Negotiation strategies

Many negotiations collapse over differences of opinion about how the future will unfold. Companies need to realize that it’s often better to bet on uncertain events than to argue about them.

In an era when businesses increasingly have to depend on their suppliers to lower costs, improve quality, and drive innovation, traditional contracts...

Author’s note: Alistair Hanna, Michael Reopel, and Stuart Flack, all of McKinsey & Company, contributed to this article. The U.S. defense industry is struggling to reorganize itself for growth, if not for survival. The disappearance of the communist threat and the desperate need to revive the U.S. economy have taken the defense industry for a […]

Maintaining business relationships in a changing environment.

Avoid complaints and ultimatums.

Most executives know the basics of negotiation; some are spectacularly adept. Yet even experienced negotiators routinely leave money on the table, end...

Countless books and articles offer advice on avoiding missteps at the bargaining table. But some of the costliest mistakes take place before negotiators...

Although construction is one of the riskiest things any company will do, upper management often ignores the risk or treats it as if it's uncontrollable....

In legal disputes, contested insurance claims, and similarly adversarial negotiations, one party is likely to open with an inflated claim or a lowball...

For decades, negotiators have been working out agreements by focusing on interests, not positions. But the messy problem of how to share the gains created...

What to know before your next negotiation.

Be strategic about it.

The presidential candidate is playing into dangerous misconceptions about deal making.

This article could be entitled, “How to Succeed in Business by Being Unreasonable.” Most businessmen are very skillful in this respect, although their behavior is popularly called negotiation, gamesmanship, or, perhaps most apt of all, brinkmanship. The art of being unreasonable is not, of course, restricted to smoke-filled rooms at corporate headquarters. The principles are […]

It’s clear that the Democrats and Republicans will go up to — and probably past — the deadline in their negotiations about a new debt limit. This is a tough negotiation of the highest stakes. A fundamental tool of inventive negotiations is a neutral third-party facilitator. In this case, I suggest Adam Smith. On the […]

Negotiators often fail to achieve results because they channel too much effort into selling their own position and too little into understanding the other...

Techniques that can help you seal a deal may end up torpedoing the relationship when it’s time to put the deal into operation.

To be effective, a negotiator must take stock of the subtle messages being passed around the table. In international negotiations, however, you may not...

It’s often possible to get more than what a company’s formal policy allows.

Two key ways to improve outcomes.