Author: Lisa Witzler

Iris Bohnet, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Women and Public Policy Program, teaches decision-making and negotiation in both degree and executive programs. She is an associate director of the Laboratory for Decision Science, and faculty co-chair of the executive program “Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century” for the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. She also serves on the boards of the Graduate Institute of International Studies and Development in Geneva and the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. A behavioral economist combining insights from economics and psychology, her research focuses on decision-making, and in particular, on the causes and consequences of trust, often with a cross-cultural and gender focus. A Swiss citizen, she holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Zurich.

Courses Taught:

Judgment and Decision Making, API-304 – Harvard Kennedy School

Executive Education – Harvard Kennedy School

Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century

Mastering Negotiation: Building Sustainable Agreements

Negotiating for Leadership: An Executive Program for Women in Senior Positions

Women and Power: Leadership in a New World

Research Interests: Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Negotiation, Game Theory, Decision Analysis, Gender and Culture

Select Publications:

1. Bohnet, I., Benedikt Herrman and Richard Zeckhauser “The Requirements for Trust in Gulf and Western Countries.” Quarterly Journal of Economics.

2. Bohnet, I., and Hannah Riley Bowles, guest editors. Gender and Negotiation. Negotiation Journal. Special Issue. (October 2008)

3. Bohnet, I., Fiona Greig, Benedikt Herrmann and Richard Zeckhauser. “Betrayal Aversion.” American Economic Review 98(1), March 2008: 294-310.

4. Bohnet, I., and Fiona Greig. “Is there Reciprocity in a Reciprocal-Exchange Economy? Evidence of Gendered Norms from a Slum in Nairobi, Kenya.” Economic Inquiry 46(1), January 2008: 77-83.

5. Hong, K., and Iris Bohnet. “Status and Distrust: The Relevance of Inequality and Betrayal Aversion.” Journal of Economic Psychology 28(2007): 197-213.

6. Bohnet, I. “Why Women and Men Trust Others.” Economics and Psychology. Ed. Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007, 89-110.

Link to website:

http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~ibohnet/index.php

Jeswald W. Salacuse is Henry J. Braker Professor of Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, the senior graduate professional school of international affairs in the United States. Salacuse served as The Fletcher School’s Dean for nine years. With broad experience in higher education, international development, and legal practice, he specializes in international negotiation and arbitration, international business transactions, and law and development. Salacuse has written numerous books and articles, including Seven Secrets for Negotiating with Government (AMACOM 2008,); Leading Leaders: How to Manage Smart, Talented, Rich, and Powerful People (AMACOM, 2006, selected by the Globe and Mail as one of the top five business books of 2006). The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing, and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, selected as one of the best business books of 2003 by Library Journal); The Wise Advisor: What Every Professional Should Know About Consulting and Counseling (Praeger, 2000, Chinese edition 2004); Making Global Deals (1991, Houghton Mifflin; paperback edition by Times Books; ten foreign language editions); International Business Planning: Law and Taxation (six volumes, with W.P. Streng), An Introduction to Law in French-speaking Africa (2 vols.); and Nigerian Family Law. His most recent book is The Law of Investment Treaties (Oxford University Press, 2010). He has been a consultant to major multinational companies, government agencies, international organizations, universities, foundations, and foreign governments. He was awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Comparative Law for Italy in 2000 and has served as the Dean of the School of Law of Southern Methodist University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Law Institute, and the executive committee and faculty of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. He is an independent director of several mutual funds, chairman of the India and Asia Tigers Funds, and president and member of international arbitration tribunals under the auspices of the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. Professor Salacuse holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an A.B. from Hamilton College, and a diploma from the University of Paris.

Courses Taught:

Program on Negotiation for Senior Executives – PON Executive Education Seminar

Select Publications:

The Law of Investment Treaties (Oxford University Press) http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199206056.do

Seven Secrets for Negotiating with Government (AMACOM 2008) http://www.amacombooks.org/book.cfm?isbn=9780814409084

Leading Leaders: How To Manage Smart, Talented, Rich, and Powerful People, (AMACOM 2006).

