales Negotiations: How to Get To Win-Win
3 Types of Conflict and How to Address Them
In the workplace, it sometimes seems as if conflict is always with us. Miss a deadline, and you are likely to face conflict with your boss. Lash out at a colleague who you feel continually undermines you, and you’ll end up in conflict. And if you disagree with a fellow manager about whether to represent … Read 3 Types of Conflict and How to Address Them
Team-Building Strategies: Building a Winning Team for Your Organization
Discover how to build a winning team, find an effective negotiation “coach,” budget for negotiations training and boost your business negotiation results in this free special report from Harvard Law School.
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What are the Three Basic Types of Dispute Resolution? What to Know About Mediation, Arbitration, and Litigation
When it comes to dispute resolution, there are so many choices available to us. Understandably, disputants are often confused about which process to apply to their situation. This article offers some guidance.
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Win-Win or Hardball?: Learn Top Strategies from Sports Contract Negotiations
In this Special Report, we offer advice from the world of sports to help you navigate your most important negotiations. You will learn to get your head in the game, manage team dynamics, and get a competitive edge.
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The Pitfalls of Negotiations Over Email
Negotiation research suggests that email often poses more problems than solutions when it comes to relationships, information exchange, and outcomes in conflict resolution negotiation scenarios. First, establishing social rapport via email can be challenging. The lack of nonverbal cues and the dearth of social norms regarding its use can cause negotiators to be impolite and … Read The Pitfalls of Negotiations Over Email
Right of First Refusal: A Potentially Win-Win Negotiation Tool
Looking for ways to get more value out of your sales negotiations? You may be able to do so by negotiating a right of first refusal. A right of first refusal, also known as a matching right or right of first offer, is a contractual guarantee that one party to a business deal can match … Read More
Teaching with Multi-Round Simulations: Balancing Internal and External Negotiations
Whether in business, law, or international diplomacy, many negotiations are actually comprised of a multi-round process with negotiations internal to the organization preceding external ones. Using multi-round negotiation simulations can help students understand the connection between internal and external negotiations, handle more complex scenarios, and better get into their roles. Engaging in a multi-round negotiation … Read More
BATNA and Other Sources of Power at the Negotiation Table
BATNA negotiations involve a negotiators knowledge of her best alternatives to a negotiated agreement and are one of three sources of negotiating power at the bargaining table, according to negotiation researcher Adam D. Galinsky and New York University’s Joe C. Magee.
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Types of Conflict in Business Negotiation—and How to Avoid Them
Conflict in business negotiation is common, but it doesn’t have to be that way. There are steps we can take to avoid types of conflict and misunderstandings. Often, it helps to analyze the unique causes of conflict in particular negotiation situations. Here, we look at three frequent types of conflict in business negotiations and offer … Read More
Top 10 International Business Negotiation Case Studies
International business negotiation case studies offer insights to business negotiators who face challenges in cross-cultural business negotiation.
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Cross Cultural Negotiations in International Business: Four Negotiation Tips for Bargaining in China
What special insights do outsiders need to prepare for international negotiations in China? Much of what you know already about negotiation holds true, but four characteristics complicate business negotiation in China.
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Negotiation Case Studies: Google’s Approach to Dispute Resolution
Here’s a great example on how to avoid litigation by pursuing negotiation with your counterparts. In the face of antitrust charges, Google’s guiding principle for dispute resolution is “Don’t litigate, negotiate,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
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Negotiation in Business: Starbucks and Kraft’s Coffee Conflict
Sometimes even the best agreements arising out of negotiation in business and are liable to failure and such is the case with the dispute between food giants Starbucks and Kraft (now Kraft-Heinz).
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How Much Does Personality in Negotiation Matter?
We tend to have strong intuitions about which personality traits help or hurt us in negotiation, but does research on the topic confirm our hunches? Does personality in negotiation matter?
… Read How Much Does Personality in Negotiation Matter?
The Star Wars Negotiations and Trust at the Negotiation Table
What is negotiation in business? Negotiation research has identified it as a process of building trust and negotiation tactics for building trust at the bargaining table have proven effective in helping negotiators create, and claim, more value out of dealmaking scenarios.
