notes on the art of negotiation - univie.ac.at · negotiation is an inherently ‘pluralist’...

Notes on the Art

of Negotiation

Ian McAndrew

School of Business

University of Otago

© Ian McAndrew 2016

Notes on the Art of Negotiation © Ian McAndrew 2016

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1. A framework for understanding negotiations 4

There are no universal rules for bargaining 4

A basic framework for negotiations 5

Integrative or interest-based bargaining 6

Distributive or competitive bargaining 8

Attitudes and relationship structuring 9

Internal or intra-organisational bargaining 11

Summarizing 14

2. Basic negotiation strategies 15

Bargaining table objectives 15

Target and resistance points 17

Bargaining table strategies 18

3. Preparation for negotiations: 21

The makeup and roles of the negotiating team 21

The makeup of the team 21

Representativeness, authority and competence 21

The size of the team 22

The role of the chief negotiator 22

Characteristics of an effective negotiator 24

The roles of other bargaining team members 25


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Establishing internal operating rules 27

Negotiating groundrules 30

4. Basic negotiation tactics and conventions 32

Responding to proposals from the other party 32

Alternatives to counterproposing 33

Pushing and probing, pushing and probing . . . 35

Techniques for generating feedback 35

Further proposals and counterproposals 37

Rejecting a proposal 37

Rejecting the position rather than the issue 39

Getting the initial breakthrough 40

When and how to make concessions 42

Reasons to make concessions 42

Presenting an offer 45

Packaging of issues 47

Breaking temporary impasses 49

Managing the negotiations process 51

Looking after yourself in negotiations 53

Closing out the deal 57

© These notes are not to be reproduced without the written permission of the author.


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1. A framework for understanding negotiations

There are no universal rules for bargaining

Any negotiation ought to be undertaken as a strategic exercise

constructed of deliberate behaviours. But where to start? (Incidently, we

use negotiation and bargaining interchangeably here). There are no

universal rules governing negotiations. In some times and places and

fields of business or financial or legal endeavours, there will be

regulations or ethical codes to guide negotiators. For the rest of us, there

are plenty of authors advocating what they believe to be ethical ways to

bargain.

Popular negotiation literature promotes ‘interest based bargaining,’

sometimes called ‘integrative’ or ‘principled’ bargaining. It advocates

complete openness between bargaining parties, and an essentially non-

tactical approach in pursuit of common or complementary interests and

maximizing mutual or joint gain. Proponents of interest based bargaining

as ‘a better way to bargain’ date to Mary Parker Follett in the early 20th

century, but the ideas were given new impetus with the publication in the

early 1980s of Roger Fisher and William Ury’s book Getting to Yes:

Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.

Against a backdrop of conflict in the labour relations arena, in civil

society in the United States and elsewhere, and in the international arena

in the several decades following World War 2, this concept of negotiation

without conflict was innately appealing to many. Especially as

juxtaposed against what was portrayed as the ‘traditional’ approach to

negotiations in many fields – a competitive, rather clumsy staking out of

positions, a brutish defense of those positions against assault by the other

side, before begrudging, tit-for-tat compromise leading to mechanical

splitting of the differences between the parties positions on the issues.

All of this was said to be done in a bad-tempered, deceptive, and

threatening way, inevitably causing damage to bargaining relationships.

What was proposed was that this competitive style of bargaining be

replaced by more positive bargaining practices and relationships built on

interest based principles.

Interest-based approaches have certainly spread to some extent. Many

bargaining parties are doing some things differently and more positively

than in the past, without necessarily having suffered ‘a full conversion.’

But as Roger Fisher himself conceded recently after 20 years advocating


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interest-based bargaining, much as we might wish that they would, most

people just don’t bargain that way most of the time.

What we are likely to encounter in most negotiations in the business

world is a mix of competitive and collaborative bargaining strategies,

and with some additional complexities besides. After all, there are people

involved at the bargaining table and people are, as the saying goes, funny

things. They bring with them to the table their own personalities,

preferences, predispositions, and ethics. Add to that the fact that there is

almost always some debate and trading going on within each bargaining

party quite apart from what is happening across the table, and

negotiations can emerge as quite an involved form of human interaction.

And, when you get right down to it, there is plenty of advice available on

how you should bargain, but there really aren’t many hard and fast rules.

Success in negotiations begins with having a comprehensive framework

that allows you to set objectives, design and implement strategies, and

analyze events as they unfold. This is where theory makes a contribution

to practice, and in what follows we draw heavily on Richard Walton and

Robert B. McKersie’s A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations, first

published in 1965, and still the most instructive and insightful book on

negotiations available. We also incorporate ideas from the writings on

interest-based bargaining, and from dramaturgical analyses of

negotiations, including Raymond Friedman’s excellent analysis of labour

negotiations as drama or theatre in his 1994 book, Front Stage,

Backstage. There are plenty of other good books on negotiations

generally, and this document has been influenced by them as well.

Deborah Kolb & Judith Williams’ Everyday Negotiation is among the

most insightful.

A basic framework for negotiations

It is a useful, practical framework, following Walton and McKersie’s

work, to conceive of any negotiations as consisting of four arenas of

activity occurring simultaneously, or at least potentially occurring

simultaneously. To be successful, a negotiator needs not only to be aware

of what is occurring in each of these arenas, but to effectively manage the

negotiations in each of these arenas. Each has its own strategic and

tactical demands, as well as its implications for developments in each of

the other arenas. The four arenas or fields of activity are introduced

below. A premise of this framework is that negotiators need the ability

to take either integrative / collaborative approaches or more competitive

approaches depending on the nature of the issues, rather than committing

themselves, knowingly or not, to always adopting a particular approach.


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Integrative or interest-based bargaining

Negotiation is an inherently ‘pluralist’ activity, which is to say that it

recognizes that the bargaining parties have some different interests in

what they each want from their relationship. If they didn’t have different

interests, there would be no cause for negotiation. Sometimes those

interests may, in fact, be in direct conflict. However, it is important to

recognize that not all issues that are on the table in negotiations will

necessarily involve a direct conflict of interests between the parties, and it

is important to be alert to that possibility and to the opportunities for

mutual gain when that is so.

There is potential for mutual gain where, by cooperation, the parties can

expand the sum total that is available to them, so that both parties can

come out ahead without either suffering a loss. Or where, because of

complementary priorities and values, they can each benefit by

tradeoffs, or one party can gain something of value to it at little or no cost

to the other party. A failure to search for and identify this mutuality or

complementarity of interests may well result in available gains either

being ‘left at the table,’ or secured through inappropriate tactics at an

unnecessarily high price.

Integrative, collaborative, interest-based bargaining strategies are

appropriate where there are opportunities for mutual gain, or where there

is reason to suspect potential for mutual gain based on an initial

assessment of the issues and each party’s likely interest in them. In these

circumstances the ‘core principles’ of an interest-based approach make

good bargaining sense.

First, focus on the parties’ interests in the issue, not on positions, which

represent particular ways of dealing with the issue. Ideally, openly

examine the issue and explore what each party wants to achieve with it

prior to either party taking a precise position on the preferred outcome.

The oft-repeated anecdote, attributed to Mary Parker-Follett almost a

century ago, involves two sisters fighting over an orange. Each

demanded the whole orange and became wedded to that position,

blinding them to the opportunity to collaboratively explore what it was

that they each wanted with the orange. Eventually, as a mechanistic and

baseless compromise, the sisters split the difference and each took one

half of the orange. One ate her half of the fruit, discarding her peel; the

other discarded her fruit, wanting only the peel to bake a cake.


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One of the lessons from this anecdote for a collaborative approach is to

be completely open in exchange of information, interests and needs,

something that a negotiator might instinctively resist in a more

competitive negotiation.

Priorities and values don’t always match quite so tidily in real life, but the

principle is clear. Where it is not apparent that there is a direct conflict of

interest between them, the parties will often each do better by examining

issues with a mind open to a range of possible outcomes. Staking out a

position and negotiating on the basis of that position might get you only

half a peel, with the other half left unclaimed on the table.

That said, there are few things in negotiations that lend themselves well

to expression in absolute terms. Not every negotiator who ‘stakes out’ a

position becomes mindlessly wedded to the position, unable to retreat

without the much dreaded ‘loss of face,’ and unwilling to explore

alternative possible outcomes or to move towards them. In fact,

experienced negotiators often employ positions as little more than tactical

devices; they are quite capable of examining interests and options under

cover of positions, and truly sophisticated negotiators have long since

mastered the art of ‘losing face’ gracefully, often in exchange for

substantive gain on real issues.

The second core principle of interest-based bargaining is to use objective

standards as the basis for both identifying options for dealing with an

issue, and for choosing from amongst the options. Where there is no

conflict of interests over an issue, such objectivity – where it is available

– makes vastly more sense than fashioning outcomes by threat, emotional

blackmail, bullying or the force of superior bargaining power. Again,

such competitive tactics might get you home, but they are likely to cost

you more than is necessary in terms of both the substance of issues and

damage to bargaining relationships.

Where the parties have a mutuality or complementarity of interests, it

pays to seek out meritorious outcomes on the basis of objective

measures rather than forced compromises that bare a relationship only to

the relative bargaining resources that the parties are prepared to commit

to the issue.

The third core principle of interest-based bargaining is to separate issues

and problems from the people who are trying to deal with them; ‘play the

ball, not the person’ as the saying goes. Where there is a mutuality of

interests, or the potential for same, invest in an open and forthcoming


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relationship that maximizes the opportunities to identify and claim mutual

gains. In practice, many negotiations tend to be more complicated than

the simple application of this principle would allow.

All negotiators should separate the person from the problem, except of

course for those occasions – certainly not unknown in negotiations –

when the person is the problem, or at least a contributing part of it. But

given the mix of issues that can arise in negotiations, it is not always

realistic to expect an entirely open and trusting relationship between

bargaining parties, as ideal as some might consider that to be. For many,

“an enlightened self-interest” is a more practical standard. Often times, a

negotiator can only maximize the outcome for his or her client or

constitutents by assisting the other party to achieve some or much gain.

Under those circumstances, collaboration for mutual gain simply makes

sense. It happens every day in business relationships that fall well short

of being entirely open and trusting.

Negotiators in a business context are in an agency relationship with their

constituents, and those constitutional responsibilities take primacy,

allowing complete openness only when – in the judgment of the

negotiator – it serves the interests of constituents. On matters where a

conflict of interests is perceived, that is unlikely to be the case. On the

other hand, of course, it is not possible to switch ‘trust’ on and off

depending on the issue under discussion.

The significance of this principle in business negotiations is that

bargaining relationships should be valued and protected so that the ability

to openly explore issues where there is a mutuality or complementarity of

issues is preserved. That serves to put some boundaries on behaviours

even when dealing aggressively with issues that involve the most direct

conflict of interests between the parties. The other point of the principle

is that relationships matter in negotiations. It follows that managing

relationships, and if necessary remaking dysfunctional relationships into

something more functional is an important strategic dimension of

negotiations. It is recognized and dealt with as our third arena of activity

below.

Distributive or competitive bargaining Now let’s look at the other side of the point made earlier. While not all

issues that come to the bargaining table involve a direct conflict of

interests between the parties, the fact is that some of them do. As much

as bargaining parties might cooperate to ‘expand the pie,’ some issues are

inevitably seen in ‘distributive’ terms; what game theorists call ‘a fixed


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sum game.’ The more you win, the less that is left for me. These issues

occupy the second bargaining arena in our model.

Where negotiators conceptualize issues in these terms they engage in

more ‘distributive’ or ‘competitive’ bargaining strategies, often engaging

in positional bargaining tactics, and playing things close to the vest.

While this approach is criticized by advocates of interest-based

bargaining, it generally makes a lot of sense on issues that are seen as

involving a conflict of interest. Again, it is important to recognize that

advocates in most business negotiations have agency obligations to their

constituents; their obligations to the other party – and their cooperation

with it – are secondary and born of mutual dependence, the opportunity

for gain for their constituents, and enlightened self-interest.

On distributive issues where the other party is reluctant to concede

anything more than is minimally necessary to achieve settlement,

complete openness – for example about what is minimally acceptable –

makes no sense. The other party would move directly to that position, or

beyond, and have no incentive to offer more. While that openness might

allow a minimally acceptable settlement, it potentially leaves some

further available improvements untested and ‘on the table,’ and that is a

breach of the negotiator’s constitutional obligation to constituents.

