Short essays on negotiating through everyday life, work, and times of upheaval.
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Two is greater than one—especially in negotiation!
On the job, countless situations call for a proposal: A customer requests an estimate. A colleague calls for a counter-proposal about the subdivision of a project. A boss asks for a suggested reconfiguration of your time to accommodate a new responsibility. In these situations, most people do exactly what was requested: make a proposal. And…
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Success as a steadily improving BATNA
How can you know your life is broadly successful? The question is often asked, but rarely from the perspective of negotiation research. So let me share an answer implicit in that research, an understanding of which can make life negotiable: you can measure success, in part, by the trajectory of your BATNA. Huh? Let me…
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Negotiating while the iron’s hot
In many negotiation situations, you have no choice about when to act. If your car breaks down, you’d better negotiate with the dealer. If your teenager brings home a biker, you’d better negotiate now. In more negotiations than you think, though, you can actually choose when to negotiate. Since picking the right moment—the moment when…
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Influencing by volunteering
In organizations, tasks often arise that no one really needs or wants to do. An agenda needs to be developed; a Google doc needs to be compiled; a memo needs to be written. If it doesn’t fit neatly into anyone’s job description or fall squarely onto anyone’s plate, getting it done obviously requires someone to…
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Declaring yourself a negotiation superhero—By considering your plan B
Worried about an upcoming negotiation? Dreading the back-and-forth? The fast ones your counterpart is sure to pull when you’re not looking? Well, don’t fear: here’s a research-based suggestion that can make negotiations negotiable: actively thinking about your BATNA. I’ve repeatedly discussed the importance of BATNA: your Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement, or simply your Plan…
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The sound of silence—or successful negotiation
What does a successful negotiator sound like? Maybe you never asked. But if you ask now, I know the answer. Someone loud, aggressive, and potentially angry—right? Well, I just finished teaching an executive education course on cross-cultural negotiation, and it struck me that the most effective negotiators sounded nothing like that. Since understanding what a…
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Don’t let ‘em get you down! Getting past the barriers to customer service negotiations
In many of our negotiations with companies—the fee-charging bank, formidable cable company, irascible airline—our toughest challenge is not the negotiation itself. It’s getting to a negotiation in the first place. The fact is, many companies just don’t want to negotiate with you—the formidable you—because they know they just might lose if they do. So many…
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Preparing to negotiate? Use your “BRAIN”!
Most people know to prepare before a negotiation. If not, then negotiation instructors like me frequently remind them. So the problem is not a lack of awareness about the need to prepare. It’s the lack of a framework describing what to prepare. What exactly should negotiators ponder before arriving at the bargaining table? Since knowing…
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Playing a guessing game alone: A strange but powerful negotiation strategy
In most negotiation courses, professors repeatedly ask students to complete a seemingly silly exercise: playing a guessing game alone. That is, professors require their students to read a negotiation case, then take a wild guess as to their future counterpart’s situation—in particular, the counterpart’s interests, priorities, alternatives, and bottom line. “What’s the point?” the bolder…
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Who’s your negotiation hero?
Students often ask me to name a negotiation hero—the one person who most epitomizes the lessons taught in class. Presumably they expect me to identify a corporate titan like Jack Welch, a politician like our Negotiator-in-Chief, or even a high-powered sporting agent like Scott Boras. So imagine their consternation when I politely decline to answer.…
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When to part with your Plan B
I’ve often alluded to the need to develop a BATNA: a next-best option or plan B if the current negotiation fails. Any negotiation instructor worth their salt will give the same advice. But the advice also raises a critical conundrum that often goes unanswered: when to let your BATNA go. When’s the right time to…
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Mythical images of negotiation
Picture a negotiation. What comes to mind? Two people, explicitly negotiating for a fixed period of time, over a fixed set of issues, from opposite sides of a table. Right? Common and obvious as that image may be, I’m here to tell you that it represents precious few negotiations in the real world. Outside of…
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Contracts as conversation starters
If you’ve ever hired a contractor, you know there’s something about a contract that makes it seem final. Maybe it’s the careful calculations, detailed specifications, or numerous terms and conditions. Regardless, there’s something about most contracts that make them seem like the end of the discussion. But I’m here to tell you that a contract…
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Giving away freebies: An “irrational” business strategy
Business 101: When a customer asks you to do some service or provide some good, find a way to charge them. Right? Wrong. Well, not entirely wrong, but let me tell you about an important set of situations in which giving away freebies can actually make selling more negotiable. First, a series of stories: I…
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“No conditions on hugs!” Three situations that don’t call for concessions
Let me introduce you to one of the world’s best negotiators: she’s five and sleeps across the hall. Why does she qualify as one of the world’s best? Because she always knows exactly what she wants and takes every—I mean every—opportunity to ask for it. In particular, she sees all of my requests as opportunities…
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Ask three times!
How often do you find yourself asking organizations for favors—discounted prices, waived policies, or extended promotional rates? Quite often, I’d suppose. And how often do the organizations say yes on the very first try? Hardly ever, if your experience is anything like mine. But don’t hang up in a flurry of despair! Because the best…
