BEING NICE IN NEGOTIATIONS CAN BACKFIRE

The FEDSMILL board member with decades as a union chief negotiator has often explained to the rest of us why the chief spokesperson often needs to “not be nice” to the other side.  In fact, he calls it a critical bargaining leadership skill. Now the Harvard Business Review has published some research making the same point. While we do not want to burst the bubbles of all the interest-based negotiations purists out there, they and all other negotiators would benefit from reading the HBR with the same title as this post.