Competitive bargaining does not have to match the exaggerated negative

stereotype portrayed by critics. But it is well to recognize that most

business negotiations are not simply a matter of sitting down and

reasoning together. There is, to be sure, some of that. But negotiation in

most fields is fundamentally a power-based interaction between two

parties whose power over one another stems from their mutual

dependence, or at the very least, their ability to satisfy one another or

meet one another’s needs. They typically have common interests, but

also conflicting interests. They can work together to create value, but

they fight over its distribution, and negotiators often successfully employ

competitive bargaining strategies to maximize their constituents’ share of

the distribution. The skill is in doing that while still preserving the

capability for collaboration on issues that don’t involve a direct conflict

of interests. Much of that has to do with managing relationships, the third

of our fields of bargaining activity.

Attitudes and relationship structuring We have already alluded to the importance of relationships in the

negotiations process. Relationships can affect the process, and ultimately

the outcome. There are two dimensions to this, organizational and


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personal. Sometimes the relationship between institutions – an employer

and a union, for example – has a ‘history,’ a distinctive style or flavour or

character that is so imprinted on the relationship that a new set of

negotiations between the parties inevitably takes place in that shadow,

regardless of who is representing the parties at the bargaining table. The

past shapes attitudes and approaches and positions and postures going

into the negotiations, and can influence the process throughout.

The history may be long or short, positive or negative; it may reflect a

long history of struggle or it may be dominated by a single, recent

traumatic or glorious event. Either way, a negotiator needs to recognize

the influence of organizational relationships, evaluate the functionality

or dysfunctionality, promote and use its strength where it is functional,

but work strategically to change the relationship if it needs to be changed.

Personal characteristics and relationships also matter. In any

negotiation, there are simply people; they may fill grand or humble

positions, but they are just people. They bring with them their

personalities, their temperaments, their confidence and their doubts, their

motivations, their personal agendas, their worries and ego needs, their

senses of humour, their habits, their strengths and frailties and character

flaws, and everything else that people consist of.

They also bring their skills and knowledge, and their personal

relationships and influence with others involved in the negotiations. Any

of those things may play a part in the negotiations, and a good negotiator

will audit who is at the bargaining table and what they have brought with

them. A negotiator should also be conscious of how he or she is

perceived by others, using the strengths but working strategically to

change perceptions that are dysfunctional for success in the negotiations.

It is not simply personal characteristics, but the actual relationships

between people that are important in negotiations. Some people like one

another; others don’t. Some people trust one another on the basis of past

dealings or reputation; others don’t. One negotiator might carry a

psychological advantage over another for years based on a past

relationship or event. One negotiator might be intellectually intimidated

by another’s wit or off-the-cuff verbal skills. Again, any of those things

might play a part in negotiations. A negotiator needs to audit

relationships and their impact in negotiations, nurture and use those that

are functional, and work strategically to restructure those that are

dysfunctional.


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A negotiator needs also to be alert to the implications for relationships of

what is happening in other bargaining arenas. Generally speaking,

collaboration builds relationships while conflict has the potential to strain

relationships. A successful negotiator will ‘manage’ his or her important

relationships – with the lead advocate for the other party, for example –

through episodes of conflictual bargaining, insulating the relationship

from any collateral damage. The successful negotiator will also

strategically take opportunities to enhance the relationship during periods

of cooperation, in effect replenishing the store of goodwill, and will use

the relationship judiciously when necessary.

It is in these senses that managing attitudes and relationships is its own

arena of bargaining activity, inseparably integrated with everything else

occurring at and around the bargaining table, but nonetheless demanding

of its own strategic attention from the negotiator.

Internal or intra-organizational bargaining

The fourth arena or field of activity in negotiations consists of the

bargaining that is taking place within the structure of each party to the

negotiations, sometimes called ‘intra-organizational’ bargaining. In

general terms, there may be two things happening here that a negotiator

needs to recognize and manage strategically. After Walton and

McKersie, we label them ‘boundary conflict’ and ‘factional conflict.’

First, during the course of negotiations that are in any way complex or

extended, negotiators can expect to have to engage in ongoing

negotiations with their own constituents as well as negotiating across the

table. To some extent these internal negotiations are played out within

each party’s negotiating team, between the lead negotiator and the team

membership. To some extent, they take place between bargaining teams

and their constituents. The internal negotiations occur because the

negotiators or negotiating teams are, in effect, on the boundary between

their own constituency and the party on the other side of the bargaining

table. The two levels – advocate with team members, and team with

constituency – are parallel illustrations of the same boundary conflict.

The negotiation role involves bringing together into agreement the

expectations of one’s own constituency and the expectations of the other

party. Labour unions, for example, traditionally build momentum going

into negotiations with an employer by raising the expectations of union

members. While this might smack of manipulation, without momentum

there is no bargaining power, and without at least the illusion of

bargaining power there is unlikely to be an outcome that will satisfy the


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union’s members. So it is something that unions need to do to be

successful.

However, negotiators are aware of the unfolding realities as the

negotiations progress. They are at the table and they see it. Their

constituents – such as union members – aren’t, and they don’t! So,

assuming that negotiations are moving towards a worthwhile outcome,

part of an advocate’s role is to ensure that the expectations of the

constituents are brought into line with the realities that are developing at

the bargaining table. Emerging triumphantly with a settlement package

that is good by any objective standard is not of much value if the

constituency is not ready to receive it, having been left – through

inattention – back at the starting gate.

Moving the constituents’ or client’s expectations from the opening

proposal to the settlement point is itself a negotiation, and sometimes a

very taxing one. Whether it occurs within the negotiating team or

between the negotiating team and its constituents, or at both levels,

depends on the makeup of the bargaining team and its relationship to the

constituents or clients.

Nothing above is meant to suggest that an advocate’s role is to ‘sell’ a

settlement not worthy of their constituents’ support. Rather, what is

suggested is that, when a worthwhile package is on offer, a complete

negotiations performance includes not only getting the agreement of the

party opposite, but also securing the agreement of one’s own constituents.

That is not something that a successful negotiator leaves to chance.

There is a second and sometimes very important dimension to boundary

conflict, and that is the behavioural dimension. Not only must a

negotiator manage and match the expectations of the other party and his

or her own constituency on the substance of the issues, the negotiator

must also meet the expectations of these two competing parties at a

behavioural level.

To continue the labour relations example, a union negotiator must look

and act the way union members expect their champion to look and act,

including at times reflecting all of their anger and frustrations, while

simultaneously negotiating with the employer sufficiently constructively

to fashion an agreement. Successful negotiators quickly figure out how

to manage those conflicting expectations, and the strategies involved are

closely intertwined with what’s happening in the relationship arena.


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Friedman’s dramaturgical analysis of negotiations is useful here. The

essence of a dramaturgical analysis is that when people take on roles –

such as those of advocate or team members in negotiations – they are

instinctively aware of the behaviours associated with their roles and they

make every effort to conform to what they believe is expected of them in

their roles. They intuitively talk and act the way they think advocates or

team members should talk and act. And they are conscious of the

audiences who are watching, and whose opinion of them is important to

them. It is audience expectations and evaluations that are the key.

If a union advocate, for example, meets the union membership’s

expectations of what a good union advocate should walk and talk like,

then the advocate will have credibility in that role. With credibility

comes the ability to influence that particular audience. That ability to

influence the audience or constituency, in turn, is essential to successfully

managing the sort of ‘boundary negotiations’ referred to earlier – the

bringing of the constituents’ expectations into line with what’s happening

at the bargaining table.

If an advocate doesn’t meet the expectations of constituents – is seen, for

example, to be too close to the other party or insufficiently aggressive for

the circumstances – then his or her ability to negotiate with, or to

influence constituents will suffer. How then does the advocate work with

the management negotiator to construct an agreement while meeting the

expectations of constituents?

The dramaturgical analysis employs the useful concepts of a ‘front stage’

and ‘backstage,’ the former being where the negotiator is ‘performing’

for an audience while the latter is where the negotiator can drop the more

restricting trappings of his or her role and operate more openly.

The most obvious example of this phenomenon in business negotiations

is the ability of lead negotiators who have a professional relationship or

understanding to meet behavioural expectations at the negotiating table,

to tolerate the matching performance of the opposing advocate at the

table, and to later sit together privately and negotiate, either

collaboratively or competitively, but without behavioural barriers to what

can be said and done.

A successful negotiator understands and intuitively complies with the

behaviours that reinforce competence in the role, recognizes and

accommodates similar behaviours in other negotiators, and strategically


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manages relationships through those complexities by judicious

movement between the front stage and backstage.

An additional complexity to internal or intra-organizational negotiations,

as the fourth arena of bargaining activity, is ‘factional conflict.’ This is

simply the familiar notion that not everyone on any particular side of

negotiations necessarily has the same hopes and dreams for the outcome

of negotiations. They may have different interests, different priorities,

different bottom lines, different levels of commitment and so forth.

Factional differences simply mean that, in managing boundary conflict

and negotiations, as a critical element of the overall process of

negotiations, the negotiators and negotiating teams need to be aware of

different factional interests within each constituency that will need to be

satisfied if an agreement is to be successfully ratified. There is not much

point in reaching an agreement if the needs of important factional groups,

capable of tipping the agreement over, have not been met.

Summarizing

The significance of recognizing that these four fields of activity might be

happening during any negotiation is that each requires attention for a

successful outcome to the negotiations; each has strategic and tactical

requirements. To complicate matters, what happens in one field might

well impact on the other fields, and one needs to be aware of the

implications in all fields of a tactical option taken in one field.

Negotiations can be a demanding process, particularly where there may

be multiple parties, each sub-dividable into competing factions, each with

their own agenda, many and complex issues with implications for

different parties, some issues suggesting cooperation but others clearly

divisive, an interesting mix of characters around the bargaining table, and

so on.

The point of this section is that it helps to start with an organizing

framework on which you can conduct your analysis, and construct and

implement a strategic approach to each of the essential elements of the

negotiations. It is a place to anchor your thinking and your strategic

approach to negotiations. The model draws heavily on Walton and

McKersie’s A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations, to which readers

interested in a fuller understanding of negotiations are referred.


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2. Basic negotiation strategies

Bargaining table objectives

Most negotiations in the business world involve an agency process. A

trade union bargaining team, for example, is not charged with doing good

in the world or even with doing good by the employer. The union

bargaining team’s constitutional responsibility is to its membership.

Likewise, an employer’s bargaining team is responsible and accountable

to its principals. The agency responsibility is analogous in sales or

financial or legal negotiations.

This is not to say that nothing else matters. Negotiators in most fields are

likely to have a variety of points of reference, including conditions and

comparable settlements elsewhere in the industry and the implications of

the particular settlement under negotiation for events and developments

elsewhere.

A negotiating team will also carry forward the values and concerns of its

constituents or client, including perhaps the implications of the

bargaining for the social and economic well-being of the local

community, the environment, and the organisation itself. In addition, a

negotiating party is likely to assist its opposite where that is possible and

consistent with its responsibilities to its own constituency, most obviously

where ‘enlightened self interest’ suggests that the first party can help

itself best by helping the other party achieve something it needs.

So, the mindset for bargaining parties and bargaining teams is not

necessarily a narrow single-mindedness of purpose. That said, however,

it remains true that the bargaining process in commercial and legal

settings is an agency process. Negotiators are rewarded for delivering

for their constituents. And from this perspective, what teams in

negotiations are trying to achieve can be outlined in a straight-forward

fashion.

Their objectives are these:

1. To maximize improvements, particularly on issues that are high

priorities to their constituents. These would usually be issues that

the party itself has brought to the bargaining table;

2. To minimize concessions that their constituents see as losses,

particularly again on issues that are high priorities to their

constituents. These would usually involve proposals brought to the


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table by the other party. Following our discussion of integrative or

interest-based bargaining, it goes almost without saying that not all

concessions in negotiations involve perceived ‘losses’;

3. To do 1. and 2. in such a combination that their constituents will be

satisfied, and preferably well satisfied, with the overall package.

Like much in negotiations, this involves making judgments, and

negotiators live and die by their judgments. To some extent,

achievements on different issues will be substitutes for one another

in the constituent satisfaction stakes. But there will almost

always be minimum levels of achievement on key issues that have

to be a part of any package that is going to be approved for

settlement;

4. To gain the agreement of the other party to the overall package,

conceding only what is minimally necessary on ‘loss’ issues, and to

the extent possible meeting the other party’s needs on issues not

seen by their constituents as involving losses; and

5. Do all of the above in a way that preserves (and preferably

improves) the relationships that matter to the negotiating team

and its constituents.

Again, the role of the bargaining team in most business and legal

negotiations is an advocacy and agency role. It can be crudely, but

pretty accurately described as ‘figure out the best deal that is available,

get it, evaluate it, if it’s good enough sell it to your constituents.’

