You say you would never lie during a negotiation. Your ethical standards are solid—right? Ethics in negotiations are an important subject. Learn how ethics in negotiations can change results at the bargaining table.
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Discover how to collaborate, negotiate, and bargain with even the most combative opponents with, Dealing with Difficult People, a FREE special report from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
difficult people
What is Dealing with Difficult People in Negotiation?
One of the most common questions raised by business negotiators is how to handle difficult people. This question contains a hidden assumption:
From time to time, we may end up in the deeply unsettling position of handling difficult people who appear to have no concern for us or our outcomes. 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, the other party may be viewing us as difficult and uncooperative. When you are confronted with difficult people (and those who just seem difficult), spend some time exploring the possible motivations behind their obstinance.
Whether you are dealing with difficult coworkers or working with difficult people more generally in your work life, the following guidelines should help you look at them in a more constructive light:
1. Listen to their concerns. To avoid dealing with difficult people, don’t give them a reason to be difficult in the first place.
2. Resist the urge to threaten. Usually, an open and honest conversation is all that is needed for parties to begin to bridge their differences and find common ground.
3. Don’t go on a power trip. The more powerful you or your team is in a negotiation, the greater the need to avoid giving the other side the impression that they are working with difficult people.
A final note: Negotiators often err in assuming that their counterparts are irrational. More often than not, the other party is simply facing constraints or stresses that are causing them to seem irrational. Before playing armchair psychologist, ask questions aimed at determining whether some unseen pressure could explain their behavior.
Discover how to collaborate, negotiate, and bargain with even the most combative opponents with, Dealing with Difficult People, a FREE report from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
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Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems THREE-DAY PROGRAM | June 9–11, 2025
Our program will feature:
Role plays and negotiation exercises—You’ll have the opportunity to test what you learn by taking part in realistic negotiations with your fellow participants.
One-on-one interaction with top faculty—You’ll have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with negotiation experts from Harvard, and … Read More
Negotiation and Leadership Spring 2025 Program Guide
It’s often said that great leaders are great negotiators. But how does one become an effective negotiator? On-the-job experience certainly plays a role, but for most executives, taking their negotiation skills to the next level requires outside training.
… Read More
Trust and Honesty in Negotiations: Dealing with Dishonest Negotiators
Negotiating opportunities sometimes come from challenging sources: a family member who has been unreliable in the past but promises to make a change; a business competitor that approaches you about a joint venture; a difficult boss with whom you would like to work out a better relationship.
… Read More
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems THREE-DAY PROGRAM | May 12–14, 2025
Our program will feature:
Role plays and negotiation exercises—You’ll have the opportunity to test what you learn by taking part in realistic negotiations with your fellow participants.
One-on-one interaction with top faculty—You’ll have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with negotiation experts from Harvard, and … Read More
Negotiation and Leadership Fall 2024 Program Guide
It’s often said that great leaders are great negotiators. But how does one become an effective negotiator? On-the-job experience certainly plays a role, but for most executives, taking their negotiation skills to the next level requires outside training.
… Read More
10 Negotiation Training Skills Every Organization Needs
How can managers and their organizations increase the odds that negotiation training will lead to beneficial long-term results? Here are several pieces of advice, drawn from experts at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
… Read More
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems THREE-DAY PROGRAM | April 7–9, 2025
Our program will feature:
Role plays and negotiation exercises—You’ll have the opportunity to test what you learn by taking part in realistic negotiations with your fellow participants.
One-on-one interaction with top faculty—You’ll have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with negotiation experts from Harvard, and … Read More
The New Conflict Management: Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies to Avoid Litigation
This report reveals how wise negotiators extract unexpected value using an indirect approach to conflict management. An aggressive management style can set you up for repeated failure. Direct conflict management approaches can be overly combative and counter-productive. Experienced negotiators know that compromise seldom succeeds. Win/lose is really lose/lose. The best negotiation strategy results in … Read More
Negotiation Tips: Listening Skills for Dealing with Difficult People
We love giving out negotiation tips. A negotiation daily reader once asked us, “All the negotiation advice I read says that I should listen and ask questions in negotiations. That makes sense, and I mean to. But once the other side starts talking, I often find myself telling them what they left out or why … Read More
Harvard Negotiation Master Class: Advanced Strategies for Experienced Negotiators – November 18–20, 2024
Strictly limited to 60 participants who have completed a prior course in negotiation, this first-of-its-kind program offers unprecedented access to experts from Harvard Law School, MIT, and the Harvard Kennedy School—all of whom are committed to delivering a transformational learning experience.
