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Executive Committee About the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School
Guhan Subramanian Widely recognized as the preeminent leader in the field of negotiation and negotiation
PON Executive Committee Chair research, the Program on Negotiation (PON) is an interdisciplinary, multi-university
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negotiators.
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Harvard Law School Our faculty have negotiated peace treaties, brokered multi-billion dollar deals, and
hammered out high-stakes agreements around the globe. They are prominent authors,
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leading researchers, and distinguished professors—many of whom have originated the
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negotiation strategies used by many of the world’s most successful leaders…and they
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negotiation
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anD leaDershiP
MIT Department of Urban Studies
& Planning

Dealing with Difficult PeoPle

anD Problems

becoming a better negotiator starts here

thirty years of groundbreaking research, compressed into three
thought-provoking days.
Day 1: Discover a framework for thinking about negotiation success.
Day 2: Examine and develop effective techniques for addressing a variety of
negotiation challenges.
Day 3: Put it all together and emerge well equipped to negotiate more skillfully,
confidently, and effectively.

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 PRO GR A M ON N E G O T I AT ION

1. Select the right process.

By the Editors

Consider the following disputes:

■ Two business partners disagree about the best way to dissolve their firm.
■ A manager accuses his former employer of firing him due to age discrimination.
■ An electronics company accuses another company of patent infringement.

Suppose that in each case, the parties and their lawyers have exhausted their
attempts to negotiate a resolution on their own. They’re ready for outside help in
ending their dispute, yet they don’t know where to turn.
When it comes to dispute resolution, we now have many choices. Understand-
ably, disputants are often confused about which process to use. Here’s a review
of the three basic types of dispute resolution handled by outside parties, adapted
from Frank E. A. Sander and Lukasz Rozdeiczer’s chapter on the topic in The
Handbook of Dispute Resolution (Jossey-Bass, 2005).
Mediation. The goal of mediation is for a neutral third party to help disputants
come to consensus on their own. Rather than imposing a solution, a professional
mediator works with the conflicting sides to explore the underlying interests be-
neath their positions. Mediation can be effective at allowing parties to vent their
feelings and fully explore their grievances. Working with parties together and
sometimes separately, mediators try to help them hammer out a resolution that
is sustainable, voluntary, and nonbinding.
Arbitration. In arbitration, a neutral third party serves as a judge who is respon-
sible for resolving the dispute. The arbitrator listens as each side argues its case
and presents relevant evidence, then renders a binding decision. The disputants
can negotiate virtually any aspect of the arbitration process, including whether
lawyers will be present and which standards of evidence will be used. Arbitrators

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hand down decisions that are typically confidential and that cannot be appealed.
Like mediation, arbitration tends to be much less expensive than litigation.
Litigation. The most familiar type of dispute resolution, civil litigation typically
involves a defendant facing off against a plaintiff before either a judge or a judge
and jury. The judge or the jury is responsible for weighing the evidence and mak-
ing a ruling. Information conveyed in hearings and trials usually enters the pub-
lic record. Lawyers typically dominate litigation, which often ends in a settlement
agreement during a lengthy, costly pretrial period of discovery and preparation.
Adapted from “Trying to Resolve a Dispute? Choose the Right Process,”
Negotiation, August 2009.

2. Choose the right mediator.

BY Stephen B. Goldberg, professor of law, Northwestern University
When a negotiation escalates into a dispute, most managers understand
the value of seeking out a mediator for professional assistance with the matter.
The question of whom to hire, however, is less clear-cut. What type of expertise
should your mediator have, and where should you look for him?
When choosing a mediator, keep in mind that you need not accept the pro-
posals that he makes. In other words, you have total power to prevent mediation
from leading to an undesirable outcome. As a result, the only risk of mediation
is that you will expend time and money without reaching agreement. Indeed,
one Fortune 100 company is so firmly convinced of the value of mediation that,
as long as the other party seems to genuinely want a good-faith resolution, it
will get a list of experienced mediators from a reputable and neutral mediation
agency and let the other side select anyone on the list.
For those new to mediation, begin by getting a list of mediators from a repu-
table provider agency. You can find these agencies by searching under “dispute
resolution” on the Internet and/or by inquiring with your organization’s legal
department. You should ask the mediators for the names of the chief negotiators
for each party in the last three cases that they mediated. (The chief negotiator
will typically have been the party’s lawyer, although this is not always the case.)

