500 words
Managing
Yourself
Be Your Own
Best Advocate
How to seize everyday negotiation opportunities at work
by Deborah M. Kolb
Most seasoned managers
know how to handle formal
negotiations at work—with
clients over contracts, with bosses
over budgets, with employers over
compensation. But what about
all the opportunities for informal
negotiations that arise? Do you know
how to recognize and seize chances
to move into a better role, change an
untenable situation, or ensure that
you get credit for extra work?
In the 35 years I’ve been studying
negotiation and coaching executives,
I’ve found that many people don’t.
Consider the following examples:
Charlotte, a sales manager,
learned through the grapevine that
a regional role was opening up and
wanted to be considered for it.
But she’d also heard that another
candidate, whom the division
president knew well, was a front-
runner for the job. She wondered how
to put herself in contention.
Kevin, a communications director,
pitched in to help another division
save a major client, to great acclaim.
Soon colleagues in that division kept
asking him to contribute. He wasn’t
sure how to say no.
Marina, the CFO of a $4 billion
division in a large industrial
manufacturing firm, had been
promoted to her job two years earlier.
She’d relocated to headquarters—
a requirement for taking the
position—and brought her husband
and children with her, but they were
unhappy and wanted to move back
“home.” She felt she had to choose
between her job and her family.
All three of these professionals
(whose names have been changed)
were understandably stymied.
Negotiating on your own behalf can
feel much less comfortable than nego-
tiating as an agent for your company,
especially when it happens outside
the typical structure of a hiring or RO
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130 Harvard Business Review November 2015
review process. More emotions are in
play; it’s often difficult to figure out
exactly what you want or how to get
the conversation started; and failure
carries a higher cost. In some organi-
zations, advocating for yourself may
be seen as being demanding or not a
“team player.” This can be especially
true for women, who are sometimes
hit by what researchers call “the
social cost of asking.” And in some
cases, the very issues you want to
negotiate may challenge established
ways of doing work.
But executives hurt themselves if
they ignore everyday opportunities
to push for better assignments, goals,
or performance measures; more
resources or flexibility; or higher
compensation. I’ve found that these
types of negotiations, which I call
“lowercase n” negotiations, matter just
as much as formal, “N” negotiations.
They can drive career success and
fulfillment and also have the potential
to spark positive organizational change.
So we all need a strategy for
everyday negotiations that will allow
us to come away not only successful
but also still held in high regard by
bosses and colleagues. I counsel
those with whom I work to focus
on four steps: recognize, prepare,
initiate, and navigate.
Recognize
Negotiation opportunities aren’t
always obvious, especially if you’ve
never thought to ask for anything in
the past. But some routine situations
cry out for bargaining. For example,
if you say yes to a special assignment
or a request for help when you want
to say no, that’s an opportunity to
negotiate for something in return.
When you’re asked to take on a new
initiative, with its attendant risks,
that’s an opportunity to negotiate for
support. If your workload expands
beyond what’s reasonable and cuts
into your family time, that’s an
opportunity to negotiate for more
resources or to change the scope of
your role. You must pick your battles,
though. The issue should be
important to you, but your desired
outcome should not only benefit
you personally but also benefit
your organization, as a result of
your increased productivity and
commitment and new cultural norms
that allow colleagues to achieve
the same. The decision to negotiate
should be made with a sense of the
end in mind.
Initially, Marina didn’t even
consider talking to her boss, Robert,
the company’s CFO, about an
arrangement that would allow
First, gather good information.
The more you know about what others
have asked for and been granted at
work, the more comfortable you’ll feel
crafting your own negotiation. Marina
didn’t think her company had ever
allowed anyone to do a “headquarters
job” out of another office, but she
decided to check. She learned that
one executive had indeed been
given permission to work remotely
for six weeks while he was helping
to manage a family illness. When
Charlotte asked around, she learned
that her organization was in the early
stages of considering who might fill
the regional role; the other candidate
didn’t yet have a lock on the job.
You also need intelligence on
the parties with whom you’ll be
negotiating. How do they like to
receive news or special requests?
Do they want a lot of advance
notice? Do they want you to present
a solution or to develop one with you?
Robert hadn’t hired Marina; in fact,
they’d worked together for less than a
year. But she knew that he tended to
resist unconventional ideas and prac-
tices; he liked the usual way of doing
things. So she understood that she’d
have to enter her negotiation slowly
and be ready for pushback. Charlotte,
too, realized early on that she had
an uphill climb because Michael, the
division president, already had a
favorite in mind, but she learned as
much as she could both about the
job requirements and the qualities
Michael valued most in his employees
and about his decision-making style.
Second, position yourself.
Interdependence gives people a
reason to negotiate. So look at how
your work enables your counterpart
and others to succeed; that will help
you discern what he or she values in
you and assess yourself in a currency
that matters. Marina knew that Robert
appreciated the work she’d done in
Negotiation opportunities aren’t
always obvious, especially if
you’ve never thought to ask for
anything in the past. But some
situations cry out for bargaining.
her to both keep her job and live
with her family. She focused on all
the obstacles—lack of precedent,
presumed resistance—and never
imagined an ideal scenario. She
conceded the negotiation without
even starting it.
Kevin at first thought he needed
to respond yes or no to the other
division’s continued requests for help,
rather than contrive a “yes-and”
solution: Yes, he would do the work,
and in order to do it well he would
need his boss to officially broaden his
role to include the new responsibilities.
Prepare
Preparation is critical to any
negotiation. But how can you
prepare for an informal one that your
counterpart isn’t expecting?
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November 2015 Harvard Business Review 131
her divisional role. She’d achieved
significant profit growth, managed a
difficult labor negotiation, overseen
an important acquisition, and
aggressively pursued cost reductions.
Since Robert was new to the company,
she was also his “lifeline” to the
leaders in her large division. All this
gave her leverage.
Another way to think about your
value proposition and your relative
bargaining position is to consider
your—and your partner’s—“best
alternative to a negotiated agreement,”
or BATNA (as Roger Fisher and
William Ury call it in Getting to Yes).
Kevin’s BATNA was to stop putting
in extra time for the other division
and return to his “day job”; his
colleagues and boss had weaker
BATNAs, because they had nobody
as well suited as Kevin to do the
relevant work. Marina’s BATNAs
weren’t very appealing: She didn’t
want to live apart from her family, and
she wasn’t confident that she could
find a job as good as her current one
in her previous hometown. But her
boss’s BATNA wasn’t good either.
There were no obvious candidates
who could take on her role and be as
successful as she’d been.
Third, anchor with options.
Negotiations require creativity. When
you present many ideas, you’re
framing the negotiation in a way
that encourages the other party to
join. You shouldn’t fixate on a single
solution that works for you. Instead
consider what matters to your
counterpart and find multiple ways to
satisfy both of you.
In developing options, it helps
to think what good reasons your
counterpart might have for saying
no to an arrangement you propose.
These are on the hidden agenda of
any negotiation.
Charlotte knew from her
information gathering that Michael
would probably balk at her youth and
inexperience in comparison with his
favored candidate and suggest that
she needed more seasoning in her
current role before taking on a new
one. So she broadened her proposals
to include volunteering to perform
the role in an “acting” capacity for
a limited period of time, with clear
performance benchmarks, or taking
another developmental opportunity
that would put her more firmly on a
leadership track.
Marina was sure that Robert
would be concerned about breaking
from precedent, the incremental
expense of a flexible arrangement,
and losing touch with her and her
division. So she rejected ideas that
would heighten those concerns—such
as working from home and coming in
to headquarters only for meetings—
and focused on ones that would
assuage them, such as splitting her
time between her old divisional office
and HQ. She also pulled together a
spreadsheet of estimated expenses.
These preparations not only boosted
her confidence but also helped her
appreciate Robert’s point of view and
put her in the right mindset to work
on a joint solution.
Initiate
Any two people typically feel asym-
metrical desires to engage in everyday
negotiations. One has a problem or
sees an opportunity; the other prob-
ably doesn’t and therefore expects
business as usual. How can you shift a
normal interaction into a collaborative
rather than combative negotiation?
Start by making your value visible.
When Marina decided to approach
Robert about her work-family conflict,
she didn’t begin the conversation
with it. She first reviewed her results
since their previous meeting and
updated him on a recent acquisition.
Only then did she mention her
problem and begin to talk about ideas
for solving it.
If the other party stonewalls, you
can consider various tactics. One is
to round up allies who will vouch
for your value and encourage the
person to negotiate with you. Because
Charlotte didn’t know Michael very
well, she enlisted another leader in
the division to extol her virtues and
the contributions she was making to
the company.
Another approach is to acknowl-
edge and address one or more of your
counterpart’s good reasons for saying
no to prove that you’ve thought about
his or her perspective. Often the
response will be “Right, this is my
concern,” which opens the door to
a conversation about the issue.
Marina chose this path. Her boss’s
most legitimate fear was that he
would lose his connection to the
division. So she gave him a chance to
discuss it by saying, “I can see why
you might be concerned about this.
That’s why one of the options
I thought about was dual offices.”
You can also introduce a BATNA,
but you must do so carefully, so it’s
not perceived as a threat. You might
mention yours and then retract it. For
example, Marina could have told
Robert that she was getting calls from
headhunters (which was true) but then
quickly noted that she was committed
to staying at the company if he and
she could work out a plan. To make
your counterpart more aware of his or
her own BATNA, ask a question such
as “What do you think will happen if
we don’t have this conversation?”