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3 Negotiation Strategies for Conflict Resolution
When a dispute flares up and conflict resolution is required, the outcome can be sadly predictable: the conflict escalates, with each side blaming the other in increasingly strident terms. The dispute may end up in litigation, and the relationship may be forever damaged.
… Read 3 Negotiation Strategies for Conflict Resolution
How to Find the ZOPA in Business Negotiations
In business negotiation, two polar-opposite errors are common: reaching agreement when it wouldn’t be wise to do so, and walking away from a mutually beneficial outcome. How can you avoid these pitfalls? Through careful preparation that includes an analysis of the zone of possible agreement, or ZOPA in business negotiations.
… Read How to Find the ZOPA in Business Negotiations
5 Win-Win Negotiation Strategies
Business negotiators understand the importance of reaching a win-win negotiation: when both sides are satisfied with their agreement, the odds of a long-lasting and successful business partnership are much higher. But concrete strategies for generating a win-win contract often seem elusive. The following five, from experts at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, … Read 5 Win-Win Negotiation Strategies
Cross Cultural Communication: Translation and Negotiation
In previous international negotiation articles from cross cultural negotiation case studies, we have focused on how international negotiators can avoid cognitive biases and overcome cultural barriers. But how do negotiators dealing with counterparts that speak another language modify their negotiation techniques to accommodate for the lack of a common language?
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Framing in Negotiation
So, you’ve offered what you think is a great deal, but your counterpart doesn’t seem to agree. What’s the problem? The offer may be excellent—it’s how you’ve approached framing in negotiation that’s holding you back.
… Read Framing in Negotiation
Bidding in an International Business Negotiation: Euro-Idol
Euro-Idol is a four-party, two-round international business negotiation over the selection of the host country and city for the upcoming Euro-Idol music competition. In this bidding simulation from the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC), cities must place bids to host the Euro-Idol competition, and therefore gain the economic benefits that come with hosting such a … Read More
BATNA Examples—and What You Can Learn from Them
What are BATNA examples in negotiation? In their bestseller Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton (Penguin, 1991) described BATNA, or best alternative to a negotiated agreement, as the path you’ll follow if you don’t reach agreement in your current negotiation.
… Read BATNA Examples—and What You Can Learn from Them
Sales Negotiation Techniques
In sales negotiations, making the first offer is often a smart move. The first offer can anchor the discussion that follows and can have a powerful effect on the final outcome.
… Read Sales Negotiation Techniques
Contract Negotiations and Business Communication: How to Write an Iron-Clad Contract
In contract negotiations, writing a contract that both encapsulates the negotiated agreement but also incorporates future elements such as the business relationship and the sustainability of the agreement can be a daunting task for even the most experienced negotiators. Executives often leave the legal issues surrounding their deals to their attorneys. While this division of … Read More
The Process of Business Negotiation
Negotiators are more satisfied with the outcome of a negotiation when they think the process has been fair, research shows. To maximize satisfaction and build a strong working relationship, don’t leave the process of business negotiation up to chance. Given the importance of negotiation in business communication, you’d be wise to consider the following seven … Read The Process of Business Negotiation
Perspective Taking and Empathy in Business Negotiations
We are often counseled to engage in perspective taking and empathetic understanding to achieve better results in business negotiations, both for ourselves and for our counterparts. Yet perspective taking and empathy are two different skills. Perspective taking is a cognitive ability that involves considering how other people think. Empathy, by contrast, involves emotionally connecting with … Read More
How to Create Win-Win Situations
In business negotiation, a win-win agreement may be the ultimate goal, but it can sometimes prove elusive. Here, we offer four strategies from experts at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School on how to create win-win situations in even the trickiest negotiations.
… Read How to Create Win-Win Situations
Negotiations, Gender, and Status at the Bargaining Table
When it comes to different characteristics of negotiation styles, a growing body of research suggests that status consciousness varies depending on the gender of interested parties.
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Best Negotiation Books: A Negotiation Reading List
Whether you are facing negotiations with Congress, colleagues, customers, or family members, the following negotiation books, published in recent years by experts from the Program on Negotiation, offer new perspectives on common negotiating dilemmas.
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10 Popular Business Negotiation Articles
Here are ten popular business negotiation articles on the Program on Negotiation website. Drawn from a variety of negotiation case studies as well as negotiation research, the following articles offer strategies for engaging in integrative negotiations aimed at creating win-win scenarios for each party at the negotiation table.
