Negotiation research suggests that e-mail often poses more problems than solutions when it comes to relationships, information exchange, and outcomes. Here is a case study of conflict management and negotiation about the challenges of building rapport with your counterpart when negotiating online.
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negotiation tips
The following items are tagged negotiation tips:
What is Anchoring in Negotiation?
Consider this anchoring bias example from Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School faculty member Guhan Subramanian. While running a negotiation simulation in one of his classes, Subramanian noticed that one student spent a considerable amount of time explaining why $10.69 per hour would be an impossible wage rate to offer the student’s counterpart. The … Read More
New Conflict Management Skills: Understand How to Resolve “Hot Conflicts”
Negotiating effectively with colleagues can be more challenging than dealing with outsiders. Conventional wisdom advises addressing team conflict by staying focused on tasks and avoiding relationship issues. Yet a case study of conflict management by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson and Diana McLain Smith of The Monitory Group concludes that this approach to dispute … Read More
Dealmaking Tips: 7 Negotiation Tactics for Saving a Deal from Collapse
Even after the best negotiations, sometimes the other side will demand a renegotiation of the deal. Here are some guidelines on how to proceed in a negotiation.
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Negotiation and Bargaining with Your BATNA in Mind
Experienced negotiators understand they should reject any deal that is inferior to their best alternative to a negotiated agreement, or BATNA. What is a BATNA in negotiation? Your BATNA is the best possible outcome you could get if you walked away from your current negotiation and bargaining situation. When negotiating at an auto dealership, for … Read More
The Hidden Hazards of BATNA Development
The following question was posed to Program on Negotiation faculty member and associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School in the Negotiations, Organizations & Markets Unit, Francesca Gino and involves a negotiation example from real life from the world of business negotiations.
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3 Negotiation Strategies for Conflict Resolution
When a dispute flares up and conflict resolution is required, the outcome can be sadly predictable: the conflict escalates, with each side blaming the other in increasingly strident terms. The dispute may end up in litigation, and the relationship may be forever damaged.
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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 More
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
The Top Three Defensive Negotiation Strategies You Need to Know
In the course of a career, a negotiator will confront many skilled persuaders. Here, we review three defensive negotiation strategies a negotiator can employ.
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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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Putting Your Negotiated Agreement Into Action
Normally negotiators focus on the deal-at-hand as well as those present at the negotiation table, neglecting other aspects of the negotiated agreement that would not only impact others outside of the room but also require their cooperation for the agreement’s success and viability.
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Diplomatic Negotiations: The Surprising Benefits of Conflict and Teamwork at the Negotiation Table
As the US presidential primary season heats up for both parties, it helps to take a look back at the 2008 US presidential election and the win-win coalition forged between Barack Obama and his then-rival, Hillary Clinton. As this example demonstrates, if carefully managed, disagreements can lead to better results than you might expect.
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Repairing Relationships Using Negotiation Skills
Negotiation is not only something we do at work; often the toughest negotiations we encounter are in our personal lives. Some of the most successful negotiation examples of the power of negotiation skills in dispute resolution is when they repair relationships between friends.
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Negotiation Case Studies: Google’s Approach to Dispute Resolution
Here’s a great example on how to avoid litigation by pursuing negotiation with your counterparts. In the face of antitrust charges, Google’s guiding principle for dispute resolution is “Don’t litigate, negotiate,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
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Negotiation in Business 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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Union Strikes and Dispute Resolution Strategies
When a conflict looms, it can be tempting for each side to try to make unilateral decisions on key issues because of the belief that negotiations with the other side will be a dead end. This dispute resolution strategy may pay off in the short term, but it’s important to factor in the long-term costs … 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.
1. What is the Right of First Refusal?
Rights … Read More
Negotiation Advice for Buying a Car: Tips for Improving Your Negotiating Position
How can you negotiate the best possible price for a new car? This is a common negotiation question, and naturally so. A car is one of the most significant purchases you’ll ever make—and the price is almost always negotiable. Here are a few tips to improve your performance:
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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
Crisis Negotiation Skills: The Hostage Negotiator’s Drill
Here are some negotiating skills from the world of crisis negotiations: Hostage negotiators stress the importance of discussing the “drill”—goals, ground rules, and operating principles—with their team before beginning talks with a hostage taker.
