The art of negotiation seems to be very much in the news today, with issues involving trade, tariffs, immigration, arms sales, nuclear arms, et cetera. In preparing to teach a class on negotiation ethics as part of my Mediation Ethics course at USC Gould School of Law, it dawned on [Read More]
Many, many years ago, someone once said to me that people do not begin to negotiate until it is past the time to negotiate. How true this can be as borne out by a recent mediation. The matter involved the purchase and sale of a condo. The mediation was held [Read More]
Recently I came upon an older article written by Tammy Lenski entitled, “Face to Face negotiation better than e-mail.” (“Lenski”) While the article was originally published in December 2003, its points are probably truer today than fifteen years ago. The last decade and a half has seen an explosion in [Read More]
In October 2015, I posted a blog about a then recent New York Times article on the benefits of anger in negotiations. In “The Rationality of Rage”, Matthew Hudson reviewed then recent studies indicating that in a balanced negotiation, anger tends to provide some leverage; it helped the angry negotiator [Read More]
One thing I have learned about agreeing to teach a class is that it has caused me to focus on many things that have otherwise been floating around in my subconscious. One of these is negotiation tactics: what is permissible and what is not. In researching this topic for class, [Read More]
Several weeks ago, I posted a blog discussing two “lures of the Tribal Mind” set out by Daniel Shapiro in his recent book “Negotiating the Nonnegotiable.” (Viking 2016). Those lures- Vertigo and Repetition Compulsion- struck me as the most common and ones to which we all can easily relate. However, [Read More]
Well… we missed it again! International Day of Happiness was March 20, 2017, according to the United Nations High Level Meeting on happiness and well-being. But, perhaps, missing it was not such a bad thing. According to the report, Norway ranks first followed by Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland. The United [Read More]
Imagine this scenario: “Jack” is having a conversation with “Jill” about whether to go up the hill to fetch a pail of water. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_and_Jill_(nursery_rhyme)) From out of nowhere, Jill makes an offhand but biting remark to which Jack responds negatively. The ensuing conversation gets totally off track on whether they [Read More]