The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing, and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave Macmillan 2003) http://us.macmillan.com/theglobalnegotiator

The Wise Advisor: What Every Professional Should Know about Consulting and Counseling (Praeger 2000) http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/B6726.aspx

Link to website:

http://fletcher.tufts.edu/faculty/salacuse/default.shtml

Professor Sebenius specializes in analyzing and advising on complex negotiations. At PON, he is a co-chair of the Great Negotiator Award Committee. In 1982, he co-founded and still directs the Negotiation Roundtable, an ongoing forum in which hundreds of negotiations have been examined to extract their most valuable lessons. Sebenius is a founder and principal of Lax Sebenius: The Negotiation Group LLC, a firm that provides negotiation advisory services to corporations and governments worldwide. In 1993, he took the lead in the Business School’s decision to make negotiation a required course in the MBA Program and to create a Negotiation Unit (department) which he headed for several years. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard in business economics, a master’s degree in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford’s Engineering School, and an undergraduate degree (summa cum laude) from Vanderbilt in mathematics and English.

Research Interests: Dispute resolution, 3-D negotiation, dealing with hard bargainers, negotiating campaigns, cross-border negotiating, Great Negotiator Study Initiative, winning coalitions

Select Publications:

Sebenius, James K. “Negotiation Analysis: Between Decisions and Games.” In Advances in Decision Analysis, edited by Ward Edwards, Ralph Miles and Detlof von Winterfeldt, 469-488. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Sebenius, James K. “Facing a Protracted Dispute? Consider a ‘Virtual Strike’.” Negotiation 9, no. 9 (September 2006): 7-9.

Sebenius, James K. “Negotiation Design for Large, Multistakeholder Projects.” Negotiation 9, no. 4 (April 2006): 4-6.

Sebenius, James K. “Do a 3-D Audit of Barriers to Agreement.” Negotiation 9, no. 2 (February 2006): 7-9.

Lax, David, and James K. Sebenius. 3-D Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in Your Most Important Deals. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2006.

Link to website:

http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=bio&facEmId=jsebenius

Guhan Subramanian is the Joseph Flom Professor of Law and Business at the Harvard Law School and the Douglas Weaver Professor of Business Law at the Harvard Business School. He is the only person in the history of Harvard University to hold tenured appointments at both HLS and HBS. At HLS he teaches courses in negotiations and corporate law. At HBS he teaches in several executive education programs, such as Strategic Negotiations, Changing the Game, Managing Negotiators and the Deal Process, and Making Corporate Boards More Effective. Prior to joining the Harvard faculty he spent three years at McKinsey & Company in their New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. offices.

Professor Subramanian’s research explores topics in negotiations, corporate dealmaking, and deal process design. He has published articles in the Stanford Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and the Harvard Law Review, among other places. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal’s “Heard on the Street” column, the New York Times, the American Lawyer, The Deal, and Corporate Control Alert. His new book Negotiauctions: New Dealmaking Strategies for a Competitive Marketplace (Norton 2010) synthesizes the findings from his research and teaching over the past decade.

Professor Subramanian has been involved in major public-company deals such as Oracle’s $10.3 billion hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft, Cox Enterprises’ $8.9 billion freeze-out of the minority shareholders in Cox Communications, the $6.6 billion leveraged buyout of Toys “R” Us, and Exelon’s $8.0 billion hostile takeover bid for NRG. He also advises individuals, boards of directors, and management teams on issues of dealmaking and corporate governance.

Professor Subramanian holds an A.B. in Economics (magna cum laude) from Harvard College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa; an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School; and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (magna cum laude), where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and a winner of the Ames Moot Court Competition. He is formerly a Fellow of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project and an Olin Fellow for research in law and economics, both at Harvard Law School. He is a member of the New York Bar Association and the American Law & Economics Association.

Courses Taught:

Corporations – Harvard Law School

Program on Negotiation for Senior Executives – PON Executive Education Seminar

Dealing With Difficult People and Difficult Situations – PON Executive Education Seminar

Research Interests: Empirical Analysis of Dealmaking and Corporate Law/Corporate Governance Issues

Select Publications:

Subramanian, Guhan. “Go-Shops vs. No-Shops in Private Equity Deals: Evidence and Implications,” 63 The Business Lawyer (2008).

Subramanian, Guhan. “Go-Shop Provisions in Private Equity Deals: Evidence and Implications,” 63 Business Lawyer 729 (2008).

Subramanian, Guhan. “Post-Siliconix Freeze-outs: Theory and Evidence,” 36 Journal of Legal Studies 1 (2007).

