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 More 
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.
negotiation briefings
The following items are tagged negotiation briefings:
Managing Multiparty Negotiations
If you’re in a negotiation with many parties who have varying positions, it may be tempting to join a coalition with parties who share at least some of your goals. But should you join one?
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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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Getting the Deal Done
Dear Business Professional, Simon’s story says a lot how to get deals done. Here’s how he tells it: For nearly a decade, I’ve been an acquisitions editor at one of the largest book publishers in the Northeast. It’s my job to skim through reams of manuscripts to identify those that might be commercially viable—and … Read More
The Impact of Anxiety and Emotions on Negotiations
Intense negotiation scenarios, we often choose to consult an expert for advice, preferably someone who has carried out hundreds of similar deals with great success. When we consult with others on our negotiations, we must weigh their advice against our own opinions and research. Past negotiation research finds that we tend to undervalue advice from … Read More
Negotiation Advice from Negotiation Briefings: The Best of “Dear Negotiation Coach”
This free report offers best practices on a variety of negotiation and conflict resolution topics—from how to quell nerves, to drawing information out of counterparts, to dealing with hard bargainers.
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The Two Koreas Practice Conflict Management
In August 2015, the decades-long conflict between South Korea and North Korea threatened to reach a breaking point. The causes of conflict between North and South go deep, but in this case, the South accused the North of planting landmines that seriously injured two South Korean border guards. South Korea retaliated with an old tactic … Read More
NEW FREE REPORT! Salary Negotiations
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.
… Read More
Contingency Contracts in Business Negotiations
Question: Lately I have been hearing a lot—both in the news and on the job—about companies using contingencies in contracts. Given that I sometimes negotiate deals that entail a lot of risk regarding how future events will play out, I am interested to know how contingencies work and how I might use them.
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Overcoming Cultural Barriers in Negotiation
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.
… Read More
Take your BATNA to the Next Level
If your current negotiation reaches an impasse, what’s your best outside option? Most seasoned negotiators understand the value of evaluating their BATNA, or best alternative to a negotiated agreement, a concept that Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton introduced in their seminal book, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Penguin, 1991, second … Read More
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.
… Read More
How to Set Negotiation Goals as a Manager
To encourage the negotiators they supervise to do their best, managers routinely rely on performance benchmarks, the promise of bonuses, and other types of goals.
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Business Negotiation Strategies: How to Negotiate Better Business Deals
New Free Report – Business Negotiation Strategies: How to Negotiate Better Business Deals
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How to Negotiate Mutually Beneficial Noncompete Agreements
If you’re looking to get more leverage out of your next job negotiation, the noncompete agreement that may very well be tucked inside your employment contract could provide an opportunity to achieve the mutually beneficial win-win situation you desire.
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Dealing with Difficult People
At the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School (PON), we are dedicated to helping professionals deal with hard bargainers and resolve even the most challenging disputes. To help you understand the principles of negotiation and conflict resolution, we put together a special report: Dealing With Difficult People.
Discover how to collaborate, negotiate, and bargain … Read More
Understanding Different Negotiation Styles
In the business world, some negotiators always seem to get what they want, while others more often tend to come up short. What might make some people better negotiators than others? The answer may be in part that people bring different negotiation styles and strategies to the bargaining table, based on their different personalities, experiences, … Read More
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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Closing the Deal in Negotiations: 3 Tips for Sequential Dealmaking
After closing the deal in negotiations, we often feel a sense of pride. Imagine, for example, that you are a purchasing agent who just scored a significant price concession from a supplier. Now it’s time to hang up the phone and move on to another negotiation with a different supplier. You’re feeling proud of how … Read More
International Negotiations: Cross-Cultural Communication Skills for International Business Executives
In this Special Report, we offer expert advice from the ‘Negotiation’ newsletter 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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Identify Your Negotiation Style: Advanced Negotiation Strategies and Concepts
Have you ever wondered if your negotiation style is too tough or too accommodating? Too cooperative or too selfish? You might strive for an ideal balance, but, chances are, your innate and learned tendencies will have a strong impact on how you negotiate.
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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:
… Read More
Ethics in Negotiations: How to Deal with Deception at the Bargaining Table
You say you would never lie during a negotiation. Your ethical standards are solid—right? But imagine that after spending months looking for a new job, you’ve received an attractive offer to serve as the director of innovation for a growing start-up company.
… Read More
Negotiation Strategies for Women: Secrets to Success
As a general manager of a business unit and the father of two daughters in college, I have no tolerance for gender bias in the workplace or anywhere else for that matter. At least that’s what I thought, until a women manager handed me the Negotiation Strategies for Women report that she recently received from … Read More
Leadership Skills in Negotiation: How to Negotiate Equity Incentives with Senior Management
How can you use your leadership skills in negotiation to divide the pie of resources with those that helped you grow it in the first place? In this negotiation case study, Kevin Mohan, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School examines how executives can expand the pie while helping those who contribute claim equitable value.
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Real Leaders Negotiate: Understanding the Difference Between Leadership and Management
In this FREE special report, we offer advice taken from the Negotiation Briefings newsletter, to help you improve your leadership and negotiation skills.