Navigate
Once you’ve enticed the other party
to engage in a negotiation, you must
go into the conversation with an open
mind. The proposals you’re prepared
to offer are just starting points for an
agreement. Three types of questions
In a study of five Virginia restaurants, researchers found that
attractive servers earned $1,261 more annually in tips, on
average, than unattractive ones—mainly because female diners
left more money for pretty waitresses.
SOURCE “Beauty and the Feast: Examining the Effect of Beauty on Earnings Using
Restaurant Tipping Data,” by Matt Parrett
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132 Harvard Business Review November 2015
$1,261
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for the role she wanted would put
Michael in an awkward position. So
she asked circular questions such as
“What are the success criteria for this
job?” Michael then considered more
deeply what he was looking for, which
opened the process up to more candi-
dates. Marina used circular questions
such as “What really concerns you?”
and “What can I do to ease those
concerns?” with Robert. It turned
out that he feared the plan would fail
because she might find the constant
commuting too difficult. “I promised
him that if that happened, we would
work something out, even if it was
an exit strategy,” she says. “He would
not be left high and dry.” She also pro-
posed that they agree to a six-month
trial of the dual-office arrangement
and then jointly assess the results.
ALL THREE of these executives were
successful in their negotiations.
Marina and her family moved back
home, but she stayed in her job. The
dual-office arrangement worked, so
Robert agreed to make it permanent,
establishing a precedent for senior
executives to be based where they
could be most effective and of most
value to the company—not necessarily
at headquarters. Kevin’s job was
restructured to include additional
staff so that he could work with the
new clients. Charlotte got the regional
manager’s job and prompted Michael
to be more explicit about the criteria
used for promotion in his division.
Everyday negotiations often re-
quire you to leave your comfort zone
and challenge established practices.
But all evidence indicates that they’re
worth the effort—for you and for your
organization. HBR Reprint R1511J
Deborah M. Kolb, the Deloitte Ellen
Gabriel Professor for Women in
Leadership (Emerita) and a cofounder of
the Center for Gender in Organizations at
Simmons College School of Management,
is a coauthor, with Jessica L. Porter, of
Negotiating at Work: Turn Small Wins
into Big Gains (Jossey-Bass, 2015).
Moves and Turns
When negotiators don’t want to give you
what you’re asking for, they often launch an
offensive move. Don’t get defensive. Instead,
turn the conversation to get it back on track.
When he challenges your ability—
“I don’t think you’re ready”—correct his
impression: “I understand why it might appear that way. But here’s the
experience I have that shows why I’m capable of managing it…”
When she demeans your ideas as unreasonable—“That will never
work”—divert her focus to the solution: “What would be a reasonable
arrangement?”
When he appeals for sympathy—“It’s such a tough time for this
group right now”—dig deeper: “What really concerns you? What can
I do to ease those concerns?”
When she criticizes your approach—“This is a really inappropriate
request”—ask for elaboration: “Can you help me understand why?”
When he flatters you—“You’re so good in the position you have”—
use a role reversal: “If you were in my shoes, what would you do?”
Another turn that works against almost any move is to interrupt the
conversation by sitting silent for a brief period, standing up, or moving
to get a glass of water. Research shows that when you break the action,
people rarely revert to the same negotiating stance, and the pause can
lead to breakthroughs.
can help the two of you develop a
plan that works for everyone.
Hypothesis-testing questions
start with “What if” and enable you
to introduce ideas, whether broad
or specific, and solicit a reaction.
For example, Marina asked Robert,
“What if we created dual offices?
How would that work?” As the
discussion progressed, she got more
detailed: “What if we had a shared
calendar, so you knew exactly where
I would be when? What if you had
the opportunity to be involved in
certain divisional meetings?” Kevin,
too, used this kind of question to
great effect in his conversations
with colleagues in the other division.
When he asked, “What if I couldn’t
do this work?” he learned that they
would be at a complete loss and were
therefore willing to support him in
negotiations with his boss, Dorothy,
about taking formal responsibility
over work in their domain.
Reciprocity questions involve
if-then scenarios and build the notion
of trading into the negotiation: “If I
agree to do X, then what will you do?”
Marina used this type of question to
navigate the issue of costs with her
boss: “If we agree to the dual-office
arrangement, what else do you need?”
Ultimately they decided that she
would pay for a reverse relocation,
but the company would absorb the
ongoing travel expenses. When Kevin
approached Dorothy, his if-then
scenario was “If I work with the other
division on an ongoing basis, here is
how it could become part of my new
and expanded senior director’s role.”
Circular questions, which simul-
tan eously introduce and gather infor-
mation, ensure that the conversation
is collaborative, not adversarial. They
emphasize the relationship between
you and your counterpart and often
unearth deeper issues at stake.
Charlotte knew that simply asking
Nov15 MY Kolb2 1 9/10/15 5:43 PM
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hbr.org | September 2009 | Harvard Business Review 105
G
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YOU ARE LEADING a negotiating team for your company, fac-
ing off with a major client to work out a price increase. You
think you’re on solid footing – you’ve done your homework,
and you know the terms you’re looking for. But aft er some
opening niceties, one of your team members blurts out: “Just
tell us – what do we need to do to get more of your business?”
And in that moment, you know you’ve lost the upper hand.
Gaff es like this are more common than most businesspeople
would care to admit. Team members, oft en unwittingly, rou-
tinely undermine one another and thus their team’s across-the-
table strategies. We studied 45 negotiating teams from a wide
array of organizations, including ones in the fi nance, health
care, publishing, manufacturing, telecom, and nonprofi t sec-
tors. And they told us their biggest challenges came from their
own side of the table.
Drawing on the lessons learned from the experiences of
these teams, we off er advice on how to manage the two major
obstacles to a negotiating team’s success: aligning the confl ict-
ing interests held by members of your own team and imple-
menting a disciplined strategy at the bargaining table.
Aligning Your Own Team’s Interests
It’s not surprising that negotiating teams wrestle with internal
confl icts. Aft er all, companies send teams to the negotiating
table only when issues are political or complex and require
input from various technical experts, functional groups, or
geographic regions. Even though team members are all techni-
cally on the same side, they oft en have diff erent priorities and
imagine diff erent ideal outcomes: Business development just
wants to close the deal. Finance is most concerned about costs.
How to Manage Your
Negotiating Team
The biggest challenge may lie on your side of the table.
Best Practice
BY JEANNE M. BRETT, RAY FRIEDMAN,
AND KRISTIN BEHFAR
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106 Harvard Business Review | September 2009 | hbr.org
Best Practice How to Manage Your Negotiating Team
The legal department is focused on pat-
ents and intellectual property. Teams
that ignore or fail to resolve their diff er-
ences over negotiation targets, trade-off s,
concessions, and tactics will not come to
the table with a coherent negotiation
strategy. They risk ending up with an
agreement that’s good for one part of
the company but bad for another. On
the basis of our research, we recommend
four techniques for managing confl icts
of interest within the team.
Plot out the confl icts. Confronting
diverging interests helps clarify team
goals, uncover personality confl icts, and
ultimately build unity of purpose. Many
managers examine competing interests
by creating a matrix of the issues that
need to be addressed. For each issue,
they plot out their own priorities and
position, as well as what they think are
the priorities and positions of each of
the other team members.
Consider the team whose confl icts of
interest are represented in the exhibit
“What Does This Team Want?” The gen-
eral manager would like her company to
earn more profi t. The product manager
is concerned that a price increase will
erode market share. The sales represen-
tative is bent on preserving his account
relationship no matter what the cost
is. And the business manager wants to
increase customer support so that his
department will get more work. By plot-
ting out each element up for negotiation,
team members can recognize the inter-
nal trade-off s they must make before
they can coalesce around the highest-
margin proposal.
Work with constituents. Underly-
ing many confl icts of interest is the
simple fact that members represent
diff erent constituencies within the orga-
nization. People don’t want to let their
departments down, so they dig in on an
issue important to their constituents
that might not be in the best interest
of the whole company. If constituents
are presented with all the facts, however,
they might be willing to concede more
ground because they’ll also see the big-
ger picture.
To help get everyone on board with
a single negotiation strategy, some lead-
ers deliberately assemble teams that
contain only individuals good at form-
ing relationships across constituencies.
Managers who don’t have the luxury of
choosing their team members, though,
might have to go an extra mile to en-
gage those constituencies themselves.
One way is to invite important opinion
leaders or decision makers to attend
team planning sessions. Alternatively,
team managers might have to embark
on multiple rounds of bargaining with
constituent departments. One manager
described the many times he went back
and forth between the customer service
department, the program managers, and
the engineers. He’d say, “OK, we need
you to move a little bit more and get
your number down a little bit more. We
are close – just come this little extra bit.”
If those approaches fail, you can
engage in reality testing (dubbed “the
nuclear scenario” by one manager). To
illustrate the dangers of not working
together to make a deal happen, for in-
stance, one leader sent his team mem-
bers back to their own departments
with the worst-case outcome for the
company and individual units. This so-
bering hypothetical soft ened up hard-
liners and allowed members to align
their interests. Finally, some companies
have a formal structure in place to sup-
port negotiating teams: If deals involve
strategic decisions that aff ect multiple
divisions, a corporate coordinator (oft en
a C-level executive) who has the formal
power to get constituencies to fall in
line joins the team.
