Negotiations don’t usually involve physical
violence, and most of us are not making $18 million deals. However,
one thing that business scholars and business people are in complete
agreement on is that everyone negotiates nearly every day. Getting
to Yes (Fisher & Ury, 1981) begins by stating, “Like it or not,
you are a negotiator. . . . Everyone negotiates something every day”
(p. xvii). Similarly, Lax and Sebenius, in The Manager as
Negotiator (1986) state that “Negotiating is a way of life for
managers . . . when managers deal with their superiors, boards of
directors, even legislators” (p. 1).G. Richard Shell, who wrote
Bargaining for Advantage (1999), asserts, “All of us negotiate
many times a day” (p. 6). Herb Cohen, author of You Can Negotiate
Anything (1980), dramatically suggests that “your world is a giant
negotiation table” (p. 15). Perhaps these statements indicate why a
recent business article on negotiation warned, “However much you think
negotiation is part of your life, you’re underestimating” (Inc.,Aug.
1, 2003a, p. 76). In this book we believe that negotiation is your
key communication and influence tool in and outside of the
company. Anytime you cannot achieve your objectives (whether it be a
desired merger or a dinner date) without the cooperation of others,
you are negotiating. We provide dramatic (and disturbing) evidence in
this chapter that most people do not live up to their negotiating
potential. The good news is that you can do something about it.
The sole purpose of this book is to improve your ability to
negotiate in the contexts that matter most to you. We present this
information through a marriage of scientific studies of negotiation
and real business cases. And, in case you are wondering, it is not all
common sense. We are frank about the fact that science drives the best
practices covered in this book. We focus on business negotiations;
understanding business negotiations helps people to be more effective
negotiators in their personal lives as well (Gentner, Loewenstein, &
Thompson, 2003).
In this book, we focus on three major negotiation skills: (1)
creating value (also known as win-win negotiation); (2) claiming value
(also known as staying in business!); and (3) building trust (also
known as long-term sustainability). By the end of this book, you will
have developed a mental set that will allow you to know what to do and
say in negotiations. Moreover, the fact that you have a mental set
(also called a mental model, van Boven & Thompson, 2003) will
mean that you can prepare effectively for negotiations, and enjoy the
peace of mind that comes from having a game plan. Things may not
always go according to plan, but your mental set will allow you to
update effectively and most important, to learn from your experiences.
NEGOTIATION: DEFINITION AND SCOPE
In this book we use the following working definition of
negotiation: Negotiation is an interpersonal decision-making
process necessary whenever we cannot achieve our objectives
single-handedly. Negotiations not only include the one-on-one
business meeting, but also multiparty, multicompany, and
multimillion-dollar deals. Whether simple or complex, negotiations
boil down to people, communication, and influence. Even the most
complex of business deals can be broken down to a system of one-on-one
relationships.
People negotiate in their personal life (e.g., with their spouses,
children, school teachers, neighbors) as well as in their business
life. Thus, the scope of negotiation ranges from one-on-one to highly
complex multiparty and multination interactions. In the business
world, people negotiate at multiple levels and contexts—within
departmental or business units, between departments, between
companies, and even across industries. For this reason, managers must
understand enough about negotiations to be effective negotiating
within, between, and up and across all of these business environments.
NEGOTIATION AS A CORE MANAGEMENT COMPETENCY
Negotiation skills are increasingly important for executives,
leaders, and managers in the business world. The five key reasons for
the importance of negotiation skills include (1) the dynamic nature of
business, (2) interdependence, (3) competition, (4) the information
age, and (5) globalization.
Dynamic Nature of Business
Mobility and flexibility are the dictates of the new world of work.
Most people do not stay in the same job that they take upon graduating
from college or receiving their MBA degree; furthermore, most people
will not have the same job as their predecessor. According to the U.S.
Department of Labor (2002), the average person born in the later years
of the baby boom held nearly 10 jobs between the ages of 18 and 36,
with two-thirds of those jobs being held before age 28. The dynamic,
changing nature of business means that people must negotiate and
renegotiate their existence in organizations throughout the duration
of their careers. The advent of decentralized business structures and
the absence of hierarchical decision making provide opportunities for
managers, but they also pose some daunting challenges. People must
continually create possibilities, integrate their interests with
others, and recognize the inevitability of competition both within and
between companies. Managers must be in a near-constant mode of
negotiating opportunities. According to Linda Greene, associate vice
chancellor for academic affairs at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison, “Many important events essential to professional
success and professional satisfaction happen every day in the
workplace and they are not always announced in advance” (The
Capital Times, Jan. 1, 2000, p. 1E). In truth, negotiation comes
into play when people participate in important meetings, get new
assignments, head a team, participate in a reorganization process, and
set priorities for their work unit. Negotiation should be second
nature to the business manager, but often it is not.