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MESO Negotiation: The Benefits of Making Multiple Equivalent Simultaneous Offers in Business Negotiations
In MESO, negotiation in which multiple offers are presented simultaneously at the negotiation table, effective negotiators seek opportunities to create value. By making tradeoffs across issues, parties can obtain greater value on the issues that are most important to them.
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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, taken from the Negotiation newsletter, 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.
… 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
Teaching Negotiation: Understanding The Impact Of Role-Play Simulations
Negotiation can be challenging. And so can teaching it! At the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School, we help educators, scholars and practitioners like you learn how to more effectively teach negotiation.
Notably, role-play simulations are a particularly useful way to facilitate experimentation and introduce participants to new dispute resolution tools, techniques and … Read More
How to Manage Conflict at Work
Sooner or later, almost all of us will find ourselves trying to cope with how to manage conflict at work. At the office, we may struggle to work through high-pressure situations with people with whom we have little in common. We need a special set of strategies to calm tempers, restore order, and meet each … Read More
Choose the Right Dispute Resolution Process
What is dispute resolution? There are three basic types of dispute resolution, each with its pros and cons. The first two, mediation and arbitration, are considered types of alternative dispute resolution because they are an alternative to litigation.
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Negotiation Techniques To Get New Business Partnerships Off on the Right Foot
“A huge mistake.” “A shot in the dark.” “An audacious move.” Those are a few of the media’s characterizations of wireless carrier AT&T’s acquisition of media and entertainment firm Time Warner, announced on October 22, 2016, for $85.4 billion.
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Negotiation Skills Training: Define Your Negotiation Style
How would you characterize your negotiation style: Are you collaborative, competitive, or compromising? During any professional negotiation skills training, you’re likely to find out your negotiating style when setting goals and revealing your negotiating personality.
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Using E-Mediation and Online Mediation Techniques for Conflict Resolution
Suppose you want to hire a mediator to help you resolve a conflict that you’re having with an individual or a company, but for various reasons, meeting face-to-face would be difficult. That’s where online mediation comes in.
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Solutions for Avoiding Intercultural Barriers at the Negotiation Table
Even with a common language and the best of intentions, business negotiators from different cultures face special challenges. Try these solutions for avoiding intercultural barriers when preparing for negotiation between two companies from different cultures:
… Read More
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR): Negotiating for the Right Mediator
Knowing what to look for in a mediator is key to successful dispute resolution. Know what qualities to look for, the purpose of the mediator, and how alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes like mediation can benefit even the most entrenched disputes.
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How Negotiators Can Stay on Target at the Bargaining Table
An excerpt from PON faculty member Francesca Gino’s book Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed, and How We Can Stick to the Plan discusses the importance of staying on target in negotiations whether personal or business in nature.
… Read More
Dispute Resolution for India and Bangladesh
Sometimes in international negotiation, disputes are left to fester for years, even decades, until parties decide there is something to be gained from reaching agreement. In an example of a cross cultural negotiation case study, the nations of Bangladesh and India seized on an opportunity to push the “restart” button on their bumpy relationship by … 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
Understanding Exclusive Negotiation Periods in Business Negotiations
The clearest method for achieving exclusivity in negotiation is an exclusive negotiation period during which both sides agree not to talk to third parties, even if approached unexpectedly by others. In some arenas, these terms are called no-talk periods.
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Negotiation Research Examines Ethics in Negotiating
Lack of transparency regarding negotiations between hospitals and the insurers known as preferred provider organizations, or PPOs, is a key contributor to spiraling health-care costs in the United States, according to an August article in the New York Times. This topic has many questioning ethics in negotiating within the healthcare industry.
The problem starts with the … Read More
Negotiation in Business Without a BATNA – Is It Possible?
In a negotiation scenario, you always have a best alternative to a negotiated agreement. Negotiation research and negotiation strategy helps negotiators find their BATNA, leverage it at the bargaining table, and illustrates the impact that knowing your BATNA has on a negotiation.
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Will You Avoid a Negotiation Impasse?
In the summer of 2016, Illinois became the only U.S. state in the past 80 years to go an entire year without a full operating budget, according to Reuters. It reached that dubious milestone thanks to an epic negotiation impasse between Republican governor Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-controlled state legislature. The story of the negotiation … Read More
How to Negotiate with Friends and Family
“Never do business with friends,” the adage goes. But should you always stay away from an opportunity to negotiate with friends and family? A strict policy of keeping friends and family members out of our business lives would be impractical, and it could cause us to pass up potentially valuable negotiating opportunities.
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What Makes a Good Mediator?
What makes a good mediator? And how is it that mediators—who themselves lack any power to impose a solution—nevertheless often lead bitter disputants to agreement?
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Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Power in Negotiation
When you expect people to be competitive, it’s not only your own behavior that changes. You also set up a self-fulfilling prophecy, such that your expectations about the other side’s behavior lead him to behave in ways that confirm your expectations.
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How to Use Tradeoffs to Create Value in Your Negotiations
How do expectations of fairness and reciprocity at the bargaining table impact negotiator decisions regarding the strategies and tactics they use at the negotiation table?
