Add Your PerspectiveSeptember 9, 2008

Why It May Be a Bad Idea to “Send them a Message”

“Our next move needs to make it clear that we mean business.”  I have heard that line (and others like it) before, and you have, too.  But a concept in a popular business book recently helped me understand why this isn’t the great approach I once thought it was.  In Made to Stick:  Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath explain how the “The Curse of Knowledge” impacts how we communicate.  With the help of their book, I now see how some negotiations succeed while others fail.

Do We Outsmart Ourselves?

At some point in almost every negotiation we are tempted to use our actions to send a message – a customer hoping to “get tough” demands the supplier come to her office; a home purchaser makes a “low ball” offer to signal that the house is priced too high; and a policyholder reduces his claim More…

Categories: Communication,Negotiation,Selected Posts,Theory

Add Your PerspectiveSeptember 5, 2008

The Power to Walk Away: Do You Really Know Your Downside?

I wrote recently on The Sid Hill Rule, where “the power to negotiate is the power to walk away.”  While others may disagree, I believe there is no more important rule for any negotiator.  A corollary of this rule is that, before you decide to walk away from the negotiating table, you had better know what your downside is.  My recent search for a beach house reminded me just how hard that analysis can be.

Surfing to seaside.com

One of my favorite places growing up was a tiny spot on the Florida Panhandle near Grayton Beach.  Then a destination virtually unknown, I watched a nearby idea called “Seaside” take hold and grow – by all appearances into a quaint, family-oriented community that would serve as the ideal backdrop for any American’s Fourth of July photo.

When a recent urge to take a vacation hit me I typed the logical guess “seaside.com” into my browser.  I was surprised to see More…

Categories: Fundamentals,Negotiation,Settlement,Theory,Walk Away

2 PerspectivesSeptember 3, 2008

The Sid Hill Rule

“What’s the most important rule in negotiation?” Young lawyers have asked me that question after CLE presentations, clients have asked it at mediations, and relatives have posed it at the dinner table. While others may disagree with my answer, it hasn’t changed since Sid Hill taught it to me almost 25 years ago.

As a college sophomore formally studying negotiation for the first time, I dove into each problem immediately – focusing on tactics like when my partner and I should try the “good cop/bad cop” routine and when I might walk out of the negotiations to see if my opponent would beg me to come back to the table.  While my efforts paid off, I eventually pushed too hard in one of my exercises, leaving me with no deal at all.  Sure, I had understood conceptually that I needed to close my deal, but I had not focused on what the world would look like if everyone else got their deal done and I didn’t.  While I had been on the cusp of closing a better agreement than anyone else, I closed nothing.

Sid Hill, then my professor and later a mentor for many years, articulated the rule I had just stumbled upon.  “The power to negotiate is the power to walk away.” More…

Categories: Fundamentals,Negotiation,Settlement,Theory,Walk Away

6 PerspectivesAugust 29, 2008

Why Are We Here?

A few years ago I had a case in Chicago bankruptcy court that needed to settle. In another post we can talk about why it needed to settle, why it didn’t, and the trial that ultimately resolved the case, but something I noticed as I tried to settle that dispute drove my desire to start this blog.

A Cold Meeting in Chicago

As so many do, my case hit that awkward pause between the production of documents and the first deposition. My team and I had done an early case assessment and we knew our opponent’s case had real problems, but we weren’t sure the plaintiff understood how difficult his case would be. As the holidays approached and before the other side invested any more in the case, I reached out to propose a face-to-face meeting to discuss the potential for settlement. Armed with my comprehensive presentation on the three reasons why the plaintiff couldn’t win, I asked Simon Fleischmann, then a young associate at my outside firm, to go with me. More…

Categories: Education,Negotiation,Settlement