Advantages to Taking a Break – Part One
“I just bought us 48 hours,” star lawyer Harvey Specter told his understudy in the USA Network legal drama series Suits. He said this after getting his incarcerated client to hit him, a shocking move that gave them sufficient time to elicit a confession from the...
Learning from Negotiation Mistakes
I have always been intensely competitive – in sports, business and in negotiations. It’s a strength and weakness. I remember losing a particular high school tennis match that really motivated me to hit the practice court even more. And to this day, I still feel...
Lessons Learned 2023 – Part Two
Here’s part two of my annual list of lessons learned and a reminder to put these strategies into practice in 2024. You won’t get better results if you don’t implement them. Almost all negotiations involve the weighing and prioritizing of interests along with...
Advice for Negotiators at Thanksgiving
Four years ago, I wrote a Negotiators Guide to Thanksgiving Conversations and eight years ago I wrote a column thanking negotiators for exhibiting certain effective traits that make all our negotiations better. Here are three more effective negotiator traits to be...
The Power of Pattern Bargaining
I remember taking a labor history course in college years ago that opened my eyes to the hostile and contentious record of union-management negotiations going back to the advent and growth of unions in the late 19th and early 20th century. Violence was not that...
3 Tips for Negotiating With Medical Professionals
My Dad was recovering from emergency surgery to his abdominal area about 8 years ago when one of the hospital’s physicians told us that a blood clot had formed in his arm just below his shoulder. The doctor told us we had two options, neither of them good. She said he...
Negotiation Lessons from Korea’s “Nunchi”
Do you know the Korean concept of “nunchi” and how it can help transform a good negotiator to a great negotiator? I didn’t – until I read the New York Times article “The Korean Secret to Happiness and Success” by author Euny Hong. Nunchi, according to Hong, is...