How do we do those things and meet the objectives? Successful

negotiators employ strategies. Negotiations are sometimes likened to a

military campaign, other times to a chess match. The message in those

analogies is that negotiations should be approached strategically. If we

were to describe what negotiations ‘look like’, it would have to be said

that much negotiation activity looks like a lot of ‘pushing and probing’ of

one another by the bargaining teams. What are they after? Feedback,

information about the other party’s interests, needs, priorities, flexibility

and bottom line positions. Why? Because that information defines the

‘bargaining range’ and what’s possible – at least for the moment – in

terms of negotiation outcomes.

That ‘pushing and probing’ activity can take many forms, and can be a

part of both collaborative and competitive approaches to bargaining. Its

particular style and feedback targets at any given point would depend on


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the parties, the environment within which the negotiations are set, the

people, their relationships, and the nature of the issues involved. The

‘pushing and probing’ activity is not strategy. Rather, it is tactical

behaviour that implements strategies. We will talk about tactics at a

later point. For now, we outline key bargaining strategies designed to

achieve the bargaining objectives outlined above. We begin with two

concepts – ‘target points’ and ‘resistance points’ – that are key to

bargaining strategies, and particularly competitive bargaining strategies in

Walton and McKersie’s behavioural theory of negotiations referenced

earlier.

Target and resistance points

By a ‘target point’ we mean the best that a party can realistically hope to

achieve in negotiations. The concept can be applied to particular issues,

to packages of issues, and less tangibly to overall settlements. From their

studies of labour negotiations, Walton and McKersie established that

experienced negotiators calculated ‘target points’ at these various levels

of abstraction, from all the information and intuition available to them, in

their preparation for entering the negotiations.

Target points provide direction, something to direct strategies towards.

Without that sort of thinking in mind, a party enters negotiations without

a plan, limited to waiting to see what develops and with little hope of

managing the process. You can’t manage the negotiations process if you

don’t know where you are going with it.

While target points provide direction, experienced negotiators also

calculate bottom line ‘resistance points’, again at all levels from specific

issues to the ‘look and feel’ of the overall settlement, before engaging

with the other party.

By ‘resistance points’ we mean the worst that a party can afford to do in

the negotiations and still reach agreement. If that point can’t be reached,

then not agreeing is the better option. Again, information, intuition, and

an assessment of the consequences of not reaching agreement all figure in

these calculations, which are private to the negotiator or negotiating team

for each party. The concept of ‘BATNA’ – the party’s best alternative to

a negotiated agreement – is a central concept in much negotiation

literature, and is obviously a key to a party’s understanding of its

resistance points. Put simply, what are the alternatives to reaching an

agreement, and how palatable are they to the negotiator’s constituents?


18 | P a g e

Resistance points or ‘bottom lines’ often ultimately come back to a

negotiator’s judgment. An experienced negotiator will rely on his or her

‘feel’ for what the constituency or client will ‘buy’, and that may or may

not be what the constituents or clients are telling their negotiator that they

will buy.

Remembering the internal bargaining arena highlighted earlier, a

negotiator is likely to be ‘pushing and probing’ with his or her

constituents during the course of negotiations, looking for feedback on

their bottom lines, and attempting to validate his or her own impression

of where those lines are. But first the negotiator calculates the ‘worst’ he

or she can afford to do before the outset of negotiations. Without having

done that sort of thinking, there is no reliable floor to stop outcomes

sinking below what is ultimately acceptable to the constituency. The

thinking may change during the negotiations, but a negotiator should not

enter negotiations without having done the thinking.

Bargaining table strategies

The other significance of target and resistance points, as we have defined

those concepts above, is that most of the significant strategies in

negotiations revolve around them, and particularly around resistance

points – a party’s private thinking about its bottom line positions. The

key strategies, in pursuit of the bargaining objectives set out above, are

these:

1. The first order of business is to try to identify the other party’s

resistance points, which is to say try to uncover the other party’s

private thinking on the worst it can afford to do on various issues

and overall. What is it that the other party believes that it needs to

achieve on the issues that it has brought to the table? What does

the other party believe that it can afford to do on the issues that you

have brought to the table? This thinking isn’t necessarily reflected

by a party’s present positions ‘on the table.’ In collaborative

bargaining, this strategy might be thought of as identifying the

minimum that the other party needs assistance or cooperation in

achieving if a settlement is to be reached. In competitive

bargaining, this strategy might be thought of as identifying the

maximum that can be claimed from the other party as a part of a

settlement.

2. At some stage negotiators make a judgment about what the other

party’s resistance points are. In other words, at some stage of the

collective bargaining process, as one example, the union negotiator


19 | P a g e

has to form a conclusion about how far the employer party, in its

private thinking, is prepared to go in meeting the union’s wage and

other proposals. Having done that, a negotiator must then evaluate

the ‘marketability’ of the other party’s resistance points to his

or her constituents. If the negotiator is correct in his or her

judgment of the other party’s resistance points on various issues,

do those points – assuming you can get them put on the table – add

up to an agreement that your constituents or client will accept?

Posing and answering that question is the next key strategic

assignment for the negotiator in business negotiations. Negotiators

for all parties have to make those judgments, each from their own

perspectives.

3. If the negotiator’s evaluation is that the other party’s resistance

point on any issue, or overall, is not ‘marketable’ to the

constituency – in other words, that it is not enough to win their

agreement – then the next strategic assignment is to try to change

the other party’s resistance point(s). Remembering the

definition, this obviously means more than simply causing the

other party to change its stated position at the bargaining table. It

means causing the other party to change its private thinking about

what must be achieved in order to get a settlement. It means, in

other words, lowering the other party’s private definition of what is

acceptable in a settlement. It will be apparent that that strategic

assignment, if successfully executed, will likely push the other

party’s negotiating team into ‘intra-organisational’ conflict and

negotiation with its constituents, given that the other team’s

original resistance point was based on its estimate of what its

constituents would accept.

4. At the same time that bargaining parties are pursuing these

strategies focused on each other’s resistance points, they must each

also take a strategic approach to their own bottom line thinking.

Particularly on distributive issues, where a party perceives there to

be a direct conflict of interests with the other party, the strategic

approach will be to disguise a party’s own resistance point, or to

convey an inflated impression of what it is. By way of example, a

labour union that is prepared, as a bottom line, to accept a three

percent wage increase, but is targeting five percent, will be

reluctant to reveal that three percent resistance point for fear that

the employer will never move beyond it. If the employer is made

aware that the union is prepared, bottom line, to settle for three

percent, where is the incentive to offer four or five percent?


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While we will talk about tactics later, it is important to note now

that to ‘convey an inflated impression’ of a resistance point is not

to tell a lie. In fact, it is simply a variation of disguising the

resistance point, and is a strategy that begins with the opening

discussions about the parties’ respective interests, wants and needs.

5. Finally, if necessary, reasonable and possible, a negotiator may be

in the position where he or she has to try to change his or her own

party’s resistance points on one or more issues in order to get an

agreement. This will almost inevitably involve the negotiator in

‘intra-organisational’ bargaining, either within the bargaining team

or between the bargaining team and its constituency, or both. It

will often involve the negotiator and negotiating team changing

their private bottom line thinking first, before taking on their

constituents in an effort to lower their collective expectations, or

the expectations of some faction of the constituency. There are

obviously limits to how far resistance points can be modified, and

to how much goodwill a negotiator is prepared to expend in

challenging his or her own constituents to do less well than they

believed they could afford to. However, there are a variety of

circumstances that make this strategy a real option. Developments

on one issue can change the value of other issues, and cause a

rethink. Fear of failing to reach an agreement, and the

consequences thereof, can also cause a re-evaluation.

These are the general strategies in most commercial and legal

negotiations. Some of them are applicable to both collaborative and

competitive bargaining. Some are more obviously directed at competitive

bargaining over distributive or potentially conflictual issues.

The tactical behaviours to implement the strategies we have described as

a lot of ‘pushing and probing’ for information that, in turn, fuels the

strategies. That pushing and probing tends to be punctuated with parties

taking what we might call for now ‘periodic bargaining initiatives’ that

serve both to move the negotiations forward and to provide new

platforms for further tactical behaviour in implementation of the

bargaining strategies. All of this we will discuss following an initial

discussion of the necessary preparation for negotiations.


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3. Preparation for negotiations

Thus far we have set out an organizing model or framework as a base for

developing a strategic approach to negotiations, and then described in

generic terms the objectives that bargaining parties pursue, and the key

strategies that they employ in pursuit of those objectives. Before moving

on to a discussion of bargaining tactics and conventions, we need to take

a step back to briefly consider the all-important matters that have to be

attended to in preparation for bargaining. We will discuss two broad

topics: the makeup and roles of the bargaining team, and the negotiation

of ‘groundrules’ that govern how the parties conduct their substantive

negotiations.

The makeup and roles of the negotiating team

We mentioned earlier the attitudinal or relationship dimension of

bargaining. Whatever else it might be, the bargaining process is a process

involving real people, and the people participating at the table – their

personalities, their competence, their motivations and so forth – can

significantly influence the outcome of the negotiations. So the selection

of teams to represent parties in business negotiations can be crucial

decisions.

The makeup of the team The makeup of a bargaining team in commercial negotiations will, of

course, turn on the parties involved and the subject matter under

negotiation. In that respect, it is difficult to generalise about who should

negotiate on behalf of parties. The real key is to select the team

purposefully for what individuals can bring to. The basic criterion is that

the makeup of a negotiating team must give it credibility both with its

own constituency and with the negotiating team for the other party or

parties. To a very considerable extent, the former begets the latter. It

does not take much reflection to recognize that a bargaining team cannot

function effectively in any of our four arenas or fields of bargaining

activity – competitive bargaining, integrative bargaining, relationship

management, and internal negotiations – without having credibility in

both directions.

Representativeness, authority and competence The credibility of the negotiating team essentially relies on its

representativeness, its competence and its authority. The makeup of the

team should be sufficiently representative of various factional interests

within the constituency that the final settlement can be accepted as the


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best available under the circumstances, without any element of the

constituency feeling betrayed or unduly compromised.

The perception of competence, both in the process and on the issues,

serves the same purpose. And the makeup of the team should carry with

it sufficient authority, either formally or informally, either in person or

clearly assigned, that its settlements – and even recommended settlements

– will not be rejected or undermined by any part of the constituency.

The size of the team Conventional wisdom suggests that three to five persons is normally

about the right balance between credibility and manageability in

business or legal negotiations. Credibility, though, in the terms discussed

above, must be the priority. Discipline can be maintained even in a very

large negotiating team, where a large team is needed for credibility, by

instituting a few internal operating rules, as will be discussed a little later.

The role of the chief negotiator It is customary for the teams in most fields of negotiations to each have a

single or at least principal spokesperson who is designated as the chief

negotiator for the team.

There are two basic reasons for having a single spokesperson handle

most, if not all, of the dialogue across the table, and most especially

dialogue that deals with the party’s positions or proposals. The first

concerns team discipline. Somebody has to be calling the shots tactically

during the fluidity of negotiating sessions. If all members of the team are

free to speak at will, conflicting positions, priorities and degrees of

flexibility get communicated to the other team, proposals are put forward

before tactically appropriate, and so forth.

Second, and somewhat relatedly, having a single spokesperson allows

that person to ‘play out’ tactical manoeuvres that become necessary or for

which the opportunity develops during the course of a negotiations

meeting, and where to take an adjournment would mean missing the

opportunity of the moment. At times, particularly where the discussion

takes an unexpected turn, only the chief negotiator might fully understand

where the discussion is going, or potentially going, and how to lead it

there. A careless word or gesture from another member of the team at the

wrong time can sometimes close the opening as quickly as it developed.

Both of these basic reasons cited for having a single spokesperson in

negotiations imply that the chief negotiator is an expert in the process.


23 | P a g e

Ideally that is the case and where it is, it constitutes a third very good

reason for the practice to be followed. Even where it is not, however,

negotiation teams will normally be well served by directing all or most

communications that reflect positions or proposals through a single

spokesperson. Other members of the team will, from time to time, be

called upon to address the substance or significance of issues, or to make

calculated contributions. It is not usually realistic to expect negotiation

team members, who will often feel passionate about the issues under

discussion, to sit in silence throughout the negotiations. But most tactical

communication should come through the chief negotiator.

The chief negotiator is more than simply a mouthpiece for the bargaining

team. He or she almost always chairs the team, and the chief negotiator's

role can be a multi-faceted and demanding one. As discussed earlier, the

negotiator is on the boundary between the two parties and, with the other

party's chief negotiator, is the link between them. He or she must relate

and respond simultaneously to members of his or her own team, and the

constituency behind them, and to members of the other party’s team.

