Arbitration & Mediation

Michael Webster Encourages Franchisees to Attend Harvard's Program on Negotiation

By Victoria Pynchon

Check out franchise law blogger Michael Webster's post at Blue Mau Mau on the Harvard Program here.  Excerpt below. 

How do we know that people are bad negotiators? For more than 30 years, theorists have been devising little bargaining puzzles. In these very simple problems, people routinely leave money on the table. Routinely fail to make the best possible deal.

Why? There are many types of answers, and my expertise is looking at how people failed to manage the process of both expanding the pie, creating value, and demanding their fair share of the pie, claiming value because they failed to comprehend their strategic position.

The process of managing or mismanaging the creating/claiming value process has been extensively studied, starting in the 60's with Walton and McKersie's A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations.

One explanation of why people are bad negotiators, something Bob Mnookin stresses, is that people often look past their interests in common and go directly to undue focus on adverse interests.

We have all heard the term "win win", but what does it really mean? Bob Mnookin talks about the Program on Negotiation, an executive training program at Harvard.

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on June 05, 2009 (boomark / email).