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Four Conflict Negotiation Strategies for Resolving Value-Based Disputes
In many negotiations, both parties are aware of what their interests are, and are willing to engage in a give-and-take process with the other party to come to agreement.
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Using Integrative Negotiation Techniques to Close the Deal
Like a contingency, a condition to a deal is a related though far less common deal-structuring technique. A condition is an ‘if’ statement like a contingency, but, whereas a contingency depends on unknown future events, a condition is entirely within the control of the parties involved.
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Conflict Management: Intervening in Workplace Conflict
Question: I’m aware of lots of unresolved personnel issues that seem to be festering in my department, such as complaints about someone who is not doing his share of the work, another person whose griping is causing a drop in morale, and two coworkers who can’t seem to get along. I’m comfortable negotiating with customers, … Read More
How to Build a Relationship at the Bargaining Table During Business Negotiations
Coming together with negotiating counterparts at the bargaining table is a situation fraught with potential mishaps, all of which are compounded by the pressure to get the best deal a negotiator can for herself or her organization.
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Ethics in Business Negotiations and in Leadership: How Collusion Limits Value Creating Opportunities
It started with Steve Jobs. That’s the story told by the flood of e-mail messages subpoenaed in a class-action lawsuit filed against Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe by 64,613 Silicon Valley software engineers who claim that the companies conspired to keep them from switching employers.
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Conflict Management and Negotiation: Personality and Individual Differences That Matter
Although Elfenbein and her colleagues did find that negotiators performed at a similar level from one negotiation to the next, to their surprise, these scores were only minimally related to specific personality traits. And traits that are basically unchangeable, such as gender, ethnic background, and physical attractiveness, were not closely connected to people’s scores.
A small … Read More
What is Alternative Dispute Resolution?
So, you’re stuck in a serious dispute, but you’re desperate to avoid the hassle and expense of a court case. You’ve heard about alternative dispute resolution but are not sure what it entails.
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The Winner’s Curse in Negotiations: How to Avoid It
These business negotiations – an auction and a negotiated acquisition – highlight both the promise and risks of high-priced purchases and the dangers of the winner’s curse in negotiation. Negotiators fall victim to the winner’s curse in negotiations when they over-compete (and overbid) for items in the pursuit of a “victory” at the bargaining table. … Read More
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Techniques: Negotiating Conditions
A married couple was debating whether their four-year-old daughter should attend public or private elementary school. It was a difficult issue, and Mike had a tendency to walk out when the conversation got heated. Frustrated, Lisa turned to negotiating terms and conditions just as a negotiator would in a business deal.
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Negotiating with Millennials – How to Overcome Cultural Differences in Communication
Negotiation training often focuses on bridging gaps between negotiators with different styles, backgrounds, or objectives, but what about overcoming generational barriers in negotiation? Generational differences need not stymie efforts at the bargaining table. In this segment from “Dear Negotiation Coach,” we explore how to overcome cultural differences in communication with members of the Millennial generation.
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Win-Win Negotiations: Should You Consider a Deal Sweetener?
The following question was asked of Andrew Wasynczuk, MBA Class of 1953 and Senior Lecturer of Business Administration Harvard Business School in the Negotiation Briefings monthly “Ask the Negotiation Coach” column:
I run a midsized retail sports-apparel chain located in the southwestern United States. I’ve been searching for a seasoned executive to lead new store expansion … Read More
5 Tips for Improving Your Negotiation Skills
The prospect of boosting our negotiation skills can be so overwhelming that we often delay taking the necessary steps we can follow to improve, such as taking time to prepare thoroughly. The following five guidelines will help you break this daunting task into a series of manageable—and often essential—strategies.
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Overcoming Cultural Barriers in Negotiations and the Importance of Communication in International Business Deals
Communication in negotiation is the means by which negotiators can achieve objectives, build relationships, and resolve disputes. Most negotiators know that it is the most important tool you can have for successful negotiations.
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3 Types of Power in Negotiation
Social psychologists have described different types of power that exist in society, and negotiators can leverage these types of power in negotiation as well.
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Emotional Intelligence as a Negotiating Skill
The concept of emotional intelligence burst into the cultural imagination in 1995 with the publication of psychologist Daniel Goleman’s bestselling book of the same name. Experts have predicted that scoring high on this personality trait would boost one’s bargaining outcomes and have found many successful negotiation examples using emotional intelligence in their research.
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Negotiation with Your Children: How to Resolve Family Conflicts
Few negotiation examples in real life demonstrate the benefit of effective conflict resolution skills than those disputes that arise in the home, such as those between parents and children. Getting a good night’s sleep and eating a healthy dinner might seem like obvious goals for parents to have for their young children, but kids won’t … Read More
Salary Negotiations and How to Negotiate Performance-Based Pay
Salary negotiations are never predictable. Imagine that you are a sales rep with a company that is getting hit hard by a financial crisis. No one has been laid off yet, but everyone is nervous about that possibility. In an effort to save jobs, your sales manager has quietly proposed that everyone take lower base … Read More
For Better Communication, Try Appreciation
Many professional negotiators have come away from talks wondering, How did that pleasant discussion turn sour? Why did the deal unravel at the last minute?