Subramanian, Guhan. “Board Silly,” New York Times, February 14 2007, op-ed. Online. < http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/opinion/14subramanian.html?_r=2&oref=slogin>

Allen, William T., Reinier H. Kraakman & Guhan Subramanian. Cases and Commentaries on the Law of Business Organization (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business 2nd ed. 2007).

Link to website:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=445

Lawrence E. Susskind has been a Professor at MIT for more than 35 years. He teaches negotiation as well as a number of other advanced subjects and runs a substantial research program as Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program. He has supervised more than 60 doctoral students who now work around the world in academia, government and the private sector. He is one of the founders and directors of the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School where he is Vice-Chair, Education. Professor Susskind created the Consensus Building Institute in 1993 and has been delivering tailored learning and organizational development solutions on a worldwide basis ever since. Through the executive training programs at PON he has offered specialized negotiation training (i.e., Technology Negotiation, Dealing with an Angry Public, Teaching Negotiation in the Corporation) to more than 40,000 people. He has published more than 70 teaching simulations, a dozen teaching videos and DVDs and is a columnist for Negotiation Newsletter published at Harvard. He has been a visiting lecturer at more than 50 universities in 20 countries. He is the author or co-author of 18 books including most recently, Breaking Robert’s Rules: The New Way to Run Your meeting, Build Consensus and Get Results (Oxford University Press) as well as the forthcoming Built to Win: Creating a World-Class Negotiating Organization (Harvard Business School Press) and Multiparty Negotiation (Sage 2008). Professor Susskind has won a number of prizes and awards including a Pioneer Award from the Association for Conflict Resolution, the 2005 Distinguished Educator Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning and the Global Environment Award given by the International Association for Impact Assessment. Two of his books, The Consensus Building Handbook (Sage) Dealing with An Angry Public (Free Press), won best dispute resolution book of the year awards in 1995 and 1999. He received a BA from Columbia University in English Literature in 1968, a Master of City Planning from MIT in 1970 and a Ph.D in Urban and Regional Planning from MIT in 1973.

Courses Taught:

Negotiation and Dispute Resolution in the Public Sector (11.255) – MIT

International Environmental Negotiation (11.364) – MIT / Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Multi-party Negotiation (11.257) – MIT / Harvard Law School

Graduate Introduction to Environmental Policy and Planning (11.601) – MIT

Program on Negotiation for Senior Executives – PON Executive Education Seminar

Select Publications:

Built to Win: Creating a World Class Negotiating Organization with Hal Movius, Harvard Business School Publishing Publication Date: 2009.

Papers on International Environmental Negotiation, Volume XVII. Edited with William R. Moomaw, Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, 2009.

New Approaches to Consensus Building and Speeding up Large-Scale Energy Infrastructure Projects Presented at Conference X, Gottingen University, Germany, June 23, 2009. with Dr. Jonathan Raab.

The Cure for Our Broken Political Process: How We Can Get Our Politicians to Stop Fighting and Start Resolving the Issues that Truly Matter with Sol Erdman (Potomac Publishers) November 2008.

Deliberative Democracy And Dispute Resolution. Ohio State Journal On Dispute Resolution [Vol. 24:3 2009] (pages 1-12). 2009.

Link to website:

http://www.pon.harvard.edu/author/lsusskind/

Eileen F. Babbitt is Professor of International Conflict Management Practice and Director of the International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She is also a Faculty Associate of the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her practice as a facilitator and trainer has included work in the Middle East, the Balkans, and with U.S. government agencies, regional intergovernmental organizations, and international and local NGOs. Before joining the Fletcher faculty, Professor Babbitt was Director of Education and Training at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. and Deputy Director of the Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.

Courses Taught:
DHP D221: Seminar on International Mediation – Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
DHP D223: Conflict Resolution Theory – Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
DHP D220: Processes of International Negotiation – Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Research Interests: Negotiation; mediation; intergroup and ethnic conflict; trust building and conflict prevention; coexistence and reconciliation, conflict resolution, international development, and human rights; Southeastern Europe and the Middle East.

Select Publications:
Eileen F. Babbitt. “The Evolution of International Conflict Resolution: From Cold War to Peacebuilding.” Negotiation Journal, 25th Anniversary Issue, Fall 2009.