… Read 10 Popular Business Negotiation Articles
Lessons for Business Negotiators: Negotiation Techniques from International Diplomacy
Executives rarely view themselves as diplomats engaged in international diplomacy but business negotiators often find the two fields share negotiation skills and negotiation techniques. Rightly or wrongly, diplomacy evokes images of frivolity – days spent wandering exotic capitals, nights spent cruising embassy cocktail parties.
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Dressing for Success: How Wealth and Status Cues Affect Business Negotiation
In business negotiations, we know we’re supposed to focus on substance: which issues matter to both sides, what each party can afford, what each side’s outside alternatives are, how to build a strong relationship, and so forth. Yet we’re often swayed by more superficial, often irrelevant aspects of negotiation, such as the shape of the table, whether … Read More
5 Ways to Be a More Strategic Business Partner
If you’re looking to be a strategic business partner, you need to have your eyes and ears open at all times.
… Read 5 Ways to Be a More Strategic Business Partner
In Business Negotiations, Eat Before You Negotiate
When preparing for your next business negotiation, you may want to strategize not only about what you’ll put on the bargaining table, but also how much food you’ll put in your belly beforehand. That’s the message of new research that Cornell University professor Emily Zitek and Dartmouth College professor Alexander Jordan presented at the annual … Read More
A Business Negotiation Case Study: Ending the NHL Lockout
How can negotiators overcome impasse and achieve win-win negotiated agreements at the bargaining table? This example illustrates the power of expanding the focus of the negotiations by looking for tradeoffs.
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How to Balance Your Own Values in Negotiation
What are the best negotiation examples from real life? Imagine that you’ve been negotiating the sale of a property that is owned by your company. The buyer has made an attractive offer that you’ve tentatively accepted. Your boss is pleased with the terms as they stand, but suggests that you go back to the buyer … Read How to Balance Your Own Values in Negotiation
Why Great Negotiators Earn More Money
What’s the best way to claim more money in a negotiation? Many professional negotiators would recommend hard-bargaining tactics, such as asking the other party to disclose their bottom line, standing firm on price, and threatening to walk away. But truly great negotiators recognize that using haggling strategies alone may leave significant money on the table. … Read Why Great Negotiators Earn More Money
Advice for Bargaining Abroad: Tips on How To Overcome Cultural Barriers
Imagine that you’re the CEO of a sports clothing manufacturer based in Chicago. You recently traveled to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to meet with a distributor who has a rich and diverse network in the European sports market.
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Negotiation Research on Mediation Techniques: Focus on Interests
There is a better way to resolve your dispute: by hiring an expert mediator with a focus on interests – the needs, desires, or concerns that underlie each side’s positions according to negotiation research on mediation techniques.
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Negotiation Skills and Bargaining Techniques from Female Executives
Dozens of female CEOs and other high-level women negotiators have told us about their experiences negotiating in traditionally masculine contexts where standards and expectations were ambiguous. Their experiences varied according to the gender triggers that were present in the negotiations and they adapted their negotiation skills to accommodate these shifts.
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Business Negotiations: How to Improve Your Reputation at the Bargaining Table
In multi-issue business negotiations, research suggests that the advantage goes to negotiators with a reputation for collaboration rather than competition. In a series of studies by Catherine H. Tinsley and Kathleen O’Connor, participants were told they would be negotiating with someone who had either a tough reputation, a cooperative reputation, or an unknown reputation. Although … Read More
Limiting Strategic Miscalculation in Business Negotiations
Over-precision doesn’t necessarily lead us to think we’re better negotiators than we actually are. Rather, it causes us to trust our initial instincts too much.
Sometimes we’re actually overconfident that we’ll perform worse than others. This tendency applies to competitive situations, including negotiation.
Those who underestimate their ability to be competitive usually will choose to stay out … Read More
Negotiation Challenges for Family Business Relationships
Communication in business negotiations is important – but even more so when your counterparts and negotiating partners are family members. In this article drawn from negotiation research, the negotiation strategies for avoiding conflict and crafting win-win negotiated agreements are outlined.
