Essentials for Government Contract Negotiators

Chapter 21

The Set-aside Tactic

Deadlocks are common in negotiations, since rarely do both sides have the same goals. Both sides may also have widely different views about what they perceive as a “fair” outcome on price or any other issue. To complicate matters, some negotiators intentionally use deadlocks as a tactic to build up negotiation capital or to set up other tactics. You saw an example of this in the last counter we discussed to the bracketing tactic. Another example is the “take it or leave it” tactic that we’ll talk about later.

Instead of allowing a deadlock to derail your negotiation, you first may want to use a tactic specifically designed to break deadlocks: the set-aside tactic.

Whenever the other side insists on a number or ...