Whatever tactics you choose, know
that you cannot skip this step. If your
team’s members lack the authority or
political clout to unilaterally commit
their part of the organization to the ne-
gotiating strategy, you must somehow
get all constituencies on board before
you get to the table.
Mediate confl icts of interest. If, de-
spite best eff orts, the team cannot rec-
oncile its diff erences, the best approach
may be mediation, led by either a team
member or an outside facilitator. The
mediator acts as a buff er of sorts. One
manager described his team’s experi-
ence like this: “You’ve got team mem-
bers who are extremely competitive,
who want to win and are afraid to show
weakness.” The team member acting as
mediator explained that he heard their
concerns and their goals, told them
where other teammates were coming
from, and asked questions like, “Can
you just kind of talk through this a little
bit? Why do you guys need to be here,
and why are you afraid to have that dia-
logue?” In other words, he applied the
classic across-the-table negotiation strat-
egy of asking “why” and “why not” ques-
tions to the negotiating team itself.
Persuade with data. The fact that
team members don’t have access to the
same data is oft en the root of confl icts of
interest. In our research, leaders found
that their members were understand-
ably unwilling to commit time and re-
sources to the negotiating team until
they saw facts and fi gures that clearly
demonstrated the eff ect their eff orts
would have on their departments.
Unfortunately, the obvious solu-
tion – give people more data – is not as
easy as it sounds. Individuals are likely
to distrust data that come from other de-
IDEA IN BRIEF
Negotiating teams frequently ■
sabotage their own efforts:
Even though everyone is
technically on the same side,
each member has different pri-
orities and imagines different
ideal outcomes.
To negotiate with another ■
party successfully, a team
must fi rst negotiate internally
to align its members’ interests
and develop a disciplined
bargaining strategy.
By uncovering confl ict- ■
ing interests, the team can
determine which trade-offs to
make. Tactics like role playing
instill discipline and reduce
the risk of a serious gaffe at
the table.
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hbr.org | September 2009 | Harvard Business Review 107
partments, suspecting the information
to be biased and self-serving. One com-
pany solved that problem by assigning
a small task force from within the team
to jointly analyze the data provided by
each department.
Other companies brought in an out-
side consultant to gather and analyze the
data. An experienced consultant told us
how explicit details relating to the pur-
chase of hospital equipment helped one
team decide on a strategy. “Physicians
feel like they’re generating revenue for
the hospital, and therefore the hospital
should be able to provide the equip-
ment and products that the physician
wants,” the consultant explained. “What
they’re surprised to see is that a lot of
times the hospital actually loses money
on every procedure that’s done in their
group. Sharing that information with
the physician is an eye-opener. So when
we put the whole package together for
the physicians across groups, they were
more likely to understand and be will-
ing to work with the hospital.” A body of
data, especially if it’s provided in a way
that emphasizes its objectivity, can align
team interests because it off ers members
the opportunity to save face by making
concessions for the greater good.
We found that when teams took the
time to resolve their confl icts of inter-
est, members discovered one another’s
strengths and weaknesses along the way.
Thus, their eff orts to manage internal
confl icts also helped them identify the
best roles for each member to play in
the next phase of team negotiation:
across-the-table bargaining.
Implementing
a Shared Strategy
Gaff es made at the bargaining table are
usually the result of genuine diff erences
in participants’ negotiation styles, a lack
of preparation, or frustration. Although
rarely intentional, breakdowns in disci-
pline sabotage a team’s strategy in ways
that are almost impossible to recover
from. Such breakdowns reveal fi ssures
that the other party eagerly exploits.
Our interviews uncovered many ex-
amples of undisciplined behavior. Some-
times team members get emotional and
become irrationally intransigent toward
the other side, revealing information
that jeopardizes a position or exposes
a weakness. Sometimes the reverse hap-
pens, and an overeager team member
says, “We can do that” – without asking
for a reciprocal concession.
Interpersonal confl icts can contribute
to these problems. We heard of many
teams that struggled internally with de-
fensive posturing, perceived arrogance,
and clashes about appropriate negotia-
tion styles. Emotional and personal dif-
ferences can make people unpredictable
and diffi cult to align with the agreed-
upon strategy. Drawing on our research,
we recommend three tactics to avoid
breakdowns at the negotiating table.
Simulate the negotiation. To head
off surprises at the table, savvy teams
role-play ahead of time aspects of the
negotiation that they expect to be con-
tentious. Team members who have prior
What Does This Team Want?
A software company is about to negoti-
ate a new contract with an important
customer. But fi rst it must fully un-
derstand and resolve the confl icting
interests within its own team. A good
place to start is drawing a matrix that
sets out each member’s priorities. Then
it becomes easy to see which confl icts
will have to be resolved before the team
comes to the bargaining table.
Here, for example, the salesperson
and product manager want to keep
prices low to increase commissions
and market share; the general manager
wants to boost profi ts; and the business
manager is far more interested than any-
one else in the terms of the maintenance
agreement.
General
Manager
Product
Manager Salesperson Business
Manager
Goal 1
Software units
installed: 5,000
to 10,000
Priority not sure #2 #1 #3
Preference
increase units
installed
increase units
installed
increase units
installed
increase units
installed
Interests profi ts market share commission
more mainte-
nance work
Goal 2
Software price:
$250 to $400
Priority not sure #1 #2 #4
Preference increase price decrease price
maintain or
decrease price
no opinion
Interests profi ts market share
commission
on volume
no opinion
Goal 3
Maintenance
hours: 40 to
160 per week
Priority not sure #4 #3 #1
Preference increase
maintenance
no change no opinion
increase
maintenance
Interests profi ts market share
not a commis-
sion item
more mainte-
nance work
Goal 4
Maintenance
price: $70 to
$180 per 10
units installed
Priority not sure #3 #4 #2
Preference increase price decrease price no opinion increase price
Interests profi ts market share
not a commis-
sion item
margins
Adapted from Jeanne M. Brett, Negotiating Globally (Wiley & Sons, 2007)
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108 Harvard Business Review | September 2009 | hbr.org
Best Practice How to Manage Your Negotiating Team
negotiation experience with the other
party can be especially valuable. One
manager asks his teammates “to throw
out objections, so that you’re able to fi g-
ure out, ‘OK, if they throw that one at me,
who is going to respond to it, and what
is the response going to be?’”
Rehearsals like that enable individu-
als to determine when they should con-
tribute – and when they should keep
silent. They help people anticipate their
own and others’ likeliest emotional re-
sponses, predict where team discipline
might break down, and clarify who has
authority to make concessions and deci-
sions. Role playing takes time, however,
and requires extensive knowledge of
the other side in order to make accurate
predictions. If your team lacks either of
those requirements, focus instead on the
next two negotiating tactics.
Assign roles to capitalize on team
members’ strengths and interests.
Most people are familiar with the
good cop–bad cop routine as a way to
whipsaw an opponent. In a variation
of that theme, you can help individual
members feel comfortable with the
team strategy by giving them specifi c
roles. For example, one team protected
the member ultimately responsible for
long-term client care by “keeping the
bullets away from him.” His teammates
were the ones who directly confronted
the client about pricing.
Team members with particular ex-
pertise should, of course, be prepared to
speak when their input is needed. But
our interviews revealed that experts
frequently off er too much information
or chime in at inopportune moments.
Experts need to be prepped: how much
to say, when to speak up, and when not
to. We found that teams also ran into
trouble at the table when experts were
unavailable. Well-prepared teams plan
for the possibility that a key decision
maker or expert might for some reason
be prohibited from attending a session.
Negotiating teams need to have a
leader, but sometimes, when a team
lacks hierarchy, it’s not obvious who
that leader should be. Hence, team
leadership itself can be the subject of
intrateam negotiation. And although
someone must take the reins – manag-
ing preparation logistics, making sure
the team’s strategy has been vetted by
higher-level management or even the
board, and fi nalizing roles and respon-
sibilities for the bargaining session it-
self – the most eff ective team leaders
we studied did not try to do everything
themselves. You’ve got a team, manag-
ers told us, so use it!
One off ered this example: “Even if I
can handle all the technical issues my-
self, if at all possible I’m going to take
another specialist with me, preferably
someone who has negotiated before.
That way, I don’t have to be sitting there
thinking, ‘I’ve got to understand their
point. I’ve got to fi gure out how to re-
spond to it and then negotiate it.’ No-
body’s brain works that fast.”
Research by psychologists Leigh
Thompson and Susan Brodt found
that negotiating teams achieve higher
quality outcomes than solo negotiators.
Teams are able to learn more about the
other party’s priorities than one person
can. Having a lead negotiator who does
most of the talking and a lead strategist
who does most of the listening and is re-
sponsible for strategy adjustment makes
maximum use of team resources.
Establish a plan for intrateam
communication. This sounds like ob-
vious advice, but it’s oft en overlooked.
Although caucusing is always an option,
managers told us they tried to avoid
it because they didn’t want to signal a
need to adjust strategy. Instead, they
established creative ways to communi-
cate with one another, which ranged
from the explicit to the implicit and
from low to high tech. Said one man-
ager, “At one point Jim was going down
the path I didn’t want him to talk about,
Rehearsals enable individuals to
determine when to contribute –
and when to keep silent.
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hbr.org | September 2009 | Harvard Business Review 109
and I just put both my hands on the
table and did my stretch thing. That was
our code to change the subject.” Other
teams arrange the seating so members
can nudge one another and pass notes
discreetly.