… Read More
Dealing with Difficult People
Top help you handle difficult people, our free, special report Dealing with Difficult People is packed full of concrete tips and strategies. Discover how to collaborate, negotiate, and bargain with even the most combative opponents.
… Read Dealing with Difficult People
Best Negotiators in History: Nelson Mandela and His Negotiation Style
The late Nelson Mandela will certainly be remembered as one of the best negotiators in history. He was clearly “the greatest negotiator of the twentieth century,” wrote Harvard Law School professor and former Program on Negotiation Chairman Robert H. Mnookin in his seminal book, Bargaining with the Devil, When to Negotiate, When to Fight.
… Read More
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems THREE-DAY PROGRAM | December 2–4, 2024
Our program will feature:
Role plays and negotiation exercises—You’ll have the opportunity to test what you learn by taking part in realistic negotiations with your fellow participants.
One-on-one interaction with top faculty—You’ll have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with negotiation experts from Harvard, and … Read More
Managing Difficult Employees, and Those Who Just Seem Difficult
Ask the many managers of a certain high-volume restaurant in the Midwest what their greatest work challenge is, and they’d most likely say something along the lines of, “managing difficult employees.”
… Read More
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems THREE-DAY PROGRAM | October 21–23, 2024
Our program will feature:
Role plays and negotiation exercises—You’ll have the opportunity to test what you learn by taking part in realistic negotiations with your fellow participants.
One-on-one interaction with top faculty—You’ll have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with negotiation experts from Harvard, and … Read More
Advanced Negotiation Strategies and Concepts: Hostage Negotiation Tips for Business Negotiators
Upset by a delay in the delivery of one of your products, a longtime buyer threatens to turn to the media unless you meet his extreme demands. Not only is the relationship in jeopardy, but your company’s reputation seems to be as well. What should you do? Turn to some tried and true hostage negotiation … Read More
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems THREE-DAY PROGRAM | September 23–25, 2024
Our program will feature:
Role plays and negotiation exercises—You’ll have the opportunity to test what you learn by taking part in realistic negotiations with your fellow participants.
One-on-one interaction with top faculty—You’ll have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with negotiation experts from Harvard, and … Read More
How to Deal with Difficult Customers
To hear some salespeople and service representatives tell it, difficult behavior from customers is at an all-time high. Stories of demanding customers proliferate in the press and on social media, while customers likewise complain that their needs increasingly are not being met by companies focused on the bottom line.
… Read How to Deal with Difficult Customers
Top Ten Posts About Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution is the process of resolving a dispute or a conflict by meeting at least some of each side’s needs and addressing their interests. Conflict resolution sometimes requires both a power-based and an interest-based approach, such as the simultaneous pursuit of litigation (the use of legal power) and negotiation (attempts to reconcile each party’s … Read Top Ten Posts About Conflict Resolution
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.
… Read More
How to Handle Difficult Customers
Every salesperson has his or her war stories: tales of difficult customers who made extreme demands and threats, tried to take advantage, or were extremely rude. Dealing with difficult customers is inevitable in the sales world, and the question of how to handle difficult customers looms large. The following three guidelines can help you stay … Read How to Handle Difficult Customers
Negotiating with Difficult Personalities and “Dark” Personality Traits
Have you ever found yourself negotiating with difficult personalities, or negotiating with someone who seemed entirely ruthless and lacking in empathy? From time to time, we may end up in the deeply unsettling position of negotiating with someone who appears to have no concern for us or our outcomes.
… Read More
Managing Difficult Negotiators
In negotiation, we are often confronted with the task of dealing with difficult people—those who seem to prefer to set up roadblocks rather than break down walls, or who choose to take hardline stances rather than seeking common ground. If you’re skilled in BATNA negotiations, you’ll have an easier time dealing with such people.