Interdependence
The increasing interdependence of people within organizations, both
laterally and hierarchically, implies that people need to know how to
integrate their interests and work together across business units and
functional areas. For example, when Chrysler and Mercedes Benz merged
in 1998, there was extreme reluctance among different groups in the
company to utilize synergies. For the first few years, Mercedes
executives closely guarded their parts and designs for fear of eroding
the Mercedes mystique. And Chrysler engineers tried to preserve some
independence, even though it meant reinventing the wheel (The Wall
Street Journal, Mar. 12, 2003). This reluctance not only occurs
within companies, as people from different departments and units
integrate their knowledge to create a product or service, but it also
occurs between people from different companies, as is the case with
strategic alliances. The increasing degree of specialization and
expertise in the business world implies that people are more and more
dependent on others to supply the components for a complete service or
product. It is unwise to assume that others have similar incentive
structures, so managers need to know how to promote their own
interests while simultaneously creating joint value for their
organizations. This task requires negotiation. For example, consider
the strategic decision of Best Buy, the electronics company that sells
nearly 10 percent of all consumer PCs sold in the United States, to
develop its own brand of PCs in 2002 (Business 2.0,Aug. 1,
2003a). Before the product PC launch, Best Buy was concerned that
because PCs account for more than 9 percent of all sales, the existing
major computer manufacturers—Compaq, HP, Sony, Toshiba, and
others—would be in a position to dictate terms of supply. Moreover, if
the recession led to shutdowns of any of these companies, the holes in
Best Buy’s product lines might drive customers to other suppliers or
to their competitor, Dell. Yet, by entering the field, Best Buy would
now compete with the most powerful companies in the low-margin,
competitive PC business—companies that were currently Best Buy’s
suppliers.
Competition
Business is increasingly competitive. Nearly 40,000 businesses
filed for bankruptcy in 2002, a 10.7 percent increase over the
previous year (Associated Press, May 16, 2002). Five of the nation’s
eight largest bankruptcies in history occurred in 2002, according to
BankruptcyData.com—and those data did not include Enron’s December
2001 filing (Associated Press, Jan. 15, 2003). In today’s economy, a
few large companies are emerging as dominant players in the biggest
markets. These industry leaders often enjoy vast economies of scale
and earn tremendous profits. The losers are often left with little in
the way of a market, let alone a marketable product (Frank & Cook,
1995). Consider Oracle’s hostile 2003 bid for rival software maker,
PeopleSoft, which effectively killed the previously announced merger
between PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards (Business 2.0, Aug. 1,
2003d). As Deutsche Bank software analyst Brian Skiba put it, “The
software business has become more Darwinian. Over the next five years,
the big [will] get bigger and the small [will] disappear” (p. 90).
Larry Ellison of Oracle has bluntly stated that 1,000 more tech firms
must die, and, one month before making his offer on PeopleSoft,
Ellison methodically mapped out all possible merger permutations in
his industry. This reality means that companies must be experts in
competitive environments. Managers not only need to function as
advocates for their products and services, but they must also
recognize the competition that is inevitable between companies and, in
some cases, between units within a given company. Understanding how to
navigate this competitive environment is essential for successful
negotiation.
Information Age
The information age also provides special opportunities and
challenges for the manager as negotiator. The information age has
created a culture of 24/7 availability. With technology that makes it
possible to communicate with people anywhere in the world, managers
are expected to negotiate at a moment’s notice. Computer technology,
for example, extends a company’s obligations and capacity to add value
to its customers. Prior to 2001, 80 percent of transactions at
Starbucks were conducted with bills and coins. Among other things,
this form of exchange meant that Starbucks had no knowledge about its
customers—the more than 3 million people who daily plunk down more
than $3 for a cup of coffee (Business 2.0,Aug. 1, 2003b). The
return business—or the fact that many java junkies return more than 16
times each month—should be the core of Starbucks’ customer focus.
However, when you don’t know anything about your customers, it is more
difficult to serve them. To capitalize on the powers of the
information age and give its customers added boost, Starbucks launched
the plastic prepaid card in 2001. Among other things, it allowed
Starbucks to understand its customers, as well as offer perks, such as
a free halfpound of coffee.
