

By Mylene Chan


























Highlights from Harvard Law PoN’s ‘Negotiation and Leadership’ Program (Updated July 23, 2021)

By Mylene Chan

The Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation offers a Negotiation and Leadership program several times throughout the year. Last month, faculty consisting of six Harvard University professors–Guhan Subramanian, James Sebenius, Daniel Shapiro, Debbie Goldstein, Robert Wilkinson, and Brian Mandell–taught the program. About 70 professionals and executives from around the world attended.

The program provided training in Interest-Based Bargaining, which was developed by Roger Fisher and William Ury in the 1980s through the Harvard Negotiation Project. The classic popular guide to this Harvard model of “win-win” negotiation and a value-creating mindset is “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In,”by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton (Penguin Books 2011).

In this approach, parties negotiate based on their interests and not their positions, as in traditional bargaining. Parties shift their view of the opposition from adversaries to collaborators, and by doing so, they can then explore the deeper interests underlying their positions to identify potential trade-offs and win-win opportunities.

The Interest-Based Bargaining model can apply in any cultural setting because the core negotiation principles are universal despite variations in communication and presentation styles.

The May 2021 session took place over the course of six half days. Each day, a different teacher presented a new topic and assigned a negotiation exercise adapted from real-life Harvard case studies to practice implementing the concept. After each negotiation exercise, the faculty tabulated the results for a plenary debrief. 

Guhan Subramaniam opened the interactive sessions by introducing the fundamentals of value claiming, also known as single-issue negotiation. Successful value claiming starts with mastering the use of anchors and strategic concessions, while identifying the zone of possible agreement and shaping the counterpart’s perception of it.

Subramanian explained that one must ensure that the negotiating counterpart perceives the process of negotiation as fair, but at the same time, one must deploy concessions at an appropriate rate and scope. Being aware of the influence of the midpoint rule–predicting the final deal price as the midpoint of the first semi-reasonable offer and counteroffer–will make anchors and concessions more effective.

Negotiators can also leverage social proof–the tendency to look at how others behave when making choices–to add pressure on counterparts to conform to articulated norms.

Moving from claiming value, James Sebenius introduced how to create value in multiple-issue negotiations.  Sebenius emphasized that parties must overcome the zero-sum mentality to expand the negotiation pie. Another paramount lesson, he explained, involves understanding the power of probing for information on each side’s underlying interests and valuations. This would lead to discovery of uncommon grounds that negotiators could leverage to strengthen cooperation.  

Sebenius continued by explaining that negotiators should seek strategic moves that offer high value at low cost so both sides are better off.  To maximize value creation, negotiators can also employ multiple equivalent and simultaneous offers.

An unusual technique that Sebenius outlined as a way to overcome sufficiency bias–believing that parties have already done everything to strike the best deal–is to engage in post-settlement settlements. These are settlements in which parties negotiate better and novel terms that were not considered during the initial deal-making process.

Meanwhile, the existing deal remains unaltered unless both deem the post-settlement terms superior to the agreement just signed. Post-settlement settlements capitalize on the trust and goodwill generated during the negotiation to increase joint value creation.

Dan Shapiro presented negotiation from a psychological standpoint through discussing five core concerns of emotions and relationships. Each of the core concerns (appreciation, autonomy, affiliation, status, and rule) serve as a lens to understand and as a lever to improve negotiation.

Shapiro explained that, for example, if a negotiator and the opposing side appreciate one another, the negotiator is more likely to reach a wise agreement. Being appreciated, the opponent will feel more at ease and become more cooperative. Shapiro laid out details of this framework in Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate, which he co-wrote  with Roger Fisher (Penguin Books 2005).

Debbie Goldstein exhorted negotiators not to underestimate the importance of emotions in driving negotiation outcomes. Emotions affect thinking and perceptions of what is happening, shift reservation values, and narrow zones of possible arrangements. The critical lesson is to develop one’s capacity to be a neutral observer of the negotiation so that one can analyze interactive interdependencies, adapt, and deploy appropriate strategies to further the negotiation.

Goldstein and the instructors emphasized listening skills.  If one feels stuck with counterproductive behaviors in negotiation, developing a listening stance to check the understanding of the counterpart’s intentions would help.

Robert Wilkinson built on the concepts covered to bring in more complex organizational challenges. Complex negotiations contain unfamiliar interacting and interconnected elements that challenge negotiators’ abilities to satisfy their interests. Veteran negotiators often wrestle with commonly encountered obstacles such as cultural differences, leadership/organizational problems, spoilers, and radical changes in circumstances.  To make progress in complex negotiations, Wilkinson suggested many techniques–such as generating a sequencing strategy with convincing objectives–to build a winning coalition conducive to reaching a fruitful resolution.

Wilkinson expanded in an email to the author. “When you enter into more complex negotiations, the way in which you manage the process matters far more,” Wilkinson noted, adding, “People often don’t realize the influence they can exert in a negotiation simply by thinking through their process choices. I always encourage people to ask themselves ‘Who am I privileging in this process?’ ‘Who am I excluding?'” Wilkinson’s latest thoughts on negotiation can be found in a recent paper and a podcast available at https://bit.ly/2Uwhgn1 and https://bit.ly/2WcWedx.

Brian Mandell concluded the program by integrating concepts from the previous sessions and offering tactical advice to participants on their real-life negotiation dilemmas. In response to a question regarding how to manage a repeated liar in negotiation, Mandell suggested employing tactical retorts to guide the opponent into revealing the truths, asking questions such as “ Help me understand . . .”; “Walk me through your logic and thinking . . .”; “How do you come to that conclusion?” and “What do you think of that scene?”

Dan Shapiro, who is founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program, commented in an email: “We negotiate all the time–but rarely as well as we could. So PON offers frameworks and tools to help participants hone their negotiation skills. I present a potent method to help negotiators leverage the power of emotions to build authentic relationships, promote information exchange, and achieve value-optimizing outcomes. We’ve applied the model successfully to business and political conflicts around the world, and I love exploring the framework with the exec ed participants, who bring substantial perspectives to our conversations, making for an edifying learning experience!”

The ideas covered in the program are creative and practical. The faculty helped the participants think through habits and behaviors that may not be helpful and how to get unstuck in the moment. Participants left the program with four to five sentences written in small print on a notecard with the essential takeaways from the program. Brian Mandell asked the participants to memorize this aphorism: “Negotiation is the art of letting other people have it your way.”   