Eileen F. Babbitt and Ellen Lutz (eds.) (2009) Human Rights and Conflict Resolution in Context: Colombia, Sierra Leone, and Northern Ireland. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Eileen F. Babbitt and Pamela Steiner, et al. (2009). “Combining Empathy with Problem-Solving: The Tamra Model of Facilitation in Israel.” In Zelizer, Craig and Robert Rubenstein (eds). Building Peace: Practical Lessons from the Field. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press.

Eileen F. Babbitt (2008) “Conflict Resolution and Human Rights: Pushing the Boundaries.” In Zartman, I.W., et al., (eds.) The Handbook of Conflict Resolution. San Francisco: Sage Publications.

Eileen Babbitt and Kristin Williams “Complementary Approaches to Coexistence Work: Focus on Coexistence and Human Rights” (2008).

Link to website:
http://fletcher.tufts.edu/faculty/babbitt/default.shtml

R. Lisle Baker has been a law professor at Suffolk University Law School since 1973, where he has taught property, land use and zoning, environmental law, mediation, and law practice management. Prior to joining the Suffolk faculty, he practiced with the Boston law firm of Hill & Barlow, except for a leave of absence to appear on award winning public television debate series The Advocates in 1969-70 and again in 1979, where he appeared with Michael Dukakis, Ted Kennedy, and Barney Frank in debating public policy.

Baker graduated with honors from Williams College in 1964 and from Harvard Law School in 1968. Baker served as the Ward Alderman for Newton’s Ward Seven for over a quarter century (1980-84; 1989 to date), and as President of the Board of Aldermen during his last three terms (2004 to date); Prior to elective office, he was on the Economic Opportunity Staff of the Governor of Kentucky helping the state apply for federal funds to assist those in poverty.

Courses Taught:

Mediation Seminar – Suffolk University Law School

Research Interests: Mediation; Law Practice Management; Land Use; Property; Environmental Law

Select Publications:

Chapter: Common Law Environmental Protection in Massachusetts, in MASSACHUSETTS ENVIRONMENTAL LAW (Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Gregor I. McGregor ed., 2006).

Using Special Assessments as a Tool for Smart Growth: Louisville’s New Metro Government as a Potential Example, 45 BRANDEIS L. J. 1 (2006).

Achieving Smarter Growth in Massachusetts: Some Ideas for Moving Forward, 22 :3 MUNICIPAL ADVOCATE 21 (2006).

Challenges of Learning InterpersonalNegotiation, 22 NEGOTIATION J. 505 (2006).

Using Insights about Perception and Judgment from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Instrument as an Aid to Mediation, 9 HARV. NEGOT. L. REV. 115 (2004).

Link to website:

http://www.law.suffolk.edu/faculty/directories/faculty.cfm?InstructorID=3

Gabriella Blum is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Law School, where she teaches international law and international conflict management.

Following her studies of law and economics at Tel-Aviv University, Blum joined the Israel Defense Forces, and served as a senior legal advisor in the International Law Department, Military Advocate General’s Corps. During her military service, she was involved in the Israeli-Arab peace negotiations, Israeli strategic cooperation with foreign forces, and the administration of the Palestinian occupied territories.

After completing the LL.M. and SJD degrees at Harvard, she returned to the IDF, and then joined the Israeli National Security Council, Prime Minister’s Office, as a strategic advisor. In 2005, she returned to Harvard to join the Law School faculty.

Blum is the author of Islands of Agreement: Managing Enduring Armed Rivalries, (Harvard University Press, 2007), and of the forthcoming co-authored book (with Philip Heymann), The No-Law War: Lessons from the War on Terror (MIT Press), as well as of several journal articles on international law and the laws of war.

Research Interests: Conflict Management, Counter-Terrorism Operations, Laws of Armed, Conflict, Negotiation, Public International Law

Select Publications:

Blum, Gabriella. “The Dispensable Lives of Soldiers,” Journal of Legal Analysis, (2010).

Blum, Gabriella. “The Laws of War and the Lesser Evil,” 35 Yale Journal of International Law 1 (2010).

