Learn how to negotiate like a diplomat, think on your feet like an improv performer, and master job offer negotiation like a professional athlete when you download a copy of 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.


creating value in negotiation

What is Creating Value in Negotiation? 

Add the collaborative element of negotiation to the table, and you’ll be creating value in negotiation and making the process more enjoyable and also more rewarding.

Negotiations involving multiple issues are known as integrative negotiations, or value-creating negotiations because they allow parties to integrate various sources of value through tradeoffs and other creative dealmaking strategies. This process of creating value in negotiation encourages negotiators to make the most of differing priorities.

In fact, those differences often are opportunities for creating value in negotiation, write Harvard Business School professor Max H. Bazerman and the University of California, Berkeley professor Don A. Moore in their book Judgment in Managerial Decision Making.

If you aren’t sure where to begin, try breaking the problem down into more easily managed component parts. This constructs a multi-issue negotiation out of what at first is a single-issue negotiation, allowing both parties to make tradeoffs based upon their differing preferences.

When you and your counterpart can uncover additional value, make useful trades, and put together a package that exceeds your party’s expectations, you’re creating value in negotiation. 

Remember that situations that appear to be zero-sum rarely are. The key to value creation? Bringing a degree of optimism about the chances of expanding the pie to every negotiation.

Learn how to negotiate like a diplomat, think on your feet like an improv performer, and master job offer negotiation like a professional athlete when you download a copy of 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.

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 negotiation skills to our website.

The following items are tagged creating value in negotiation:

Building Trust in Negotiations

Posted by & filed under Dealmaking.

Adapted from “Strike the Right Balance Between Trust and Cynicism,” by Harvard Business School professor Max H. Bazerman, first published in the Negotiation Briefings newsletter.  Negotiators often must choose between trusting their counterparts and being cynical of their motives. The consequences of such decisions can be serious in dealmaking: trust too much, and you’ll lose big; … Read Building Trust in Negotiations

Deal Design: Strategies for Complex Dealmaking

Posted by & filed under Dealmaking.

As experienced negotiators well know, the more parties involved in a negotiation, the more difficult it often is to come to agreement, due in part to the logistical challenge of making sure each voice is heard. Yet multiparty negotiation offers considerable benefits. Most notably more opportunities for making tradeoffs and creating value in negotiation than … Read Deal Design: Strategies for Complex Dealmaking

Learning from the Debates About the Debates

Posted by & filed under Dealmaking.

There is “nothing worse than a debate about debates,” John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, recently said in the midst of his candidate’s heated negotiations with Democratic rival Bernie Sanders about the terms of their debates. Many who participated in these negotiations would likely agree. But the debates about debates—both on the … Read Learning from the Debates About the Debates

Negotiations in the telecommunication industry

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations, Daily.

The Clearinghouse at PON offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises.  Telecom Services is a two-party, two-issue, integrative, scorable negotiation over the terms of a telecommunications services contract. Scenario: Data Voice markets telecommunications (“telecom”) services to residential and business customers. This year, a small firm … Read Negotiations in the telecommunication industry