Globalization
Most managers must effectively cross cultural boundaries in order
to do their jobs. Setting aside obvious language and currency issues,
globalization presents challenges in terms of different norms of
communication. Managers need to develop negotiation skills that can be
successfully employed with people of different nationalities,
backgrounds, and styles of communication. Consequently, negotiators
who have developed a bargaining style that works only within a narrow
subset of the business world will suffer unless they can broaden their
negotiation skills to effectively work with different people across
functional units, industries, and cultures (Bazerman & Neale, 1992).
It is a challenge to develop a negotiation skill set general enough to
be used across different contexts, groups, and continents, but
specialized enough to provide meaningful behavioral strategies in any
given situation. This book provides the manager with such skills.
MOST PEOPLE ARE INEFFECTIVE NEGOTIATORS
On the question of whether people are effective negotiators,
managers and scholars often disagree. Many people regard themselves to
be effective at negotiation. These same people believe most of their
colleagues are distinctly ineffective at the negotiation table.
However, our performance speaks louder than our self-proclaimed
prowess. Most people often fall extremely short of their potential at
the negotiation table, judging from their performance on realistic
business negotiation simulations (for reviews, see Neale & Bazerman,
1991;Thompson & Hrebec, 1996; Loewenstein, Thompson, & Gentner, 2003).
Numerous business executives describe their negotiations as win-win
only to discover that they left hundreds of thousands of dollars on
the table. Fewer than 4 percent of managers reach win-win outcomes
when put to the test (Nadler,Thompson, & van Boven, 2003); and the
incidence of outright loselose outcomes is 20 percent (Thompson &
Hrebec, 1996). In addition to these data, our controlled scientific
investigations (hereafter referred to as CSIs), which allow scholars
to infer direct cause-and-effect relationships, indicate that most
negotiators leave money on the table. Consider another example: Even
on issues for which people were in perfect agreement, they fail to
realize it 50 percent of the time (Thompson & Hrebec, 1996). Moreover,
we make the point several times throughout this book that effective
negotiation is not just about money—it is equally about relationships
and trust.
NEGOTIATION SANDTRAPS
In our research, we have observed and documented four major
shortcomings in negotiation:
- Leaving money on the table (also known as “lose-lose”
negotiation) occurs when negotiators fail to recognize and exploit
win-win potential.
- Settling for too little (also known as “the winner’s
curse”) occurs when negotiators make too-large concessions,
resulting in a too-small share of the bargaining pie.
- Walking away from the table occurs when negotiators
reject terms offered by the other party that are demonstrably better
than any other option available to them. (Sometimes this shortcoming
is traceable to hubris or overweening pride; other times, it results
from gross miscalculation.)
- Settling for terms that are worse than the alternative
(also known as the “agreement bias”) occurs when negotiators feel
obligated to reach agreement even when the settlement terms are not
as good as their other alternatives.
This book teaches you how to avoid these errors, create value in
negotiation, get your share of the bargaining pie, reach agreement
when it is profitable to do so, and quickly recognize when agreement
is not a viable option in a negotiation.
WHY PEOPLE ARE INEFFECTIVE NEGOTIATORS
The dramatic instances of lose-lose outcomes, the winner’s curse,
walking away from the table, and the agreement bias raise the question
of why people are not more effective at the bargaining table. Because
negotiation is so important for personal and business success, it is
rather surprising that most people do not negotiate very well. Stated
starkly: It just does not make sense that people would be so poor at
something that is so important for their personal and business life.
The reason is not due to a lack of motivation or intelligence on the
part of negotiators. The problem is rooted in three fundamental
problems: faulty feedback, satisficing, and self-reinforcing
incompetence.
Faulty Feedback
Most of us have plenty of opportunities to negotiate, but little
opportunity to learn how to negotiate effectively. As we will see,
arguably the most important component of learning is feedback. Three
things about feedback are key: accuracy, immediacy, and specificity.
The problem is not lack of experience but a shortage of timely and
accurate feedback. Even those people who have daily experiences in
negotiation receive little feedback on their negotiating
effectiveness. The absence of feedback results in two human biases
that further prevent negotiators from optimally benefiting from
experience. The first problem is the confirmation bias, or the
tendency for people to see what they want to see when appraising their
own performance. The confirmation bias leads individuals to
selectively seek information that confirms what they believe is true.
