Add Your PerspectiveNovember 24, 2013

Negotiation Ethics: The MWRA Presentation

I recently had the pleasure of presenting Negotiation Ethics: From Oxymoron to Everyday Practice to the Mississippi Water Resources Association’s 2013 Educational Conference in Vicksburg — and I think we all learned something in the process.

As you can imagine, a talk on negotiation ethics for engineers is a bit different than one to lawyers, but a few of the quotes that resonated with the MWRA’s membership apply to lawyers, too.  A great example is this one from Warren Buffett:

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.  If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

and another is this one from Stephen M. R. Covey’s The Speed of Trust:

When trust is low, in a company or in a relationship, it places a hidden ‘tax’ on every transaction:  every communication, every interaction, every strategy, every decision is taxed, bringing speed down and sending costs up.

While the talk might have explored the formal boundaries that More…

Categories: Negotiation,Negotiation Ethics