Managers did say that it was better to
caucus about critical issues than risk a
major mishap. In one team we studied,
only the lead negotiator was allowed to
speak, but if a team member had criti-
cal input, she needed only to speak the
leader’s name, and he would stop, even
in the middle of a sentence, for a quick
recess.
There are higher-tech solutions for
sidebar communications. Teams we
studied whose members were geo-
graphically dispersed found text mes-
saging to be particularly useful and
more subtle than calling one another
on cell phones. Text messaging also
works well for teammates in the same
room who want to discuss what’s hap-
pening without distracting the lead
negotiator. Large teams using text mes-
saging or chat technology oft en had a
gatekeeper decide when the lead nego-
tiator needed to be alerted about new
ideas bubbling up during the course
of the talks. One team we interviewed
believed that having an intrateam com-
munication link via online chat was a
strategic competency. The team also
negotiated a contract with a vendor us-
ing computer-based document-sharing
and conference call technology to talk
across the table, while team members
(spread across two continents) kept in
touch and updated the strategy using
chat. Although complex, this system al-
lowed them to decide in real time when
to move ahead in discussing an issue,
when to reveal new information, and
when to make off ers and concessions.
• • •
The payoff from negotiating as a team
is clear. With access to greater expertise
and the ability to assign members to
specialized roles, teams can implement
more complex strategies than a solo
negotiator can ever pull off . But nego-
tiating as a team also clearly presents
challenges. How well a team resolves
internal confl icts of interest is closely
related to how well it performs at the
negotiating table: A lack of internal
alignment increases the probability that
team discipline will break down. A lack
of discipline increases the odds that a
team’s strategy will break down. Either
defi ciency can push the team into a spi-
ral that is hard to reverse – one the other
party will certainly capitalize on. That’s
why it’s critical to engage in internal ne-
gotiations before your team sits down at
the table.
Jeanne M. Brett (jmbrett@kellogg.
northwestern.edu) is the DeWitt W.
Buchanan, Jr., Distinguished Professor of
Dispute Resolution and Organizations at
Northwestern University’s Kellogg School
of Management in Evanston, Illinois.
Ray Friedman (ray.friedman@vanderbilt.
edu) is the Brownlee O. Currey Professor
of Management at the Owen Graduate
School of Management at Vanderbilt
University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Kristin Behfar (kbehfar@uci.edu) is an
assistant professor of organization and
management at the Paul Merage School
of Business of the University of California,
Irvine.
Reprint R0909M
To order, see page 123.
“Squeaking.”R
oy
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do
1432 Sep09 Brett layout.indd 1091432 Sep09 Brett layout.indd 109 7/29/09 6:36:21 PM7/29/09 6:36:21 PM
Copyright 2009 Harvard Business Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Additional restrictions
may apply including the use of this content as assigned course material. Please consult your
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institution. For more information and teaching resources from Harvard Business Publishing
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Artwork Andy Gilmore, Intermezzo, 2008, digital drawingSpotlight
SpotliGht on The SecreTS of GreaT TeamS
Heidi K. Gardner is an
assistant professor of
business administration at
Harvard Business School.
Coming
Through
When
It Matters
Most
How great teams do their
best work under pressure
by Heidi K. Gardner
AN AUDIT TEAM at a Big Four accounting � rm plunges
enthusiastically into a small project at an industrial
parts manufacturer. “The fees aren’t big,” says Claire,
the project leader, at the kicko� meeting, “but the
main thing, from my point of view, is that it’s a good
developmental opportunity.” Together, team mem-
bers divide up the work so that each can gain experi-
ence in a new area. Mitch, the member most familiar
with the client, suggests a novel method for tracking
the costs of raw materials that is particularly suited
to the parts maker’s approach to work-in-progress
inventory. They all agree it’s a great chance to try it
out. Things hum along smoothly—at � rst.
A few weeks later, Claire announces that Fred,
the manufacturer’s finance director, is “on our
tails”—scrutinizing the team in order, she suspects,
HBR.ORG
April 2012 Harvard Business Review 83
SPOTLIGHT ON THE SECRETS OF GREAT TEAMS
have been disguised.) I have since heard the same
pattern described in dozens of interviews I’ve held
with executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals
from a range of businesses. (See the sidebar “About
the Research.”) The problem is as hard to spot as it is
common. But teams armed with a clear understand-
ing of the forces behind it can take steps to guard
against—and compensate for—the toxic effects of
performance pressure and continue to do their best
work when it matters most.
What Happens Under Pressure
When people speak of working under pressure, it’s
natural to think of deadlines—of time pressure. But
that doesn’t turn out to be the problem here. Good
teams facing performance pressure generally have
the time and other resources they need to get the
job done, since their projects are so important. The
trouble is, they stop using them e� ectively.
This is profoundly counterintuitive. Shouldn’t
pressure to do your best work spur you to do your
best work? In the beginning it does, my research
shows, as people start assignments highly engaged,
paying particular attention to project planning and
team communication. In early meetings, team
members solicit ideas from everyone. They use
stories and metaphors to � esh those ideas out and
take turns questioning and challenging one another.
Team leaders will intentionally stir up the discussion
by asking the people with specialized knowledge to
play devil’s advocate.
But high stakes also commonly breed anxiety
among team members, their bosses, and their cli-
ents. As the pressure builds, individuals tend to be-
come risk averse, my research shows. Thinking of
the project as something so important that it cannot
be allowed to fail, teams opt for approaches they can
to defend his own tenuous position. He has repeat-
edly asked Claire’s boss to become more involved.
The learning goals � y out the window as everyone
focuses on wrapping things up. Sam and Rajiv, two
junior members, trade their work assignments so
that they can handle the parts of the audit they know
best. Mitch, after talking things over separately with
Claire, advises the team to abandon his new cost-
tracking method and revert to its standard spread-
sheets. “This isn’t the time or place for experiment-
ing,” he says. Everyone nods in agreement. What
had begun as a � ne opportunity for team members
to grow, innovate, and increase the audit � rm’s dis-
tinctive value to this customer has become just one
more standard engagement.
Most people would like to think they do their best
work when the stakes are highest—when the compa-
ny’s success depends on the outcome of their project,
when their team’s performance will determine if the
client renews a major contract, when a promotion is
on the line. But all too often, things go the way they
did for Claire and Mitch. Just when teams most need
to draw on the full range of their members’ knowl-
edge to produce the high-quality, uniquely suitable
outcome they started out to deliver, they instead
begin to revert to the tried-and-true. The more ge-
nerically inclined the team becomes, the more con-
cerned the client becomes, which adds more pres-
sure, pushing the team even more � rmly down the
safer, standard road. As a result many good opportu-
nities are wasted.
Welcome to the performance pressure para-
dox. I first encountered this phenomenon in my
research on professional service � rms like the one
Claire and Mitch work for. (Like all the other situ-
ations portrayed in this article, this one depicts a
real company, though the names and some details
People discourage alternative
views by rolling their eyes,
checking their smartphones,
and turning their backs on
colleagues.
84 Harvard Business Review April 2012
COMING THROUGH WHEN IT MATTERS MOST
Internal groups, which can be every
bit as susceptible to the debilitating
eff ects of performance pressure as
teams that work with external clients,
can similarly benefi t from taking
stakeholders on board. But if your
team’s client is your boss, you need
to think slightly diff erently about the
nature of that participation. Ap-
proach your boss too often, and you
risk being seen as needy and invite
micromanagement. To avoid giving
that impression, it’s wise to set ex-
pectations explicitly from the start.
A senior researcher in a consumer
products company suggests this
clever approach: Tell your boss, “You
said this project is really critical for
you, us, and our organization. Our
team wants to be sure that we’re
taking various nuances into account,
which means we’ll need ongoing
input from you. Let’s book some
frequent problem-solving sessions to
stay closely aligned.”
This tack has several merits:
• It builds frequent contact with
the boss into the project plan, so the
team can’t lose sight of her needs.
• It avoids creating the impression
that team members approach the
boss only when they can’t fi gure out
a solution.
• It positions the time together as
an exercise in joint problem solving,
which makes it clear that the boss
shares accountability for the proj-
ect’s success. That, in turn, reduces
pressure on the team, which no
longer feels it’s working in a vacuum
while dreading eventual judgment of
its work.
easily defend with narrowly de� ned performance
metrics. That’s exactly what happened in the teams
I observed, no matter who the client was, how large
or small the team, or how complex or simple the
project.
Critically, though, this shift was invisible in the
moment, as outwardly teams appeared to be car-
rying on just as they had before. But take a deeper
look, as I did, and the elements of the pattern be-
come clear.
As teams push toward completion, they
drive toward consensus in a way that shuts
down paths to critical information. Every project
needs to be � nished, of course, so it’s natural that
teams at some point try to reach a resolution. In
high-pressure situations, however, fewer people
participate at the usual meetings, and when they
do, they support their responses with hard, usually
quantitative, evidence instead of anecdotes and
comparisons. Rather than continuing to build on
new ideas, team members seek reassurance that
others’ suggestions are valid, asking questions like
“How does this usually play out?” or “Where else has
this worked?” Enthusiasm for innovation and impro-
visation gives way to concern for strict professional-
ism and for covering all the bases.
This still seems like discussion to the par-
ticipants, but in reality it’s an effort to move the
project along by getting everyone to agree that the
optimal course is less-risky option A and not more-
optimized option B.