Whereas the confirmation bias may seem perfectly harmless, it results
in a myopic view of reality and can hinder learning. Consider, for
example, mathematician John Allen Paulos’ disastrous foray into the
stock market (The Guardian, July 17, 2003). At first, he
invested only an unexpected cash windfall, but slowly he began to use
up more and more of his savings. Even though Paulos knew all about
logic and rationality, he had fallen victim to inventing reasons to
support his purchases and ignoring information that did not support
it.
A second problem associated with the absence of relevant and
diagnostic feedback is egocentrism, which is the tendency for
people to view their experiences in a way that is flattering or
fulfilling for themselves. For example, this potentially inaccurate
view may increase a manager’s self-esteem; however, in the long run,
it does a disservice by preventing a manager from learning
effectively. For example, egocentrism and the suspension of reality
certainly influenced executives at Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase &
Co. to manipulate cash flows at Enron (BusinessWeek, Aug. 11,
2003a). The belief that they could mislead Enron shareholders and
minimize perceived risk of being accused of deception was likely
fueled by unwarranted beliefs about their role. Egocentrism also
played a role in the American Airlines negotiations in April 2003 in
which bankruptcy was narrowly avoided. American said it had to have
$1.8 billion in annual cuts from all employee groups as part of a $4
billion effort to restructure the company. The airline was losing $5
million a day. The three major groups involved—pilots union,
professional flight attendants, and the ground workers of the
transport workers union—all believed that they deserved more than what
they believed others were entitled to (Dallas Morning News,
Apr. 3, 2003).
Satisficing
The second reason why people often fall short in negotiation is due
to the human tendency to satisfice (Simon, 1955). According to Nobel
Laureate Herb Simon (1955), satisficing is the opposite of
optimizing. In a negotiation situation, it is important to
optimize one’s strategies by setting high aspirations and attempting
to achieve as much as possible; in contrast, when people satisfice,
they settle for something less than they could otherwise have. For
example, Anchor Bay settled for $10 million from Storm Ventures and
Venrock Associates in venture financing. CEO of Anchor Bay, Laurence
Thompson, comments that it was exactly the valuation they asked for,
meaning that “Maybe we did not ask for enough” (Private Equity Week,
June 9, 2003). Over the long run, satisficing (or the acceptance of
mediocrity) can be detrimental to both individuals and companies,
especially when a variety of effective negotiation strategies and
skills that can be cheaply employed to dramatically increase profit.
(We discuss these strategies in detail in the next three chapters.)
Self-Reinforcing Incompetence
To achieve and maintain effectiveness in the business world, people
must have insight into their limitations. The same is true for
negotiation. However, most people are “blissfully unaware of their own
incompetence” (Dunning, Johnson, Ehrlinger, & Kruger, 2003, p. 83).
Moreover, it creates a cycle in which the lack of skill deprives them
not only of the ability to produce correct responses, but also of the
expertise necessary to surmise that they are not producing them. As a
case in point, Dunning and colleagues examined the question of whether
students taking a test had insight into their performance. The
students were grouped into four quartiles based on their performance.
The lowest-performing quartile greatly overestimated their performance
on the test. Even though they were actually in the 12th percentile,
they estimated themselves in the 60th percentile. This example is not
an isolated case, according to Dunning. People overestimate their
percentile ranking relative to others by as much as 40 to 50 points
(Kruger & Dunning, 1999). Moreover, the problem cannot be attributed
to a lack of incentives. The overestimation pattern even appears after
people are promised significant financial rewards for accurate
assessments of their performance (Ehrlinger, Johnson, Banner, Dunning,
& Kruger, 2003).
Related to the principle of self-reinforcing incompetence is the
fact that people are reluctant to change their behavior and experiment
with new courses of action because of the risks associated with
experimentation. In short, the fear of losing keeps people from
experimenting with change. Negotiators instead rationalize their
behavior in a self-perpetuating fashion. The fear of making mistakes
may result in a manager’s inability to improve his or her negotiation
skills. In this book, we remove the risk of experimentation by
providing several exercises and clear demonstrations of how changing
one’s behavior can lead to better results in negotiation.
Argyris (2002) suggests that people can diagnose their incompetence
and increase their effectiveness if they engage in double-loop
learning. Unfortunately, most people practice single-loop learning.