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International Negotiations: North and South Korea Talks Collapse
On June 12, North Korea and South Korea were supposed to have met in Seoul to explore whether they could get beyond their decades-old divisions and forge a rapprochement. It would have been the highest government dialogue between the divided nations in years.
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Break a Competitive Cycle with Win-Win Negotiation Strategies
Negotiators seeking to break through the mythical fixed-pie mindset can try the following three proven strategies, suggested by Max Bazerman for finding mutually beneficial tradeoffs.
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The Importance of a Relationship in Negotiation
At the negotiation table, what’s the best way to uncover your negotiation counterpart’s hidden interests? Build a relationship in negotiation by asking questions, then listening carefully. Even if you have decided to make the first offer and are ready with a number of alternatives, you should always open by asking and listening to assess your … Read More
How to Create Value at the Negotiation Table: Strategies for Creating Win-Win Negotiations
While you might choose many processes for conducting your negotiations, we recommend the following three steps of a mutual-gains approach to negotiations:
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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?
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When a Job Offer is “Nonnegotiable”
Question: I am in my final year of business school and starting to prepare for job interviews. I have heard many of the organizations that recruit on campus are not open to negotiating specific terms of employment. Rather, they offer everyone roughly the same deal terms. To what extent should I respect such conventions versus … Read More
How to Overcome Cross Cultural Barriers in Negotiation
How different cultural perspectives impact bargaining strategies at the negotiation table
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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
How to Defend Against “Scope Creep” at the Negotiation Table
The following question was asked of Negotiation Coach and PON faculty member Guhan Subramanian in the February 2014 issue of the Negotiation Briefings newsletter:
Question: I run a small consulting firm that has a services contract with a major multinational corporation. The team we work with has a bad habit of continually adding items to the … Read More
Know Your BATNA: The Power of Information in Negotiation
Knowing when to walk away in a negotiation is some of the most powerful information in negotiation a negotiator can bring to the bargaining table – and this means a negotiator should know her BATNA or best alternative to a negotiated agreement.
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How Mood Affects Negotiators
What are social psychologists learning about the connections among emotions, negotiation, and decision making? Negotiation contributor Jennifer S. Lerner of Harvard Kennedy School and her colleagues have identified two critical themes. First, they have studied the carryover of emotion from one episode, such as a car accident, to an unrelated situation, such as a workplace … Read More
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.
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Undecided on Your Dispute Resolution Process? Combine Mediation and Arbitration, Known as Med-Arb
The choice: arbitration vs. mediation. You’re not sure which of two common dispute resolution processes, mediation or arbitration, to use to resolve your conflict.
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Conflict and Negotiation Case Study: Long-Term Business Partnerships and Negotiated Agreements
To protect the future interests of their organization, negotiators sometimes must accept fewer benefits or absorb greater burdens in the short run to maximize the value to all relevant parties – including future employees and shareholders – over time.
Suppose that the operations VPs of two subsidiaries of an energy company are preparing to negotiate 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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When Family Business Disputes Require Conflict Resolution
Unfortunately, business disputes—and the need for conflict resolution—can be common when family members do business together.
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Mediation Process and Business Negotiations: How Does Mediation Work in a Lawsuit?
How does mediation work in a lawsuit? What benefits can mediation offer businesses that deal with multiple contractual agreements, some of which may end in disputes? These questions were answered by Harvard Law School Associate Professor and negotiation expert Dan Greiner in an “Ask the Negotiation Coach” segment from our Negotiation Briefings newsletter.
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Ask A Negotiation Expert: To Resolve Conflict, Address Dignity Concerns
Dignity violations can often be found at the core of interpersonal conflicts, according to Dr. Donna Hicks, an associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. The author of Leading with Dignity: How to Create a Culture That Brings Out the Best in People (Yale University Press, 2018), Hicks shared with Negotiation Briefings how we can … Read More
Building Trust in Negotiations
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 More
Ask A Negotiation Expert: Facing Difficult Problems? Bring High-Level Values to the Table
Melvin Shakun is a management consultant, professor emeritus at New York University, and founding editor of the international journal Group Decision and Negotiation. He spoke with Negotiation Briefings about how negotiators can break through impasse and resolve conflict by appealing to common values.
Negotiation Briefings: How do you define values in the context of negotiation?
Melvin Shakun: … Read More
Win-Win Negotiation Skills: Motivate Good Behavior in the #MeToo Era
In the #MeToo era, entertainment companies have incurred significant financial and reputational damage from alleged crimes and misbehavior by the producers, directors, executives, and actors they’ve employed.
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How Negotiators Can Stay on Target at the Bargaining Table
An excerpt from PON faculty member Francesca Gino’s book Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed, and How We Can Stick to the Plan discusses the importance of staying on target in negotiations whether personal or business in nature.
… Read More
4 Negotiation Tactics Robert Kraft Used to End the NFL Lockout
Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, was by all accounts a major factor in getting the NFL collective bargaining agreement signed earlier in October 2011. To do so, Kraft employed four key negotiation tactics to help the players and owners come to a “win-win” solution.