The signs are there to see—if you’re paying atten-
tion. People encourage option A by asking for more
details, nodding in agreement when such details
are o� ered, and codifying them on � ip charts. They
discourage option B (or C or D or anything else) by
rolling their eyes, checking their smartphones, fail-
ing to take notes, and literally turning their backs on
colleagues o� ering alternative views, reinforcing the
point with barbs like “Keep up the debate and we’ll
be here all night” and “If we listened to all your ideas,
we’d never get � nished.” As a result people simply
stop o� ering up perspectives that are not with the
program. Or if they start to object to a point, they
rapidly back down (“OK, never mind”) after being
rebu� ed.
Surprisingly, in my research I found that even se-
nior team members succumbed to those cues, which
were often embedded in humor. “I think that’s a bit
rich for us amateurs,” one consulting team manager
working on a project for an oil and gas client said
jovially, interrupting a senior partner who was ex-
plaining that expanded ethanol subsidies—the usual
Idea in Brief
Every team would like
to think it does its best
work when the stakes
are highest—when the
company’s future or
its own rides on the
outcome.
But instead, new research
shows, the pressure to perform
drives people paradoxically to-
ward safe, generic solutions that
can be justifi ed because they’ve
worked before.
By setting up their teams
and measuring each person’s
contribution more deliberately,
ruthlessly insisting that no one’s
contribution be marginalized,
and framing new information
within familiar contexts, teams
can escape the performance
pressure paradox and keep doing
their best work when it matters
most.
When the Client Is Your Boss
HBR.ORG
April 2012 Harvard Business Review 85
Spotlight on The SecreTS of GreaT TeamS
acted, but the colleague who was ignored resigned in
frustration. “In the end,” the trustee concludes, “we
lost more than just a set of ideas—we lost the entire
source of them. But at the time I don’t think we even
realized it was happening.”
Everyone unwittingly begins to defer to au-
thority. As pressure mounts, teams stop making the
effort to sound everyone out and instead default to
traditional hierarchical roles. Team experts willingly
cede authority to team leaders, and those that don’t
are chided by their colleagues for stepping out of line.
Leaders stop calling on junior members and may
take on more of the work themselves—even tasks at
the level of running statistical software or copyedit-
ing a report.
This pattern was clear in one team of consultants
I observed, which was advising a pharmaceutical cli-
ent. Simon was the senior manager on the team, but
Dan, who was relatively junior, knew the most about
the client.
In the first third of the project, the pressure was
low. Dan was confident, taking the lead in answer-
ing the client’s questions, contradicting other team
members’ views, and standing up to illustrate his
argument with diagrams on a whiteboard. Others
reinforced Dan’s position by asking him to help in-
terpret analyses and turning to him before answer-
ing a question. Simon, too, was deferential during
these meetings, acknowledging other people’s
superior knowledge (“Don’t look at me—Dan is
the real pharma expert on the team”), making self-
deprecating jokes, and inviting others to present
ideas to very senior partners in the firm.
But in week four, Simon’s boss, Brent, fresh from
his own performance review, suddenly ratcheted up
the pressure. “I’m in the hot seat,” he announced.
Until that point, he’d played a fairly passive role
because, by his own account, “I know diddly about
pharma. I’m a retail guy. I’m here to learn how to
take REPRA [the company’s framework for analyz-
ing retail profitability] into the world of pills.” Sud-
denly, the project became critical to demonstrat-
ing that his expertise working with smaller, mainly
family-owned retail clients could translate into en-
during relationships with global clients from other
industries. What’s more, the project was turning out
to be crucial to the consulting firm, whose strong re-
lationship with the client had eroded over the past
couple of years. “This is a make-or-break study,”
Brent exclaimed. “If we wow them now, there’s a big
chance we’re back in. If we lay an egg on this study,
It’s one thing to know that inside information is
important to the success of high-profile projects;
it’s another to use it effectively. consider how one
wise team leader rose to this challenge.
making Smart Use of Inside Information
his strategy team was tasked with
developing a site-consolidation plan
for his company. eager to impress
the ceo with their analytic chops,
the team members engaged in a host
of sophisticated analyses, conducted
elaborate benchmarking exercises,
and sought advice from the most
highly regarded external consultants.
all of this led them to recommend
consolidating at a single low-cost
location—just what all the other
companies in their industry were
already doing.
But luckily for the team, its leader,
andrew, the newly minted executive
vice president of strategy and opera-
tions, was making the rounds of his
fellow eVPs to get acquainted. In
the process he learned that the ceo
had a Texas weekend home, often
worked from the backwater office
nearby, and was deeply concerned
that the company not strip jobs out
of the area.
andrew knew that he couldn’t
reveal this information directly. So
how could he redirect the team’s ef-
forts? he postponed the presentation,
caught up with the ceo (in Texas),
and asked her to recommend an
adviser to help the team explore the
widest range of alternatives. She sug-
gested her close associate martha,
who had recently retired.
martha, a natural conduit into
the ceo’s priorities, checked in
frequently by phone. “Whenever we
got too far along a path, we’d almost
hear her pushing us to explore op-
tions,” andrew says. as a result, the
team took into account important
factors such as tax breaks and the
impact on local communities.
Ultimately, the team members
presented the ceo with a set of
options. The one she chose—to
consolidate some small offices and
limit staff growth to lower-cost loca-
tions—wasn’t the one that would
save the most money. “The financial
costs are easy to quantify,” andrew
says. “That approach resonated with
all the ex-consultants in my group,
but it’s not the only way to look at it.
We ended up taking a more holistic
approach, which we dubbed the mar-
tha method.”
answer to the client’s challenge—faced considerable
political obstacles. In another team, members used
the quip “Everyone has to lick stamps” to cut off a
partner each time he suggested the client might
object to the extra work their standard proposal
entailed.
The consequences of such behavior can be far-
reaching. That’s what a trustee of a major museum
found, to his regret, when he reviewed transcripts of
trustee meetings held during the 2008 financial cri-
sis. “One of my counterparts in particular repeatedly
tried to raise different options, but we completely
steamrollered him. We got set on a course of action,
and it seemed like any new views were threats to our
very survival,” he recalls. Not only did the group fail
to explore alternatives to the drastic staff cuts it en-
86 harvard Business review April 2012
hBr.orG
then we’re out—maybe not for good but at least for
a long time.”
Brent started taking a more active role in meet-
ings, notwithstanding the fact that his expertise
was still not in pharma. Simon, too, began exerting
his authority by interrupting others, giving orders,
and arriving late to meetings without explanation or
apology. Dan was now contributing less frequently
and deferring more to senior colleagues. When he
did speak up, he hedged his comments with dis-
claimers like “It might not be worth mentioning,
but…” Senior team members repeatedly cut him off,
other colleagues turned their backs to him to face
Simon and Brent, and one of his peers even went so
far as to shut him down directly, exclaiming, “C’mon,
that’s enough already.”
Dramatic as this shift was, it was never visible to
Simon. When asked after the project’s completion if
he’d deliberately shouldered more of the workload
as time progressed, he paused and then said, “I just
did it, sort of without thinking, really. Whatever
seemed most natural. And I guess it worked, be-
cause nobody said otherwise.” But it did not work.
The team ultimately failed to wow the client, and the
firm lost the account. A year and a half later, Brent
was no longer with the firm.
Everyone values shared knowledge more
than unique expertise. This tendency, which is
natural in groups, is significantly magnified under
heightened performance pressure. That’s unfortu-
nate because one way customers judge the quality
of a complex product or service is by the extent to
which the solution seems custom-made for them.
As one project manager in an office-design company
said, “Customers who detect a cut-and-paste job feel
unloved.”
Consider how the managing director and finance
director of one company judged the merits of an au-
dit firm it had retained. They clearly took for granted
the auditor’s knowledge of general accounting re-
quirements like the International Financial Report-
ing Standards. As one of them said, “Yes, they know
IFRS inside and out, and they’re expert at applying
that to our business. But of course they do; that’s
why we spend all the money to hire them.” What
really mattered was that the junior members of the
team knew his company well enough to understand
that the inventory-tracking system was not as accu-
rate as it needed to be. So rather than rely on it (and
thus revert to standard procedure, much as Claire
and Mitch did in the cautionary tale I began with),
the team went into the warehouse to examine the
dust on the boxes to see which inventory was older,
a clever and efficient way to determine where to test
and double-check the standard data. Its efforts paid
off in uncovering some significant errors that could
have cost the company later on.
What Can Be Done?
The founder of a software start-up relayed the fol-
lowing story to me. The firm’s development team
had five members: the two company founders, a
highly experienced engineer, and two new junior
members. At the outset of a project aimed at win-
ning a contract from a large client where one of the
junior team members had worked for four years,
all five team members were equally engaged in the
Spotlight on The SecreTS of GreaT TeamS
A ContriBution SCoreCArD
What’s everyone here for?
formal tools like this scorecard can make a simple job of track-
ing everyone’s expected and actual contributions as work pro-
gresses. each team member should fill it in at the outset of the
project and revisit the issues raised at least twice more during
the project. at each check-in, the team members should meet
as a group to discuss their self-assessments.
hBr.org Download an interactive
version of this tool at hbr.org.
What do you know about…
The industry and competitive dynamics?
The client’s culture, politics, and decision-
making styles? The client’s processes,
systems, and technology?
Ways to leverage the range of
your knowledge and experience
Which kinds of knowledge have you
brought to bear, and how have they
influenced the project? Which knowledge
has been underused?