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Dealing with Difficult People: Coping with an Insulting Offer in Contract Negotiations
The following “Ask the Negotiation Coach” question was posed to Dwight Golann, Suffolk University Law School professor and negotiation expert: Question: I deal with legal disputes and would like to find reasonable solutions without wasting years in court.
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An Example of the Anchoring Effect – What to Share in Negotiation
The prospect of sharing information with a negotiating counterpart can be scary – it can fix your counterpart into a position at the negotiation table you didn’t intend (an example of the anchoring effect).
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What is the Multi-Door Courthouse Concept
As a collaboration between UST School of Law and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, the following is the transcript of a conversation between the creator of the multi-door courthouse, Harvard Law Professor Frank E.A. Sander, and the executive director and founder of the University of St. Thomas (UST) International ADR [Alternative Dispute … Read More
Win Win Negotiation: Managing Your Counterpart’s Satisfaction
As the following points of win-win negotiation will demonstrate, ensuring that your counterpart is satisfied with a particular deal requires you to manage several aspects of the negotiation process, including his outcome expectations, his perceptions of your outcome, the comparisons he makes with others, and his overall negotiation experience itself.
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The Negotiation Process in China
With its booming economy and growing international consumer influence, the role of negotiation in international business is more important than ever and negotiation skills appropriate for China are in high-demand. Here are a few negotiation tips to help you successfully navigate your next round of business negotiations in China.
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How to Deal with Threats: 4 Negotiation Tips for Managing Conflict at the Bargaining Table
Sooner or later, every negotiator faces threats at the bargaining table. How should you respond when the other side threatens to walk away, file a lawsuit, or damage your reputation? These negotiation tips will help.
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Negotiation Examples in Real Life – Buying a Home and Dealing with Difficult People
While many of our articles discuss negotiation theory and the latest research, sometimes it helps to discuss negotiation examples in real life when offering negotiation tips and advice. The following negotiation example is based on bargaining in real estate, a negotiation scenario many of us may face in our lifetime.
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BATNA and Other Sources of Power at the Negotiation Table
BATNA negotiations involve a negotiators knowledge of her best alternatives to a negotiated agreement and are one of three sources of negotiating power at the bargaining table, according to negotiation researcher Adam D. Galinsky and New York University’s Joe C. Magee.
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Business Negotiations: How to Improve Your Reputation at the Bargaining Table
In multi-issue business negotiations, research suggests that the advantage goes to negotiators with a reputation for collaboration rather than competition. In a series of studies by Catherine H. Tinsley and Kathleen O’Connor, participants were told they would be negotiating with someone who had either a tough reputation, a cooperative reputation, or an unknown reputation. Although … Read More
Lessons for Business Negotiators: Negotiation Techniques from International Diplomacy
Executives rarely view themselves as diplomats engaged in international diplomacy but business negotiators often find the two fields share negotiation skills and negotiation techniques. Rightly or wrongly, diplomacy evokes images of frivolity – days spent wandering exotic capitals, nights spent cruising embassy cocktail parties.
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Renegotiate Salary to Your Advantage
As we prepare to renegotiate salary, most of us intend to ask for as much as we can without antagonizing our employer. But we sometimes undervalue our worth, with disappointing consequences.
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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
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.
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Challenges Facing Women Negotiators
On the average, women often obtain less favorable or advantageous outcomes at the bargaining table when compared with their male counterparts.
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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
Negotiation Strategies for Dealing with Spoilers
Amazon’s announcement on February 14 that it was backing out of a recent deal to build a major new campus in New York City was as bitter as a Valentine’s Day breakup could be. But the budding relationship between Amazon and New York didn’t have to end in acrimony and broken dreams, Harvard Business School … Read More
Overcoming Cross-Cultural Barriers to a Negotiated Agreement: Negotiation Ethics and International Negotiations
Cross cultural negotiation examples provide insights into how negotiation techniques change depending on the context in which negotiators find themselves. As Professor Cheryl Rivers of Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, points out in a recent negotiation research literature review, seasoned negotiators often hear stories about the unethical behaviors of people of other nationalities.
