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The Science of Strategic Thinking: Improve Negotiation Outcomes with 2 Central Principles from Game Theory, with Kevin Zollman, Game Theorist and Co-author, The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting
Game theory is the science of strategic thinking. The idea here is that anytime you’re interacting with another person who has their own interests and is trying to achieve their own ends, they’re trying to do the best they can given what they want, you’re trying to do the best you can given what you want, and so you’re interacting in a strategic situation. Game theory is a mathematical theory that attempts to make sense of how it is that people interact in these strategic situations.
1. Patience
Game theorists have spent a lot of time analyzing various models of negotiation. The idea is that you take what feels like a complex interaction, distill it down to its very simple elements, and then you model it using the tools of game theory. One of the things that game theorists have found is that in negotiation, especially in negotiations where we’re debating how to divide up some resource – classic example in game theory is dividing up a pie, but it could be anything, like money, or some time with a toy, or anything where we have to decide how to divide it up. Game theorists have discovered a couple central principles that make a big difference to who does better in those negotiations.
One of the critical things is how patient you are – how willing you are to stay and continue to negotiate. So if I come in in a rush to a car dealership and I say, “I need a car right now,” everyone knows that the car dealer is going to try to take advantage of the fact that you need a car right now, and say, “Sorry, we can’t give you a discount.” But if you come into a car dealership and you say, “I don’t need a car anytime soon. If you give me a good deal today I’ll take it, but if you don’t I’ll leave, maybe I’ll come back tomorrow, maybe the next day, maybe a month later,” then you’ll get a better deal. So patience is very important. If you’re trying to win in a negotiation, you want to try to find ways to make it so that you are more patient than the other person. That is, you have less to lose from letting the negotiation drag out than does the person you’re negotiating with. So don’t wait until the last minute to buy a new car. Don’t run into the boss’s office right before you need that big raise. Always choose situations where you just suggest it and say, “No urgency, but I can come back later.” By doing that you create the situation where the other person can’t take advantage of your impatience. They can’t give you a deal that is effectively a take-it-or-leave-it deal.
2. Take It Or Leave It
Another important thing in negotiation that can lead to better outcomes for you is you always want to be in the position to offer take-it-or-leave-it deals to the other person. So if you can say to somebody else, “Here’s the deal, take it or leave it,” now they’re put in a position where they either take it or they get nothing. Now it’s tricky, of course, because I can say to you, “Take it or leave it,” but that doesn’t mean that it really is that way. So by creating situations where it really is a take-it-or-leave-it situation, that can help you, but it’s also nerve-wracking and dangerous. So it’s a strategy that you have to be very careful about. But if you can be in a situation where you can offer somebody a true take-it-or-leave-it deal, that can oftentimes improve the outcomes of the negotiation for you.