What competencies do you want to
learn? What proficiencies do you need to
demonstrate?
how much progress have you made
toward your goals? What areas do you
still need to work on?
Your development goals
how will you gain experience to move
toward your goals? Be specific!
List concrete ways you have made
progress.
Steps you need to take to
move toward your goals
What prior engagements have addressed
similar issues? What experience do you
have with this particular client, and what
did you learn from it? With other firms in
the sector?
have you contributed as much as you
expected? If not, have the engagement’s
needs changed? If so, be precise about
why your prior knowledge is no longer as
relevant as expected.
The knowledge and experience you
can bring to bear on this project
Kickoff meeting check-ins 1 & 2
88 harvard Business review April 2012
hBr.orG
SPOTLIGHT ON THE SECRETS OF GREAT TEAMS
the client organization itself. Far from increasing the
pressure, as many people expect, including a client
on the team lowers it by making everyone focus not
on justifying the outcome but on crafting the best
solution for the client’s needs.
Know what everyone is supposed to con-
tribute from the start. The best teams have a
mandatory kicko� meeting for every project, even
if team members have often worked together. When
colleagues know one another well, it’s tempting to
skip this step, but that would be a mistake. My re-
search shows that even people who have worked to-
gether extensively have disagreements about their
teammates’ relative expertise, which can be made
all the worse by the disbelief and disappointment of
discovering that colleagues actually don’t know one
another as well as they think.
To avoid these problems, one experienced con-
sulting partner has each team member create a con-
tribution scorecard at the outset of a new project to
outline every person’s potential input on the basis of
his or her speci� c expertise. (See the exhibit “What’s
Everyone Here For?”) These scorecards form the
basis for the team kicko� meetings, ensuring that
relevant expertise is unearthed and acknowledged.
“I think it gets us away from what we do by default,”
the partner explains. “Relying on status, who talks
the loudest, who has the British accent, who speaks
eloquently. Instead, our default becomes, Who owns
this knowledge?”
Check to see that everyone actually is con-
tributing. Formal checks can be as simple as a re-
view, conducted after one or two interim milestones,
comparing each person’s expected and actual contri-
butions. (That’s what the experienced partner’s � rm
does.) In this way, team members can see if they are
giving their client experts enough in� uence or con-
sider dispassionately whether they shouldn’t: Has
brainstorming process. But as more of the start-up’s
resources were poured into the project and the pres-
sure grew, the familiar scenario unfolded: The junior
members contributed less, the engineer weighed in
more, and the two founders began to rely on what
had worked for them in the past.
But then, fortunately for this team, the other
founder (the one who didn’t tell me the story) was
hauled o� overseas to attend a family wedding. Dur-
ing this break, he had the chance to mull over the
experience with his wife, and as they did, they rec-
ognized what was happening. The team was able to
correct its participation problems and bring to bear
the critical knowledge of the junior employee who’d
worked at the client.
This outcome is exceptional: Teams feeling the
heat of performance pressure rarely take the oppor-
tunity for introspection. But just because they don’t,
that doesn’t mean they couldn’t. The key to avoiding
the trap, as the founder and his wife realized, is to
see yourself step into it. Teams can take a variety of
measures to do that and to ensure that they bring on
board and do not marginalize people who have vital
information.
Put client experts on the team. Although
the teams I’ve described here all included such
people, that is not always the case. It’s essential
that someone on the team does have expertise
speci� c to the client—not just technical knowledge
about the client’s systems or strategy but also in-
sights into its culture, power structures, informal
working relations, individual predilections, and
working styles. Such information is just as criti-
cal—but is often taken for granted—on internal
projects. (See the sidebar “Making Smart Use of
Inside Information.”)
If no one in your organization has worked with
(or for) the client before, try to include a liaison from
90 Harvard Business Review April 2012
COMING THROUGH WHEN IT MATTERS MOST
the nature of the project changed? Was certain ex-
pertise less valuable than anticipated?
One financial services executive takes a more
formal approach. “I identify the most trusted per-
son on a team as the coordinator,” she explains,
“and make him or her accountable for understanding
each person’s potential and seeing that it’s brought
to bear. If someone gets steamrollered in a debate,
it’s obvious. But the coordinator needs to see the
more subtle ways that people fail to get engaged.
This has to be the role of a single person. Teams
cannot have diffuse responsibility because it just
evaporates.”
Take the time to get back on track. The
experienced consulting partner put it this way: “If
we’ve started to let the wrong people take too much
control of the project or send us in a direction that’s
right for them but not in the client’s best interest,
then we need to stop, reset, change plans, do a re-
think about our approach. It’s painful at the time,
because it feels like we’re backtracking and wasting
resources.”
That rethinking, the partner has found, is likely
to require the help of an outsider—a neutral party
brought in from a support function like HR or the
communications department on an ad hoc basis.
“Trying to break patterns without that kind of outside
intervention is too tricky, too politically charged,” he
explains. The adviser sits in on team meetings and
talks with members individually to work out what’s
going wrong and then feeds back the � ndings to the
team as a whole. At this point some members may
even be asked to leave the team if their offerings
aren’t a good match for the client’s needs.
Make unique knowledge more acceptable to
the group. Those with rare expertise can take steps
to avoid becoming marginalized (beyond simply
calling their colleagues to account when they start
tuning out). Presenting idiosyncratic information in
the context of more-general frameworks can help
their anxious teammates make sense of and value
their contributions.
One individual from a health care not-for-pro� t
used that approach to introduce her knowledge of
the local situation to her fellow team members from
the national chapter, as they considered ways to en-
courage people in her metro area to exercise more.
One suggestion on the table was to encourage people
to bike more, but she could see that would never
work unless lighting and security cameras were in-
stalled along the existing cycling lanes to make them
safer. And yet her comments about security concerns
fell on deaf ears. Then she realized she needed to be
talking not about “bike path security apparatuses,”
which seemed o� -topic to her colleagues, but about
“removing barriers to healthy living” to frame her con-
cerns in a more familiar way. She started couching
suggestions to address the lack of fresh vegetables in
the local corner markets in similar terms. In this way
she was able to help the group adapt its collective
wisdom to the issues at hand.
“NO PRESSURE, NO DIAMONDS,” as the saying goes. I’m
in no way suggesting that people avoid high-stakes
situations. Or even that they try to lower the pres-
sure those situations create. My research also has
con� rmed what people know intuitively: The chance
to come through when it matters most, to do their
best work when it will make all the di� erence, is a
fundamental force driving people to be more en-
gaged, work harder, and persevere despite obstacles.
With a better understanding of the counterforces
that can derail their best intentions, teams work-
ing on can’t-fail projects can arm themselves with
the tools they need to keep on doing their best work
right to the end. HBR Reprint R1204E
TO EXPLORE THE EFFECT
OF PERFORMANCE
PRESSURE ON TEAMS,
I began by conducting a
long-term study of more
than 600 members of
some 100 teams engaged
in projects for clients at
two professional service
fi rms—a global consult-
ing company and a Big
Four auditor. Through
surveys of team mem-
bers and interviews with
their bosses and clients,
I built up a detailed
picture of the context of
the projects, the ways in
which people’s behavior
changed as performance
pressure increased, and
how successful each
engagement ultimately
was. I then followed six
additional teams through
more than 80 hours of
meetings over the full
course of their projects,
which lasted three to 10
weeks.
About the
Research
TO EXPLORE SOLUTIONS
TO THE PERFORMANCE
PRESSURE PARADOX,
I then conducted work-
shops with more than
200 participants of the
Leading Professional
Service Firms executive
education course at
Harvard Business School.
To see how the fi nd-
ings, conclusions, and
solutions applied beyond
professional service fi rms,
I conducted extensive
interviews with dozens
of executives across a
range of fi elds, includ-
ing alternative energy,
consumer products, the
entertainment industry,
health care, quality im-
provement, software, art
museums, biotech, and
offi ce supplies.
The scorecard, says one executive,
helps a team break out of “what we
do by default: relying on status, who
talks the loudest, who has the British
accent, who speaks eloquently.”
HBR.ORG
April 2012 Harvard Business Review 91
Copyright 2012 Harvard Business Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Additional restrictions
may apply including the use of this content as assigned course material. Please consult your
institution’s librarian about any restrictions that might apply under the license with your
institution. For more information and teaching resources from Harvard Business Publishing
including Harvard Business School Cases, eLearning products, and business simulations
please visit hbsp.harvard.edu.
hbr.org | November 2008 | Harvard Business Review 121
THE EXECUTIVE TEAM is deliberating about a critical stra-
tegic choice, but no matter how much time and effort the
team members expend, they cannot reach a satisfactory
decision. Then comes that uncomfortable moment when
all eyes turn to the CEO. The team waits for the boss to
make the fi nal call, yet when it’s made, few people like the
decision. Blame, though unspoken, is plentiful. The CEO
blames the executives for indecisiveness; they resent the
CEO for acting like a dictator. If this sounds familiar, you’ve
experienced what I call the dictator-by-default syndrome.
For decades this dynamic has been diagnosed as a prob-
lem of leadership or teamwork or both. To combat it, com-
panies use team-building and communications exercises
that teach executives how to have assertive conversations,
give and receive feedback, and establish mutual trust. In
doing so, they miss the real problem, which lies not with
the people but with the process. This sort of impasse is
inherent in the act of arriving at a collective preference on
the basis of individual preferences. Once leadership teams
understand that voting-system mathematics are the cul-
prit, they can stop wasting time on irrelevant psychological
exercises and instead adopt practical measures designed
to break the impasse. These measures, proven effective in
scores of strategy off-sites for companies of all sizes, enable
teams to move beyond the blame cycle to a no-fault style
of decision making.