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Six Strategies for Creating Value at the Negotiation Table
In today’s market, consumers are often the more powerful parties in negotiations with sellers.
To claim the most value in your next haggling experience, use the following six negotiation strategies.
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A Token Concession: In Negotiation, the Gift that Keeps on Giving
When making concessions in negotiation, we tend to assume that a concession must really cost us, financially or otherwise, for the other side to take notice and give us what we want. But in fact, we can often make real headway toward our negotiation goals by giving a token concession—a concession that costs us little, … Read More
Emotion and the Art of Business Negotiations
The sale of Picasso’s works by his heirs is fraught with negative emotion. How do negative emotions impact negotiation and behavior at the bargaining table? This article offers negotiation skills insights into how to counter or prevent negative emotions in negotiation.
… Read Emotion and the Art of Business Negotiations
Business Negotiation Strategies for Managing the Tension Between Claiming and Creating Value
When it comes to great business negotiation strategies, there’s no better example than the cast of Friends in their heyday.
David Schwimmer, the actor who played Ross on the hit NBC sitcom Friends, famously convinced the show’s five other leads in the early years of its run to negotiate their contracts with NBC as a team. … Read More
Negotiation Tactics for Bargaining with Difficult People: The Comcast Merger
If a competitive bargaining session shifts in a counterpart’s direction, your anger could send the wrong signals to your negotiation counterpart. In this instance, strong emotions portray desperation rather than strength. Here are some bargaining and negotiation tactics for dealing with difficult situations in relationships.
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Business Negotiation Examples: Choose the Best Kind of Auction
There are many business negotiation examples involving auctions. Suppose you’ve weighed the pros and cons of selling an asset via auction or negotiation and decided an auction is the best choice. What kind of auction should it be?
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BATNA Strategy: Negotiating When Negotiation Is Not the Norm
Many U.S. law schools are in crisis, to hear some tell it. During the recent recession, many law firms instituted mass layoffs and pay cuts, and few have fully recovered. As a result, college graduates are thinking twice about becoming lawyers, and many law schools have fewer high-quality applicants to choose from. In the past … Read More
Business Negotiation Skills: How to Deal with a Failing Business Partnership
It had seemed like the beginning of a fruitful relationship. In April 2012, six wealthy businessmen teamed up to buy the Philadelphia Inquirer and several affiliated businesses for $61.1 million, promising to work together to reverse the newspaper’s flagging fortunes. Their infusions of cash and appointment of a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter, William K. Marimow, as … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: What Are Business Negotiation Skills for Entrepreneurs?
To get an idea or innovation off the ground takes strong business negotiation skills as an entrepreneur.
Yet, in their book Entrepreneurial Negotiation: Understanding and Managing the Relationships that Determine Your Entrepreneurial Success (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2018), Program on Negotiation instructor Samuel Dinnar and MIT professor Lawrence Susskind write that many entrepreneurs are falling short. Here, Susskind explains … Read More
When Business Negotiations Fall Flat
Business negotiations fail for many reasons. An attempted merger between Renault and Fiat Chrysler collapsed, despite its potential benefits, because of the failure to consider how it would play with interested parties.
… Read When Business Negotiations Fall Flat
Facing an Email Negotiation? Take a Proactive Approach
As a format for complex deals, email negotiation has a bad reputation. Negotiators are more likely to deceive one another when using email, and they have trouble building trust and rapport in email messages. Furthermore, some research has found that negotiators achieve less joint gain and are less satisfied with their outcomes when negotiating over … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Negotiation Mistakes in Choosing the Room
In her book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters (Riverhead Books, 2018),Thrive Labs founder Priya Parker, a professional facilitator with a background in conflict resolution, argues that most of us just go through the motions when planning events, whether a dinner party, a conference, or a negotiation. The result is often … Read More
New International Negotiation Simulations: Teaching International Negotiation with Current Global Dynamics
With the spread of a global pandemic, climate crisis, and the war on terror, resolving international conflicts has become increasingly complex. Training to address these difficult global conflicts must also reflect the modern issues and dynamics that face the international community. The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) has several new international negotiation simulations that reflect … Read More
Business Skills: Make Concessions Strategically in Negotiation
Business negotiators generally understand that to get what they want from another party or parties, they will have to give something away. But what concessions should you offer in the deal-making process, and what form should they take? New research on concession making in negotiation offers tips to add to your repertoire of business skills.
