One of the all-time best-selling investment books is Burton Malkiel’s 1973 A Random Walk Down Wall Street, now in its 12 edition. Its thesis is “a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would as well as one carefully selected by the experts” because the markets have already factored in all the information… read more →
Any negotiator is going to face setbacks – probably including some serious ones. Even if you follow all the advice we at Mobus Creative Negotiating give, sometimes things will not go your way. It’s important to understand how, when you have been knocked down, to get up, dust yourself off, and move forward. Catherine Sanderson of Amherst College gives much… read more →
We at Mobus Creative Negotiating point out that much modern negotiating is about the terms for an ongoing relationship rather than a one-time purchase. When making even what looks like a simple purchase like a software program, we should think about the technical support and the future upgrades that the supplier will provide. In The Optimists’ Telescope, Bina Venkataraman explores… read more →
We at Mobus Creative Negotiating have often cited the work of Nobel-Prize-winning economists. Today we turn to a different kind of champion, namely, a poker player. More specifically, Annie Duke – a World Series of Poker bracelet winner, the winner of the 2004 Tournament of Champions and the only woman to win the NBC National Poker Heads Up Championship. She… read more →
In the world, many firms are subcontracting out activities that in past decades they would have had employees do. Why is that? One of the modern economic theories which we use at Mobus Creative Negotiating is transaction cost economics by Nobel-Prize-winning economist John Williamson. He developed and expanded the work of Ronald Coase from the 1930s. The basic question they… read more →
Charles Lamb is a Johns Hopkins University brain surgeon who studies creativity and speaks about his work in a way any layman can follow; see https://www.ted.com/talks/charles_limb_your_brain_on_improv/transcript . He admits that his speciality is a little odd; as he puts it, “I have never had a patient tell me, ‘I really want you to be creative during surgery.’” He is fascinated… read more →
We at Mobus Creative Negotiating are constantly checking out the latest research to see what can help negotiators. We often talk about “behavioral economics” which one recent survey described as follows: “Much of behavioral economics consists in using psychological insights to influence behavior. These interventions tend to be small, often involving subtle changes in how choices are presented” (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/opinion/sunday/behavioral-economics.html). Debates… read more →
We at Mobus Creative Negotiating have long taught techniques for negotiating by phone as well as face to face. Well, that’s becoming passé. Phoning is so 20th century: no millennials speak on a phone. To quote an August 9, 2018, Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/09/want-better-customer-service-dont-call-text, “Some 20 million businesses now use Facebook Messenger each month to talk to their customers.” Facebook’s… read more →
We’ve been too busy here at Mobus to keep up and now we’re trying to catch up. I plan on doing a few blog posts to provide quick updates. Please check back for new blogs over the next couple of weeks like this one on the live, public seminars, the Mobus eCourse and perhaps even news on the upcoming book… read more →
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