Inevitably in negotiation, we face negotiators who consider “white lies” and unethical negotiation tactics to be acceptable competitive bargaining behavior. Moreover, many questionable persuasion tactics fall within the boundaries of the law.
Consider what happened in 1989, when the Sony Corporation was negotiating a $5 billion purchase of Columbia Pictures. In a $200 million side deal, Sony opened talks with film producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber about running Sony’s new film division. Guber and Peters wanted the job badly, but there was a stumbling block: They were under contract with Warner Brothers and needed time to negotiate their release.
Rather than focusing exclusively on this legitimate issue during talks with Sony, the producers added two bogus issues—ones they didn’t care about—to the discussion. An all-night negotiating session on the three issues followed. In the morning, the producers finally “conceded” on the two phony issues and asked Sony to concede on timing. Sony took the bait, allowing Peters and Guber a month to negotiate with Warner.
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In his book Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People, G. Richard Shell analyzes this story from Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters’s book Hit & Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood as an example of the unethical negotiation tactics people sometimes use to get what they want. Here are a few unethical negotiation tactics from Shell’s “rogues’ gallery” of negotiating strategies, as well as tips for defusing them.
- The Red Herring
- Authority Ploys
- The Good Guy/Bad Guy Routine
Like the producers in the opening story, negotiators sometimes add extra issues they don’t care about to the pot. After pushing hard on all fronts, they eventually back down on the bogus ones and then ask for a concession on the issue(s) they care about. This negotiating tactic tends to succeed by making negotiators appear more cooperative than they are.
If a counterpart insists they value all issues at stake equally, don’t take their claim at face value. One way to smoke out their true interests is to present multiple, equivalent, simultaneous offers that you consider equivalent, according to Northwestern University professor Victoria Husted Medvec and Columbia Business School professor Adam D. Galinsky. For instance, if a prospective client insists that price, delivery time, and contract length are all equally important to them, present them with three packages that vary on each dimension but that you find equally acceptable. If they balk at narrowing the field, explain that you are open to further negotiation but simply want to focus the discussion. Their subsequent choice should allow talks to proceed in a more open, targeted manner.
In car dealerships, salespeople sometimes insist they don’t have the authority to make a deal. If they disappear for a while and return with approval from their boss, you might feel so grateful that you accept the negotiated terms on the spot.
The approval of a higher authority can make a mediocre deal seem more tantalizing—a fact that some negotiators use to their advantage. How to ward off this move? Before talks begin, suggest that you both secure a negotiating mandate from anyone who may need to sign off on the deal.
Conversely, Shell notes, a negotiator might claim to have authority that they lack. Lawyers, agents, and brokers, for example, sometimes falsely claim they can’t accept an offer on a client’s behalf because it’s not high or low enough. When possible, sidestep this gambit by insisting on negotiating directly with the agent’s principal, advises Shell. Because agents’ incentives may differ from those of their clients, it can pay to go to the source.
Suppose you sit down with two sales associates, Tim and Mindy. Tim greets you with a smile and immediately emphasizes his desire to meet your interests and goals. Mindy then jumps in with an outrageous offer. The two of you haggle for a bit. When you fail to make progress, Tim urges her to make a concession. Suddenly Tim seems like a trusted friend. You take his advice and work to bridge the gap between you two and Mindy, even proposing concessions you never intended to make.
It’s a classic version of the tried-and-true “good guy/bad guy” routine, according to Shell. The negotiation tactic preys on our tendency to like people who agree with us and seem similar to us, an effect that’s heightened by the presence of a good guy’s annoying, demanding partner.
Such unethical negotiation tactics aren’t difficult to identify once you’re aware of them. How should you address this one? Head-on, suggests Shell in Bargaining for Advantage. “It seems like Tim’s the good guy here and Mindy’s the bad guy,” you might say. “Can we try to work together more collaboratively?” Be aware, though, that if you are wrong, and the two negotiators are merely revealing their true personalities and concerns, they could be offended by your accusation. Therefore, proceed with caution in such situations.
What other unethical negotiation tactics have you learned to defuse?
Claim your FREE copy: Negotiation Skills
Build powerful negotiation skills and become a better dealmaker and leader. Download our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
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