Short essays on negotiating through everyday life, work, and times of upheaval.
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What’s negotiable? The many negotiable components of a job offer
Shortly after receiving a job offer, many people’s primary impulse is to negotiate the salary. And thus they despair if the effort fails. But why the despair? Typically because they haven’t read anything like my last post, which assured you of the approximately 43593457938 negotiable components of a job offer. But that just begs the…
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Five responses to “equity concerns” in job negotiations
You’re lucky enough to receive a job offer. But it doesn’t meet your expectations, so you muster the courage to counter. And then you get the response that every applicant dreads—the one that immediately diffuses your counter with ‘equity concerns.’ In other words, a response indicating that the employer can’t meet your demands because they…
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Curtailing the never-ending meeting: The deadline effect
Meetings: the great vortex that swallows most of our organizational lives. Is there anything – anything at all – we can do to make them negotiable? Luckily there are several tactics available. But here let me focus on a particularly helpful nugget of wisdom from the negotiation literature: the deadline effect. The deadline effect in…
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Compromise: The bane of your next team presentation
I have often contended that—contrary to popular wisdom—compromise is bad. The fundamental problem? Compromise takes two people’s desires and cuts them in half, leaving nobody particularly happy. Sure, it’s better than an impasse (sometimes). But it’s often worse than a variety of more creative solutions. Nowhere is the problem more apparent than in the creation…
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Win-win or win-whatever? Setting our sights just a little bit lower in negotiations
Why is it that most people—even those who take (or teach) negotiation classes—still find it hard to negotiate? I’m here to argue for one of many reasons: the possibility that in many situations, most of us set our sights just a little too high. Anyone who’s taken (or taught) a negotiation class can summarize the…
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Negotiating Life’s Non-Negotiables
My posts routinely suggest that life becomes negotiable when we apply some simple scientific principles from negotiation research. But we all know that not everything’s negotiable. The weather (it’s been raining in Maryland for months), our own health (we all face the fickle hand of fate), the state of American politics (nuff said). Some things…
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What they’re asking for vs. what they want
Businesspeople commonly assume that customers’ requests correspond closely to their underlying needs. If he asks for the S version, he must want a sportier (yet costlier) ride. If she asks for a specific species of tree, she must want something beautiful (yet eventually ginormous). The customer is always right! But I’m here to tell you…
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Renovating a room? Three more reasons to get multiple quotes
I’ve previously advised you, when hiring a contractor, to obtain several quotes. And I’ve so-advised for a specific reason—a reason that most negotiation instructors would fully endorse: because you’ll then have an alternative, providing leverage over the preferred contractor’s price. But I’m here to suggest some less recognized but no less important reasons to engage…
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Five pernicious assumptions that your service providers make about you
If you’re like me, then virtually every week brings an unexpected fee hike. Take last week, when both my cable bill and cellular bill unexpectedly jumped $20 a month. “How in the world can our service providers have such gall?”, you might ask. Well, let me tell you how: they make five common, negotiation-related assumptions…
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Three surprising advantages of negotiating with multiple people
Many of our negotiations feature several counterparts: It’s us on one side of the table and a couple of people across it. Faced with multiple counterparts, even the experienced negotiator quakes in their boots. How can we, our lone selves, contend with multiple opponents? But a recent multiparty negotiation at the dentist’s office reminded me…
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When the equality rule fails: The case of four shells
If I’ve learned one thing as a negotiation professor, it’s that the fairest and most obvious ways of dividing resources often seem unfair and non-obvious to the parties involved. Consider the equality rule. What could be fairer than a 50-50 split? Unfortunately, the parties embroiled in a negotiation don’t always see it that way. So…
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The benefits of impending impasses
Ever since Getting to Yes, negotiators everywhere have concluded—rightly based on the title—that getting to yes is the goal of every negotiation. And ever since I’ve been writing about negotiation, I’ve tried to convince negotiators otherwise. For example, I’ve said here and here that getting to no is an acceptable and even a preferable outcome…
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Rules versus negotiations
We all know that “rules are meant to be broken.” But what does that mean? And is it more than a meaningless cliché? By considering the meaning of the phrase, I think you’ll see that it can actually make life more negotiable. To start, consider what rules actually do: Fundamentally, they regulate everyone’s behavior. Consider…
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Bluffs versus lies: The line between persuasion and deception in negotiation
Where’s the line between bluffing and lying, persuasion and deception, salesmanship and unethical behavior? Negotiation scholars (myself included) have not often answered that question, largely because we focus on what negotiators do instead of what they should do. So far be it from me to answer conclusively here. Nevertheless, a recent experience got me thinking…
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Assurances from an adult: A stopgap strategy for negotiating with kids
I’ve written often about the importance of trust in negotiations. Unfortunately, little children don’t always display an abundance of it—for example, when a sibling or friend wants to play with their preferred toy. To make the lack of trust negotiable, we need something more. Luckily, there’s a device that can help at least on occasion:…
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The unreliability of our gut: Intuitions in negotiation
The recent summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un has brought the issue of intuition in negotiation to the fore. The North Korean dictator reportedly spent years planning for such a meeting, trusting little to his gut and everything to his analysis and preparation. President Trump, in contrast, is widely known to rely on his…
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Many negotiations in a Mexican restaurant
It never fails to amaze me how many of our daily interactions involve negotiation. Such is the point of this blog! But a recent trip to a Mexican restaurant really drove home the point, so I thought I’d relay it in the spirit of making life negotiable. Consider the following five negotiations, all from a…
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Happier households through narrower choice sets
Parents frequently give their kids choices: “What do you want to eat for breakfast today?” “What do you want to wear to school today?” And choices are great for enrolling them in the decision-making process. But often, to no one’s great surprise, kids choose an option that is not particularly attractive to their parents. “Definitely…
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Still misunderstanding myself
Last week, I discussed a classic negotiation blunder made by none other than myself: misunderstanding my own preferences. Since the consequences of the initial mistake continue to accumulate, why not continue the story? I hope that this post, if not the last one, can make your own life more negotiable. To review my previous post,…
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Misunderstanding yourself: A classic negotiation blunder
Even negotiation instructors sometimes make negotiation mistakes. Since I recently made an exceedingly common mistake, perhaps it’s worth the public shaming that will necessarily come with sharing. At best, the story should make your own life more negotiable. At worst, it’ll offer me a form of catharsis. Most of us tend to assume that we…