Credibility is again the key to success in the role, in this case the personal

and professional credibility of the individual advocate.

In dealings with the other team, each party's chief negotiator not only

speaks for his or her constituents, but is also primarily responsible for

designing and implementing negotiation strategies and tactics. In

relating as an individual to the other team, the chief negotiator's

credibility ensures that the other team deals with and through the

negotiator, respecting his or her role, rather than attempting to work

around the negotiator to other members of the team or beyond the team to

the team’s constituents.

The chief negotiator's credibility with the other team stems in part from

the negotiator's relationship with his or her constituency. To be effective,

the negotiator needs the respect and trust of constituents, based on their

confidence in his or her judgment and expertise. And that respect and

trust must be translated into a grant of sufficient authority to the

negotiator, in consultation with team members, to complete a reasonable

deal. While there are occasional tactical exceptions, parties in business

negotiations will not normally want to send to the negotiating table a

mere messenger without authority to negotiate.

The chief negotiator's relationship with other team members, if properly

selected, serves to keep the negotiator in touch with the perspectives of

the various factions within the constituency. Consistent with what we


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have said earlier about ‘intra-organisational bargaining,’ the negotiator's

role in this respect is to reconcile the different interests within the

constituency and to weld a consensus on issues and strategies before any

major moves are made in the negotiations.

A lead negotiator is not necessarily the most influential member of a

bargaining team in terms of the substance of the issues. Indeed, a ‘hired

gun’ brought in as the lead negotiator may have no interest at all in the

substance of bargaining outcomes, other than what is needed to satisfy the

client of constituency. In this case, the advocate is usually the leader of

the team on tactical issues, and plays almost a mediating role in

building consensus on substantive decisions amongst team members

who are there to represent the views of parts of the constituency.

Characteristics of an effective negotiator Given the impact the chief negotiators can have on the process and

outcome of the negotiations, it is worthwhile for business organisations to

take the time and make the effort to select the most effective negotiator.

In some respects discussion of the ‘ideal type’ to serve as an

organization's chief negotiator is pointless. To begin with, it would be

presumptuous to suggest that there is a single best type. And even if there

was, reality dictates that many, many people who fall short of the ideal

are pressed into service in the role in various business contexts, and get

the job done.

Perhaps it will be helpful in selecting a chief negotiator, though, to

suggest some abilities and personal characteristics that make one person

more likely than others to be effective in the role.

Undoubtedly the most important personal characteristic for lasting

success as a negotiator in the commercial or legal worlds is integrity. A

reputation for integrity attaches to a negotiator who demonstrates over

time a recognition, perhaps instinctive, of the often illusive line between

tactical but ethical behaviour and dishonest behaviour, and who never

crosses the line. Most fundamentally, a negotiator with integrity lives up

to his or her commitments, without qualification. It has been said, not

unwisely, that a reputation for integrity is the most valuable tool in the

negotiator's toolbox.

Second, to serve effectively as a chief advocate in negotiations, a person

needs to have some measure of basic negotiating skill, encompassing

three complementary abilities. The first is the ability to quickly and


25 | P a g e

comfortably understand sometimes complex and sometimes industry-

specific issues. The second is the ability to think and act tactically, much

in the manner of a chess master, with foresight and a sense of timing.

And the third is an ability to speak and write clearly and precisely at a

level appropriate to the audience.

A third desirable characteristic is a sense of personal confidence. This is

important in insulating the negotiator from pressure tactics or efforts at

intimidation. A sense of personal security or confidence also allows the

negotiator to separate the issues from the personalities and to avoid

reacting personally to events or challenges at the negotiating table. A

likeable personality is as helpful in negotiations as elsewhere, but a

negotiator cannot always afford the luxury of being loved, particularly by

those on the other side of the table. Personal self assurance sustains a

negotiator when he or she has to deliver unpopular messages.

A fourth area also relates in a sense to interpersonal skills. To be

effective, a negotiator needs the ability to ‘read’ people and a capacity to

be sensitive to diverse personalities and their needs. The ability to

control a meeting and its mood or emotional climate, preferably

somewhat subtly, is also helpful.

Finally, and ranking in importance second only to integrity, is the

capacity to combine endless patience and persistence in protecting

constituents’ interests with measured flexibility on positions, and the

wisdom to recognize the difference between interests and positions.

Fortunately, many of the attributes noted above embody things that can

be learned, habits that can be adopted, or points to which particular

attention can be paid at least for the duration of negotiations by anyone

serving as an advocate in commercial negotiations. In the final analysis,

though, each person appointed to the role can only be themselves, learn

what they can, prepare properly, and do their best.

The roles of other bargaining team members All team members should constantly think about and contribute to the

negotiations effort, even if their ideas are verbalized primarily in team

meetings or adjournments rather than at the negotiating table. While the

chief negotiator plays the major speaking role in negotiations, and is

usually the tactical leader, the other team members generally represent

the constituent or client interests, and they have important roles to play.


26 | P a g e

Ultimately, of course, they make the decisions on substantive issues and

contribute to the debate on strategic matters. However, they also play

other functional roles in the bargaining process.

The first role of team members is to provide factual information on

issues, whether in the development of or in support of a party’s positions,

or in response to proposals from the other party. They each must offer

their particular expertise as well as their general sense on the implications

of proposals and possible settlements. Much of this is done in preparation

for negotiations. Nonetheless, data gathering and reassessment of

positions are ongoing throughout the negotiations as circumstances

change. Though all team members should contribute, one member of the

team will often be designated as the principal ‘researcher’, with primary

responsibility for collecting and collating needed data as negotiations

progress.

In addition to hard or factual information, team members should also be

in a position to provide less tangible ‘intelligence’ as a basis for team

judgements on the other party’s priorities and bottom line needs. Team

members with direct contacts or dealings with the other party to

negotiations may well be in a position to pick up information on

prevailing sentiments and feelings, without going to lengths of inquisition

that would be seen as undermining the other party.

In addition to that of principal researcher, there are other specific roles to

be assigned to team members. One member is sometimes designated as

principal ‘observer’ to monitor the reactions, including non-verbal

reactions of team members opposite to what is being said by the

negotiator. The nature of the chief negotiator's role means that he or she

cannot always pay attention to what is occurring on the fringes of

negotiations, and for this reason a principal observer is often designated

to be his or her ‘eyes and ears’.

It is also usual for a member of the bargaining team to be designated as

the team's principal ‘recorder’ or note taker. Again, the nature of the

chief negotiator's job often precludes his or her taking comprehensive

notes, though a good negotiator will take the time to note major points.

The recorder's job does not require taking down everything said verbatim

or even shorthand. A date and time record of events is useful. Most

importantly, though, commitments however made, and offers or positions

presented orally should be noted in detail, and agreements, including

tentative or conditional agreements, should be recorded with any attached


27 | P a g e

qualifications. Reasons behind a proposal or position, costings, and any

indications of flexibility or inflexibility should also be recorded.

Establishing internal operating rules

As in any successful team effort, it is helpful if members of the

negotiating team understand one another and the way in which they will

work together, and to what end, from the outset.

Mention has already been made of the need for preliminary team

briefings in preparation for negotiations. This is the time to establish the

internal rules by which the team will operate. The designation of

principal roles and responsibilities of the type described above is a part

of this exercise. To a considerable extent, the circumstances suggest

what other areas need attention, but some of the more common ones are

dealt with below.

One point that should always be clarified is the right of team members

other than the chief negotiator to speak at the negotiating table or in

other negotiation forums. Much has been made above of the convention

of having a single spokesperson. Without pulling back on that emphasis,

the point can be softened just a little, even in competitive bargaining

situations, provided that team members are aware of the limits.

Realistically, human nature can bear only so much muzzling, particularly

in extended negotiations sessions and when the issues under discussion

are emotional ones. Fortunately, the single spokesperson rule does not

necessarily mean that other members of the bargaining team never utter a

sound. Indeed, because of their expertise or position in the organization,

other members of the team are often required to speak to an issue. At

other times, members of the team will want to express their emotions in

reaction to the discussion taking place in order to emphasize a point. This

too should be, if not pre-planned, then certainly tactically controlled and

within defined limits.

Beyond these tactical contributions, in a well disciplined bargaining team,

members other than the chief negotiator ought to be able to speak the

occasional word, provided they observe the bottom line rule that

members other than the chief negotiator, should never indicate in any way

that the team would accept any position on any issue other than its

present position.

While these rules might sound strident, in practice they are not. As team

members gain experience in negotiations, they soon learn that channelling


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most communications through chief spokespersons is the most efficient

way to negotiate, particularly in a competitive bargaining environment.

They learn to contribute in a natural way to lend emphasis to the chief

negotiator's points from their particular expertise or experience, and the

bottom line rule eventually becomes second nature. It is imperative,

however, that the matter be talked through in preliminary team meetings

before getting together with the team(s) representing the other party or

parties.

Where the parties are genuinely engaged in a collaborative effort to

resolve mutual problems or to achieve mutual gain, without

predispositions, without distributive issues or sub-issues, and without

apparent conflict, the rules can obviously be more relaxed.

A related area concerns authority within the bargaining team. The first

question is how authority within the team is to be portrayed to the

other side.

Particularly where team members are given relatively free license to

speak out, it is common to make clear to the other party that only the

chief negotiator can commit the team on an issue. This affords at least

some protection against slip-ups by team members. Something similar in

the way of protecting positions can be had by conveying to the other

party that authority in the team rests with the team as a group, and that no

modification of a position has the status of a commitment until discussed

in private by the full team. Of course, neither of these devices is a

substitute for consistent team discipline.

The question of where authority actually resides in the team has also

to be clarified in preparation for negotiations. How are decisions,

whether tactical or on the substance of issues, to be made?

Subject to the qualifiers noted below, decision making by majority vote

of team members would ordinarily prevail, though the circumstances of

many business negotiations may dictate otherwise. Where the

organizational positions or authority or standing of team members are

widely disparate, for example, a system of majority rule may be

somewhat artificial. In such circumstances where the decision making

authority on the team realistically resides with one or two people, then the

real need is for procedures to ensure that other team members are heard

for their expertise before decisions are taken. In any event, whatever the

decision making system to be used, it should be clarified before the first

major decision in negotiations has to be made.


29 | P a g e

Now to the qualifiers mentioned above. First, while it is important to

have in place a method for making decisions, every reasonable effort

should be made to achieve a consensus within the team on each

significant move to be made in negotiations. The amount of internal

debate that this implies may slow down the process, but it is worthwhile

to ensure that each team member's concerns are dealt with in the course

of formulating team positions, and that no member feels that their

interests (or the interests of the particular constituents they represent)

have been sacrificed in the final agreement.

To guard against hurried or incomplete discussions, it is helpful to have at

least a general understanding of how team meetings or caucuses will be

handled.

The second qualifier is equally important, if not more so. Very

occasionally, for tactical reasons, a bargaining team may wish to portray

its position as one that has less than unanimous support within the team.

This may, for example, underscore the magnitude of the concession

incorporated in a new position. It may be for the purpose of allowing the

team to subsequently go off in a different direction on the issue if need

be. Or it might serve a variety of other tactical purposes.

As a general rule, however, with deliberate tactical exceptions such as

these, each decision of the negotiating team, once reached, should

thereafter be presented as a consensus or unanimous decision, regardless

of how the decision was arrived at internally, and regardless of whether

consensus was in fact achieved. The nature of the negotiations process

dictates that there can be no minority opinions emanating from within the

negotiating team.

A related area that deserves some consideration by the team in

preparation for negotiations is the nature and extent of communications

with various interested parties away from the negotiating table. The

precise protocols will necessarily vary widely with the nature of the

negotiations and the commercial, legal, or personal sensitivity of the

subject matter under discussion.

In some organizations, the level of detail made available to constituents,

and the tone of the reports, should not go beyond that which the team

would be comfortable seeing in the hands of the other party. In the

process of negotiations, the other party is also entitled to gather

‘intelligence’.


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Negotiating groundrules

The value of having an arrangement in place governing bargaining

processes has been recognized by many experienced negotiators over

many years. We can usefully refer to these process rules as the

‘groundrules’ under which the bargaining parties are going to do

business together.

Groundrules are the rules of logistics and behaviour under which the

substantive negotiations are conducted. They are basically intended to

smooth the process of negotiations, and can be likened to a roadmap.

Without them, the parties may eventually get where they are going, but

probably at the cost of much wasted time and effort.

Formal negotiations over groundrules are not always necessary. They are

most likely to occur – and most useful – where the parties, or the chief

negotiators, are not familiar with one another, where the logistical

arrangements for the negotiations are not clear, or where one or both

parties have not been happy with the process of negotiations in the past.