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Compensation Negotiation Tips for Salary Bargaining
Job candidates are often eager for compensation negotiation tips, and with good reason: they tend to be at a bargaining disadvantage relative to the hiring organization. Due to the well-documented anchoring effect, the first figure introduced into the discussion can strongly influence the final outcome—and the wage or wage range cited by employers is likely … Read More
In This Greece Crisis Negotiation, Tough Conditions May Have Affected the Deal
During a crisis negotiation, all that may seem to matter is reaching a deal as quickly as possible. The desire to head off a disaster may lead crisis negotiators to forego the usual comforts of life, such as sleep, in their single-minded pursuit of their goal.
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How to Negotiate a Higher Salary
When considering how to negotiate a higher salary, job candidates often focus on back-and-forth haggling strategies. But it’s at least as important to think about our broader goals, the type of organization we’d be joining, and the best way to frame an offer. The following advice on how to bargain salary should set you up … Read More
Successes & Messes: What happened when Mark Wahlberg asked for more
After actor Kevin Spacey faced multiple accusations of sexual misconduct in late 2017, director Ridley Scott and Imperative Entertainment, the company that produced and financed the film All the Money in the World, decided to edit Spacey out of the film and hire Christopher Plummer to reshoot his scenes. The cast and crew were summoned … Read More
In Contract Negotiation, Wise Business Negotiators Sweat the Small Stuff
What are business negotiators responsible for in contract negotiation? Many would say they’re in charge of building relationships and new business, crafting creative solutions, and fighting for the best deal possible. Few, however, would say they’re responsible for ensuring that the deal holds up well over time.
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Negotiation Topics in Business: Make a Bump Plan
Regrouping from the cancellation of the 2004–2005 season due to failed labor negotiations, National Hockey League (NHL) teams and players faced the challenge of radically restructuring their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in July 2005. The new CBA instituted a uniform cap (as well as a floor) on team payrolls. It also set maximums and minimums … 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.
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Switching Channels: How Fox Star Megyn Kelly Ended up at NBC
In the summer of 2016, it seemed the approaching end of television journalist Megyn Kelly’s contract with Fox News in mid-2017 couldn’t have been better timed for her. The host of the daily evening news program The Kelly File on Fox, she had seen her profile rise over the past year, beginning with her pointed … Read More
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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Types of Power in Negotiation: Using Negotiation Research to Eliminate Gender Difference in Bargaining Scenarios
Here are four strategies from negotiation research on types of power in negotiation and how to minimize gender differences in bargaining scenarios and in negotiations.
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How to Prepare for Changing Conditions at the Negotiation Table: Bargaining Strategies for Integrative Negotiations and Dispute Resolution
These article offers some negotiation tips for negotiators attempting to reconcile two disparate estimations of future events during the course of a negotiated agreement.
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Overcoming Cultural Barriers in Negotiations: The Importance of Culture and Etiquette in Bargaining Scenarios
Learn how and when to engage in appropriate cultural traditions when negotiating with counterparts from a different culture. In this article we offer negotiation tips for overcoming cultural barriers in negotiation and present additional articles drawn from negotiation research that may be of benefit to negotiators who need to improve their international negotiation skills.
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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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Successes & messes: Adapting Ayn Rand
Do you have regrets about a deal you couldn’t quite bring to the finish line? If so, you might gain hope from this tale of a negotiator who nabbed a fresh chance to meet his goals more than 40 years after his initial negotiations collapsed.
A brief courtship
In 1972, the intrepid movie and television producer Albert … Read More
The Program on Negotiation’s Top Ten International Negotiations Posts
Whether dealing with difficult or hard bargainers like Putin or forging business partnerships, international negotiations are fraught with a level of complexity rarely encountered in everyday negotiations. Here are the top ten international negotiation articles on the Program on Negotiation’s website.