Single-loop learning occurs when errors are corrected without
altering the underlying, governing values (e.g., the fundamental
principles of negotiation). Double-loop learning occurs when
errors are corrected by changing the governing values and then the
actions. Sebenius’s (2001) article on the “six habits of merely
effective negotiators” makes the point about working with the right
assumptions very clear: “Understanding your counterpart’s 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” (p. 88). In this sense, we invite managers to be active
learners in terms of understanding their own values when it comes to
negotiation.
DEBUNKING NEGOTIATION MYTHS
When we delve into managers’ theories and beliefs about
negotiation, we are often startled to find that they operate with
faulty beliefs. Before we start on our journey toward developing a
more effective negotiation strategy, we need to dispel several faulty
assumptions and myths about negotiation. These myths hamper people’s
ability to learn effective negotiation skills and, in some cases,
reinforce poor negotiation skills. In the following section, we expose
six of the most prevalent myths about negotiation behavior.
Myth 1: Negotiations Are Fixed-Sum
Probably the most common myth is that most negotiations are
fixed-sum in nature, such that whatever is good for one person must
ipso facto be bad for the other party. The truth is that most
negotiations are not purely fixed-sum; in fact, most negotiations are
variable-sum in nature, meaning that if parties work together, they
can create more joint value than if they are purely combative.
However, effective negotiators also realize that they cannot be purely
trusting because any value that is created must ultimately be claimed
by someone at the table. Our approach to negotiation is based on
Walton and McKersie’s (1965) conceptualization that negotiation is a
mixed-motive enterprise, such that parties have incentives to
cooperate as well as compete.
Myth 2: You Need to Be Either Tough or Soft
The fixed-sum myth gives rise to a myopic view of the strategic
choices that negotiators have. Most negotiators believe they must
choose between either behaving in a tough (and sometimes punitive
fashion) or being “reasonable” to the point of soft and concessionary.
We vehemently disagree. Along with Bazerman and Neale (1992), we
believe that the truly effective negotiator is neither tough-as-nails
nor soft-as-pudding, but rather, principled (Fisher & Ury, 1981).
Effective negotiators follow an “enlightened” view of negotiation and
correctly recognize that to achieve their own outcomes, they must work
effectively with the other party (and hence, cooperate), but must also
leverage their own power and strengths.
Myth 3: Good Negotiators Are Born
A pervasive belief is that effective negotiation skills are
something that people are born with, not something that can be readily
learned. This notion is false because most excellent negotiators are
self-made. In fact, naturally gifted negotiators are rare. We tend to
hear their stories, but we must remember that their stories are
selective, meaning that it is always possible for someone to have
a lucky day or a fortunate experience. This myth is often perpetuated
by the tendency of people to judge negotiation skills by their
car-dealership experiences. Purchasing a car is certainly an important
and common type of negotiation, but it is not the best context by
which to judge your negotiation skills. The most important
negotiations are those that we engage in every day with our
colleagues, supervisors, coworkers, and business associates. These
relationships provide a much better index of one’s effectiveness in
negotiation. In short, effective negotiation requires practice and
feedback. The problem is that most of us do not get an opportunity to
develop effective negotiation skills in a disciplined fashion; rather,
most of us learn by doing. Experience is helpful, but not sufficient.
Myth 4: Experience Is a Great Teacher
We have all met that person at the cocktail party or on the
airplane who boasts about his or her great negotiation feats and how
he or she learned on the job (Bazerman & Neale, 1992). It is only
partly true that experience can improve negotiation skills; in fact,
experience in the absence of feedback, is largely ineffective in
improving negotiation skills (Loewenstein, Thompson, & Gentner, 2003;
Nadler, Thompson, & van Boven, 2003; Thompson & DeHarpport, 1994;
Thompson, Loewenstein, & Gentner, 2000). Natural experience as an
effective teacher has three strikes against it. First, in the absence
of feedback, it is nearly impossible to improve performance. For
example, can you imagine trying to learn mathematics without ever
doing homework or taking tests? Without diagnostic feedback, it is
very difficult to learn from experience.
The second problem is that our memories tend to be selective,
meaning that people are more likely to remember their successes and
forget their failures or shortcomings. This tendency is, of course,
comforting to our ego, but it does not improve our ability to
negotiate.
Finally, experience improves our confidence, but not necessarily
our accuracy. People with more experience grow more and more
confident, but the accuracy of their judgment and the effectiveness of
their behavior do not increase in a commensurate fashion.
Overconfidence can be dangerous because it may lead people to take
unwise risks.
