TIPS
WHAT EVERY NEGOTIATOR NEEDS: What does it take to become effective negotiators and how to enhance your style.
When incentives strike out
Adapted from “Managers: Think Twice before Setting Negotiation Goals,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter. The next time you’re tempted to dangle performance incentives in front of your employees, think about whether it could backfire. As an illustration, let’s look at Major League Baseball manager Joe Torre’s renegotiation with the New York Yankees in October 2007. Torre
Know your rights!
Adapted from “Matching Rights: A Boon to Both Sides,” by Guhan Subramanian (professor, Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter. As dealmakers look for more sophisticated ways to reduce risks and increase returns, a matching right—a contractual guarantee that one side can match any offer that the other side
Teams across cultures
Adapted from “Team Negotiating: Strength in Numbers?”, first published in the Negotiation newsletter. According to conventional wisdom, when it comes to negotiation, there’s strength in numbers. Indeed, several experimental studies have supported the notion that you should bring at least one other person from your organization to the bargaining table if you can. On average, this
After the deal is inked
Adapted from “Uncover Hidden Value with a Post-settlement Settlement,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter. You’ve reached an agreement that you find satisfactory and your counterpart does as well-but you can’t shake the sense that you could have done even better. For example, you might be happy with the price you achieved in a purchasing contract
Get the sequence right
Adapted from “Set off a Chain Reaction,” by Michael Wheeler (professor, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter. Artful sequencing in negotiation means lining up deals so that each agreement increases the odds of nailing down the next one. A hedge fund manager might find that certain investors will decline to put their
How entitled are you?
Adapted from “Entitlement in Negotiation,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter. Simon Gachter of the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and Arno Riedl of the University of Amsterdam studied the tendency of negotiators to maintain allegiance to past norms concerning entitlement, even when those norms are unrelated to the parties’ real bargaining power. The researchers
NY Times asks Harvard’s Associate Professor Hannah Riley Bowles about women and salary negotiation
Women need to take the initiative in asking for a raise, Associate Professor Hannah Riley Bowles at the Harvard Kennedy School explains in a New York Times article published May 14. Her studies show that women need to take the initiative to ask for more pay and need to employ a
Aim high…or not?
Adapted from “How High Should You Aim?”, first published in the Negotiation newsletter. Research shows that moderately difficult goals can energize people and increase their performance. In negotiation, parties with relatively high aspirations often negotiate higher individual payoffs. But there can be a downside: impasse and unethical behavior may be more likely. In a study conducted by
A nudge in the right direction
Adapted from the Negotiation newsletter. A bank in the Philippines started a program that encouraged would-be nonsmokers to open savings accounts and, for six months, deposit the amount they would have spent on cigarettes. Customers who tested clean for nicotine after six months got their money back; otherwise, the funds were donated to charity. The