When it comes to negotiation the negotiation teams are busy strategically planning and working on each other’s moves almost like a giant chess game. Still, if the negotiation and agreement is supposed to work long-term, there must be something on the table for both parties. Negotiations have to be a little bit of “win-win” because if they are too much one-sided and too much “win-lose” in the end everyone loses because the deal falls through, or the objectives are not met causing problems for both sides.

The difference between negotiation and chess is that in chess there are specific rules, and it’s easier to predict your opponent. In negotiation although there are unspoken rules, almost anything goes. This is why creativity in negotiation matters very much, and the team with it has a huge advantage as they can come up with innovative ways to solve problems, and help the other party get what they want, so their team can get what it wants.

The more creative the negotiators, and the more agile they are, the more opportunities they have. This clearly gives them the advantage by far. All too often, people go to school to learn negotiation, and some of the top negotiators in the world have often gone to the same school interestingly enough. In top business level negotiations many of the parties involved either went to Harvard or to Yale. They are working out of the same playbook.

So, if you have someone on your team that is highly creative and did not attend Harvard or Yale then your team has the advantage, do you see that point? I hope you will please consider all this because it has come to me at a very high price, through my many years of negotiation. It was a learning process for me, and much of it I learned the hard way. So please think on it.