HBS Working Knowledge has provided an excerpt from a book I am currently reading, Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond. From the excerpt:
All of the strategies you have described work when you're dealing with people who will listen to reason," an exasperated executive student remarked recently. "But the people I deal with are completely irrational. How can you possibly negotiate with someone who is irrational?" As the executive's question reveals, negotiators often struggle with the task of trying to negotiate with those who behave recklessly, strategize poorly, and act in ways that seem to contradict their own self-interests, and any would-be negotiation genius needs to understand how to deal with these obstacles.
Our advice is this: be very careful before labeling someone "irrational." Whenever our students or clients tell us about their "irrational" or "crazy" counterparts, we
work with them to carefully consider whether the other side is truly irrational. Almost always, the answer is no. In most cases, behavior that appears to be irrational has a rational—albeit hidden—cause. Here, we will share the 3 most common reasons that negotiators erroneously judge others as irrational.We will also describe the dangers of doing so and explain how to avoid making such mistakes.
The three mistakes:
- They Are Not Irrational; They Are Uninformed
- They Are Not Irrational; They Have Hidden Constraints
- They Are Not Irrational; They Have Hidden Interests
Click to read an explanation of each of the three negotiation mistakes.
Note (added January 19, 2008, 4 PM Mountain): Click to read more from the book Negotiation Genius.
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