Blum, Gabriella. “The Role of the Client: The President’s Role in Government Lawyering,” 32 Boston College International and Comparative Law Review (2009). (Symposium Issue)

Blum, Gabriella. Islands of Agreement: Managing Enduring Armed Rivalries (Harvard University Press 2007). Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)

Link to website:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=600

Robert C. Bordone is the Thaddeus R. Beal Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the Director of the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program. He teaches several courses at Harvard Law School including the school’s flagship Negotiation Workshop and in Harvard Law School’s Program of Instruction for Lawyers. As a professional facilitator and conflict resolution consultant, he works with individual and corporate clients across a spectrum of industries. He specializes in assisting individuals and groups seeking to manage conflicts in highly sensitive, emotional, or difficult situations. His research interests include the design and implementation of dispute resolution systems, the development of a problem-solving curriculum in law schools, and ADR ethics. Bob is the co-editor of The Handbook of Dispute Resolution (Jossey-Bass, 2005). Professor Bordone is a summa cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College where he majored in Government and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School where his coursework focused on negotiation, mediation, and dispute resolution. He is a member of the bars of New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia.

Courses Taught:

Dispute Systems Design: Seminar – Harvard Law School

Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Workshop – Harvard Law School

Negotiation Workshop – Harvard Law School

Dealing With Difficult People and Difficult Situations – PON Executive Education Seminar

Program on Negotiation for Senior Executives – PON Executive Education Seminar

Research Interests: Alternative Dispute Resolution Ethics, Dispute Resolution, Dispute Systems Design, Negotiation, Mediation, Development of Problem-Solving Curriculum in Law Schools

Select Publications:

Bordone, Robert C. “Dealing with a Spoiler? Negotiate Around the Problem,” Vol. 10, No.1, Negotiation, the Newsletter of the Harvard Program on Negotiation 4 (2007).

Bordone, Robert C. & Michael L. Moffitt. “Create Value Out of Conflict,” Vol. 9, No. 6 Negotiation, the Newsletter of the Harvard Program on Negotiation 1 (2006).

Bordone, Robert C. & Frank E. A. Sander. “All in the Family: Managing Business Disputes with Relatives,” Vol. 9, No. 3 Negotiation, the Newsletter of the Harvard Program on Negotiation 9 (2006).

Bordone, Robert C. “Divide the Pie – Without Antagonizing the Other Side,” Vol. 9, No. 11, Negotiation, the Newsletter of the Harvard Program on Negotiation 4 (2006).

Bordone, Robert C. & Albert Chang. “Real Superpowers Negotiate,” The Washington Post, October 26, 2006.

Link to website:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=137

Professor Robert Mnookin was featured in the print version of the Harvard Gazette in February 2010.  Prof. Mnookin’s new book, “Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight” was featured in the Gazette’s book section Harvard Bound in the February 18-25 issue.

Please click here for the full article.

Adapted from “Gain Less Pain: How to Negotiate Burdens,” by Harris Sondak (professor, University of Utah) and Adam D. Galinsky (professor, Northwestern University), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

For decades, General Electric (GE) and the Environmental Protection Agency sparred over who would pay for the removal of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, that GE had discharged into New York’s Hudson River, a cleanup project expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. In October 2005, the two sides came to an agreement.

What finally allowed a deal to go through? The creation of a two-stage cleanup process with a built-in time delay. In the first stage, to which GE fully committed, dredging the river bottom was expected to remove most of the toxic waste. GE had until August 2008 to decide whether to proceed with the second stage of cleanup, which would be more expensive to implement. Phase 1 proceeded as planned, and eventually, Phase 2 was scheduled to begin in 2011.

Managers can find plenty of good advice about how to negotiate effectively for desirable benefits, such as money, other resources, or enjoyable activities. But sometimes you’ll find yourself negotiating over undesirable burdens that you wish to avoid, such as debt, environmental hazards, unpleasant tasks, or unexpected constraints on your choices. When we haggle over burdens rather than benefits, our discussions become more contentious, resulting in a smaller pie of resources, wasted opportunities, and inefficient impasses.

Research shows that we discount the future aggressively. We worry less about the future than the present, and we underestimate how much we will care in the future about decisions we make now. This discounting is especially pronounced when it comes to negative events. That’s why we’re prone to procrastinate about unpleasant tasks, such as giving a negative performance review. Procrastination subjects you to unnecessary time pressure during negotiation and increases the probability that a negotiated agreement will have to be implemented immediately after the deal is made. In such situations, a negotiated burden becomes immediate and intense.