Finding … Read More
Negotiating Organizational Development
Teach Your Students to Promote Organizational Development and Build Leadership Skills
Efforts to impact change in any kind of organization usually involve multiple kinds of negotiations or consensus-building efforts. Organizational development is most effective when the participants in the organization, whether public, private or civil society, are directly engaged in deciding what might need to change, … Read Negotiating Organizational Development
Using Business Negotiation Skills To Move a Deal in your Favor
Performers have increasingly learned business negotiation skills and played an outsized role in shaping plays and musicals vying for a Broadway stage. In 2016, the original off-Broadway cast of Hamilton negotiated with the show’s producers to acknowledge their contributions to the hit musical by guaranteeing them a small share of the show’s profits.
With other actors … Read More
The Best Negotiation Exercises, Simulations and Videos
Have you planned your curriculum and purchased your teaching material for next semester? We’re here to help you to find the best negotiation exercises and teaching aids for your negotiation classes.
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Teach Your Students Value Distribution with a Simulation on Solar Power
Do your students really understand the difference between value distribution and integrative negotiation, and have you given them a chance to practice their distributive bargaining skills? Do they understand that every negotiation includes elements of both value creation and value distribution? To help teach these key negotiation skills the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) has developed a … Read More
The Top Three Defensive Negotiation Strategies You Need to Know
In the course of a career, a negotiator will confront many skilled persuaders. Here, we review three defensive negotiation strategies a negotiator can employ.
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Mediation Checklist: 5 Questions to Ask When Hiring Mediators
Are you hiring a mediator? When considering a potential mediator, create a mediation checklist and ask the following questions of those who have worked with him in the past.
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In Contract Negotiation, Wise Business Negotiators Sweat the Small Stuff
What are business negotiators responsible for in contract negotiation? Many would say they’re in charge of building relationships and new business, crafting creative solutions, and fighting for the best deal possible. Few, however, would say they’re responsible for ensuring that the deal holds up well over time.
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Asking for More in Salary Negotiation: When Jennifer Lawrence and Jennifer Aniston Spoke Out
“We’re very much a sexist society,” actress Jennifer Aniston said in back in 2015 in an interview with the New York Times, addressing not just the constant questions she faces about marriage and children, but about recent revelations of pay discrimination and salary negotiation in Hollywood.
“Women are still not paid as much as men,” Aniston … Read More
Navigating Business Relationships Using Negotiation
A three-year dispute between Starbucks and Kraft Foods over distribution of Starbucks packaged coffee in grocery stores was resolved in 2013 when an arbitrator determined that Starbucks had breached its agreement with Kraft and ordered the coffeemaker to pay the food giant $2.75 billion.
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For Price Negotiators, Preparation is the Key to Success
Some cultures have a long tradition of haggling—bargaining back and forth about the price of an item—in markets and bazaars. By contrast, in the United States and many other countries, haggling between buyers and sellers is an under-practiced skill. You might routinely pass up opportunities to haggle in situations where financial negotiations are not the … Read More
Understanding Your Counterpart’s BATNA
One of the most popular questions concerning negotiation strategy and an area of negotiation research that draws heavily on negotiation examples in real life is how do negotiators identify their BATNA, or best alternative to a negotiated agreement, and even better, how do they identify their counterpart’s BATNA? Consider the saga of a company that … Read Understanding Your Counterpart’s BATNA
What to Do When Your BATNA is Not Good Enough
The following question was featured in the “Ask the Negotiation Coach” section of the Negotiation Briefings newsletter, April 2010 issue. Question: What should I do when a negotiation seems to be all about price, I have no BATNA, and the other side knows it?
… Read What to Do When Your BATNA is Not Good Enough
Business Negotiation Skills: Fairness at the Negotiation Table
Negotiation research sheds light on negotiator expectations of fairness and equality in negotiations. The negotiation skills advice contained here can help business negotiators more effectively craft agreements with their counterparts in business negotiations.
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How Hardball Negotiation Tactics Can Backfire
In negotiations and disputes, punishment and threats often seem like the only way to win concessions. But business negotiators would do well to remember how Time Warner’s gambit unfolded.
