Category: Negotiations

  • 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.…

  • 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…

  • 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…