Law Books

General: What happened; what was the outcome; were you successful or not; why and why not;

The negotiation began fairly bluntly with my opponent Dan Adams asking why my client wanted to sell the books. This caught me off guard a little bit, as I was hoping to initiate some small talk to learn about J&S. This put me back on my heals as I realized that I wasn’t as prepared as I would have liked to answer this direct a question, especially not being able to find out what info my opponent had from his case. Dan continued to ask me difficult questions uncovering that we were hoping to sell the books shortly and that we were shifting our focus away from Japanese commercial law. After a short conversation he made an initial offer of $1000. This was much lower than expected, and was so low that it was almost calming and that it was time to play. My first offer was planned to be $25000, but I bumped this to $30000 in response to the extremely low initial offer. Explaining that these books were increasing in value, had been hand selected, would be difficult to reacquire etc allowed me to shift this negotiation into a more offensive mode. We jockeyed back and forth discussing the value of the books and how hard the most valuable parts would be to acquire elsewhere. Dan also raised the possibility of splitting the books, which I said was not an option as they have their highest value together and there is another buyer that wants the whole set. Dan’s next offer was $7500, which was countered by my offer of $22500. Conversation continued on similar lines shifting more and more to the value of the collection, leaving behind the issue of having to sell them quickly. Offers went to $8500 and $15000, then $9000 and $12000, finishing at $9500, which Dan said was pretty much his BATNA if he was going to pay storage and then shipping. I did try to create some additional value by asking how much J&S had penetrated the Japanese market and that they were obviously truing to expand and there may be services that B&A could offer to help facilitate, however, we determined that we didn’t have enough info to make any concrete offers that would be accepted.

_5_ Planning and Strategy: did I have a strategy; was my walkaway right; did I estimate the other’s well?

_4__Did I establish my own priorities and potential trade-offs

_4_First approach: were we win-win, positive; try to establish rapport; did I deal with first offers effectively?

_4__How well did I develop a plan for managing the process of negotiation?

_4_Did I actively shape the agenda and manage the process to my advantage?

_4__How well did I try understand the other person:

_4__Exploring Interests: did I communicate my interests;

_5_Persuasion: How well did I persuade the other side about my legitimate needs and limits and the value of what I offered

_4__The Other's Interests did I find out the other side's real interests and constraints

_4_Creating Value (integrative or win-win) vs Claiming Value (distributive or win-lose)

_4_Options: Did we explore "expand the pie" options: did we try to find ways of meeting each party’s needs

_4_Inquiry vs. advocacy: did I ask (inquiry) a lot of questions, or just advocate my position

_3_Alternatives: Was I clear on my BATNA; was I clear about what happens if there is no agreement

_5_Legitimacy: was the agreement considered fair by some external benchmark

_4_Commitments: did the agreement avoid problems in the future; were any “strings left untied?”

_5_Communication: did we practice effective two way communication…did we listen…did we rephrase…

_5_Focus on the problem, not the person: did we avoid attacking or threatening the other person

_4_Relationship: did we deal well with differences; is our relationship better off now than before

_4__Psychological factors: did outside factors (eg. emotions) affect the outcome (their efforts or ours)

_5_Did we reach an outcome that maximized potential mutual gains; did we come close to the "Pareto Frontier?"

_--_Other factors: did anything else affect the negotiation-physical space, time pressure, etc.

For Yourself: General Conclusion: In areas where you felt you were less than totally successful, how might you be more effective next time. From this exercise, what did you learn that you are going to try to do better next time you negotiate;

· What were keys to the negotiation being successful or unsuccessful

· What would you do differently if you were to do this same negotiation again

· what did you learn about yourself? About negotiations What tendencies do you have in negotiation that you need to be careful about (too aggressive, too likely to quit searching for solutions once your; What do you feel you need to work on? What would you do differently next time?

· What did you learn in general?

· If this were a real case, what obstacles to joint problem-solving might you encounter; how would you overcome them?

The keys for this negotiation to be successful was creating an environment where we were both trying to maximize benefits. For Dan that was getting the books (which at any price in his range was undervalue). For me that was getting the highest price. Since we were both working systematically to this goal constantly discussing and problem solving instead of being at odds, we were able to achieve our goal. I ended up selling the books near his BATNA because the framing of the conversation continually shifted towards value and price; away from my weaknesses. In this case I was potentially a little more aggressive than I would have been if I knew his BATNA was so low. I started off very high and although I made some big steps down, it took me a while to believe that Dan was approaching his BATNA. Knowing that I was above my walk-away early made the negotiation a little easier as well. In terms of barriers to an agreement there weren’t any except for my desire to get my client a fair price.