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Ask A Negotiation Expert: Think Outside the Conference Room
In her new 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 … Read More
Setting the right table
On March 8, U.S. president Donald Trump shocked even his own White House staff when he revealed that he had accepted an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. After months of name-calling and threats between Trump and Kim, the news that the two leaders would be discussing the possibility of North Korea dismantling … Read More
Negotiation Ethics May Be a Slippery Slope
Negotiation researchers have refuted the widespread belief that honesty varies widely among individual negotiators. Rather, because people respond strongly to their environment, personal standards for negotiation ethics often vary depending on the context.
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When International Negotiation Stymies the Best Mediators
On May 13, Lakhdar Brahimi, U.N. special envoy to Syria, announced that he was quitting his position as lead mediator of the Syrian conflict due to frustration with a lack of progress. The same day, a French diplomat said the Syrian government had used chemical weapons more than 12 times after signing a treaty banning … Read More
How to Avoid Preparing Unethical Negotiation Plans
To what degree should you level the playing field for your counterpart in negotiations? Let’s turn to the question of whether you have an ethical obligation to educate an uninformed buyer.
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Dear Negotiation Coach: Dealing with Exploding Offers
Question: I was recently laid off from my longtime job and am back on the market. I received a pretty good offer (Job A) but was being considered for a more interesting, higher-paying job (Job B) at the same time. The recruiter for Job A told me the company needed an answer within two days, … Read More
Contracts, Confusion, and the Oxford Comma
If you’ve tended to leave contract drafting and review to your lawyers in the past, you might think twice about doing so in the future after reading about a legal dispute that blew up over a comma—or, rather, the lack thereof.
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Dear Negotiation Coach: Negotiating Upgrades
Q: My company, a large multinational, contracts with an outside vendor for some of our software infrastructure. Due to new regulatory requirements, we have asked the vendor’s team to upgrade certain features of the software. We think that we should get these upgrades for free because these enhanced features may be needed by their other clients … Read More
Difficult Negotiation Going Nowhere? Consider an Apology
If you’ve ever offended a fellow negotiator with words or actions, you know how hard it can be to make amends.
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BATNA: Negotiation Preparation to Help Avoid Giving Up at the Bargaining Table
When you expect an opponent to be competitive, your confidence in the outcomes you can achieve in negotiation is likely to plummet. In negotiation research with Adam Galinsky of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, negotiators were provided with some background about their counterpart including information on how competitive their counterpart has been in previous negotiations.
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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.
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Closing the Deal in Negotiations
In dealmaking, we typically devote significant time to trying to convince a counterpart of the logic and appeal of our proposals. But sometimes our role becomes a more defensive one, as our negotiation behaviors focus on trying to dissuade others from pursuing a route that we believe could be disastrous.
That was the task outgoing United … Read More
How Expressing Disappointment Impacts Offers in Negotiations
Most of us have had the experience of feeling disappointment during a negotiation. If a counterpart picks up on this disappointment, will it affect the offers she makes?
Professor Gert-Jan Lelieveld of Leiden University and his colleagues considered this question in a recent study. In four experiments, college students were assigned to play a simple negotiating … Read More
M&A Negotiation: Undoing the Deal
After parties have invested considerable time and money in a negotiation, agreement can come to seem like an inevitable end point. You may think you have an ironclad contract, but because negotiations can be difficult to undo, we’d be wise to examine very closely the pros and cons of signing a deal. That’s the lesson … Read More
How Professional Negotiators Can Avoid Public Controversy
In negotiation, we sometimes become so focused on what we’re trying to achieve at the bargaining table that we fail to adequately account for how the deal could look to observers. As two recent deals that the U.S. government reached with Iran show, it’s important for professional negotiators to consider the optics.
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In Conflict Resolution, Look for Trusted Partners
How can you engage in conflict management with someone who doesn’t trust you? Consider bringing in someone the other party does trust to mediate the dispute, as the FBI and the occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon did to promote a peaceful end to their standoff in February 2016.
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Examples of Negotiation in Business: When “Shrink to Grow” Pays Off
Learn how BP and Russian negotiators came together and created value in a tough business negotiation even though expansion of the negotiated relationship was not on the bargaining table.
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Mediation Techniques for Conflict Resolution: Negotiation Strategies to Consider Before You Outsource
Learn how mediation techniques could have informed Apple’s negotiation strategies when it discovered discrepancies in working conditions among its supplier factories in China.
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Capture the Best of Mediation and Arbitration
The problem: You’re not sure which of the two most common dispute-resolution processes, mediation or arbitration, to use to resolve your conflict. Mediation is appealing because it would allow you to reach a collaborative settlement, but you’re worried it could end in impasse. You know that arbitration would wrap up your dispute conclusively, but it … Read More
Is Your Negotiation Style Holding You Back?
All of us have a personal approach to negotiation, or negotiation style. Here’s how to make the most of yours.
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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.
