Our Approach

“It's not the desire to win, but rather the will to do the preparation required to win that makes the difference.”              
                                                                               William “Bear” Bryant
                                                                               Head Football Coach
                                                                               University of Alabama (1958-82)

All excellent negotiation, selling, problem solving, and decision-making are the product of inquiry and listening not advocacy.  Inquiry and listening are essential to good preparation and good preparation allows the negotiator to separate the people from the issues and in doing so positions the negotiator to be easy the people while being tough on the issues.  Without adequate preparation, negotiators routinely default to being tough on the people in pursuit of their goals. 

We believe that parties enter negotiation to settle or resolve conflict and that it is counter productive to create unnecessary additional conflict in the pursuit of resolution.
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Many who believe they are good negotiators consider themselves “word warriors.”  During bargaining they assemble words in sentences and paragraphs and use them as weapons.  In the Art of War Sun Tzu cautions, “Weapons are the instruments of misfortune and should only be used when unavoidable.”  Like Sun Tzu, our approach minimizes conflict by using strategy and knowledge to produce superior outcomes.  Our approach is based on abundant research and experience all of which indicate superior economic results and excellent relationships are not mutually exclusive – economics do not have to be sacrificed to achieve excellent relationships and excellent relationships do not have to be sacrificed to achieve superior economic outcomes.

“The individual without a strategy takes opponents lightly and will inevitably become the captive of others.”                
                                                                                          Sun Tzu 
                                                                                          The Art of War

“If not the captive of others, then a captive of circumstance where the negotiator is reacting to events rather than driving them.”
                                                                                Byron Hanchett
                                                                                The Savvy Negotiator™