Negotiating is most often learned by the old fashioned "sink or swim" method when the representative for "our side" is told to "go negotiate and do your best". The difficulty with this method is obvious. Any early success will be accidental. Success and failure will produce a pattern of behavior from which the negotiator will learn how to negotiate. Unfortunately, this does not guarantee that the negotiator will have learned the most important or most effective behaviors to ensure continued success.
Learning from others’ experience is an excellent way to increase success on purpose. Ten common problems we have discovered are presented below with suggestions for dealing with them. Because six of these common problems are related to planning, a checklist is presented as a guide for the negotiator. Use of the checklist will help enhance the negotiator’s probability of success.