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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 More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Mixing Business and Friends
Q:My wife and I are friends with another couple who live in our neighborhood. For many years they have told us that they love our home and street and that if we ever wanted to move, they would like to buy our house. From the number of times they have said it, we know they’re … Read More
How to Deal with a Difficult Mediator
Francesca Gino, Program on Negotiation faculty member and author of the bestselling book, Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed and How We Can Stick to the Plan, tackles this question from a Negotiation Briefings reader concerning how to deal with a mediator that is abrasive, dismissive, or even rude.
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What’s Keeping You from Closing the Deal?
When talks stall, it’s tempting to jump to conclusions: “It’s purely a price gap.” “They’re being unreasonable.” “We’re not communicating well.” “We’re in a weak position.”
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Teaching Children to Self-Advocate
DEAR NEGOTIATION COACH
QUESTION:
Our two young children are natural-born negotiators when it comes to getting what they want from their dad and me, but they tend to rely on us to advocate for them with those outside the house. How can I help them be effective negotiators with their friends, teachers, and others?
ANSWER:
We’ve all read the … 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.
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Drinks at the White House? Clinton Plans on It
The practice of using alcohol to grease the wheels has a long and storied role in famous negotiations. In recent decades, shared drinks during adversarial bargaining helped lead to breakthroughs in conflicts in Serbia and Northern Ireland, for example.
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How Your Organization Can Benefit from Mediation Techniques
If you manage people, disputes will show up at your door. The marketing VP protests that the budget cap you and your new finance VP proposed is hindering a research initiative you supported. Two young sales representatives are embroiled in a turf war. Your administrative assistant is upset because the HR director won’t approve the … Read More
How to Avoid the Negative Impact of Goal Setting: Setting Realistic Objectives in Negotiations
Imagine that you’re a freelance marketing consultant who is negotiating the conditions of a long-term assignment with a new client. As you think about what you will charge, you set a goal that you consider to be challenging but not impossible. The project manager balks when you first quote your rate, but you end up … Read More
Negotiation Skills for Resolving International Conflicts
What are the essential skills a negotiator needs to resolve conflicts abroad? How do international conflicts differ from domestic conflicts? What issues specific to bargaining across borders emerges in intercultural negotiations? In this article we explore ways in which negotiators can develop bargaining skills to overcome any barriers to communication they may encounter in negotiations … Read More
Dispute Resolution in Job Negotiations: Repairing a Work Relationship
On October 15, 2012, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit walked into the office of the bank’s chairman, Michael E. O’Neill, expecting a routine meeting and perhaps some words of praise. The day before, Citigroup had released a favorable earnings report that suggested the bank was beginning to rebound from the financial crisis. Citi had received a … Read More
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 The Simpsons Dealmaking, Harry Shearer Goes Public
How did actor Henry Shearer and the producers of the hit television show The Simpsons arrive at a win-win negotiated agreement? In this article drawn from examples of negotiation in real life, we examine the negotiations between the actor and the producers and offer insights into the bargaining strategies employed by each.
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Don’t Let the Outside Voices Ruin the Dialogue Inside: Limiting the Impact of Outsiders on Your Negotiation
How US Secretary of State John Kerry overcame the objections of influential outsiders and headed off their attempts to influence proceedings at the negotiation table.
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Jennifer Lawrence Learns the Importance of Negotiating on Your Own Behalf
How Hollywood star Jennifer Lawrence learned the hard way to bargain hard for your own salary in business negotiations. Here is her negotiation story.
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Dear Negotiation Coach: When Silence is Golden
Question:
I have the sense that silence can sometimes be useful, but it usually just makes me feel uncomfortable. Does silence have benefits in negotiation?
A: In Western cultures, many people are uncomfortable with silence. We tend to talk on top of one another, with little pause between point and counterpoint. Any silence that occurs often feels … 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
Negotiating in the Shadow of the Law
Consider the different procedures used to resolve two recent disputes involving sports superstars:
• In January, an Indianapolis Colts equipment manager complained that the New England Patriots had introduced underinflated footballs into their American Football Conference Championship Game to the possible benefit of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. A controversial National Football League (NFL) investigation concluded, based … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Are You So Nice It Hurts?
Q:
There have been a few times recently when I felt like others, including family members and colleagues, took advantage of me in negotiations. Most recently, a coworker asked me to take on some extra work but then didn’t reciprocate when I needed help. I feel it’s important to be considerate in negotiations, and it’s disappointing … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Getting Your Team in the Same Frames
Q: I lead a team of approximately 50 lawyers in the in-house legal department of a Fortune 500 company. As our team gets larger, reflecting the company’s growth, I’d like to install quality-control measures to ensure that all our attorneys are effectively negotiating settlements when appropriate and taking cases to trial when not. What are … Read More
Negotiation logistics: Best practices for better deals
Before the official start of the Group of 7 (G-7) economic conference in Krün, Germany, this June, U.S. president Barack Obama and German chancellor Angela Merkel took time to tour a historic village and bond over beer and sausages. At the end of their friendly stroll, Obama jokingly asked Merkel whether the G-7 talks might … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Should You Stay or Should You Go?
