negotiation: Everything’s Negotiable and There are No Standard Contracts - 08/22/07 12:11 PM
Years ago a daily newspaper serving lawyers, real estate people, bankers, etc., sold pads of contracts for sale of residential property.  However, there were two versions, a “Seller’s” contract and a “Buyer’s” contract.  One favored the seller and the other the buyer.  Either could be presented to the unknowing as a “standard contract.”   Presenting a “standard contract” sounds like all contracts covering a certain type transaction are the same—they meet a standard.  That is incorrect.  State and federal governments impose standards to protect consumers, usually in borrowing and installment sale situations.  Still, you should read what else the other side has … (0 comments)

negotiation: Splitting the Difference Can be Lose-Lose Negotiation - 04/08/07 12:36 PM
  I want a million dollars for my building and you think it’s worth half that.  Why don’t we just split the difference?  One answer is that although it seems on the surface an efficient solution, it is really expedience, not reason.
To see that, let’s look at a famous dispute recorded in history where someone recommended splitting the difference.  Two women came before King Solomon, sitting as judge, to settle a custody dispute involving a single living child.  Each woman claimed that the other woman's baby had died, and that the surviving child was her own.
There was very … (4 comments)

negotiation: Negotiate ‘Off The Line’ - 03/08/07 02:20 AM
In late Feb. ’07 the Edmonton Oilers ice hockey team dealt away one of their top players, Ryan Smyth, to the NY Islanders.  Many were surprised, because Smyth is a native Canadian, (he grew up near Edmonton in Banff) and Canadian teams don’t often trade away Canadian players—it ticks off the locals.  Why they did may have been a miscalculation by Smyth’s agent, Don Meehan.
 
Apparently, and I have no inside information (I read http://chuqui.typepad.com/two_for_elbowing/), Meehan and team G.M. Kevin Lowe were talking right up to the trade deadline, and were about $300K apart out of $5 million a year … (0 comments)

negotiation: Speak reasonably and don't brandish a unilateral - 11/29/06 05:37 AM
In a recent article, an Israeli foreign policy expert named Gidi Grinstein spoke in favor of negotiation while carrying a big stick to the bargaining table. I do not agree and I will tell you why.
Grinstein’s context is admittedly very specific, namely the Mideast. His primary contentions are that both Israel and Palestine have two problems in common. One is for different internal reasons their governments are weak and instable. Both, although he only mentions Palestine, are subject also to pressures from their internal extremists not to bargain at all, not to make peace, coupled with a will to violence. … (0 comments)

negotiation: Drop the "Devil" stuff and you will understand your adversary - 11/29/06 05:30 AM
Like many of us, I have been focused a great deal on the horrific fighting in southern Lebanon and Northern Israel, and how these are part of a much larger drama that also features Iran, Syria, Russia and the US and others. Anyone can see that all this violence needs to stop and the differences—and they are real—be settled at the bargaining table. But how?
 
For most of us, we cannot even understand what is going on, largely because we see the whole travail through the eyes of a side we feel has been dealt injustice by the other. … (0 comments)

negotiation: Negotiation thru the Media - 11/17/06 07:34 AM
In a totally connected world governments and others frequently negotiate by public statements they expect to get into newspapers and on TV, and from there to their opposite entities. For example, this past weekend the Israeli government made a public statement through its acting prime minister that it would not talk further toward peace with the Palestinian Authority, now lead by HAMAS, until HAMAS renounces violence.
 
On its face that looks like a cutoff of talks, but it is not. It is just negotiating publicly. HAMAS is not likely to comply literally, but if it wants to move toward … (2 comments)

negotiation: Mickey Mouse Makes Deal for Playmates - 11/17/06 07:31 AM
Mickey Mouse has bought some electronic playmates for $7.5 billion, as Disney buys Pixar. Three months earlier it would not have been possible. Why could a deal be made now?
 
In January 2004 Pixar broke off talks with Disney to extend their distribution deal past spring ‘06: Pixar made ‘em and Disney marketed ‘em. Why, since they had a very mutually profitable deal? Apparently Disney’s Mike Eisner grated on Pixar’s Steve Jobs. Pixar was and is of Emeryville, CA near San Francisco, while Disney is of Burbank near L.A. The principal’s personalities fit their locations.
 
Eisner may have grated … (1 comments)

negotiation: Can We Negotiate the World's Way Out of the Iran Nuke Mess? - 11/17/06 07:27 AM
For many months, if you watch TV news, you have seen Iran go forward toward making nuclear weapons. There have been talks, on and off, between European powers and the US on one side and the Iranian government on the other. Europe and the US made dire threats of economic blockades and so forth. Iran then elected an even more stubborn nut case as Prime Minister.This new guy, whose name westerners can’t pronounce or remember, claims the Holocaust never happened and preaches Israel should be pushed into the sea. Meanwhile, at home in Iran the Islamists push a repressive regime of … (2 comments)

negotiation: Is it Ever Wrong to Negotiate? - 11/17/06 07:19 AM
A couple comes home from a party to find their million-dollar Dali painting gone from the wall. A day or so later their insurance company says it has gotten a message through “channels” that the Dali can be bought back at a reasonable price. Does the couple say they “never negotiate with burglars?” I doubt they would say that and never see Dali again.Change the story: now it is their 5 year old, taken away from the custody of the babysitter while they were at a party. Do they “never deal with abductors?” I can't imagine parents saying that.What if the … (0 comments)

 

Philip L. "Phil" Marcus

Phil Marcus

Beaverton, OR

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