… Read Managing Difficult Negotiators
Dealing with Difficult People and Negotiation: When Should You Give Up the Fight?
Negotiators often fail to recognize when it’s time to walk away from a negotiation dispute – a trap that can squander time, money, and reputations. In a negotiation where pride and property are at stake, it may help to know when to give up the fight with your counterpart.
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Famous Negotiators: Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin
At a January press conference back in 2015, German chancellor Angela Merkel dangled a carrot in front of Russian president Vladimir Putin: the possibility of a summit in Kazakhstan aimed at easing the Ukraine crisis, to be attended by the two famous negotiators as well as the leaders of France and Ukraine.
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Managing Difficult Employees: Listening to Learn
Managing difficult employees is one of the biggest challenges that leaders face. When employees seem unreasonable, belligerent, or uncooperative, managers may be tempted either to brush aside the problem or, alternatively, to fly off the handle.
A better solution when managing difficult staff? Use negotiation techniques to get to the root of underlying problems. The following … Read Managing Difficult Employees: Listening to Learn
When Dealing with Difficult People, Look Inward
Yes, there are difficult people in the world, but people often have good reason for behaving as they do. Reexamining our assumptions for bias can help us better understand them—and ourselves.
… Read When Dealing with Difficult People, Look Inward
Police Negotiation Techniques from the NYPD Crisis Negotiations Team
Few negotiators can imagine negotiation scenarios more stressful than the kinds of crisis negotiations the New York City Police Department’s Hostage Negotiation Team undertake. But police negotiation techniques employed by the New York City Police Department’s Hostage Negotiations Team (HNT) in high-stakes, high-pressure crisis negotiation situations, outlined in an article from Jeff Thompson and Hugh … Read More
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
How to Control Your Emotions in Conflict Resolution
To guard against acting irrationally or in ways that can harm you, authors of Beyond Reason: Using Emotions As You Negotiate Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro advise you to take your emotional temperature during a negotiation. Specifically, try to gauge whether your emotions are manageable, starting to heat up, or threatening to boil over.
… Read More
How to Resolve Cultural Conflict: Overcoming Cultural Barriers at the Negotiation Table
After recently losing an important deal in India, a business negotiator learned that her counterpart felt as if she had been rushing through the talks. The business negotiator thought she was being efficient with their time. In this useful cross-cultural conflict negotiation example, how should this negotiator improve her negotiation skills?
… Read More
Interest-Based Negotiation: In Mediation, Focus on Your Goals
How can you get through to people who seem uninterested in finding common ground? How can you deal with seemingly irrational negotiators who use insults, threats, and other hardball tactics to try to get their way?
… Read More
When Dealing with Difficult People, Try a Complementary Approach
To hear President Donald Trump tell it, the United States under President Barack Obama had bungled one negotiation after another on the global stage due to an inability to stand firm and take tough stances on key issues when engaging in difficult conversations.
… Read More
Patience is a Winning Negotiation Skill for Getting What You Want at the Negotiation Table
On April 9, 2012 the hearts of internet entrepreneurs everywhere must have skipped a beat at the news that Facebook was paying $1 billion in cash and stock to buy Instagram, a San Francisco-based start-up.
… Read More
Examples of Difficult Situations at Work: Consensus and Negotiated Agreements
How do negotiators reach consensus while engaged in intense negotiated agreements, often contentious, bargaining sessions with their counterparts? Here are some ways negotiators have reached consensus with colleagues and counterparts in the workplace.
… Read More
MESO: Make Multiple Equivalent Simultaneous Offers to Create Value in Dealmaking Table
MESO negotiation, a negotiation strategy for creating value with a counterpart who may be reluctant to negotiate, allows negotiators to propose multiple offers without signaling commitment or preference for any one option. Business negotiators that practice integrative negotiation strategies often complain that although they try to focus on creating value, they run into far too many difficult … Read More
Difficult Situations at Work – Negotiation Skills for Dealing with Difficult People
Here are a few examples of difficult situations at work and some negotiation skills for dealing with difficult people we encounter in every area of life. First, negotiators should ask themselves: Why do some people get under our skin?
… 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.