In these circumstances, the groundrules negotiations do not merely serve

to establish logistical arrangements. Equally importantly, they afford the

negotiators the opportunity to test the other team's style, personalities,

strengths and weaknesses. The groundrules exercise becomes, in essence,

a kind of preliminary jockeying for position that can serve to set not

only the procedures, but also the tone for the beginnings of the

substantive negotiations. Where the parties and the people are more

familiar with one another and where negotiations have proceeded

smoothly enough in the past under an existing process agreement,

establishing groundrules will tend to be far less formal. Perhaps only the

date and time of the first meeting will need to be settled, and this will be

done via a straightforward phone call.

Particularly in a brand new relationship, negotiation of groundrules from

written proposals right through to a written process agreement is often a

useful exercise. Issues to be covered might include negotiation team

membership and authority, meeting forums and times and places,

relatedly acceptable means of communication, acceptable procedures

around adjournments and delays to the negotiations, any limitations on

the form of proposals, the raising of new issues, and the like, record

keeping, communications with constituents and perhaps the media if there

is likely to be public interest, and ratification and impasse procedures.


31 | P a g e

These sorts of practical matters are better dealt with in the preliminary

discussions over bargaining processes than left to be sorted in the heat of

a pending breakdown. The possibility and methodology of extending the

existing arrangements if necessary, in the event negotiations become

protracted but still promising, may be touched on as well. The process

for implementation of various provisions of the new agreement, once

reached, may also be set out in the groundrules document.

In short, the parties should use these preliminary groundrules meetings to

settle on whatever logistical arrangements they mutually feel will

contribute to the smooth functioning of the negotiations process. It is well

to reiterate that not all business negotiations will require the formal

negotiation of groundrules. In many relationships, the parties will know

one another sufficiently well that the whole exercise can be handled with

a minimum of formality.


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4. Basic negotiation tactics and conventions

In an earlier section, we discussed basic negotiation strategies –

identifying and assessing the other party’s resistance points on issues, if

necessary trying to move those points on one or more issues, perhaps –

depending on the nature of the issues – disguising or exaggerating our

own bottom line positions, and perhaps even modifying our bottom line

positions if necessary and appropriate. We move now to a discussion of

negotiation tactics, the specific manoeuvres that operationalise and

implement these strategies.

In general terms we have said that tactical behaviour involves a

reasonably constant process of pushing and probing the other negotiating

party, on the lookout for feedback, particularly as it relates to the other

party’s bottom line positions on issues – what they feel that they need to

achieve. Periodically, as the feedback dries up, one party or the other

needs to take some initiative to progress the negotiations process, and

these periodic initiatives both punctuate the pushing and probing activity,

and are a part of it.

In fact, virtually everything that happens in negotiations is a part of that

tactical pushing and probing behaviour. To describe who says or does

what to whom under the wide range of circumstances encountered in

commercial negotiations would require volumes. It would not, in any

event, be worth doing. The behaviour of human beings should not be

prescribed in that level of detail. It is useful, though, to identify the basic

means by which parties interact as they go about the central negotiating

activities: providing information, conveying positions, identifying

interests, exchanging proposals, and generally moving towards

agreement.

Responding to proposals from the other party One of the first major tactical decisions that confronts the bargaining

teams once the face-to-face negotiations are under way is how to respond

to the other party's initial proposals. That decision would be made after

the opening explanation and examination of the other party's proposals,

preferably all of them, and when it becomes apparent that nothing further

is likely to happen without a reaction. There are several options. The one

taken should be selected quite deliberately, because each option has its

own tactical implications, and each sends signals to the other team. As

always, the tactic should serve one's negotiating strategies.


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The most obvious response to a party's initial proposals is to accept one

or more of them. This would rarely be done early on, if only because

many bargaining proposals in the business world have, consciously or

otherwise, some negotiating room built into them. Even for those that

don't, it is generally not advisable to accept initial proposals too early, too

easily, or too cheaply.

A second option is to offer a counterproposal on one of the issues put

forward, ignoring the rest for the moment. The signals sent to the

proposing party by doing so would, of course, depend on the manner in

which the ‘counter’ was presented. This is true of any of the options.

Generally, though, countering on a single issue indicates that the

countering party is prepared to deal on that issue and wants to focus on it.

If this was the option taken, the negotiating team would have to select an

issue from among those put in play by the other party. It may target a

relatively small issue for the purpose of getting an early agreement. It

may pick a pivotal issue in the hope that, as progress was made on that

issue, the other party's enthusiasm for its other proposals – or at least the

need to achieve on them – may diminish. Or a range of other

considerations might dictate the choice. Either way, the choice must be a

tactical one, not a random one.

A third option is to offer a counterproposal on two or more issues, but

not on all of them. This option has similar implications to the previous

one, but may also convey to the other party that the first party has

selected the issues it is prepared to negotiate on and, by implication, those

that it is not. More pointedly, a response addressing three issues, for

example, may combine some movement on one with a rejection of the

other two. This would signal not only a willingness to deal on the one,

but also that the withdrawal of the other two proposals was the quid pro

quo expected.

A fourth option is to offer a comprehensive response on all of the other

party's proposals. The same tactical variations are available under this

option as under the previous one. Again, the messages sent to the

proposing team depend on both the substance of the response and the

manner of presentation.

Alternatives to counterproposing Not all of the possible responses to a party's initial proposals involve

offering a counterproposal. Instead, a negotiator might, emphatically or


34 | P a g e

otherwise, refuse to offer a counterproposal. This type of response has

several variations as well.

For example, the negotiator might insist that the other party reduce either

the number or size of its proposals to a more ‘realistic’ level before the

first party is prepared to engage in serious negotiations. This would be

appropriate when the other party's proposals are seen to be way out of

line, or perhaps even when they're not but that’s the impression the

negotiator wants to convey. It might also be appropriate if the other

party's priorities remain unclear after initial discussion.

Alternatively, a negotiator might refuse to offer a counterproposal and

insist on more information on, or ‘justification’ for the other party's

proposals. This would most obviously be done when more explanation

was needed, but might also be done under other circumstances for a

variety of tactical purposes.

An additional option is to insist on one's own proposals being addressed

before any counterproposal on the other party's issues will be

forthcoming. This reinforces early on in the process that the first party

also has needs and that the negotiations are not going to be a one way

street.

A final option for responding to proposals is to respond conceptually.

This is done by indicating those proposals that the negotiator stands ready

to try to address, those with which he or she has some sympathy but is not

in a position to address, those that he or she emphatically rejects as

improper, and so forth. In responding conceptually, a party might go so

far as to indicate that it is prepared to make ‘some reasonable

improvements,’ take “some substantial steps,’ and indicate the

availability of similar conceptual gestures.

A variation applicable to several of these responses is to respond in a

conceptually different way. The bargaining on many issues subject to

negotiation in business tends to run along a fixed continuum. Wages or

prices, for example, may be negotiated in percentage or currency terms in

a band defined by the initial positions of the two parties. Even on issues

not easily quantified, proposals and counterproposals tend to be

exchanged along a straight line between the positions of the two parties.

But sometimes, where parties are more collaborative or imaginative or

perhaps just desperate, a party will respond with a proposal that is

founded on a different concept than the earlier proposals and

counterproposals on the subject.


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Instead of an across-the-board pay increase, for example, an employer

might respond with a pay proposal that incorporates an across-the-board

component, but coupled with an individually-calculated at-risk or

performance-based component. That conceptually different response can,

itself, be presented either precisely or conceptually, the latter being

essentially to propose or even just ‘float’ the idea without numbers

attached.

Whatever the option chosen for responding to a party’s negotiation

proposals, it needs to be carried off in such a way as to put the ball

squarely back in that party's court. This is easy enough when a

counterproposal is offered, but somewhat more difficult with the other

options where little of substance is being put on the table.

Pushing and probing, pushing and probing . . . A bargaining party responds to the opposing party’s proposals on the

basis of its judgments about that other party's priorities and bottom line

needs. Other considerations are taken into account of course, including

most importantly the first party's own needs and limitations. But

identifying the other party’s priorities and needs is an important tactical

challenge in negotiations, serving several basic negotiation strategies.

Proposals do not, particularly early on in the process, necessarily signal

clearly or accurately what a bargaining party is after. And, for tactical

reasons, they almost always exaggerate bottom line needs.

From the outset, then, much of the negotiator’s activity at the table is

tactical behaviour aimed at identifying the other party’s real interests

and priorities, as they relate to both parties' proposals for changes or

new terms. Naturally, the other party’s bargaining team is doing

essentially the same thing from the other side of the table – trying to sort

through the positions, the proposals and the posturing for the first party’s

resistance points or bottom lines.

As we have made the point before, this activity in search of the bottom

line can best be described as a continuous process of pushing and probing

for feedback from the other team. The pushing and probing takes a wide

variety of forms, many quite natural in the context of the negotiating

table, but others more contrived and sometimes riskier.

Techniques for generating feedback The most obvious way of identifying a party's interests, basic needs and

priorities is to ask. This begins with the examination of its initial


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proposals, their rationale, the accuracy of supporting facts and figures, the

real problem the party is trying to address, alternative ways of addressing

it, what the party sees as the benefit to it and the costs to the other party

of its proposal, and so on.

Tactical questioning can be expected to produce tactical answers. There

is no expectation, for example, that a union team asked its bottom line on

wages will actually volunteer it. What is being sought is any indication,

verbal or otherwise, that the other party is prepared to move ultimately to

a position other than its current position, and what that ultimate position

is. The keys are constant questioning, a willingness to ask the same

question more than once, the ability to ask followup questions rather than

accepting superficial answers, and the combining of questioning with

other techniques.

Techniques for generating feedback run the full gamut of negotiating

behaviour – challenging the other party's positions, its motives, its

behaviour at the table; reiterating one’s objections and needs; the

expression of emotions like anger, impatience, frustration and

disappointment; the giving of proper favours and courtesies to the other

party’s negotiator and his or her team, and on and on as appropriate to the

circumstances.

The objective is feedback as to where the other party is prepared to move

on the issues under negotiation, feedback on which to base the next

initiative or tactical move which, in turn, will generate more feedback.

Feedback can take a variety of forms – hard data, verbal or other hints

on the importance of an issue or any flexibility in the party's positions,

ideally an actual shift in the party's positions, or any other indication of

what that party is prepared to do about the issues under debate.

The feedback won't always be favourable, of course. A genuine

display of anger by a member of a negotiating team might signal to the

other party that the issue under discussion is sensitive to some at least

some part of the constituency, and that the negotiator won't be given

much flexibility to deal. That may not be what the negotiator wants to

hear, but it is feedback all the same, and the bargaining team needs to

have it in order to make the right judgments and the right tactical moves.

This sort of pushing and probing by the negotiating teams continues until

the point where the flow of useful feedback dries up and it becomes clear

that nothing further is likely to happen without some further initiative.


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At that point the sort of options for responding to the other party's

proposals that were discussed in the previous section have to be looked

at, if possible as a means of moving the parties closer to agreement, but

certainly also as a means of restarting the flow of feedback.

Further proposals and counterproposals For the negotiator, having offered a counter or some other response to the

other party's proposals, this activity also has the purpose of reinforcing

that the next ‘move’ has to come from the other team. This would ideally

be a positive response to the counterproposal put forward, or a reduction

in one or more of the other party's proposals, although the full range of

response options described earlier is now available to the other party.

There is something of a convention in most negotiation fields that the

parties alternate moves, though this should not be taken to be

automatically or always so. If the process is to go forward, one party or

the other will have to move periodically. The only alternative to

alternating moves is for one party to make a second successive move.

This is almost always tactically inadvisable, particularly where the earlier

move involved any sort of substantial concession.

The convention of alternating moves does not require moves of equal

magnitude. The value of a concession incorporated in a move

depends, in part, on the reasonableness of the previous position. A

seven percent reduction in a union pay proposal from, say, 28 percent to

21 percent will, in most circumstances, be of no value because of the

extravagance of the initial position. It would rarely warrant any wage

concession in return, and certainly not a matching seven percent move.

In any event, a response by one of the negotiating parties would lead to

further pushing and probing in both directions and at some stage,

assuming the response had been a significant one, the other party would

again have to select an appropriate tactical response. This type of activity

continues back and forth with issues being withdrawn, settled, conceded,

put on hold, moved closer to settlement, or left uncompromised and

unsettled as the negotiations proceed. On the surface, the process can

range from orderly to chaotic. Beneath the surface, it needs to be guided

by planned strategies and tactical thinking.

Rejecting a proposal While there are many tactical responses to a proposal presented across the

bargaining table, in substance there are really only three answers: yes, no,

and maybe.