When Teams
Can’t Decide
Are stalemates on your leadership
team making you a dictator by
default? Stop blaming your people –
start fi xing the process.
Best Practice
BY BOB FRISCH
Je
n
H
si
eh
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122 Harvard Business Review | November 2008 | hbr.org
Best Practice When Teams Can’t Decide
Asking the Impossible
Reaching collective decisions based on
individual preferences is an imperfect
science. Majority wishes can clash when
a group of three or more people at-
tempts to set priorities among three or
more items. This “voting paradox,” fi rst
noted in the eighteenth century by the
Marquis de Condorcet, a French math-
ematician and social theorist, arises
because different subsets of the group
can generate confl icting majorities for
all possible alternatives (see the exhibit
“The Boss Is Always Wrong”). A century
and a half later, renowned economist
Ken Arrow developed his impossibil-
ity theorem, which established a series
of mathematical proofs based on Con-
dorcet’s work.
Suppose a nine-person leadership
team that wants to cut costs is weighing
three options: (a) closing plants, (b) mov-
ing from a direct sales force to distribu-
tors, and (c) reducing benefi ts and pay.
While any individual executive may be
able to “rack and stack” her preferences,
it’s possible for a majority to be simulta-
neously found for each alternative. Five
members might prefer “closing plants”
to “moving sales to distributors” (a > b),
and a different set of fi ve might prefer
“moving sales” to “reducing benefi ts and
pay” (b > c). By the transitive property,
“closing plants” should be preferred to
“reducing benefi ts and pay” (a > c). But
the paradox is that fi ve members could
rank “reducing benefi ts and pay” over
“closing plants” (c > a). Instead of being
transitive, the preferences are circular.
When the CEO is fi nally forced to
choose an option, only a minority of
team members will agree with the de-
cision. No matter which option is se-
lected, it’s likely that different majorities
will prefer alternative outcomes. More-
over, as Arrow demonstrated, no voting
method – not allocation of points to al-
ternatives, not rank-ordering of choices,
nothing – can solve the problem. It can
be circumvented but not cured.
Although the concept is well under-
stood in political science and economics
and among some organizational theo-
rists, it hasn’t yet crossed over to prac-
tical management. Understanding this
paradox could greatly alter the way ex-
ecutive teams make decisions.
Acknowledging the Problem
To circumvent the dictator-by-default
syndrome, CEOs and their teams must
fi rst understand the conditions that give
rise to it. The syndrome is perhaps most
obvious at executive off-sites, but it can
crop up in any executive committee
meeting of substance.
Most executive teams are, in effect,
legislatures. With the exception of the
CEO, each member represents a signifi –
cant constituency in the organization,
from marketing to operations to fi nance.
No matter how many times a CEO asks
team members to take off their func-
tional hats and view the organization
holistically, the executives fi nd it diffi cult
to divorce themselves from their func-
tional responsibilities. Because the team
often focuses on assigning resources and
setting priorities, members vie for allo-
cations and approval for favored proj-
ects. When more than two options are
on the table, the scene is set for the CEO
to become a dictator by default.
More insidiously, the problem exists
even when a team is considering an
either/or choice, despite the fact that
the voting paradox requires three or
more options. Framing strategy consid-
erations as binary choices – “We must
either aggressively enter this market
or get out of this line of business alto-
gether” – appears to avert the problem.
However, such choices always include
a third, implied alternative: “Neither of
the above.” In other words, there could
be circular majorities for entering the
market, for exiting the business, and for
doing neither.
Take, for example, the ubiquitous
business case, which usually offers a
single, affirmative recommendation:
“We should aggressively enter this mar-
ket now.” The only apparent alternative
is to forgo the market – but some team
members may want to enter it more ten-
tatively, others may want to enter an ad-
jacent market, and still others may want
to defer the decision until the market
potential becomes clearer.
The use of the business case, which
forces decisions into a yes-or-no frame-
work, is a tacit admission that groups are
not good at discussing and prioritizing
multiple options. Further, when a team
of analysts has spent six months work-
ing up the business case and only a half
hour has been allotted to the item on
the agenda, dissenting team members
may be reluctant to speak up. Questions
from the heads of sales and marketing,
who have spent only a day or two with a
briefi ng book and 20 minutes watching
a PowerPoint presentation, would most
likely be treated as comments tossed
from the peanut gallery. So the team
remains silent and unwittingly locked
in the voting paradox. Ultimately, in or-
der to move on to the next agenda item,
either the team appears to reach a
majority view or the CEO issues a fi at.
In reality, however, there may be com-
peting opinions, alternative majority
opinions, and dissatisfaction with the
outcome – all of them unstated.
Managing the Impossible
Once CEOs and their teams under-
stand why they have trouble making
decisions, they can adopt some straight-
IDEA IN BRIEF
When executive teams hit an ■
impasse deliberating on an
important decision, they often
look to the CEO to make the
fi nal call, only to be displeased
with the outcome.
The CEO blames the team ■
for indecisiveness; the team
resents the CEO for acting like
a dictator.
This problem arises because ■
groups try to reach consen-
sus on the basis of individual
preferences.
Use the tactics described here ■
to circumvent this dictator-by-
default syndrome and create
genuine team alignment.
1592 Frisch.indd 1221592 Frisch.indd 122 10/6/08 1:02:39 PM10/6/08 1:02:39 PM
hbr.org | November 2008 | Harvard Business Review 123
forward tactics to minimize potential
dysfunction.
Articulate clearly what outcome
you are seeking. It’s surprising how of-
ten executives assume that they are talk-
ing about the same thing when in fact
they are talking past one another. In a
discussion of growth, for instance, some
may be referring to revenue, others to
market share, and others to net income.
The discussion should begin with agree-
ment on what outcome the team is try-
ing to achieve. If it’s growth, then do all
the members agree on which measures
are most relevant?
In the absence of clearly articulated
goals, participants will choose options
based on unspoken, often widely differ-
ing, premises, creating a situation that is
ripe for the dictator-by-default syndrome.
One division of a major industrial com-
pany, for example, was running out of
manufacturing capacity for a commod-
ity product made in the United States
and a specialty product made in Western
Europe. Because costs of labor and raw
materials were high in both places, the
leadership team was considering what
seemed like an obvious choice: shutting
down the U.S. plant and building a plant
in China, where costs were lower and
raw materials were closer, to handle the
commodity business and any growth in
the specialty business. Most members of
the team assumed that the desired out-
come was to achieve the highest possible
return on net assets, which the move to
China might well have accomplished.
However, the CEO had been in dis-
cussions with corporate managers who
were primarily concerned with alloca-
tion of overhead throughout the enter-
prise. The move to China would mean
shutting down an additional plant that
supplied raw materials to the U.S. plant,
with implications for corporate earnings.
Once the division team fully understood
what outcome the parent company
desired – to minimize overhead costs
without taking a hit on earnings – it
could work on solving the capacity prob-
lem in a way that honored the parent’s
strictures.
It’s essential to keep discussion of the
desired outcome distinct from discus-
sion about how to achieve it. Sometimes,
simply articulating the desired outcome
will forestall or dissolve disagreement
about solutions because the options can
be tested against an accepted premise.
It may also help avert the political horse
trading that can occur when executives
try to protect their interests rather than
aiming for a common goal.
Provide a range of options for
achieving outcomes. Once the team at
the industrial company had articulated
the desired outcome, it could break the
simplistic “accept,” “reject,” and “defer”
alternatives into a more nuanced range
of options: build a specialty plant in
China; beef up the plant in Western
Europe; or build a commodity plant in
China and gradually decommission the
U.S. plant.
Test fences and walls. When teams
are invited to think about options, they
almost immediately focus on what they
can’t do – especially at the divisional
level, where they may feel hemmed in
by corporate policies, real or imagined.
Often the entire team not only assumes
that a constraint is real but also shies
away when the discussion comes any-
where near it. When team members cite
a presumed boundary, my colleagues
and I encourage them to ask whether
it’s a wall, which can’t be moved, or a
fence, which can.
For example, one division of a glo-
bal provider of fi nancial services was
A management team is
attempting to select a
fl eet vehicle for its com-
pany’s senior executives.
When asked to rank three
choices – BMW, Lexus,
and Mercedes – the
individual team mem-
bers reach an impasse.
To break it, the CEO
intervenes and picks
BMW. But as the table
shows, two-thirds of
the team would have
preferred a Lexus. Had he
chosen Lexus, however,
two-thirds of the team
would have preferred
Mercedes. And had he
chosen Mercedes, two-
thirds of the team would
have preferred BMW.
Instead of being transi-
tive – Lexus beats BMW;
Mercedes beats Lexus;
therefore Mercedes
beats BMW – the choice
is circular.
Whatever decision the
boss makes, the majority
of his team is rooting for a
different option. Unjustly,
but not surprisingly, he is
considered a dictator.
THE VOTING PARADOX
The Boss Is Always Wrong
It’s essential to keep discussion of
the desired outcome distinct from
discussion about how to achieve it.
