Campolo’s Negotiation Blog

Decades ago, Richard Nixon popularized the “madman theory” of negotiations. It suggested that demonstrating a willingness to consider “madness”in action would provide you with negotiating leverage. If your adversary believed that you really might do something extreme or even self-destructive, then you held more of the negotiating power, even if you were too rational ever […]

Earlier this month Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg released a new edition of Lean In, her 2013 best-selling book for working women, refocusing itfor college graduates entering the workforce. A central theme of the book is negotiation—in particular, negotiating salaries. “It never even occurred to me to negotiate my first salary,” Sandberg writes in […]

Nelson Mandela was the “greatest negotiator of the twentieth century,” wrote Harvard Law School Professor and Program on Negotiation Chair Robert H. Mnookin in his book,Bargaining with the Devil, When to Negotiate, When to Fight. In Lessons from a Master Negotiator: Nelson Mandela, published in Harvard Law School’s Negotiation Briefings, dealmakers worldwide can learn from […]

When negotiating, we often follow our instincts and intuition. However, negotiation as a discipline is often counter-intuitive. Best practice suggests that we often go against our instincts and follow behaviors which at first pass do not seem to be appropriate to the desired outcome. A recent article posted on the Forbes Leadership Forum on forbes.com […]

With recent health care changes, specifically the Affordable Care Act, negotiation skills will be tremendous value to medical professionals, administrators, and other stakeholders in the health care sector. Recognizing the importance of negotiation, medical schools are starting to invest in communication training for students. A recent article by Dhruv Khullar in the NY Times Health […]

On Aug. 2nd, CBS-owned stations in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas went dark on Time Warner Cable systems after talks between the companies broke down. Time Warner also removed Showtime and three other cablers from lineups nationwide in the dispute. The blackout was a result of a dispute over CBS’ request for higher fees […]

A judge ruled last month that Apple violated antitrust laws in conspiring with some of the largest book publishers to fix e-book prices. While Apple continues to fight the allegations, there is a lot to be learned from the released e-mail exchange between Steve Jobs and James Murdoch. The e-mails had an important role in […]

Have you ever revealed how much you earn to coworkers? Your answer to that question may depend on your age. The September issue of Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation newsletter discusses the trend of openness about wages between coworkers and how it may be affecting job negotiations. Comparing salaries has long been a social […]

Legal commentators have written countless articles and entire CLE courses are dedicated to discussing what an attorney may or may not say in negotiations. Ethics in negotiations is tricky. On one hand, a lawyer must show honesty and good faith, and not accept a result that is unconscionably unfair to the adverse party. On the […]

IMPORTANCE OF RAPPORT If you are like most busy professionals, you are typically pressed for time and would prefer to not waste time on small talk and just get to the issues at hand. This “small talk,” however, if used correctly, has value and should not just be dismissed or glossed over. When bargaining parties […]