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At times, a party will want to reject a proposal outright. In other words, a

party will want to reject the subject of the proposal, rather than simply

the other party's current position on the subject. This may be because the

proposal is considered ridiculous or unpalatable, or because it offends

against the party’s ethics, or for a variety of other operational or

principled reasons.

Or, more tactically, it may be because the rejecting party simply believes

that the other party can and eventually will settle an agreement without

the issue, and so chooses to style the issue as ‘non-negotiable’ for one

reason or another.

Issues that are out of line for such reasons, and especially those on which

the opposing advocate appears less than adamant, can sometimes simply

be ignored after an initial rejection, at least for a period of time. As

progress is made on other issues, they might quietly be withdrawn.

For this reason, overreacting to proposals can often be dysfunctional,

for example by putting the other party’s advocate in a position of having

to vigorously defend the proposal in front of the his or her team.

There are, of course, limits to this approach. Most importantly,

agreements on other significant matters should not progress too far while

big issues sit unattended. Accordingly, ignoring a proposal and hoping it

goes away is an approach that should only be adopted after the proposal

has first been clearly rejected. If the issue nonetheless remains on the

other party’s agenda as the process continues, it would need to be

readdressed with a more insistent rejection. At some stage, particularly if

the parties are moving towards agreement on major issues, its withdrawal

from the table may have to be made a condition for further progress.

While ignoring a proposal is sometimes useful, in most instances the

rejection of a subject as non-negotiable should be emphatic from the

outset and confirmed regularly. When an issue is unacceptable, and

especially when the negotiator is convinced that the other team can settle

without it, he or she might be inclined to stake out the position that the

issue is simply not going to be a part of the agreement.

By doing so, the negotiator is attempting to squeeze the settlement

range down to a single point – the issue is to be withdrawn from the table

if an agreement is to be had. If the negotiator has calculated correctly

that the other team can settle without the issue, the outcome should be


39 | P a g e

satisfactory. If the negotiator for the first party has calculated incorrectly,

and the other party’s resistance point includes achieving something on the

issue, then there might be some difficulty. At the very least, the first

party is going to have to successfully engage in the strategy of revising

the other party’s resistance point on the issue.

In rejecting a subject as non-negotiable, a negotiating party should

ordinarily give its reasons for doing so. There are two qualifiers to this

general rule. First, specific objections invite a modified proposal.

Accordingly, reasons for rejecting the proposal should address the

subject of the proposal rather than merely the other party's current

position on the subject. Second, the negotiator needs to balance the value

of stating a litany of reasons to emphasize the unacceptability of the

matter against the danger of going on to the point where the other party’s

advocate feels the need to vigorously defend the issue or the basic

message of rejection gets lost.

Rejecting the position rather than the issue In contrast to rejecting the totality of an issue brought to the table by the

other party, a negotiator's rejection of a proposal will often, in effect, be a

qualified rejection or a ‘maybe’.

In other words, a negotiator will sometimes want to reject not the subject

or all discussion of the subject, but the other party's current position on

the subject. In these instances, the stated reasons for the rejection signal

to the other team ways in which its proposal can be modified, and indeed

must be modified to make it more acceptable. Accordingly, the objecting

party would lay on the table all of its real concerns with the proposal, and

perhaps a few more.

In so doing, that party is at least implicitly indicating a willingness to deal

on the issue if the terms are right, and inviting a modified proposal.

Inviting the other party to submit a modified proposal in this way has

some advantages over offering a counterproposal.

A counterproposal offered has to be honoured. Implicitly inviting a

modified proposal by pointing out problems with the current position

commits management to giving serious consideration to a revised

proposal, but leaves much more room to manoeuvre. Sometimes, the

modifications indicated as being necessary may be so substantial as to

convey that, in effect, no proposal that the other party would find

acceptable is likely to be acceptable to the first party, which stops just

short of rejecting the issue outright.


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Of course, when its position is rejected in this fashion, the other team

may or may not accept the signals being sent. The suggested

modifications may be unacceptable to the other party. But the other party

now knows the limits of what is acceptable to the first party on the issue,

or at least has heard the negotiator's portrayal of those limits.

Application of the tactics described here is not necessarily limited to the

situations depicted. Even the most reasonable subject can sometimes be

successfully ignored or otherwise rejected outright, particularly where it

is apparent that the other party believes it can achieve an adequate

settlement without it. Likewise, positions that are within the realms of

acceptability can nonetheless be rejected as unacceptable and

modifications invited. Such tactics are a part of the pushing and probing

activity previously described. The danger is that when they are overused,

a negotiating team will lose sight of those issues and positions that are

genuinely offensive to the other party.

Getting the initial breakthrough In any set of negotiations, reaching a settlement requires compromises on

both sides. In all probability, each party is going to have to pull back

from its initial position on one or more of the issues it has brought to the

table, and to offer something on some of the issues introduced by the

other side.

Getting the first point of agreement, however small, is often one of the

most difficult things to do. In part, this is so because successful

negotiation involves two different skill sets – at some stage effective

advocacy of interests and positions has to start to share the stage with

effective compromise and deal-making processes that will lead the parties

to settlement. That transition is not always easy to make.

A second consideration making the first breakthrough a bit tricky is that

making an offer that the other party might accept, and accepting an offer

from the other side can both involve the risk of settling too cheaply. This

tends to play on the minds of negotiators at the beginning and end of

negotiations more so than during the middle stages. Nonetheless, the

process of reaching agreements has to start somewhere.

Once the flow of agreements begins, it may continue or it may be more

tactically paced. The objective for a bargaining team is to be in control of

the timing of deal-making as the negotiations proceed.


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As a general rule in negotiations, a party gains more goodwill, takes less

risks, and has more control over the negotiations process by accepting a

counterproposal from the other party to close out an issue than it does by

having the other party accept an offer from the first party. Management's

acceptance of a union proposal, for example, doesn't give the union much

basis for complaining about the deal made. In accepting a management

proposal, on the other hand, the union has more opportunity to discount

the value of the offer, and to emphasize the ‘sacrifice’ it is making by

settling the issue at the level offered. A deal involving a significant

concession can end up looking like a break-even proposition or even a

concession by the other party.

For this reason, it is often worthwhile to put in the additional time, effort

and sequence of moves necessary to manoeuvre the other party into

making an offer that you can accept. Of course, while that is the

preference, it won’t always be possible and all bargaining teams have to

be ready to bite the bullet at times and make a settlement proposal on an

issue or package of issues or the overall agreement.

To get the initial breakthrough, then, a negotiator will sometimes have to

make an offer that the other party can accept. The issue selected should

ordinarily be large enough to signal that progress is being made, and that

more is available under the right circumstances, but not too large. After

all, the initial agreement, while it may be valuable for the resolution of

the issue, is often really being used primarily for tactical reasons to

influence the direction and tone of the negotiations.

Making an offer always involves the risk that it will be rejected or its

value downplayed by the other party in an effort to get more. In the case

of an offer designed to settle an issue, there is an additional danger that

the other party will interpret it, or attempt to interpret it as just another

offer in a sequence of offers, rather than as a closure offer. Second only

to the final stages of negotiations, it is important that both deliberate and

inadvertent misinterpretations of this type be avoided or firmly corrected

when attempting to get the initial breakthrough. While the first

agreement can set a positive tone for the negotiations that follow, if the

first genuine effort to settle an issue goes sour, the tone usually will too.

As a consequence, the offer designed to start the flow of agreements

should be one that the bargaining team is reasonably sure will satisfy the

other party's bottom line need on the issue, even though it does not

measure up to the other party's target point or current position. And its


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presentation is critical. The offer should clearly be presented as intended

for acceptance rather than as inviting a counterproposal.

When and how to make concessions

Most often a negotiated agreement represents a mutually acceptable

compromise and rarely reflects either party's vision of the ideal outcome

because concessions have had to be made. The making of concessions is

the mechanism used for reaching agreements.

Concessions are of two broad types: offering something on an issue

promoted by the other party, and reducing the position taken on an issue

that you have brought to the table. Compromise of both types is not

necessarily required in every set of negotiations, but some compromise is.

Again in broad terms, a negotiating party makes concessions by either

accepting a position put forward by the other party that is different than

the first party’s previous position, or by offering a proposal which

modifies the first party's previous position, moving it in the direction of

the other party's position.

Settlement of an issue is not always arrived at somewhere along a straight

line between the positions of the two parties. On occasion, the parties

will search for alternative solutions, either collaboratively or as separate

initiatives. So a concession can also take the form of a proposed solution

to a problem raised by the other party, where the proposed solution is a

conceptually different one than that suggested by the other party. As

previously discussed, a concession to meet a need professed by the other

party does not always involve a cost to the first party. There will be

occasions and issues on which, because of complementary values and

priorities, a negotiating party can assist the other party without absorbing

significant cost or inconvenience itself.

As a general rule, compromises should be made only when they are

required to meet the needs of the other party for an acceptable deal, yet

still represent positions which are consistent with one's own needs.

Reasons to make a concession Sometimes, concessions – usually on minor points – are made purely or

largely for tactical purposes such as getting the initial agreement,

diffusing an explosive situation, or generating goodwill. Usually, though,

concessions are made as a way of bringing the positions of the parties on

the substance of an issue closer together. Even so, all concessions have

tactical requirements and implications.


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The most obvious circumstance under which a concession is appropriate

is where the other party has won the debate on the merits of an issue.

While negotiations in most commercial and legal contexts involve more

than simply sitting down and reasoning together, it is to a considerable

extent a problem solving forum to address problems or needs being

experienced by either or both parties.

Accordingly, when the other party has pointed up a problem, argued

persuasively that it is a real problem, and proposed a solution that is not

inconsistent with one's own interests and resistance points, a concession

is appropriate.

Such a concession should, nonetheless, not come automatically or

without regard to tactical considerations. A negotiator's initial concession

may, for example, be no more than an acknowledgement that the problem

raised is a valid one. A second concession might be a willingness,

expressed conceptually, to address the problem. And, without denying

the validity of the problem, a negotiator might wish to offer an alternative

solution to that proposed by the other party. Or he or she may prefer to

move close to the other party's position, or even all the way to it, through

a sequence of offers rather than directly. Under other circumstances, of

course, a party's concession may well be a more immediate acceptance of

the other party's proposal or the offer of a position close to it.

The reason for this level of complexity is that our four arenas of

bargaining activity are running simultaneously, and interacting with one

another. That a negotiator can meet an urgent need of the other party at

little or no cost to his or her own constituency co-exists with that

constituency’s need, on a more competitive issue, to see a reduction in the

other party’s proposals or a concession to the first party’s needs.

Integrative bargaining is interwoven with distributive bargaining at the

one table, and compartmentalization is neither realistic nor

constitutionally appropriate in terms of the agency responsibilities that

the bargaining teams must discharge.

Another obvious occasion for compromise is where a concession will

close out an issue or several issues or the entire negotiations. Again, the

concession must be consistent with one's interests and bottom line

positions. Whether a concession will, in fact, produce closure is easily

gauged in accepting a proposal made by the other side. It is a riskier

move, based on a judgment as to what the other team can settle for, when

making what is intended as a closure offer. An offer intended for

acceptance and settlement should obviously only come after the work has


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been done to identify the other party’s resistance points on the issue or

issues, and those points have been accepted as being within the first

party’s acceptable settlement range.

So concessions are made in negotiations for a variety of reasons,

including closing a deal. Most concessions, though, come on the road to

agreement rather than as the final step in reaching the destination.

Positions on many issues tend to inch together rather than coming

together in one or two dramatic gestures. Some general guidelines are

applicable to the concessions involved in this process.

First, nothing should be given away free. Concessions are made in

exchange for tactical or substantive gain immediately or later. That is the

nature of negotiations. Occasionally it involves the direct swapping of

this point for that. More often it involves the reaching of agreements on

balanced packages of issues or the keeping by each team of a sort of

‘running account’ throughout the negotiations.

Sometimes packages will ‘snowball’ in effect, with, for example, a three

issue proposal being countered on the three issues, perhaps with an

acceptance on one and counterproposals on the other two, but with a

modified position on a fourth issue brought into the mix to make for a

more ‘balanced’ package from the perspective of the countering party.

Second, in the process of pushing and probing, small concessions can be

effective. It has already been mentioned why the trading back and forth

of concessions of equal value is often not only inappropriate but

impossible. Therefore, a tactical objective for a negotiator will often be

to maximize the returns for a succession of minor moves. Needless to

say, there are complications in this approach. For example, moving to a

position in a series of small concessions might confuse the opposite team

when the series is approaching its end. For this reason, a concession

designed to close an issue will often be tailored to look different in one

way or another – usually in size or timing, as well as presentation – than

the concessions that have gone before.