First Choice Second Choice Third Choice
Lou BMW Mercedes Lexus
Sue Mercedes Lexus BMW
Stu Lexus BMW Mercedes
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124 Harvard Business Review | November 2008 | hbr.org
Best Practice When Teams Can’t Decide
looking at new avenues for growth. Al-
though expanding the division’s offer-
ings to include banking services was
a promising possibility, the executive
team never considered it, assuming
that corporate policy prohibited the
company from entering banking. When
the division head explicitly tested that
assumption with her boss, she found
that the real prohibition – the wall –
was against doing anything that would
bring certain types of new regulatory
requirements. With that knowledge, the
division’s executive team was able to
develop strategic options that included
some features of banking but avoided
any new regulations.
Surface preferences early. Like ju-
ries, executive teams can get an initial
sense of where they stand by taking
nonbinding votes early in the discus-
sion. They can also conduct surveys in
advance of meetings in order to identify
areas of agreement and disagreement as
well as the potential for deadlock.
A global credit card company was de-
ciding where to invest in growth. Ordi-
narily, executive team members would
have embarked on an open-ended dis-
cussion in which numerous countries
would be under consideration; that tac-
tic would have invited the possibility of
multiple majorities. Instead, they con-
ducted a straw poll, quickly eliminating
the countries that attracted no votes and
focusing their subsequent discussion on
the two places where there was the most
agreement.
Using weighted preferences is another
way to narrow the decision-making
fi eld and help prevent the dictator-by-
default syndrome. The life and annuities
division of a major insurance company
had developed a business plan that in-
cluded a growth in profi t of $360 mil-
lion. The executive team was trying to
determine which line of business would
deliver that growth. Instead of casting
equally weighted votes for various lines
of business, each executive was given
poker chips representing $360 million
and a grid with squares representing the
company’s products and channels. Team
members distributed their chips accord-
ing to where they thought the projected
growth was likely to be found. After
discussing the results they repeated the
exercise, fi nding that some agreement
emerged.
By the third and fi nal round of the ex-
ercise, this weighted voting had helped
them narrow their discussion to a hand-
ful of businesses and channels, and gen-
uine alignment began to develop among
team members. Equally weighted votes
might have locked the executive team
into the voting paradox, but this tech-
nique dissolved the false equality of al-
ternatives that is often at the root of the
problem. Proposing options early and
allowing people to tailor them reduces
the likelihood that executives will be
forced into a stalemate that the CEO
has to break.
State each option’s pros and cons.
Rather than engaging in exercises about
giving feedback or learning how to have
assertive conversations, executives can
better spend their time making sure
that both sides of every option are force-
fully voiced. That may require a devil’s
advocate.
The concept of a devil’s advocate orig-
inated in the Roman Catholic Church’s
canonization process, in which a lawyer
Proposing options early and allowing
people to tailor them reduces the
likelihood of a stalemate.
1592 Frisch.indd 1241592 Frisch.indd 124 10/6/08 1:02:55 PM10/6/08 1:02:55 PM
is appointed to argue against the can-
onization of a candidate – even the most
apparently saintly. Similarly, in law,
each side fi les its own brief; the defense
doesn’t simply respond off-the-cuff to
the plaintiff’s argument.
In business, however, an advocate for
a particular option typically delivers a
presentation that may contain some
discussion of risk but remains entirely
the work of someone who is sold on the
idea. Members of the executive team
are expected to agree with the business
case or attack it, although they may have
seen it only a few days before the meet-
ing and thus have no way of producing
an equally detailed rebuttal or offering
solid alternatives. Further, attacking the
business case is often perceived as at-
tacking the person who is presenting it.
Frequently the only executives with
open license to ask tough, probing ques-
tions are the CEO and the CFO, but even
they lack the detailed knowledge of the
team advocating the business case.
By breaking the false binary of a busi-
ness case into several explicit and im-
plicit alternatives and assigning a devil’s
advocate to critique each option, you
can depersonalize the discussion, mak-
ing thorough and dispassionate counter-
arguments an expected part of strategic
deliberations. This approach is espe-
cially valuable when the preferences of
the CEO or other powerful members
of the team are well known. If assign-
ing a devil’s advocate to each option
appears too cumbersome, try a sim-
pler variant: Have the CEO or a meet-
ing facilitator urge each team member
to offer two or three suggestions from
the perspective of his functional area.
Instead of unreasonably asking execu-
tives to think like a CEO, which usually
elicits silence or perfunctory comments,
this tactic puts team members on the
solid ground of their expertise and trans-
forms an unsatisfying false binary into
far more options for discussion.
A major internet entertainment com-
pany adopted a novel version of the
devil’s advocate approach. The company
maintains a council to consider its many
Change lives. Change organizations. Change the world.
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126 Harvard Business Review | November 2008 | hbr.org
Best Practice When Teams Can’t Decide
potential investments, from upgrading
its server farms to adopting new tech-
nology to creating special entertainment
events on the web. In the past, each op-
portunity was presented to the council
as a business case by an advocate of the
investment, and each case was evaluated
in isolation.
Frustrated with this haphazard ap-
proach, the company established a new
system: The council now considers all in-
vestment proposals as a portfolio at its
monthly strategy meetings. All propos-
als follow an identical template, allow-
ing for easy comparison and a uniform
scoring system. Finally, each one needs
sign-off from an independent executive.
This system incorporates the devil’s
advocate role at two levels. For each
proposal the validating executive, not
wishing to be accountable for ground-
less optimism, considers carefully all
of the counterarguments, does a reality
check, and makes sure the sponsor ad-
justs the score accordingly. At the port-
folio level, the comparative-scoring system
reminds the team that the proposals are
competing for limited resources, which
prompts a more critical assessment.
Devise new options that preserve
the best features of existing ones.
Despite a team’s best efforts, executives
can still fi nd themselves at an impasse.
That is a measure of both the weighti-
ness of some strategic decisions and the
intractability of the voting paradox –
it’s not necessarily an index of executive
dysfunction.
Teams should continue to reframe
their options in ways that preserve their
original intent, be it a higher return
on net assets or greater growth. When
they feel the impulse to shoehorn deci-
sions into an either/or framework, they
should step back and generate a broader
range of options. For instance, the execu-
tive team of the property and casualty
division of a large insurer wanted to
grow either by signifi cantly increasing
the company’s share with existing agen-
cies or by increasing the total number of
agencies that sold its products. Before
the leadership team took either path, it
needed to decide whether to offer a full
line of products or a narrow line. As a
result, team members found themselves
considering four business models: (1) full
product line, existing large agencies;
(2) narrow product line, existing large
agencies; (3) full product line, more
small agencies; and (4) narrow prod-
uct line, more small agencies. Dissatis-
fi ed with those choices, they broke the
business down into 16 value attributes,
including brand, claim service, agency
compensation, price competitiveness,
breadth of product offering, and agency-
facing technology. Some of these value
attributes might apply to all four of the
original business models; others to three
or fewer. Agent-facing technology, for ex-
ample, is typical of working with many
small agencies, because their sheer num-
bers preclude high-touch relationships
with each one.
The team then graded its company
and several competitors on each attri-
bute to fi nd competitive openings that
fi t with the division’s willingness and
ability to invest. Instead of four static
choices, it now had a much larger num-
ber of choices based on different combi-
nations of value attributes. Ultimately, it
chose to bring several lagging attributes
up to market standard, elevate others
to above-market standard, and aggres-
sively emphasize still others. This turned
out to be a far less radical redirection
than the team had originally assumed
was needed.
Two Essential Ground Rules
So far, I have outlined several tactics that
leadership teams can use to circumvent
the dictator-by-default syndrome. These
tactics can be effective whether they are
used singly or in tandem. But if teams
are to thwart this syndrome, they must
adhere to two ground rules.
Deliberate confi dentially. A secure
climate for the conversation is essen-
tial to allow team members to fl oat
trial balloons and cut deals. An ex-
ecutive who knows that her speculative
remarks about closing plants may be cir-
culated throughout the company will be
reluctant to engage in the free play of
mind that unfettered strategy discus-
sion demands. Moreover, team mem-
bers whose priorities don’t prevail in
the deliberations must be able to save
face when the meeting is over. If they
are known to have “lost” or to have re-
linquished something dear to their con-
stituents, their future effectiveness as
leaders might be undermined.
Deliberate over an appropriate
time frame. All too often the agendas
for strategy off-sites contain items like
“China market strategy,” with 45 minutes
allotted for the decision. The result is a
discussion that goes nowhere or an ar-
bitrary decision by the CEO that runs
roughshod over competing majorities
for other options. When new options
are devised or existing ones unbundled,
team members need time to study them
carefully and assess the counterargu-
ments. Breaking up the discussion into
several meetings spaced widely apart
and interspersed with additional analy-
sis and research gives people a chance
to reconsider their preferences. It also
gives them time to prepare their con-
stituencies for changes that are likely to
emerge as a result of a new strategy.
• • •
Leadership and communication exer-
cises have their merits. A team can’t
make effective decisions if its members
don’t trust one another or if they fail to
listen to one another. The problem I see
most often, however, is one that simply
cannot be fi xed with the psychological
tools so often touted in management lit-
erature. If executives employ the tactics
described here, which are designed to fi x
the decision-making process, they will
have far greater success in achieving real
alignment.
Bob Frisch (rfrisch@strategicoffsites.
com) is the managing partner of the
Strategic Offsites Group in Boston and
a coauthor of “Off-Sites That Work”
(HBR June 2006).
Reprint R0811J
To order, see page 139.
1592 Frisch.indd 1261592 Frisch.indd 126 10/6/08 1:03:11 PM10/6/08 1:03:11 PM
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