6 Reasons Why Negotiations Fail

There is no shortcut to successful negotiation. It has to be a well-thought-out process, factoring in the implications of our decisions.

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Not a sprint

Negotiations often fail, but what do we mean by that? How do we define failure in negotiation? Most would define failure as not reaching an agreement, but they would be wrong. The purpose of negotiation is ‘not’ to reach an agreement. It is to meet your objectives— however, you define them—as best as possible. If you come to the end of a negotiation and you have not met your objectives because you agreed to a suboptimal deal, or one where you compromised your objective then, yes, you did indeed fail. With that stated, let me give you six reasons why negotiation fails when viewed through this lens.

The first reason negotiations fail is because the parties bring the wrong mindset to the table and neglect to recognize the interconnected nature of negotiation. In terms of mindset, if a party sees negotiation as a win-lose endeavor they will miss many opportunities to collaborate and find value. When a negotiator comes to the table with a win-lose mindset they are very cautious and distrustful during the process and do not share information. As such, they never know what the other side really wants or needs and cannot find potentially creative solutions. The approach of not sharing information may get a negotiator what they want in the short term, but they lose out in the long term because they never build a lasting relationship. Closely connected to the previous point, negotiation is an interdependent process. The parties to negotiation succeed or fail together. People who do not recognize this connection are, well, doomed to failure.