As this would suggest, the timing of concessions is as important as

their size. Most particularly, concessions should not be offered without

the opposing team having worked for them. ‘Working’ for a concession

means, in essence, having a reasonable basis for a position, putting time

and effort into explaining that basis, and having waited a sufficient period

that the concession, when offered, is fully appreciated.


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To make concessions under other circumstances, in response to initial

requests or to threats or badgering for example, encourages that sort of

behaviour, divorces concessions from the merits of the issue, discounts

the value of concessions in the other party's estimation, and minimizes

both feedback and reciprocal concessions coming back across the table.

Some particular types of concessions, such as those designed to close

negotiations, have particular timing requirements. But a basic rule

throughout negotiations is that no concession should be made before it

has been earned.

Presenting an offer Offers should not be made on an issue unless the bargaining team fully

understands both the issue itself and the cost of the offer. Though there

are occasional tactical exceptions, offers should normally be clearly

stated, with all conditions of the offer spelled out.

The best way to ensure that an offer is clear is to present it in writing.

But this is not always possible or tactically appropriate, for reasons of

timing for example. When offers are presented verbally, even greater

care is required to ensure that the full conditions of the offer are made

clear. A written offer is generally a more formal offer than one presented

verbally, and can have at least the appearance of a more binding

commitment. However, a party should make no offer in any form unless

it is prepared to live with its acceptance by the other party. Hence the

need to explicitly state all conditions of the offer.

Again with tactical exceptions, offers should ordinarily be presented by

the team's chief negotiator to the other party's chief negotiator, and in the

presence of the full teams. There are several reasons for this. It

reinforces the authority of the chief negotiator. It provides a possible

platform for discounting future slips by other members of the team. And

it ensures that the offer carries with it an air of seriousness and authority.

Offers and concessions are not synonymous. Offers don't always involve

concessions, and concessions are not always made in the form of offers.

But sometimes they do, and sometimes they are, and to that extent the

tactical implications overlap with those discussed in the previous section.

For instance, it is important to recognize that offers have different

tactical purposes. The most obvious one is to close out an issue by

having the offer accepted or by having the other party respond with a

modification that can be accepted. In the majority of cases, though,

offers are a tactical part of the pushing and probing activity described

earlier, and are designed to generate feedback from the other party.


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Feedback can come in the form of reaction to the offer and the new

features it incorporates, but also hopefully in the form of a

counterproposal that is acceptable or that at least moves the positions of

the parties closer together. Accordingly, a negotiator should think in

terms of the other party’s possible reactions and a sequence of offers and

counteroffers in designing a particular offer, including being conscious

of where in the sequence the present offer fits.

Offers, when made, should be appreciated by the other party. Timing,

and ensuring that the other party works for what it gets, have already been

mentioned. But presentation is also important. Offers should be

presented for particular effect, rather than being simply described or laid

on the table or presented ‘naked’ by phone or email.

In general terms, the presentation should be designed to ensure that the

offer is appreciated for the movement it makes, and should anticipate and

abort any tendency by the other party to undervalue the concessions

incorporated in the offer.

The presentation should also ensure that the signals intended to

accompany the offer reach the opposing team. Sometimes the signals are

inherent in the position taken, and only need to be reinforced in the

presentation. Other times, the signals are less clear.

The presentation indicates the areas and degree of any remaining

flexibility, including areas where no flexibility remains. This is done

largely by emphasizing the logic behind the offer and, importantly,

behind the limitations of the offer. In other words, telling the other party

what is not being offered and why, and what distinguishes what is being

offered from what is not being offered.

The making of an offer indicates to the other party that the party making

the offer is prepared to deal on the issue. The specifics of an offer and its

presentation together indicate the type of deal the party is prepared to

make. They point the other party in the direction its position needs to be

moved if an agreement on the issue is to be had.

While it may seem self-evident, it needs to be reiterated periodically as

the discussion proceeds that negotiation tactics are used tactically.

So, the signals sent through the presentation of an offer are signals

designed to be appropriate to the present state of the negotiations. The

remaining flexibility in a party's position as signalled to the other party,

for instance, might accurately reflect its preferred position but


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significantly understate the amount of room the first party actually feels it

still has to work with. The intent is to settle not at the resistance point or

bottom line, but at a point somewhat more advantageous.

Packaging of issues Issues can be treated individually and separately, or they can be packaged

together for purposes of costing, discussion, or the making of offers or

agreements.

Some packaging together of issues is natural and obvious. In labour

negotiations, for example, various pay items that are to an extent

substitutes for one another might be packaged together in an employer’s

offer. Other packaging involves the tying together of proposals that are

related by subject matter, even though the separate issues are not

substitutes as such. On the other hand, packages don't necessarily have to

be tied together by the relatedness of the subject matter. Sometimes

issues are simply tied together in a quid pro quo fashion as a way of

expeditiously settling them or clearing them from the table.

Issues can be packaged together briefly or permanently, or anywhere

between these two extremes. In other words, issues can be packaged

tactically in a one time offer and thereafter dealt with separately, or they

can be tied together throughout the negotiations. In the latter case, for

example, a party might consistently refuse to make any offer on a

particular issue that is not conditioned on a specified concession on

another issue by the other party.

Package offers can do more than simply expedite the handling of issues

‘in bulk’. Packages can be designed to close out a batch of issues that

would have been more difficult to settle in isolation. Or a package can be

designed to move the positions of the parties on some or all of the issues

in the package closer together. In this latter case, the package offer might

well be known by the party offering it to be unacceptable to the other, just

as offers on individual items are often known to be unacceptable.

The offering of a package known to be unacceptable can serve a variety

of tactical purposes. First, if a package offer contains positions that are

believed to be acceptable to the other party, the package offer can be used

to let the other party know that those positions are available to it under

the right circumstances. At the same time, those positions are protected

from acceptance in isolation by being offered only in the context of an

unacceptable all-or-nothing package.


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The package thus serves to give the other party an incentive to work for

those things that it likes that have been ‘showcased’ in the package.

Second, inclusion in an unacceptable package allows a position on an

issue to be put forward as a basis for extended discussion under

circumstances where to offer a proposal on the subject in isolation might

be inappropriate or dysfunctional. This approach can be helpful where a

party's position on an issue presented singly might appear harsh or

negative, or where the concept being proposed on the issue is a new or

complicated one. It can also be used when a negotiator has no idea where

the other party is headed on the issue, or requires more feedback on the

issue before deciding whether to offer a serious proposal.

Third, an unacceptable package proposal, together with its presentation,

can be used to indicate clearly to the other party the price being

demanded for the positive things in the package, and invites movement in

those directions by the other party if it hopes to claim the ‘goodies’.

It should be apparent that the packaging of issues in a proposal does not

require movement from the proposing party on every issue in the

package. Quite the contrary. A package proposal might, for instance,

include what is believed to be a close-to-acceptable position on one issue,

plus a modest improvement in a second area. At the same time, it might

include an insistence that the other party agree to the proposer's latest

position on a third issue and that a fourth issue be dropped altogether.

Fourth, an unacceptable package proposal allows the putting forward of a

position on an issue in a format such that it is possible to subsequently

pull back from that position and offer something less or, indeed, nothing

at all. This is so because the original, more generous offer was made in

the context of a package that included some concessions from the other

party. This use of a package proposal is sometimes helpful where the

other party's priorities and bottom line positions remain unclear even after

extensive discussion.

A mildly positive offer on an issue coupled with an unacceptable price

via the rest of the package will usually generate some feedback indicating

how high a priority the issue is to the other party. The reaction might

well suggest that a deal can be made without any concession on the issue,

or with less of a concession than had been anticipated. This use of

package positions can also be helpful in the event a third party, such as a

mediator, enters the negotiations.


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As always, the fact that a tactic can be used for a variety of purposes can

complicate its use. For example, ‘showing’ a position on an issue for the

purpose of encouraging the other party to make the right moves on other

issues might be seen to contradict the purpose described in the previous

paragraph. Suffice it to emphasize that presentation is as important in

making a package offer as it is in making an offer on a single item.

Breaking temporary impasses While adherence to strategies and tactical thinking are critical to success

in negotiations, they must be recognized as means to an end rather than

ends in themselves. Negotiation in business is, or ought to be, in large

measure a tactical exercise in cooperation – the accommodation of the

somewhat diverse interests of parties with a common stake in the

prosperity of their relationship.

Appropriately, most business negotiations eventually arrive at a mutually

acceptable agreement. On the other hand, during the course of many

negotiations tensions will rise or positions will harden to the point that

the parties appear to have reached an impasse or deadlock, and no further

progress seems possible. This is understandable enough given the serious

nature of the issues under discussion. But unless such situations are

resolved they can develop into more permanent, and often unnecessary,

breakdowns in the negotiations.

Fortunately, many such temporary deadlocks do get resolved, and there

are a variety of ways of getting around them depending on the

circumstances. The most obvious way to break an impasse is for one or

both of the parties to make a concession. This may be appropriate if the

deadlock has arisen from the tension of the meeting, or from a

misunderstanding, or from one party backing itself into a position that

really wasn't necessary. Some time and reflection might suggest that a

concession that was not apparent in the heat of the moment is, in fact,

both available and reasonable.

Under these circumstances, even a small concession might well be

sufficient to get the negotiations back on track. It should be emphasized,

though, that a concession offered at a point in negotiations where the

parties simply see no way ahead is something quite different from a

concession offered in response to a threat, or indeed in response to a

deadlock contrived to extract a concession.

A second approach is for the parties to attempt to put the impasse in

perspective. This can be done by reviewing the progress that the parties


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have made to date, and perhaps pointing out how close the negotiations

are to settlement, despite the hiccup. Either party might also point to the

futility of the breakdown and, depending on the circumstances, attempt to

anticipate and abort any threats from the other side.

There are a number of approaches that can be used where the breakdown

has arisen over a particular issue. If only one aspect of the issue is in

dispute, summarizing or reviewing the whole issue and putting the

disputed aspect in perspective can sometimes be helpful. Alternatively, it

may be possible, by pulling back from the sub-issue or piece of language

that is in dispute, to get an agreement in principle or concept, leaving

the details to be sorted out later in the process.

In other instances, it may be possible to loosen the blockage by

suggesting a new direction on the issue or simply by suggesting that the

teams explore whether there is an alternative approach. Repackaging

the issue in combination with other issues can, on occasion, change the

value of a particular position sufficiently to allow progress to be renewed.

Sometimes a deadlock can be overcome by putting the troublesome issue

aside for the time being and moving on to something else. A variation is

to assign that issue to a subcommittee of the two teams while the

master negotiations proceed with other matters. Whether this was

advisable would depend on the nature of the issue and its relationship to

other issues under negotiation. Some difficult issues lend themselves to

longer term study and in these cases it is sometimes possible to work out

an arrangement to deal with the issue separately over time. A

‘sweetener,’ such as an offer to commission independent research on the

subject as a basis for future discussions, can often be helpful in getting

agreement to this sort of arrangement.

Another approach to an issue that is blocking progress is to sign a ‘me

too’ clause that ties settlement of the issue to its resolution elsewhere, for

example in negotiations at another company. While this approach has

obvious dangers and would not often be recommended, on occasion it

may be preferable to a long-term breakdown in negotiations.

Many negotiations stall for reasons that are less identifiable than a

stalemate on a particular issue. The natural tension and exasperation that

arise from time spent together arguing different points of view is usually

a contributing factor. In some ways, these breakdowns are often easier to

fix. An adjournment or a change in the regular schedule or format of

meetings may be sufficient to release the tension.


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It should be remembered, though, that when one party suggests an

adjournment the other party will be inclined to expect to see some

initiative forthcoming when the parties get back together. An

adjournment or caucus in combination with one of the other options

discussed above will often be successful in breaking temporary impasses.

At the same time, in suggesting a break, a negotiator should be careful to

present the suggestion in such a way as to lower the other team's

expectation that any major new initiative will be forthcoming. This is

doubly important when it is suspected that the breakdown might have

been engineered by the other party precisely to generate such an

initiative.

One on one sessions between the chief negotiators are often used to break

temporary impasses, and very occasionally even one to one meetings

between other members of the teams. And, of course, mediation

intervention is another resource increasingly used for getting stalled

commercial and legal negotiations back on track.

Managing the negotiations process

There are several strategic and tactical matters worth mentioning that

have to do with managing the negotiations process. Logically a party will

do better in bargaining if it is in control of the process rather than having

the other party controlling the direction and flow and pace of the

negotiations, or having the process just drift along ad hoc.

