In the Spirit of Negotiation
The manicured academic oasis of the Columbia University campus on Morningside Heights may be an unlikely place for tips about car buying, or any negotiation. A caravan of busses regularly splutters up Broadway. For those going downtown the 1 train offers newish Wi-Fi access below 96th Street. And then, there are car or bike-sharing options.
Still, Malia Mason, an associate professor at Columbia Business School, who shares an alma mater, the Punalo School, with President Barack Obama and her colleague Daniel Ames, a clean shaven full professor and coordinator of the Decision Making and Negotiations Cross-Disciplinary Area at the school, along with two grad students have overturned conventional wisdom about getting the best deal.
Their finding will appear in a forthcoming issue of Experimental Social Psychology. Make a precise first offer in a negotiation. It makes you seem better informed. And it leads the other party in the negotiation to concede greater value to you.
They use automobile prices as an example. Whether it would work as well for job negotiations or a home purchase in a super hot housing market, is likely open to discussion.
Tags: negotiating skills