… Read How Hardball Negotiation Tactics Can Backfire
Ask A Negotiation Expert: Creating More Value—For All
In these difficult times, many of us are thinking about how to help make the world better, including in our negotiations. The good news is that we can do so without huge sacrifices, writes Max H. Bazerman, the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, in his new book, Better, Not … Read More
Negotiation Techniques from the M&A World
Negotiators often have to deal with more than one party to reach their goals and often tailor their negotiation techniques towards this end. These negotiation scenarios pose unique challenges, yet most negotiation advice focuses on talks between two parties.
… Read Negotiation Techniques from the M&A World
In Business Negotiations, Dress the Part
Negotiators involved in high-stakes mergers and acquisitions typically come to the table armored in meticulously tailored apparel and designer shoes. But as Dana Mattioli reports in a recent Wall Street Journal negotiation topics in business article, those who are trying to woo business from an apparel company often end up dressing down at the bargaining … Read In Business Negotiations, Dress the Part
Why Win-Win Negotiation Has Been Elusive in Covid-19 Vaccine Talks
National governments across the globe face the challenge of securing enough doses of a safe, effective coronavirus vaccine when one or more become available. Many wealthier nations are taking a competitive approach to this negotiation challenge, jostling with each other to tie up deals with pharmaceutical companies for the most promising vaccine candidates. A coordinated … Read More
The Hidden Hazards of BATNA Development
The following question was posed to Program on Negotiation faculty member and associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School in the Negotiations, Organizations & Markets Unit, Francesca Gino and involves a negotiation example from real life from the world of business negotiations.
… Read The Hidden Hazards of BATNA Development
Ethics in Negotiation: How to Avoid Deception in Employment Negotiations
Ethics in negotiation can involve expectations of fairness, equity, and honesty but, sometimes, despite your best intentions, one or more of these four forces might lead you to behave unethically during job offer negotiations:
… Read More
In Group Negotiation, Avoid a Turf Battle
In group negotiation, turf battles—heated conflicts over territory, control, rights, or power—are common. Department heads clash over scarce resources. Companies, community groups, and governments get tied up in lawsuits over undeveloped land. Across the globe, fishing groups have depleted fish stocks in their rush to catch the biggest share for themselves.
… Read In Group Negotiation, Avoid a Turf Battle
How to Use MESOs in Business Negotiations
It’s not uncommon in business negotiations to find yourself on the brink of impasse. You and your counterpart have exchanged a series of offers and counteroffers, and you’ve met somewhere close to the middle—but not close enough. With each side firmly rooted in its position, there may seem to be no way forward.
… Read How to Use MESOs in Business Negotiations
What is the Right of First Refusal?
When transferring property, sellers sometimes insist on real estate rights of first refusal – the chance to be first in line to repurchase the property if their buyer later decides to sell.
… Read What is the Right of First Refusal?
Definition of the Winner’s Curse in Negotiations
The winner’s curse negotiations, when a negotiator overbids for an item due to competitive pressure or other non-value related factors, is a major pitfall that integrative bargainers should seek to avoid.
… Read Definition of the Winner’s Curse in Negotiations
Price Negotiation Advice for Consumers
It’s official: Price negotiations aren’t just for big-ticket items anymore. The prices of furniture, electronics, wine, jewelry, and other “medium-ticket” goods are now frequently up for discussion. The ancient art of haggling has made a comeback, so brush up on your skills with our six price negotiation tactics.
… Read Price Negotiation Advice for Consumers
Mutually Beneficial Agreements: Tips for Creating Deals that Last
David Schwimmer, the actor who played Ross on the hit television comedy Friends, famously convinced the show’s five other leads in the early years of its run to negotiate their contracts with NBC as a team. The “mini union” formed by the actors ultimately helped them negotiate an unprecedented $1 million each per episode during … Read More
Business Contract Mistakes—and How to Avoid Them
When negotiating a business contract, parties are often so focused on reaching agreement that they don’t think enough about how the deal will unfold after the ink has dried. This type of short-term thinking leads to real problems down the road. The following three business negotiation tips can help you adopt a long-term perspective the … Read More
Famous Negotiation Case: How Jamie Dimon Avoided Disaster
Sometimes your goal in negotiation is to improve your fortunes. But sometimes, as in this famous negotiation case, the best you can hope for is to lessen the fallout from past mistakes.
