Negotiation

Where Principled Negotiation Stops Working

Fisher and Ury's framework transformed how people think about negotiation. It also assumes conditions — mutual interest in agreement, separable people and problem, discoverable objective criteria — that adversarial procurement situations often do not have.

When Anchoring Runs Wrong

The Ackermann method assumes you can walk away. In a negotiation where you cannot, the anchor you open with becomes a debt that has to be repaid — to the supplier, and sometimes to your own organisation.

When Principled Negotiation Is a Category Error

Getting to Yes assumes both parties can separate the people from the problem and focus on shared interests. Many supplier negotiations are genuinely adversarial, with different interests, limited trust, and no repeat game expected. When the most famous framework in negotiation is the wrong one.

When Aggressive Anchoring Is the Wrong Opening

The Ackermann method of anchoring high and conceding in deliberate steps works well in a symmetric negotiation. Under time pressure, with an execution-critical supplier, an extreme opening can damage the relationship you depend on to deliver. When the textbook anchor is a mistake.

When BATNA Collapses: Negotiating With No Alternative

The BATNA framework assumes you have an alternative. In sole-source situations, with a locked specification and a live project, you often do not, and the standard advice to strengthen your walk-away quietly stops applying. What actually works when the textbook tool is not available.

What 'Let Me Sharpen My Pencil' Actually Tells You

When a supplier says they will come back with a better number, they have already told you two things — the first figure was not final, and neither will the next one be. How you wait and what you do next determines what you actually get.

Good Cop, Bad Cop: What the Tactic Looks Like and How to Answer It

The good cop, bad cop dynamic is one of the oldest moves in negotiation. It works because the structure makes one of the things the other side wants — the removal of the bad cop — feel like it is in your hands to give. It is not.

What Makes Practice Real

Everyone in a scripted role play knows it is a role play, which is exactly why it rarely changes behaviour. The conditions that turn practice into skill-building are specific and mostly absent from how teams currently rehearse.

The Illusion of Competence From Consuming Content

Finishing an online negotiation course produces a confident feeling of mastery that the watching itself cannot actually deliver. Understanding why passive consumption fools us explains where courses help and where they quietly mislead.

Can You Practise Negotiation by Chatting with ChatGPT?

A text chatbot is genuinely useful for the analytical desk work of preparing a negotiation. As a sparring partner it has a structural limit, and understanding exactly where that limit sits is more useful than a blanket answer either way.

Whose Deadline Is Real?

Every negotiation runs on two clocks — the one the other side declares and the one they are actually watching. Knowing which clock matters changes everything you do with the time you have.

The Nibble: How Small Requests Land After the Deal Is Done

The nibble is not a separate negotiation. It is the last move of the one you thought was finished, and it works because you are already mentally spending the deal you believe you have.

Should-Cost, and Challenging "This Is Our Best Price"

A flat "this is our best price" is built to end the conversation. Should-cost thinking is how a buyer keeps it open without bluffing, by understanding what the thing actually costs to make and deliver.

What to Say When a Supplier Threatens to Walk

A supplier walking away from the table is the threat buyers fear most, which is exactly why it gets used. Telling a real walk-away from a staged one, and answering each without panic, is what keeps the leverage from flowing entirely the wrong way.

What a BATNA Really Means in Procurement

BATNA is one of the most quoted ideas in negotiation and one of the most misunderstood in procurement. It is not your bottom line or your demand, but the thing you will actually do if you do not reach a deal, and knowing it changes how you behave in the room.

When the Other Side Goes Quiet, Every Instinct You Have Is Wrong

Silence is one of the most uncomfortable moments in a negotiation, and most people rush to fill it. That is exactly where they hand back the ground the silence was quietly winning for them.

The First-Offer Question Is Not a Strategy Problem. It's a Preparation Problem.

Whether to anchor or wait is one of the most debated questions in negotiation. The answer depends less on strategy theory and more on what you actually know going in.

When the Other Side Opens Aggressively, the First Thirty Seconds Set the Frame

An extreme opening offer is designed to shift your expectations before you have said anything. Understanding what is actually happening makes it far easier to respond without losing ground.

The Invisible Cost of Concessions

When a business spends money, something marks it: an invoice, a budget line, a signature. A concession in a negotiation is also spending, often a great deal of it, yet almost none of that machinery fires, which is exactly why it is the easiest money a company ever gives away.