Complexity Theory And Negotiation (Harvard Business School Hbs) V 2.pdf

9-902-230
JUNE 18, 2002y
MICHAEL WHEELER
GILLIAN MORRIS
Complexity Theory and Negotiation
Question One: Rachel went to an auto dealership planning to buy a late model sedan but left
having leased a brand-new sports car. How do we judge her negotiation ess when she ended up with
something she hadn’t been looking for?
Question Two: After hearing an ultimatum from a Chinese trade official, . negotiator Charlene
Barshefsky, responded, “If the choice is take it or leave it, of course I’ll leave it. But I can’t imagine
that’s what you meant. I think what you meant is that you’d like me to think over your last offer and
that we can continue tomorrow.”1 How did Barshefsky’s improvised response change the course of that
negotiation?
Question Three: Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore used a novel legal theory to build a
forty-state coalition and pel the major panies to the bargaining table for the first
time ever. Was he a brilliant strategist or just lucky?
Conventional negotiation theory tends not to address such questions, focusing instead on the
bookends of negotiation – rigorous identification of interests and BATNAs essential to good
preparation and, at agreement, assessment of value creation and distribution. Much can change
between opening and closing, however, whether in the rarified air of international trade negotiations
or in prosaic transactions like buying a car. Some surprises may be pleasant or painful, but either way
they can require a significant revision of strategy and tactics.
Drawing decision trees and mapping backwards sharpens our thinking, but the dynamic nature of
negotiation means that we cannot plot all the possible twists and turns of negotiation. We need new
models and metaphors that take as a starting point plex interactivity of the process, rather
than assume it away. Such models could be a potential source of practical insight for how to survive,
even thrive in fundamentally unpredictable environments