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Teaching Real Estate Negotiation: How to Identify and Create Value
How do you teach your students to identify and create value in real estate negotiations?
Real estate negotiation can be difficult for both the buyer and the seller. Teaching real estate negotiation can involve value creation, distributive bargaining, as well as issue linkages. It is important for both buyers, sellers, and agents to identify ways to … Read More
Professional Negotiators: Give Texts a Chance
Do you negotiate via text? If you’re a young person early in your career, your answer may be an emphatic yes. If you’re a little older, maybe you answered no. Even so, if you took a closer look at the saved text messages on your smartphone, you might find you’ve recently negotiated the division of … Read Professional Negotiators: Give Texts a Chance
Business Negotiation Strategies When Your Boss Is the Problem
Many of us know the feeling of being frustrated by a superior’s involvement in our business negotiation strategies, whether because she hovers too closely over the talks, contradicts our carefully crafted strategy, or doesn’t give us the authority we need to sign off.
… Read More
Business Negotiation Solutions: To Eat or Not to Eat?
We’ve all shared a meal with a negotiating counterpart at one point or another, whether a business lunch, a working dinner, or sandwiches in a conference room. What are the advantages and potential pitfalls of combining food and drink with negotiation? Here, we offer business negotiation solutions for those who are trying to decide whether … Read More
Corporate Negotiation Pitfalls: The Case of Facebook
In corporate negotiation, negotiators often care most about getting the best price possible, assessing the other party’s ability to follow through, and closing the deal. Unfortunately, such business preoccupations can lead dealmakers to overlook potential ethical concerns, as current negotiations in the news often attest. Examining some of Facebook’s recent corporate negotiation mistakes, we describe … Read More
Business Negotiation Solutions: Coping with Low Power
In business negotiations, a little power is better than none at all, right? After all, if talks with a prospective client fail, we’d rather have a few unpromising leads to turn to rather than none.
… Read More
How to Handle Difficult People—Including Your Rivals
One of the most common questions raised by businesspeople is how to handle difficult people. This question contains a hidden assumption: Faced with abrasive, competitive, and even unethical behavior, we view ourselves as being in the right and the other party as being wholly wrong.
Yet it’s important to consider that, in our real-life conflict scenarios, … Read More
Business Negotiation Examples: Choose the Best Kind of Auction
There are many business negotiation examples involving auctions. Suppose you’ve weighed the pros and cons of selling an asset via auction or negotiation and decided an auction is the best choice. What kind of auction should it be?
… Read More
Negotiate Business Contracts that Last
After engaging in the complex process of business negotiation, business negotiators are often happy to pass off the technicalities of deal drafting to their attorneys. Unfortunately, this handoff is prone to errors. Vague, contradictory, and missing deal terms are not uncommon, and they can lead to serious problems during the implementation stage, according to Harvard … Read Negotiate Business Contracts that Last
Entrepreneurial Negotiation – New Book on Negotiation Challenges for Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurial Negotiation: Understanding and Managing the Relationships that Determine Your Entrepreneurial Success
The great majority of startups fail, and most entrepreneurs who have succeeded have had to bounce back from serious mistakes. Entrepreneurs fumble key interactions because they don’t know how to handle the negotiation challenges that almost always arise. They mistakenly believe that deals … Read More
Crossed Wires? Negotiation Games To Help Your Business Deal Sidestep Legal, Technical And Emotional Glitches
What’s faster than the pace of technological development? The pace of lawsuits being filed about the adoption of new technologies, patent infringement, and intellectual property rights. In our modern world, professionals must be able to resolve highly challenging technology-related disputes – often before they reach the courtroom. That’s where the Program on Negotiation’s Teaching … Read More
What is the Anchoring Bias?
It may be the most burning question in business negotiation: Should you make the first offer?
Traditionally, negotiators were advised to wait for the other side to make a first offer. According to this reasoning, the other side’s offer gives you valuable information about his goals and alternatives.
More recently, however, research on the anchoring bias has … Read What is the Anchoring Bias?
Be a Better Mind Reader and Create Value Using Integrative Negotiation Strategies
How important is body language in the negotiation process? Take the following example: The parents of a toddler were interested in finding a babysitter to work one or two nights a week.