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New Findings in the Field of Negotiation: Session Two
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is pleased to present: New Findings in the Field of Negotiation: Research from the PON Graduate Research Fellows with
Arvid Bell PhD Candidate in political science at Goethe University Frankfurt and
Dana Wolf PhD candidate in public international law at American University Washington College of Law and
Todd Schenk
PhD candidate in environmental policy and planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tuesday, … Read More
New Findings in the Field of Negotiation: Session One
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is pleased to present: New Findings in the Field of Negotiation: Research from the PON Graduate Research Fellows with
Vera Mironova PhD candidate in political science at the University of Maryland and
Abbie Wazlawek PhD candidate in management at Columbia Business School and
Boshko Stankovski
PhD candidate in politics and international studies at University of Cambridge
Tuesday, April 21
12:00 – 1:30 … 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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Negotiation Skills: When It’s Better to Be in the Dark
When your agent negotiates on your behalf, it’s generally smart to have her keep you in the loop throughout the process with regular phone calls, e-mails, or meetings. But in a recent article in Poets & Writers magazine, literary agent Betsy Lerner identified conditions in which you might prefer to be uninformed.
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Negotiation Skills: Could I Really Make a Difference?
Individual negotiators are sometimes overwhelmed by the idea of leading organization-wide changes to negotiation practices. In fact, it doesn’t take much time or effort to set the wheels of reform in motion, write Hallam Movius and Lawrence Susskind in Built to Win.
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Umbrella Agreements, Consensus Building in the Arctic, and Negotiation in Social Enterprises: New Research from PON Fellows and Scholars
Every year the Program on Negotiation sponsors fellows and visiting scholars while they research and write about topics important to the fields of negotiation and mediation. This lunch provides an opportunity for this year’s two Graduate Research Fellows, Alexandros Sarris and Sarah Woodside, and Visiting Scholar Stefanos Mouzas to share their findings with the negotiation … Read More
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Articles & Insights
BATNA
- Business Negotiations
- Conflict Resolution
- Conflict Management: The Challenges of Negotiating Online
- Teach Your Children How to Resolve Conflicts With This New Book
- Why Is Sincerity Important? How to Avoid Deception in Negotiation
- Negotiation with Your Children: How to Resolve Family Conflicts
- Integrative Negotiations: Dispute Resolution Through Joint Fact-Finding
- Crisis Negotiations
- 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
- Hostage Negotiation Techniques for Business Negotiators
- What is Crisis Management in Negotiation?
- Dealing with Difficult People
- Negotiation Strategies: Bernie Sanders’ Pragmatic Approach to Negotiating in the Senate
- Trust and Honesty in Negotiations: Dealing with Dishonest Negotiators
- Managing Difficult Employees, and Those Who Just Seem Difficult
- Dealing with Difficult People: Lies, Lies, and More Lies
- How to Renegotiate a Bad Deal
- Dealmaking
- Dispute Resolution
- The Importance of Power in Negotiations: Taylor Swift Shakes it Off
- Employee Grievances: Are Most Legal Disputes Resolved in Litigation or Arbitration?
- Negotiation Ethics: How to Navigate Ethical Dilemmas at the Bargaining Table
- The Right Way to Regulate Emotion in Negotiation
- 3 Negotiation Strategies for Conflict Resolution
- International Negotiation
- Overcoming Cultural Barriers in Negotiations and the Importance of Communication in International Business Deals
- International Negotiations: North and South Korea Talks Collapse
- Managing Cultural Differences in Negotiation
- How to Overcome Cross Cultural Barriers in Negotiation
- The Importance of Relationship Building in China
- Leadership Skills
- Mediation
- Types of Mediation: Choose the Type Best Suited to Your Conflict
- Communicate Your Interests Behind the Deal
- Dispute Resolution: The Advantages of a Neutral Third-Party Mediator
- How Mediation Works When Both Parties Agree They Need Help Resolving the Dispute
- Mediation: Negotiating a More Satisfactory Divorce
- Negotiation Skills
- Negotiation Training
- Salary Negotiations
- Teaching Negotiation
- Win-Win Negotiations
- Labor Negotiation Strategies
- Win-Win Negotiations: Should You Consider a Deal Sweetener?
- Google’s Negotiations with Groupon: How Business Negotiators Can Maximize Value Claiming When Engaging in Integrative Negotiations
- Break a Competitive Cycle with Win-Win Negotiation Strategies
- How to Defend Against “Scope Creep” at the Negotiation Table