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Next, contact these chief negotiators and question them about their experi-
ences with the mediators that you’re considering. The results of my research on
the talents of successful mediators can serve as guidelines during this process. I
surveyed 30 of the top mediators in the United States. According to these expert
mediators, their success comes from focusing on three key areas:
1. Rapport. The mediators agreed that the key skill of a successful mediator is
the ability to develop rapport—a relationship of understanding, empathy, and
trust—with each of the disputing parties. A sense of rapport can encourage
parties to communicate fully with the mediator, often providing her with the
information she needs to find a mutually acceptable settlement. One mediator
said that rapport is essential to building the trust needed for parties to share
“their interests, priorities, fears, weaknesses.” “This information is often the key
to settlement … their telling me what they haven’t told the other party,” the
mediator said.
2. Creativity. Another key talent of successful mediators is creativity—the abil-
ity to generate novel solutions. This ability clearly springs from a focus on inter-
ests. Only by understanding each party’s interests can a mediator generate cre-
ative solutions that satisfy each party. “It is vitally important to be able to think of
new ways of dealing with issues,” one mediator told me, “inventing options that
acknowledge feelings, perceptions, and hurts that might otherwise block mean-
ingful and fair resolution.”
3. Patience. It is also important that your mediator be patient, giving you and
your opponent as much time as you need to fully express emotions and ideas,
while at the same time focusing intently on the primary task—dispute resolution.
“I am tenacious,” one mediator said. “I don’t give up. I have sat with parties who
have claimed they simply don’t see a way to a resolution and said, ‘Well, we’ll just
sit for a while and think more on it.’ Most parties are loath to send the mediator
packing, so they sit and usually think of something, especially if I occasionally
throw out an idea.”
Adapted from “Beyond Blame: Choosing a Mediator,”
Negotiation, January 2006.

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3. Learn the steps

BY the Editors

As compared with other forms of dispute resolution, mediation can

have an informal, improvisational feel. Mediation can include some or all of
the following six steps, writes Kimberlee K. Kovach in The Handbook of Dispute
Resolution (Jossey-Bass, 2005):
1. Planning. Before mediation begins, the mediator helps the parties decide
where they should meet and who should be present. Each side might have
lawyers, coworkers, and/or family members on their team, depending on the
context.
2. Mediator’s introduction. With the parties gathered together in the same
room, the mediator introduces the participants, outlines the mediation process,
and lays out ground rules. She also presents her goal for the mediation—for
example, to help the parties come to agreement on the issues under dispute and
improve their relationship.
3. Opening remarks. Following the mediator’s introduction, each side has the
opportunity to present its view of the dispute without interruption. In addition
to describing the issues they believe are at stake, they may also take time to vent
their feelings.
4. Joint discussion. After each side presents its opening remarks, the mediator
and the disputants are free to ask questions with the goal of arriving at a better
understanding of each party’s needs and concerns. Because disputing sides often
have difficulty listening to each other, mediators act like translators, repeating
back what they have heard and asking for clarification when necessary. If parties
reach an impasse, mediators diagnose the obstacles that lie in their path and
work to get the discussion back on track.
5. Caucuses. If emotions run high during a joint session, the mediator might
split the two sides into separate rooms for private meetings, or caucuses. Often,
but not always, the mediator tells each side that the information they share in
caucus will remain confidential. The promise of confidentiality can encourage
disputants to share new information about their interests and concerns.

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6. Negotiation. At this point, it’s time to begin formulating ideas and proposals
that meet each party’s core interests—familiar ground for any experienced
negotiator.
The mediator can lead the negotiation with all parties in the same room, or
she can engage in “shuttle diplomacy,” moving back and forth between the teams,
gathering ideas, proposals, and counterproposals.
When putting together your settlement proposal, professor Stephen B. Gold-
berg of Northwestern University recommends that you ask the mediator for her
advice. Her conversations with the other side have probably given her knowledge
of its interests that you can use when packaging your proposal.
About 80% of dispute mediations lead to resolution, according to Goldberg.
Depending on the complexity of the issues, mediation might last mere hours, or
it could take days, weeks, or months to resolve. Some resolutions will truly be
“win-win”; others will be just barely acceptable to one or both sides—but better
than the prospect of a continued fight or court battle. If the parties come to con-
sensus, the mediator will outline the terms and may write up a draft agreement.
If you fail to reach agreement, the mediator will sum up where you have left off
and may engage you in a discussion of your nonsettlement alternatives.
Adapted from “Make the Most of Mediation,”
Negotiation, October 2009.

