On
Negotiation
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First eBook Edition: May 2019
ISBN: 9781633697751
eISBN: 9781633697768
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Six Habits of Merely Effective Negotiators
by James K. Sebenius
Control the Negotiation Before It Begins
by Deepak Malhotra
Emotion and the Art of Negotiation
by Alison Wood Brooks
Breakthrough Bargaining
by Deborah M. Kolb and Judith Williams
15 Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer
by Deepak Malhotra
Getting to SĂ, Ja, Oui, Hai, and Da
by Erin Meyer
Negotiating Without a Net: A Conversation with the NYPDâs Dominick J. Misino
by Diane L. Coutu
Deal Making 2.0: A Guide to Complex Negotiations
by David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius
How to Make the Other Side Play Fair
by Max H. Bazerman and Daniel Kahneman
Getting Past Yes: Negotiating as If Implementation Mattered
by Danny Ertel
When to Walk Away from a Deal
by Geoffrey Cullinan, Jean-Marc Le Roux, and Rolf-Magnus Weddigen
About the Contributors
Index
Six Habits of Merely Effective Negotiators
by James K. Sebenius
GLOBAL DEAL MAKERS did a staggering $3.3 trillion worth of M&A transactions in 1999âand thatâs only a fraction of the capital that passed through negotiatorsâ hands that year. Behind the deal-driven headlines, executives endlessly negotiate with customers and suppliers, with large shareholders and creditors, with prospective joint venture and alliance partners, with people inside their companies and across national borders. Indeed, wherever parties with different interests and perceptions depend on each other for results, negotiation matters. Little wonder that Bob Davis, vice chairman of Terra Lycos, has said that companies âhave to make deal making a core competency.â
Luckily, whether from schoolbooks or the school of hard knocks, most executives know the basics of negotiation; some are spectacularly adept. Yet high stakes and intense pressure can result in costly mistakes. Bad habits creep in, and experience can further ingrain those habits. Indeed, when I reflect on the thousands of negotiations I have participated in and studied over the years, Iâm struck by how frequently even experienced negotiators leave money on the table, deadlock, damage relationships, or allow conflict to spiral. (For more on the rich theoretical understanding of negotiations developed by researchers over the past fifty years, see the sidebar âAcademics Take a Seat at the Negotiating Table.â)
There are as many specific reasons for bad outcomes in negotiations as there are individuals and deals. Yet broad classes of errors recur. In this article, Iâll explore those mistakes, comparing good negotiating practice with bad. But first, letâs take a closer look at the right negotiation problem that your approach must solve.
Solving the Right Negotiation Problem
In any negotiation, each side ultimately must choose between two options: accepting a deal or taking its best no-deal optionâthat is, the course of action it would take if the deal were not possible. As a negotiator, you seek to advance the full set of your interests by persuading the other side to say yesâand mean itâto a proposal that meets your interests better than your best no-deal option does. And why should the other side say yes? Because the deal meets its own interests better than its best no-deal option. So, while protecting your own choice, your negotiation problem is to understand and shape your counterpartâs perceived decisionâdeal versus no dealâso that the other side chooses in its own interest what you want. As Italian diplomat Daniele Vare said long ago about diplomacy, negotiation is âthe art of letting them have your way.â
This approach may seem on the surface like a recipe for manipulation. But in fact, understanding your counterpartâs interests and shaping the decision so the other side agrees for its own reasons is the key to jointly creating and claiming sustainable value from a negotiation. Yet even experienced negotiators make six common mistakes that keep them from solving the right problem.