Resources

Dealing with dirty negotiation tricks: ‘take-it-or-leave-it’


Dirty negotiation tricks – we don’t recommend you use them but it is important to be able to deal with them, and protect yourself, when you’re up against them. In our last post, we covered the good cop / bad cop approach. Now let’s explore the age-old ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ tactic. The final offer… You may have […]

Dealing with dirty negotiation tricks: The good cop / bad cop strategy


When it comes to negotiation approaches, it’s no surprise that some negotiators use dirty tricks. Many of the participants in our workshops and programs are keen to learn how to counter these tricks – ethically – when they come up against them. Want to outsmart dirty negotiation tricks like the good cop/bad cop strategy? Explore […]

How to magically frame your requests to get what you want


It may seem hard to believe, but the way you phrase your requests can be a game-changer in negotiation. And there’s a huge amount of research to back this up: people, it seems, respond differently to messages simply based on how they’re framed (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). For example, a 2011 study by Grant and […]

Should you make the first offer in a negotiation?


In our last post, we explored how to make negotiation offers that result in higher value outcomes. But we didn’t discuss the vexed, long-debated question of who should make the first offer in a negotiation. Let’s explore it. Drop anchor Question: Did Gandhi die before or after 140 years old? If you said ‘before’, you’re […]

How a cup of tea can improve your negotiations


Wouldn’t it be great if we could improve the way someone is feeling toward us before a negotiation, without them even knowing that we’re doing anything? It turns out that there is something we can do, and it could be as simple as offering a cup of tea. It may sound like an old fashioned way of solving […]

Speckled frogs and the need to be right


If you’ve ever come across someone who cannot seem to give up on an argument without being ‘right’, there’s a reason for that.  And, in fact, the chances are that you may have done this yourself, even if it wasn’t intentional. Being right may be great, but if we are too focussed on being right, […]