Because we discount the future, a distant burden will seem less vexing and contentious than a present-day burden. In fact, research by Harris Sondak and Gerardo Okhuysen of the University of Utah and Adam D. Galinsky of Northwestern University has shown that when an agreement is to be implemented at a later date, negotiators treat burdens the same way they do benefits, and their outcomes are more efficient than when an agreement is to be implemented immediately. Negotiating today about future burdens steers talks away from competition and toward collaboration. In this manner, negotiators overcome stalemate and create more efficient deals.

In the GE-EPA negotiation, the presence of a time delay took advantage of the common tendency to postpone decisions about negative events. The delay also helped spur a partial agreement that satisfied many of the interests important to both sides.

Thus, wrap up your deals well before any burdens will come due. You might intentionally create a delay between resolution and implementation—and enhance both the process and outcomes of negotiation. Be aware, however, that delaying implementation too far into the future may allow conflict over the negotiated burden to crop up again later, either between present negotiators or their successors.

Adapted from “Coping with Corruption,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

In 2004, U.S. Air Force procurement officer Darleen Druyun was sentenced to nine months in prison on corruption charges after it was discovered that she had favored Boeing in her negotiations for aircraft purchases to win jobs at Boeing for herself, her daughter, and her son-in-law. Druyun had unfettered control over the air force’s annual $30 billion budget for aircraft purchases.

Most public officials across the globe work diligently and honestly for their governments. Yet corruption can be a risk in negotiation with government agencies, including those in the United States, particularly when an official has great discretion to decide on a deal, has monopoly power over you, and has little accountability for her actions, as was true of Druyun.

Government corruption can disrupt your negotiations in two ways, writes Jeswald Salacuse in his book Seven Secrets for Negotiating with Government (Amacom, 2008). First, it can put you in the position of having to choose between walking away from the deal and paying a bribe. Second, if the government negotiator is favoring one of your competitors because of a corrupt payment, you may lose a deal without knowing why.

Salacuse offers the following five suggestions for protecting yourself from the demands of corrupt officials:

1. Research the laws regarding corrupt payments in the country or region where you will be negotiating. Educate your team, and discuss in advance how to respond to a bribery demand.
2. If your company has a code of business ethics, offer it to your counterpart as part of your introductory material prior to or at the start of talks.
3. When faced with a demand for a bribe, explain that you respect your counterpart but that you would risk prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act if you were to make illegal payments.
4. Try to deflect a demand for a bribe by making a donation to a local charity—as long as you can be sure that the payment reaches the intended destination.
5. If corruption is pervasive within an organization, you may need to walk away from the deal. If it is not pervasive, try to involve more honest individuals in the negotiation process.

Adapted from “When More Is Less,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

It’s an article of faith in negotiation that expanding the pie of value enhances parties’ welfare. When there’s only one issue on the bargaining table, the size of the pie is fixed. If one party gets more, the other party must get less. But when multiple issues exist, negotiators can expand the size of the pie by engaging in give-and-take trading that leaves everyone better off. The more issues there are to trade, it would seem, the happier negotiators should be.

Work by Charles Naquin, a professor at DePaul University, challenges this conventional wisdom. Naquin found that subjects who negotiated a four-issue simulation were significantly more satisfied with their outcomes than were those who worked with eight issues. Although the latter group created demonstrably more value, they were less pleased with their results.

Why? Naquin discovered that the less satisfied negotiators engaged in more counterfactual thinking: i.e., they tended to second-guess themselves. Having more issues in the mix meant there were many more options to explore. In hindsight, negotiators could imagine the possibility of a better outcome if only they had handled talks differently.

Measuring satisfaction immediately after the negotiation, Naquin discovered participants’ tendency to dwell on positive results they may have missed instead of thinking about the large number of bad deals that they avoided. It’s possible that their feelings might have changed—for better or worse—as time passed. On the other hand, one’s level of satisfaction upon reaching agreement is a crucial factor in negotiation. Indeed, if a high number of issues makes for low contentment, people might get stuck in a stalemate.

There is no easy prescription. Adding issues should increase potential value, but even if you’re immune to the negative emotional effects that Naquin has found, you should consider whether increased complexity will lower your counterpart’s satisfaction—and hence, her willingness to settle. Narrowing the set of negotiable issues to a manageable number may not be optimal economically, but it may raise the odds of a deal.