Q: As a senior manager at my company, I have spent most of the past year trying to settle litigation with another company in our industry. We are about to go into our third mediation session in a few weeks. However, I have just been promoted to a job where I will have responsibility for … Read More
Stop outsiders from sabotaging your deal
A deal had been a long time coming. Back in November 2013, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for lighter economic sanctions from Western nations. To hammer out the details, Iran entered into talks with six nations: China, Russia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Eventually, the talks … Read More
How Does Mediation Work?
How does mediation work in practice? As compared with other forms of dispute resolution, mediation can have an informal, improvisational feel. Mediation can include some or all of the following six steps, writes Kimberlee K. Kovach in The Handbook of Dispute Resolution (Jossey-Bass, 2005):
1. Planning. Before mediation begins, the mediator helps the parties decide where … Read More
International Negotiation: Your Own Worst Enemy?
Knowing how to manage your own internal conflicts before engaging in negotiations is an invaluable negotiation skill negotiators should develop prior to engaging in international negotiations, business or otherwise.
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Dear Negotiation Coach: Negotiations Stalled Over Price
I am trying to buy a smaller company in my industry, but the negotiations have stalled over price.
It probably won’t surprise you to hear the seller thinks his company is worth a lot more than I think it is. So far we have been talking about doing a straight cash deal, but now I’m contemplating … Read More
For Conflict Resolution in Asia, A Simple Handshake Could Go Far
When disputes arise between international negotiators, sometimes a simple gesture of reciprocity can turn a boiling conflict into an amicable resolution. In this article the Program on Negotiation explores how a “simple handshake” between the leaders of Japan and the People’s Republic of China helped ease long-held tensions between the two countries.
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Dear Negotiation Coach: “How can we deal more successfully with our kids?”
Q: I avoid using hardball tactics in my professional negotiations, since they often backfire and escalate conflict. But at home, my wife and I often find ourselves resorting to threats, bribes, and lies to get our three young children (ages seven, five, and three) to cooperate, and I lose my cool more often than I’d … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Coping with a change-of-control provision
Q: I represent a company—let’s call it “ClientCorp”—that has a long-term contract with another company, “TargetCorp.” A provision in the agreement allows ClientCorp to exit the contract in the event of a “change of control” at TargetCorp. We have become aware that TargetCorp is in negotiations to be acquired by a third party, “AcquirerCorp,” a … Read More
How to Deal When the Going Gets Tough
Most business negotiators understand that by working collaboratively with their counterparts while also advocating strongly on their own behalf, they can build agreements and longterm
relationships that benefit both sides.
During times of economic hardship, however, many negotiators abandon their commitment to cooperation and mutual gains.
Instead, they fall back on competitive tactics, threatening the other … Read More
Dealmaking and Business Negotiations: 6 Tips for Novice Hagglers
Whether you’re purchasing a new home or car, or negotiating a discount on an inventory purchase for your firm, the art of haggling enables negotiators to make a strong claim for their share of the pie. Here are six tips from the Negotiation Briefings newsletter to help you start becoming a better at haggling in … Read More
Master the Art and Science of Haggling for More Productive Business Negotiations
Just like the prices of houses, cars, and other big-ticket items, the prices of furniture, electronics, wine, jewelry, another “medium-ticket” goods are now frequently up for discussion. The ancient art of haggling—the back-and-forth dance of offers and concessions between buyer and seller—is making a comeback, and you would do well to brush up on your … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Cooling off after conflict
Q: My former spouse of 18 years and I had an explosive breakup a year ago. After failing to overcome our mutual hostility during divorce mediation, we have avoided each other, communicating primarily through our attorneys. Our divorce is now final, but because we have shared custody of our two teenagers, we need to communicate … Read More
In Mediation, Set Conditions with Care
On April 9, Israel said it was “deeply disappointed” by remarks by Secretary of State John Kerry that seemed to primarily blame Israel for the current breakdown in U.S.-mediated Middle East peace talks, as reported in the New York Times.
Last July, the United States brought Israel and the Palestinians back together for a series of … Read More
In Business Negotiations, 12 Strategies for Curbing Deception
In negotiation, deception can run rampant: parties “stretch” the numbers, conceal key information, and make promises they know they can’t keep.
Unfortunately, most of us are very poor lie detectors. Even professions that encounter liars regularly, such as police officers and judges, do not perform better than chance at detecting deception, Professor Paul Ekman of the … Read More
In job negotiations, set yourself up for long-term success
When you enter a job negotiation, what goals are foremost on your mind? If you’re like most people, you are primarily preoccupied with making a great impression and winning the job. Acing the interviews can seem like the only thing that matters, especially if you’ve been out of work or desperate to escape a miserable … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Should age be an issue?
Q:My daughter is negotiating via e-mail to hire a professional artist in the Netherlands to create cover art for a game book she created and will sell online. The price the artist quoted is high, but appropriate given his skills. My daughter, who is funding the project with her savings, is preparing to make a … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: An ad budget doesn’t add up.
Q: Advertisers frequently come to our advertising agency requesting services with their budget already established. This budget is often far too low for the solution or service they’re asking for. How do we ask our clients for a bigger budget without losing the business?
