Deal making 2.0: a guide to complex negotiations.

Abstract

Most big deals--megamergers, major sales, infrastructure projects--are built on a series of smaller ones. Each component deal presents a tactical challenge, but sequencing the parts in a way that achieves the target outcome is a strategic challenge that can unfold over months or years. This process, which the authors call a negotiation campaign, must generally be conducted on several fronts, each involving multiple parties. A multifront campaign can be much more effective than direct negotiation. After failed talks between Longshoremen and the Pacific Maritime Association--a group of shippers and port operators--the PMA's president turned away from the bargaining table and embarked on a campaign to align member-firms, the business community, the U.S. government, and the public around his target outcome: the deployment of new information technologies to help unclog busy ports. The result was an agreement that was ultimately mutually beneficial. Designing and executing a negotiation campaign involves identifying the relevant parties, grouping them into fronts according to shared interests, determining whether to combine fronts (if, for instance, doing so would unite your allies), and deciding which fronts to approach early on and which to engage only after you've made progress elsewhere. The deal between the PMA and the Longshoremen involved high stakes, but many small-scale deals--such as gaining approval for a new product--also play out on multiple fronts. Going straight to a key decision maker often makes sense, but in many cases a multifront campaign is the only way.