… Read More
Managing Difficult Conversations: Achieving Objectives with Backmapping Negotiation Strategies
The problem: Your negotiation seems to be over before it has begun. Your targeted counterpart is refusing to sit down with you or simply ignoring your requests. How can you get her to see that she would benefit from negotiating with you?
… Read More
Dealing with Difficult People – Even When You Don’t Want To
In your negotiations, have you ever faced a truly difficult negotiator—someone whose behavior seems designed to provoke, thwart, and annoy you beyond all measure? We often have strong incentives to negotiate with those we find obstinate, unpredictable, abrasive, or untrustworthy. When we avoid dealing with difficult people, we risk missing out on important opportunities. But … Read More
Dealing with Difficult People and Unethical Negotiation Tactics
The fallout from unfair and ill-advised negotiated agreements can reverberate for years to come, as the City of Miami learned from its 2009 stadium deal with former Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria. The story highlights aspects of dealing with difficult people, including their threats, questionable claims, and other potentially unethical negotiation tactics.
The Great Switcheroo
Back in … Read More
How to Negotiate with Difficult People: International Negotiation, and a Refusal to Communicate
Business negotiators sometimes face the difficult question of whether to negotiate with someone they believe to be immoral, untrustworthy, or otherwise undesirable as a negotiating partner. In his book Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight (Simon & Schuster, 2011), Program on Negotiation chair Robert Mnookin offers negotiation advice on the complex … Read More
Negotiation Strategies: Bernie Sanders’ Pragmatic Approach to Negotiating in the Senate
When dealing with difficult people, we tend to expect them to be rigid negotiators who will walk away if they don’t get everything they want. But a gruff demeanor may not necessarily translate into a hard-nosed negotiating style.
… Read More
Teaching with Video-Based Negotiation Scenarios
Access to multimedia content has rapidly increased throughout the world, with videos and short clips permeating our daily life. We are consuming, producing, and interacting with videos more now than ever before. In light of increasing video fluency and interest in using videos in education, the Program on Negotiation’s Teaching Negotiation Resource Center is creating … Read Teaching with Video-Based Negotiation Scenarios
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?
Dealing with Difficult People: Lies, Lies, and More Lies
Are you facing a negotiator you don’t think you can trust? Here are five common types of deception you may come across when dealing with difficult people in a negotiation.
… Read More
Dealing with Difficult Clients: Price Negotiations
When dealing with difficult clients, we sometimes can trace our struggles to the early stages of our interactions—including our price negotiations. If initial price negotiations are contentious and frustrating for the client, their unhappiness is likely to leave you handling difficult situations and managing difficult people in your ongoing business relationship. In this post, we … Read More
Hardball Tactics in Negotiation Increase with Rivalry
Coke vs. Pepsi. Clinton vs. Trump. Apple vs. Samsung. The New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox.
Whether we work in business, politics, sports, or another arena, our competitors sometimes turn into fierce rivals. In addition, many sales, legal, and financial firms structure jobs, incentives, and promotion systems in ways that pit employees against one … Read More
Handling Difficult People: The Antisocial Negotiator
Have you ever found yourself negotiating with someone who seemed entirely ruthless and lacking in empathy? From time to time, we may end up in the deeply unsettling position of handling difficult people who appear to have no concern for us or our outcomes.
People who are antisocial, lack empathy, and habitually engage in impulsive, manipulative, … 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
How to Deal with Difficult People
We’ve all met them: people who prefer competition over collaboration, stonewalling over problem solving, tough talk over active listening. Think of the boss who refuses to allow you time off to help an ailing relative, or the potential customer armed with a “nonnegotiable” proposal.
When considering how to deal with difficult people, we tend to write … Read How to Deal with Difficult People
Managing Difficult Employees — Like Alex Rodriguez?
What negotiation strategies should employers use when dealing with difficult employees? Conflict management strategies and negotiation skills go hand in hand as this negotiation example about New York Yankees’ star baseball player Alex Rodriguez demonstrates.
… Read More
How to Break Through Barriers in Negotiation When Dealing with Difficult People
In negotiation, we sometimes face the dreaded task of asking difficult people, intimidating opponents, and otherwise daunting counterparts for a big favor. How can we close the deal when we can barely summon up the courage to talk to the person in the first place?