Click here to see Professor Bordone on CNN and in the Harvard Law School Green Room.

Breaking Free of Gridlock: Prof. Bordone discusses what politicians can learn from negotiation experts on CNN and in the Harvard Law School Green Room.

Adapted from “Why You Should Make More Than One Offer,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Effective negotiators seek opportunities to create value. By making tradeoffs across issues, parties can obtain greater value on the issues that are most important to them. But how can you be sure you’re making the right offer?
In a past issue of Negotiation, Victoria Husted Medvec and Adam D. Galinsky of Northwestern University argued that, in negotiations involving many issues, you can  create a great deal of value by making multiple equivalent simultaneous offers, or MESOs. This strategy entails identifying several proposals that you value equally and presenting them to the other side. For example, you might realize that you are equally willing to accept any of these employment packages: $80,000 per year with two weeks’ vacation and 30% travel, $75,000 per year with three weeks’ vacation and 25% travel, or $65,000 per year with four weeks’ vacation and 5% travel. By making multiple offers, the theory goes, you appear more flexible, collect information about the other side’s preferences based on which offer she likes best, and increase the odds of reaching agreement.
Until recently, the value of MESOs was based on logic rather than on empirical results. Medvec and Galinsky teamed with Geoffrey Leonardelli of the University of Toronto and Aletha Claussen-Schulz to show that making MESOs creates several benefits. Across four studies, they proved that this strategy does, in fact, help create value for negotiators. In addition, making MESOs helps the offering party claim more value by more efficiently meeting the needs of the other side. Finally, while the offering party succeeds at both claiming and creating value, the other side perceives him as more flexible and accommodating. The only cost of the strategy is that it requires thorough preparation prior to the negotiation.
The evidence is in: making multiple offers simultaneously is an effective negotiation strategy—one used far too infrequently.

Adapted from “Make Them More Satisfied with Less,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

In negotiation, sometimes you just don’t have much to give. If your department’s budget has been slashed, your subordinates will have to settle for smaller raises than usual – or none at all. When consumer demand for your red-hot product levels off, your vendors will have to get used to smaller orders. If your child wants a dog but you’re allergic, the deal may be a nonstarter. You might temper disappointing news with promises of interesting projects, future business, or a turtle, but such creative attempts to unlock value won’t take away the initial sting of disappointment.
In the business world, an unsatisfied counterpart might fail to honor your agreement, avoid working with you again, or even sabotage your reputation. You can reduce the likelihood of such negative reactions by attending to your counterpart’s subjective experience of the negotiation.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, most negotiators don’t exclusively or even primarily focus on their objective outcomes. In fact, researchers Jared Curhan and Heng Xu of MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Hillary Anger Elfenbein of Berkeley’s Haas School of Business have found that negotiator satisfaction is based on a number of highly subjective factors. With feedback from everyday negotiators and experts, the researchers created a “subjective value inventory” (SVI) that maps the social and emotional consequences of negotiation. Four general concerns emerged, only one of which is related to objective outcomes:
1. Feelings about instrumental (measurable) outcomes. As we all know, negotiators can have strong feelings about “winning” and “losing.” People also feel strongly about whether an agreement complies with fairness standards, industry precedent, and so on.
2. Feelings about the self. Negotiation also affects our feelings about ourselves. A negative experience might cause someone to question her competence as a negotiator and the degree to which she adhered to her principles and values.
3. Feelings about the negotiation process. The degree to which your counterpart feels you listened to his concerns, negotiated fairly, and considered his opinions will affect his satisfaction, as will the ease or difficulty with which you reached agreement.
4. Feelings about the relationship. Satisfaction also varies according to the degree to which negotiators build a solid foundation for their relationship, create trust, and form positive impressions of each other.
Curhan and his colleagues tested their SVI measure by having MBA students engage in a two-person negotiation simulation in which both sides could claim and create value. After the simulation, students rated their perceived outcomes on the SVI’s four factors. Participants who were more satisfied across the four dimensions were significantly more likely than less-satisfied participants to want to work with their teammates in the future. Notably, negotiated outcomes alone had no impact on participants’ inclination to work together again.
It seems that an individual’s subjective negotiation experience affects her satisfaction much more than any quantitative measures of the deal she receives. That’s good news when you don’t have a lot to put on the table.

