Negotiators can leverage shared interests to the mutual benefit of all parties

Barry Nalebuff has advised the National Basketball Association in negotiations with the league’s players union, and provided consulting advice to over 50 multinational companies. But the professor at the Yale School of Management doesn’t advise negotiators to project aggressiveness. “You don't have to be a jerk to succeed,” Nalebuff told Prof. Karl Moore for an article in Forbes.com. “I want people to start negotiation by talking about how to negotiate,” says Nalebuff. “Ask if we can agree to split the pie, because if we can do that upfront, then we can focus our efforts on making the pie bigger.”