The Book of Real-World Negotiations

16When You Hit a Problem, Think to Restructure Instead of Walking Away

Based on an interview with David Lithwick

When most people run into a significant problem in negotiation, their first thought is often just to walk away. That is a very normal response, and yet by walking away they may be missing an opportunity to salvage the situation for the betterment of all involved. Thus instead of walking away, another approach is to think about the specific negotiation problem and try to handle it differently. Along those lines, a useful strategy to consider is restructuring the deal so it takes on a different form and meets the underlying interests of those involved.

One of the issues that gets in the way of restructuring a deal is the problem of precedent. When deals are constructed in a certain manner in a particular industry it is sometimes problematic to move away from that approach. What is familiar is often comforting, but also limiting.

In the case below, not only did the negotiators involved run into a significant problem, but if they did not restructure the deal, the relationship would have been permanently lost and the project in question would have fallen well behind schedule. Add to this dilemma the issue of culture, which was a core factor in this situation, and there are a series of interesting issues that had to be addressed for both parties to ultimately gain from the negotiation. Let's look at what they did to overcome all of these obstacles and still find a mutually ...