… Read More
When a Win-Win Negotiation Creates Controversy
In negotiation, the concessions we are willing to make in public sometimes are very different from the concessions we are willing to make in private.
Take the statement that U.S. secretary of state Rex Tillerson made during his visit to China in March.
… Read When a Win-Win Negotiation Creates Controversy
Top Business Negotiations: Michael Bloomberg versus the New York Teachers’ Union
Business negotiators seeking to resolve a dispute should foster a cooperative spirit, framing negotiations around gains rather than losses. And when negotiators are far apart, it may take a professional mediator or other independent party to help bridge the divide.
… Read More
Copyright Negotiation: In Dealmaking with Tom Petty, Sam Smith Backs Down
Sam Smith’s Grammy win drew attention to his integrative bargaining success in business negotiations with Tom Petty over copyright infringement issues.
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How Snap Judgments Can Lead Bargainers Astray In Negotiations
New research shows that our stereotypes about other people’s warmth and competence often mar our decisions and behavior in negotiation conversations.
… Read More
Exploring New Opportunities to Negotiate in Conflict Resolution
Many U.S. law schools are in crisis, to hear some tell it. To combat economic downturns, many law firms instituted policies of mass layoffs and pay cuts. Years after the 2008 financial recession, few have recovered.
… Read More
Top 10 Celebrity Negotiations of 2015
Here are the top 10 celebrity negotiations from the year 2015. From integrative bargaining strategies to building bridges with counterparts in contentious talks, these negotiation scenarios demonstrate the effectiveness of collaborative, win-win negotiation tactics.
… Read Top 10 Celebrity Negotiations of 2015
With Second Book Deal, Amy Schumer Gets the Last Laugh
Dissatisfied with her initial book contract, comedian Amy Schumer used her negotiation skills to bargain for an even better contract. Find out how she did it in this article drawn from examples of negotiation in real life.
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In Business Negotiations, Capitalize on a Right of First Refusal
As dealmakers look for more sophisticated ways to reduce risks and increase returns, a right of first refusal—a contractual guarantee that one side can match any offer that the other side later receives—has become a common and useful tool to add to your business negotiation skills.
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.
What Does Conflict Management Mean in Business Negotiations with Competitors?
They say it pays to keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but in business negotiation, keeping your enemies—or competitors—close could end you up in court, as Apple’s recent encounter with the U.S. Department of Justice suggests.
The story begins back in 2007 when, unhappy with Amazon’s low, flat price of $9.99 for e-books, five … Read More
Dispute Resolution: Robert DeNiro Leaves Conflict Management to the Courts
Turning to litigation when disputes arise can be costly and time consuming. Instead of using the courts to resolve your dispute, negotiation offers a myriad of benefits for disputants who are seeking to resolve their conflict, create value, and save time and money.
… Read More
Business Negotiation Advice: When Your Image is Everything
Turning to another questionable negotiation from Illinois politics, in 2005, then–U.S. senator Barack Obama and his family bought a house in Chicago. On the same day the Obamas closed on the property, the wife of real estate developer Antoin Rezko bought an adjacent parcel of land. Rezko was a key fundraiser for Obama’s Senate campaign.
… Read More
Why Classic Cases?
Why are some negotiation exercises still used in a great many university classes even twenty years after they were written? In an effort to understand more about the enduring quality of some classic teaching materials, we asked faculty affiliated with PON to explain why they think some role play simulations remain bestsellers in the Clearinghouse … Read Why Classic Cases?
Jeswald Salacuse Article Published in International Negotiation Journal
Jeswald Salacuse’s article Teaching International Business Negotiation: Reflections on Three Decades of Experience was published in International Negotiation, Volume 15, Number 2. The full article can be purchased here.
Abstract:
The author has taught international business negotiation in a wide variety of university courses and executive training programs throughout the world during the last three decades. He … Read More
Teams across cultures
Adapted from “Team Negotiating: Strength in Numbers?”, first published in the Negotiation newsletter.
According to conventional wisdom, when it comes to negotiation, there’s strength in numbers. Indeed, several experimental studies have supported the notion that you should bring at least one other person from your organization to the bargaining table if you can. On average, this … Read Teams across cultures