Myth 5: Good Negotiators Take Risks
A pervasive myth is that effective negotiation necessitates taking
risks and gambles. In negotiation, this approach may mean saying
things like,” This is my final offer” or “Take it or leave it” or
using threats and bluffs. It is what we call a “tough” style of
negotiation. Tough negotiators are rarely effective; however, we tend
to be impressed by the tough negotiator. In this book, we teach
negotiators how to evaluate risk, how to determine the appropriate
time to make a final offer, and, more importantly, how to make
excellent decisions in the face of the uncertainty of negotiation.
Myth 6: Good Negotiators Rely on Intuition
An interesting exercise is to ask managers and anyone else who
negotiates to describe their approach to negotiating. Many seasoned
negotiators believe that their negotiation style involves a lot of
“gut feeling,” intuition, and “in-the-moment” responses. We believe
that intuition does not serve people well. Effective negotiation
involves deliberate thought and preparation and is quite systematic.
The goal of this book is to help managers effectively prepare for
negotiation, become more self-aware of their own strengths and
shortcomings, and develop strategies that are proactive (i.e.,
those that anticipate the reactions of their opponent) rather than
reactive (i.e., those that are dependent upon the actions and
reactions of their opponent). Thus, excellent negotiators do not rely
on intuition; rather, they are deliberate planners. As a general rule,
don’t rely on your intuition unless you are an expert.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
This book promises three things: First (and most important),
reading this book will improve your ability to negotiate
successfully. You and your company will be richer, and you will
experience fewer sleepless nights, because you will have a solid
framework and excellent toolbox for successful negotiation. However,
in making this promise, we must also issue a warning: Successful
negotiation skills do not come through passive learning. Rather, you
will need to actively challenge yourself. We can think of no better
way to engage in this challenge than to supplement this book with
classroom experiences in negotiation in which managers can test their
negotiation skills, receive timely feedback, and refine their
negotiation strategies on a repeated basis. Moreover, within the
classroom, data suggest that students who take the course for a grade
will be more effective than students who take the course passfail
(Craver, 1998).
Second, we provide you with a general strategy for successful
negotiation. Take a look at the table of contents. Notice the
distinct absence of chapter titles such as “Negotiating in the
Pharmaceutical Industry” or “Real Estate Negotiations” or “High-Tech
Negotiations.” We don’t believe that negotiations in the
pharmaceutical world require a fundamentally different set of skills
from negotiations in the insurance industry or the software industry.
Rather, we believe that negotiation skills are transferable across
situations. In making this statement, we do not mean to imply that all
negotiation situations are identical. This assumption is patently
false because negotiation situations differ dramatically across
cultures and activities. However, certain key negotiation principles
are essential in all these different contexts. The skills in this book
are effective across a wide range of situations, ranging from complex,
multiparty, multicultural deals to one-on-one personal exchanges.
Finally, this book offers an enlightened model of negotiation.
Being a successful negotiator does not depend on your opponent’s lack
of familiarity with a book such as this one or a lack of training in
negotiation. In fact, it would be ideal for you if your key clients
and customers knew about these strategies. This approach follows what
we call a fraternal twin model, which assumes that the other
person you are negotiating with is every bit as motivated,
intelligent, and prepared as you are. Thus, the negotiating strategies
and techniques outlined in this book do not rely on “outsmarting” or
tricking the other party; rather, they teach you to focus on
simultaneously expanding the pie of resources and ensuring the
resources are allocated in a manner that is favorable to you.
In summary, our model of learning is based on a three-phase cycle:
experiential learning, feedback, and learning new strategies and
skills.
THE MIND AND HEART
Across the sections of this book, we focus on the mind of
the negotiator as it involves the development of deliberate, rational,
and thoughtful strategies for negotiation. We also focus on the
heart of the negotiator, because ultimately we care about
relationships and trust. We don’t need to trade off dollars and give
up value to build relationships and trust. In fact, the opposite is
true. We base all our teachings and best practices on scientific
research in the areas of economics and psychology—again reflecting the
idea that the bottom line and our relationships are both
important (Bazerman, Curhan, Moore, & Valley, 2000). The corporate
scandals that first began to rock the corporate world in 2001 have
fueled a backlash against the business world and its inhabitants.
Perhaps these incidents are what rekindled negative perceptions of
businesspeople, and MBAs in particular. “[The] emphasis on analysis
has produced a generation of MBAs who are critters with lopsided
brains, icy hearts, and shrunken souls” (Leavitt, 1989, p. 39). Such
an assessment provides all the more reason to put the focus on the
heart and relationships in business.
