Think about what your house, condominium, or some other valuable asset might be worth in today’s market. Did the price you paid for it affect your answer?
“Ignore sunk costs,” accounting professors and economists tell us. The amount of money and effort we’ve invested in the past, they say, is irrelevant to our future investments.

In negotiation, your best source of power is typically your best alternative to a negotiated agreement, or BATNA. Having a strong outside alternative enables you to walk away from a deal that doesn’t meet your needs or that would compromise your vision or ethics.
But when you are dealing with a negotiating partner who seems irreplaceable,

by Gary CohenWhose life are you living? David Whyte asks the question, “Would you rather fail at your life than be successful at living out someone else’s life successfully?” If you find yourself living out the life your parents wanted you to live, it is time to ask yourself Whyte’s question. The process of living out someone […]The post Whose Life Are You Living? appeared first on Elements of Leadership.

Who achieves the best negotiated agreements: strangers, friends, or romantic partners? In a 1993 negotiation role-play simulation, Margaret Neale of Stanford University and Kathleen McGinn found that pairs of friends achieved higher joint gains than married couples and pairs of strangers.
Along with their colleague Elizabeth Mannix of Cornell University, the researchers suggest that a “curvilinear