4. Enhance your outcomes.

By Stephen B. Golberg, professor of law, Northwestern University
Negotiations have reached an impasse. You contend that your firm, which
distributes office equipment throughout Eastern Europe, suffered a $10 mil-
lion loss when one of your suppliers delivered laptop computers to your Warsaw
warehouse that are too fragile to be sold. Denying that the computers are defec-
tive, the manufacturer has offered you only $100,000 in settlement, an amount it
characterizes as the “nuisance value” of your $10 million claim. Both sides agree
on one thing: you need help resolving the dispute. You engage a neutral mediator
to do just that.

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Now that you know how mediation works, here are some tips aimed at ensur-
ing that you emerge from the process with a great deal.
1. Solicit the mediator’s opinion. The mediator’s private conversations with each
party are likely to lead him toward a settlement framework that will please every-
one involved. Some mediators volunteer settlement ideas; others, who are less ac-
tivist, will not. Consider asking the mediator for suggestions regarding your own
settlement proposal. This tactic not only assists you in identifying a proposal that
would suit you but also takes advantage of the mediator’s knowledge of the other
side’s interests—and helps you avoid making a proposal the other side will find
offensive.
Suppose you plan to initially demand $9.5 million from the computer manu-
facturer and gradually reduce your demand to as little as $2 million. Rather than
simply asking the mediator to convey this offer to the other party, you ask what
he thinks of it.
“The other side thinks your current $10 million claim is outrageous,” he tells
you. “An opening proposal of $9.5 million could make serious negotiations
impossible. Here’s a suggestion. If you open at $7.5 million, I can point out the
substantial amount by which you’ve moderated your claim. I’ll suggest that if the
other side’s next offer is similarly moderate, each side will have demonstrated a
good-faith desire to settle, and we should be able to do so.”
Although you’re under no obligation to accept the mediator’s advice, recognize
that his private conversations with the other side have given him considerable
knowledge about the other side’s interests. Taking advantage of that knowledge
may lead to a settlement that’s high enough to satisfy you.
2. Give the mediator your great ideas. When talks escalate into a dispute, nego-
tiators often develop negative opinions about each other. If only the other side
was bargaining in good faith, you might think, we would have resolved this issue
long ago. Such views can lead each side to respond to the other side’s settlement
proposals with skepticism—a tendency that psychologists have termed reactive
devaluation. Obviously, skepticism does not bode well for agreement.
Your mediator can help you overcome this barrier. Imagine that your conver-
sations with the mediator have led you to a novel settlement plan: you propose

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a joint donation of the fragile laptops to public school systems (which can bolt
them down to make their fragility less of an issue) in the countries where you do
business. This move could generate favorable publicity for the manufacturer and
for you while also introducing schoolchildren (future computer buyers) to both
companies.
Rather than taking the risk that the manufacturer will reactively devalue your
idea, suggest to the mediator that he propose it as his own idea. If the mediator
believes your plan is fair and has merit, he may help you refine it—and present it
in a way that minimizes the other side’s skepticism.
3. Take a reality test. Sometimes the unrealistic views of your own team mem-
bers will turn out to be the major barrier to settlement. If they fail to understand
the other side’s interests or priorities, they may advocate standing firm and wait-
ing for concessions. Or perhaps certain members of your team have an exagger-
ated view of the likelihood that in the absence of a resolution, a court will rule in
your favor.
Your ability to persuade your colleagues of the unrealistic nature of their views
is limited; after all, if you contradict them too strongly, they may doubt your loy-
alty. Therefore, when negotiating within your team, use the mediator to bolster
your position by asking for his views on the internal debate: “How likely is the
other side to concede? How likely are we to prevail in court?” Your team mem-
bers are apt to accord special status to the mediator’s neutrality and experience.
Adapted from “Get the Best Possible Deal in Mediation,”
Negotiation, November 2006.

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CONTINUE YOUR NEGOTIATION LEARNING

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