… Read More
Dealing with Difficult People? First Look in the Mirror
We’ve all faced the challenge of dealing with difficult people – those who refuse to give you what you want in negotiation for no clear reason other than sheer stubbornness. But dismissing others as stubborn, irrational, and difficult is typically a mistake.
… Read More
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
Dealing with Difficult People – In and Outside of Congress
In business negotiations, we sometimes face the task of dealing with difficult people—those who seem to pick fights, hold offensive views, or rely on hard-bargaining tactics. Some of us naturally turn away from such difficult negotiations. Others choose to try to overlook or overcome the flaws they see in potential negotiating partners.
… Read More
Worst Negotiation Tactics of 2015
Here are some of the worst negotiation tactics displayed during calendar year 2015 – from hard-bargaining, distributive negotiation strategies aimed at getting the whole pie to stonewalling strategies intended to stymy the development of a negotiated agreement.
… Read Worst Negotiation Tactics of 2015
Worst Negotiation Tactics of 2015
Here are some of the worst negotiation tactics displayed during calendar year 2015 – from hard-bargaining, distributive negotiation strategies aimed at getting the whole pie to stonewalling strategies intended to stymy the development of a negotiated agreement.
… Read Worst Negotiation Tactics of 2015
Managing Cultural Differences: Negotiation Strategy and Diplomacy
Diplomats deal with difficult people when engaging in international negotiations in ways integrative negotiators may find useful for developing their negotiation skills.
… Read More
What You Can Learn from Putin’s Negotiation Style
In January 2015 the Negotiation Briefings newsletter featured an article, “Dealing with difficult people – even when you don’t want to,” discussing the impasse NATO leaders had reached with Russian President Vladimir Putin with regards to his unilateral actions in the Crimea. Aside from exhibiting obstinacy in the face of a unified European front, Putin … Read More
Top Worst Negotiation Case Studies: Real Life Examples of Bargaining Gone Wrong
Sometimes negotiators care so much about the issues at stake that they mistake compromise for surrender. Sometimes they’re so confident things will go their way they don’t try hard enough. Our list of the 10 Worst Negotiations of 2014 includes talks that failed for one or both of these reasons, as well as for numerous … Read More
PON Faculty Members Jeswald Salacuse, Deborah Kolb, and William Ury Honored on Time’s List of the Five Best Negotiation Books of 2015
Program on Negotiation faculty members Jeswald Salacuse, Deborah Kolb, and William Ury were named by Time magazine as the authors of three of the five best negotiation books of 2015.
Jeswald Salacuse’s latest work, The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century, describes the negotiation skills people need to succeed … Read More
Conflict Resolution When Dealing with Difficult People: Shutting Down the Government and Negotiation Strategies
Program on Negotiation faculty discuss the negotiation strategies used by US President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans negotiating the end of the shutdown of the United States government.
… Read More
Conflict Management in Negotiation: Training with the Enemy
Negotiation skills tips to help create value during your next session at the bargaining table. Read how collaboration and competition can lead to value creation in business negotiations.
… 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
You Have Less Information Than You Think
Most negotiators understand the importance of preparation and will dedicate significant time and energy to analyzing important negotiations in advance.
Chances are, however, that powerful negotiators will undertake less informative and less accurate analyses than their weaker counterparts will.
For instance, in a hypothetical salary raise negotiation, a negotiator may be so confident of her contributions that … Read You Have Less Information Than You Think
PON Film Series presents “The Interrupters”
The PON Film Series presents
“The Interrupters”
followed by a post-screening discussion with
William Ury, co-author of Getting to YES &
Gary Slutkin, Executive Director of Chicago’s Ceasefire
Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School Campus
The Interrupters tells the moving and surprising stories of three Violence Interrupters who try to protect their Chicago … Read PON Film Series presents “The Interrupters”
Making and Using Films to Teach Negotiation
Access to multimedia content is rapidly increasing throughout the world, with videos and short clips permeating our daily life – whether in gas stations, on ATMs, cell phones, or mobile entertainment devices. We are consuming, producing, and interacting with videos more now than ever before: YouTube is the third-most visited website on the Internet, the … Read Making and Using Films to Teach Negotiation