HBR Guide to Negotiating (HBR Guide Series)

Chapter 15

Review What Happened

Use “lessons learned” today for improvement tomorrow.

When the negotiation is truly finished, don’t just pat yourself on the back. Every negotiation is an opportunity to learn and to improve your skills as a negotiator.

Set Up a Review

Unfortunately, most people don’t formally look back over their negotiations unless things went horribly wrong. Of course, you’ll learn a lot from your failures, but there are valuable takeaways from successes, too. Make sure to review, capture what you learned, and get feedback.

Set aside time as close to the end of the negotiation as possible so that the events of the negotiation are still fresh in your mind. For a simpler negotiation, take 15 minutes in your car to think through ...