Test your negotiating know-how:
Are you better off going into a negotiation
alone or as part of a two-person
team? "You’d generally do better
with the team," reports Susan Brodt,
assistant professor at the University
of Virginia’s Colgate Darden School,
"but probably not for the reasons
you’d expect."
Research conducted by Brodt and
her colleagues from the University
of Washington in Seattle, associate
professor of psychology Leigh
Thompson and graduate student
Erika Peterson, found teams to be a
strength at the bargaining table less
because they out muscled solo opponents
than because they increased
the overall value of the deal being
negotiated. "The teams were remarkably
effective in increasing the
total amount of resources to be divided,"
explains Brodt. "Moreover,
it was not necessary that both of the
negotiating parties be teams; rather,
the presence of at least one team
substantially improved the profitability
of both parties."
Team negotiations are generally
more accurate than solo negotiations
in discerning the other party’s
interests and, as a result, they are
better able to find common interests
and create the win-win situations
that benefit both parties. For example,
while almost one-third of the
one-on-one negotiations studied by
the researchers failed to recognize a
single issue that the two parties had
in common, all of the two-on-two
negotiations discovered at least one
area of agreement. This effect occurred
whether or not teammates
worked closely together, says Brodt.
Teams also appeared to be better
than solos at logrolling, finding is-sues
for which negotiators had different priorities and making
trade-offs:
each party gets its desired out-come
on issues that it cares most
about in exchange for making con-cessions
on issues it values less.
Achieving a bargaining advantage,
however, requires effective coordination,
the researchers found.
Teams in their initial study had not
worked together before and were not
allowed to caucus privately, and
they were unable to win a larger
share of the resources than their solo
opponents. This outcome occurred
despite the perception of both sides
that the teams held the bargaining
advantage. In nearly all of the two-on-
one negotiations, solos feared a
significant disadvantage against the
team, whereas teams were largely
convinced of their inherent bargaining
advantage over the solo. In reality,
however, this wasn’t so.
In another study, Thompson,
Brodt, and Peterson found that negotiating
teams that were moderately
cohesive were able to out bargain solos
and gain on average 60% of the
resources. But even in such situations,
the solos weren’t losers. Be-cause
of the larger pie that the teams
created, the solos left with the same
amount as they would have gained
when facing off against another solo.
"Teams improve the overall quality
of negotiations by finding creative
solutions that work for both sides,"
concludes Brodt. Two heads are better
than one.
Anne G. Perkins 