A: In a world of tightening budgets and greater sophistication within procurement … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Crossing cultures in negotiation
Q: Because of the nature of my business, I regularly engage in negotiations across cultures—and the results can be disappointing. After recently losing an important deal in India, I learned that my counterpart felt I was rushing through our talks. I thought I was just being efficient with our time. How can I improve my … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: “Bad acts” and better contracts.
Q: I work for an international nonprofit that tries to eliminate “bad acts” around the world—not illegal activities, but ones that we consider unethical. We are currently negotiating with a U.S. business owner who is engaged in these bad acts. His business is generating losses, so we are trying to buy him out and put … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Negotiating with yourself
Q: I have attended negotiation training sessions that have stressed the importance of thorough preparation. I can see why this is valuable, but I have difficulty following through on this advice. Whenever I am facing an important negotiation, I resolve to gather information and plan my strategy beforehand. Yet amid all the other demands and … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: “Does our negotiating plan sound unethical?”
Q: My husband and I would like to sell our condo and buy a house right away, but we need to save a bit more money, as we are slightly under water on our current mortgage and want to preserve our nest egg. Recently, however, an acquaintance of ours told us that he loves our … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: “Should we leave external advisers out of the room?”
Q: My company is involved in a contentious and high-stakes intellectual-property dispute with a longtime competitor in our industry. We have been engaged in mediation for several months, thus far without success. In each session, there are dozens of people on each side, perhaps reflecting the high stakes and complex issues of law and technology … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Dealing with the devil you know
Q: I own a venture-financed high-tech firm. We are facing a serious conflict with one of our partners, a much larger Swiss company that distributes, in Europe, a product based on our patented technology. Our five-year license agreement gives us a flat royalty rate of 20% of its sales and gives the Swiss company exclusive … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: “Should I offer equity incentives to senior managers?”
Q & A section:
Q: I’m the 100% owner and CEO of a privately held business. I’m planning to add some senior managers to my company, and several of the best candidates have asked me if I would consider granting them equity incentives as part of their pay package. What factors should I consider as I … Read More
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Articles & Insights
BATNA
- BATNA Examples—and What You Can Learn from Them
- 10 Hard-Bargaining Tactics to Watch Out for in a Negotiation
- What is BATNA? How to Find Your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement
- BATNA and Other Sources of Power at the Negotiation Table
- Negotiation Examples: How Crisis Negotiators Use Text Messaging
- Business Negotiations
- Right of First Refusal: A Potentially Win-Win Negotiation Tool
- Business Team Building: The Value of Self-Reflection
- Advice for Bargaining Abroad: Tips on How To Overcome Cultural Barriers
- Negotiation Skills in Business Negotiation and Status Consciousness
- Test Your Negotiation Decision-Making Ability
- Conflict Resolution
- Crisis Negotiations
- What is Crisis Management in Negotiation?
- Famous Negotiations Cases – NBA and the Power of Deadlines at the Bargaining Table
- Harvard Law Professor Guhan Subramanian Moderates Panel on Difficult Negotiation Scenarios
- Police Negotiation Techniques from the NYPD Crisis Negotiations Team
- Crisis Negotiation Skills: The Hostage Negotiator’s Drill
- Dealing with Difficult People
- How to Deal with Difficult Customers
- Managing Difficult Conversations: Achieving Objectives with Backmapping Negotiation Strategies
- When Dealing with Difficult People, Try a Complementary Approach
- Ethics in Negotiations: How to Deal with Deception at the Bargaining Table
- Negotiation Tactics for Bargaining with Difficult People: The Comcast Merger
- Dealmaking
- Dealmaking Tips: 7 Negotiation Tactics for Saving a Deal from Collapse
- Business Contract Mistakes—and How to Avoid Them
- Lessons for Business Negotiators: Negotiation Techniques from International Diplomacy
- Business Negotiation Skills: How to Enhance Your Negotiated Agreement
- Negotiating Skills: Learn How to Build Trust at the Negotiation Table
- Dispute Resolution
- How Fast-Food Workers Used Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to Demand Higher Wages
- 15 Things You Need to Know About Environmental Dispute Resolution
- In Contract Negotiations, Agree on How You’ll Disagree
- Using Principled Negotiation to Resolve Disagreements
- Operating Short-Term to Long-Term through the COVID-19 Pandemic: Negotiating a Global Renaissance with Science Diplomacy
- International Negotiation
- Negotiation Case Studies: The Bangladesh Factory-Safety Agreements
- A Crisis Negotiations Case Study: Chen Guangcheng, the United States, China, and Diplomatic Negotiations
- Overcoming Cultural Barriers in Negotiation: China and the Gold Rush Mentality
- How to Overcome Cultural Barriers in Negotiation
- Negotiation Analysis: The US, Taliban, and the Bergdahl Exchange
- Leadership Skills
- How to Negotiate in Cross-Cultural Situations
- Organizational Leadership in High-Stakes Business Negotiations
- Negotiations, Gender, and Status at the Bargaining Table
- Leadership Styles in Negotiation: The Case of Ebay and Paypal
- Leadership Skills in Negotiation: How to Negotiate Equity Incentives with Senior Management
- Mediation
- Negotiation Skills
- Negotiation Training
- Salary Negotiations
- Teaching Negotiation
- Win-Win Negotiations