Many of the things that matter having to do with management of the

process are based in the ‘attitudes and relationship structuring’ arena of

the bargaining model. Kolb and Williams’ book, Everyday Negotiation,

is a useful guide here. In its original release it was called, significantly,

The Shadow Negotiation, a term that emphasises that, consistent with the

theme of our model, negotiation over the relationships between

negotiators is proceeding parallel with negotiations over the substantive

issues. And further, that the negotiation over relationships is not just

about emotions, but about who sets the agenda, who controls the pace of

negotiations, who gets heard, and whose interests get served. In other

words, it is about who manages the bargaining process.

There are several considerations here. The first is that negotiators are

people and as such they have a range of interests in the negotiations in

which they are involved. The most obvious is their interest in the

substantive outcomes. But they also have interests in process, in

relationships, and sometimes in principles.


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In terms of process, some negotiators like a well-ordered and decorous

process and are uncomfortable with coarse language, aggressive

behaviour, and extravagant displays of emotion. Other negotiators only

thrive in a robust and ribald bargaining environment. Most negotiators

probably sit somewhere between the two extremes, but they will have

their preferences. By recognising the other party’s preferences in relation

to process, you equip yourself with the ability to strategically either

accommodate those preferences or not, and so you equip yourself with an

additional tool to manage the process.

Negotiators also have an interest in relationships with other negotiators.

There are a couple of dimensions to this. Some people we like; some we

can take or leave; some we dislike. Effective negotiators are often quite

charismatic folk, and people might be drawn towards them. To the extent

that the other negotiator, or members of another party’s negotiating team

value familiarity, companionship, and social interaction or niceties with

you as a negotiating partner, to that extent you are again equipped with

the ability to strategically either offer or withhold something that they

value. You have available another tool to shape behaviours at the

bargaining table, and to manage the bargaining process.

There is also a professional dimension to relationships. People who

consider themselves to be competent and ethical negotiators want to be

acknowledged as such. Some need, or at least value, this

acknowledgement more than others. Professional respect and courtesies

are things that are within your power to give and withhold if they are of

value to your negotiating partner. And like the other process and

relationship considerations, they are things that you, yourself, may value

and that other negotiators may recognize that you value, even need.

Negotiators sometimes also have an interest in having matters resolved in

accordance with principle. This is most obviously, but not exclusively, so

with negotiators who style themselves as ‘interest based’ negotiators. In

the employment relations field, for example, performance or productivity

based pay increases are valued by some as more principled than across-

the-board pay increases without an apparent return to the employer.

Again, to the extent that a negotiator on the other side of the table has an

interest in outcomes based on principles that he or she values, or

apparently based on such principles, you have the ability to accommodate

that interest or not, and so another tool with which to potentially manage

the negotiations process.


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Looking after yourself in negotiations To be an effective negotiator, you need to know how to settle. But first,

you need to be a capable advocate. This comes more naturally to some

people than to others, but anyone can learn to be a more effective

advocate. First, you need to have confidence in yourself and your issues,

or at least present yourself as having confidence in yourself and your

issues. Part of this has to do with preparation. But another part is the less

tangible “dressing for the game” or “putting you game face on.” This is

not a contrivance, but it is a quite deliberate attention to how you want to

present yourself in negotiations. It’s akin to an artistic performer or a

professional sportsperson “psyching” themselves before taking the stage

or the field.

Likewise with the issues. In negotiations you are representing either

yourself or your clients or constituents. If something doesn’t matter to

you or them, then you should not be proposing it. The flip side of that is

that, as a negotiator, you should never be embarrassed about anything you

propose. They are things of value to you or those you represent,

regardless of whether the other party can appreciate it or not.

One thing that flows from that is that you should not, as a negotiator, be

self-limiting. You will often discover in negotiations that what you

ideally wanted is not available and you have to settle for something

acceptable, but less. If that arises from the realities of negotiations, so be

it. But don’t handcuff yourself. First and foremost, never assume that

there is no room to negotiate. Always be prepared to ‘push and probe’

until you are satisfied that there is no further give. And don’t bargain

down your own positions before you even engage the other party.

Persistence in pursuit of interests is the cornerstone of effective

negotiations. Never be bluffed or panicked by ‘no’ or by stubbornness or

by lack of apparent options, final offers, or difficult or upset people. And

you can’t be effective in negotiations if you are uncomfortable with the

process.

As noted above, most negotiators have a preference for how they like the

negotiations process to happen, but you will leave yourself open to

manipulation if that becomes too important to you. You need to be

comfortable with tactical behaviour in yourself and others. You need to

accept that some people will sometimes be unhappy in negotiations, and

that some of the things you have to say will make them unhappy. Life, as

they say, is like that!


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There are many keys to being sufficiently in control to effectively

manage the negotiations process. Preparation, having the right team, and

various other factors have been discussed in this document. But some of

the keys are more personal. Confidence, competence, confidence in your

competence, and so on.

Much of the ‘edge’ that makes negotiation exhilarating to some and

frightening to others is the personal matchup between negotiators, and the

potential for tension and personal conflict. This can arise for many

reasons, including the recognition by negotiators that he or she who

controls the relationship probably controls the bargaining process.

As a negotiator, and particularly as a new negotiator or in new

negotiation relationships, you can expect to be challenged at a personal

level. You need to recognise when you are being challenged, and have

strategies to counter it.

A challenge can take many forms. A delay in the process may be for

genuine reasons or it may be tactical stalling. Emotions expressed may

be genuine or tactical, or indeed genuine but still with a recognition of

their tactical impact. Stalling, emotional plays, questioning your

authority or competence in one way or another, overwhelming you with

information, ignoring a point you’ve made, personal flattery, appeals to

“be reasonable,” and blatantly hostile or demeaning comments or actions

can all be challenges to you as a negotiator. More subtle ‘body language’

can also carry challenges to you and your role as a negotiator –

exaggerated sighs, a glance at the watch, consulting documents or with

team members while you talk, checking for messages, and so on.

Everyone has their own manner and style, but there are basically two

ways to counter such challenges in negotiations. And they do have to be

countered if you want to look after yourself and your standing in the

current negotiations and for the future. You can bite back, counter in

kind; or you can deflect these challenges, brush them aside and move on.

Biting back is usually uncomplicated. Give back better than you got. Or

deny the challenge. A labour union negotiator, for example, is often

challenged with the accusations that he or she is not accurately

representing the views of the union membership. No self-respecting

union official should ever allow that suggestion to stand unchallenged.

He or she has to ‘bite back’ in the strongest terms, essentially through

denial of the challenge, reasserting that he or she – not the challenger –

was appointed to represent the constituency, and that that is all the

challenger needs to know.


55 | P a g e

Deflecting a challenge should usually be just as straightforward. Disrupt

the challenge mid-stride, by calling an adjournment, going to the toilet, or

simply getting up to get a glass of water or to grab a fresh pen from your

briefcase. Maximize the disruption by filling everyone’s water glasses

while you are at it. A negotiator challenging another will sometimes be

conscious of the ‘move’ he or she is making, but sometimes not. An

experienced negotiator will be familiar with the move, even if he or she is

not conscious of doing it at the moment.

So another option for disrupting a challenge is to ‘name’ it or ‘call’ it, and

make clear that it is not functional, and is in fact counterproductive. A

‘guilt trip’ for example, is recognisable by anyone once it is identified

and named for what it is … “I am personally hurt by that proposal … I

thought we had a better relationship than that.” Highlight it, call it for

what it is, make clear that it won’t be productive, and you probably gain

some advantage from having done so.

On the more proactive side, there are a number of devices that a

negotiator can use to assert some control over the process.

First, a party’s positions on most issues should be grounded in

cohesive and ultimately familiar themes, rather than presenting as just

isolated and unrelated thinking about each of the issues. Thinking about

individual issues, and positions taken in relation to issues should

generally be anchored in broader thinking about organizational or case

objectives, operational realities, business strategies and philosophies, or

other aspects of the business, case or transaction being negotiated.

A manufacturer’s decision to switch from a single-shift, five day

operation to a ‘24-7’ basis, for example, would logically lead to different

preferences on a whole range of issues that would arise in negotiations

with employees, financiers, suppliers, customers, and probably others.

Positions on those issues should then be ‘anchored’ by the ‘24-7’ policy

rather than presented, discussed or defended in isolation during

negotiations with any of those parties. Management is then in a position

to talk logically and cohesively about its needs based on a linking

operational reality, and to use the ‘24-7’ theme to give direction to the

negotiations.

Second, to be successful in labour negotiations, a negotiator needs to

follow the old scout’s adage – always be prepared – but also needs to be

willing to take risks. Being prepared means going into a negotiation

meeting knowing the issues, understanding his or her own party’s interest


56 | P a g e

in each issue and knowing and appreciating the other party’s interest in

each issue, being clear on target and resistance points on each issue, and

being prepared to settle if the time and opportunity are right.

A willingness to take risks involves being prepared to take initiatives in

negotiations based on judgments made. The right proposal made at the

right time in the right way can sharply limit the other party’s options and

suggest, and perhaps even irresistibly define the other party’s response.

And that, in turn, can potentially shape the entire subsequent discussion

or outcome on an issue or even the negotiations overall. The flipside of

that happy scenario is, of course, that if the proposal is the wrong

proposal then the move can backfire.

Any proposal involves risks that it is too much or too little or too early or

too late to do the job that needs to be done. But negotiations cannot

progress unless parties are willing to make proposals. And the negotiator

who is willing to take risks based on good judgments is going to be in

control of the process.

Third, a negotiator needs to be aware of the role of emotions in labour

negotiations, whether related to the issues under negotiation, the people

opposite, the demands of the process or the emerging outcome. Some

emotional characteristics such as liking or disliking, envy or admiration,

arrogance or humility, affability or aloofness and so forth can define the

overall tone of a negotiation in the attitudinal or relationship arena. Some

other emotions play a part tactically in the management of the

negotiations process. This is not to suggest that parties ought to ‘toy’

with others’ emotions. Rather, it is to point out that occurrences in

negotiations have emotional dimensions and consequences.

A long-awaited and ‘worked for’ counterproposal that falls short, not

only of needs but of expectations, can cause any or all of disappointment,

frustration, anger, resentment, impatience, and anxiety and probably a

few other emotions. A positive counterproposal, on the other hand, can

cause joy, relief, hope and the like.

People act on the basis of emotions, not merely on the basis of rational

thought and analysis. So it is important that negotiators be aware of both

the intended and unintended emotional consequences of what they do in

negotiations. At the very least, it is important that ‘hope’ of settlement

never be entirely extinguished if a party wants, ultimately, to reach an

agreement.


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Closing out the deal

Finally, we can offer a short summary of the considerations involved in

bringing negotiations home to a settlement. Much of this has already

been discussed before. In a figurative sense, negotiations in the business

arena that are in any way complex consist of tossing all of the balls into

the air, juggling them there until the other party’s resistance points on all

issues have been identified and, if and where necessary, moved to more

acceptable levels, and then strategically pulling the juggling balls down,

singly and in packages, into the settlement basket.

There are several things that can be done to facilitate the closure. First, a

negotiator should make efforts to ensure that, to the extent reasonably

possible the other party is ‘comfortable’ with settlement and the level of

settlement. Oftentimes, a party will have had to adjust its resistance

points on issues during the negotiations. Making the other party, for

example, comfortable with and ready for settlement under these

circumstances may be assisted by the negotiator summarizing the status

of negotiations in a way that emphasises the other party’s gains and the

‘losses’ and shortfalls absorbed by the first party in the agreements that

form part of the settlement.

Where a final impetus to settlement is needed, it is sometimes useful to

confront the costs and consequences to both parties of not reaching an

agreement. These will usually include the potential loss of tentative

agreements already made on a range of issues, the long term damage that

will be done to the relationship between the parties, or even its

dissolution, and the potential loss of business. What the parties are doing

with this sort of review is, in effect, challenging one another to put any

further movement available on the table now rather than holding it until

after a breakdown in the negotiations. Ideally, at this stage of

negotiations, a negotiator is legitimately able to exhibit a willingness and

preference for settlement, but a preparedness to not settle if the terms

aren’t right.

And finally, as the balls are systematically plucked from the air and

pulled down into the settlement basket until only the last few remain, it is

important to recall from our earlier discussion that a final settlement

proposal has its own requirements in terms of content, timing and

presentation. While terms like ‘final offer’ can be unnecessarily

provocative at times, a proposal intended to be accepted for settlement

should carry no risk of being misinterpreted as an offer intended for

counterproposal. Such a miscalculation by either side can cause a

needless breakdown in the negotiations.

notes on the art of negotiation - univie.ac.at · negotiation is an inherently ‘pluralist’...

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