Adapted from “Redoing the Deal,” by Jeswald W. Salacuse (professor, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Remember that big sales contract you negotiated last fall, the one that got you a fat year-end bonus? Well, your manufacturing department has just told you that delivery will be two months late. So now it’s your job to persuade your customer to accept a new date without canceling the deal. And that’s not all. That long-term supply contract you worked so hard on a year ago? The supplier is asking for a meeting to revise the pricing due to its increased energy costs.
If you’re like many managers in these uncertain times, you are probably spending as much time redoing old deals as you are negotiating new ones. When handled poorly, renegotiations are likely to exacerbate bad feelings and mistrust, and may be the last step before a lawsuit. Although the risk of a rocky renegotiation is present in any deal, you can reduce this risk during your initial contract negotiation. The following suggestions on how to ensure a smooth renegotiation process are adapted from Jeswald Salacuse’s book The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing, and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
1. Foster a relationship with the other side. Whenever one side fails to meet its contractual obligations, renegotiation is more likely to succeed if the parties have a strong relationship. Ideally, the aggrieved party will value long-term relations more than potential gains from a claim for breach of contract. For example, a bank will be more willing to renegotiate a loan with a delinquent debtor when the prospect of future business from the debtor is likely. Bondholders of the same debtor, on the other hand, will generally be more resistant to renegotiation, as they tend to lack opportunities for a profitable future business relationship.
2. Take the necessary time. Experienced negotiators know that building a strong relationship takes time. While speedy dealmaking may seem efficient, remember that any time saved during contract negotiation may be more than offset by the time you’ll spend renegotiating the deal.
3. Provide for a renegotiation process. Traditionally, negotiators have dealt with the risk of change by writing a detailed contract that attempts to foresee all possible eventualities. Rather than viewing a long-term transaction as frozen in the detailed provisions of a lengthy document, try viewing the deal organically, as a continuing negotiation in which you seek to adjust your relationship with the other side to your rapidly changing work environment. Accordingly, your long-term contract might provide that at specified times or upon specified events, you will renegotiate or at least review certain provisions. Through this approach, you confront the problem of contract violations in advance and establish a clear framework for renegotiation.
4. Consider a role for mediation in the deal. Whether they’re called mediators, conciliators, or advisers, third parties can assist in renegotiation by building and preserving business relations and resolving disputes without the need for litigation. Consequently, negotiators should consider stipulating in their contract that parties must try mediation for a period of time before filing a lawsuit.

On February 13, 2010, Prof. Robert Mnookin was interviewed on National Public Radio’s show, “All things considered” about his new book, “Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight”.  Click here to hear the interview or read the transcript.

Adapted from “The Fine Art of Making Concessions,” by Deepak Malhotra (associate professor, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Which of these scenarios would make you happier?

Scenario A: While walking down the street, you find a $20 bill.
Scenario B: While walking down the street, you find a $10 bill. The next day, on a different street, you find another $10 bill.

The total amount of money found is the same in each scenario—yet the vast majority of people report that Scenario B would make them happier. More generally, extensive research demonstrates that while most of us prefer to get bad news all at once, we prefer to get good news in installments.
This finding suggests that the same concession will be more positively received if it is broken into installments. For example, imagine that you are negotiating the purchase of a house and that a wide gap exists between your initial offer and the seller’s asking price. You are willing to increase your offer by a maximum of $40,000. You will be more effective if you make two smaller concessions, such as $30,000 followed by $10,000, than if you make one $40,000 concession.
There are other reasons to make concessions in installments. First, most negotiators expect that they will trade offers back and forth several times, with each side making multiple concessions before the deal is done. If you give away everything in your first offer, the other party may think that you’re holding back even though you’ve been as generous as you can be.
Installments may also lead you to discover that you don’t have to make as large a concession as you thought. When you give away a little at a time, you might get everything you want in return before using up your entire concession-making capacity. Whatever is left over is yours to keep—or to use to induce further reciprocity. In the real estate example, you might discover that the initial $30,000 increase in your offer was all that you needed to sign the deal!
Finally, making multiple, small concessions tells the other party that you are flexible and willing to listen to his needs. Each time you make a concession, you have the opportunity to label it and extract goodwill in return.