Negotiation: When to Stay and When to Walk Away

Negotiation is at the heart of almost every business transaction — whether working on terms with potential investors or communicating with colleagues. Listen to Ghanian educational entrepreneur Charles Yeboah as he shares his real-world negotiation challenges and get surprising tips and insights from Stanford professor Margaret Neale on how to turn your next negotiation into a win-win.

Charles Yeboah never imagined he’d be in the business of education. But after searching for a school for his daughter, necessity became the mother of invention. Today, International Community School is educating over 2000 students across Ghana with plans to expand to other countries. When it came time to expand, Yeboah needed to put his negotiation skills to the test with potential investors. He learned firsthand what Professor Neale researches and teaches: that walking away from a deal is sometimes the best outcome…even when a $20 million dollar investment is on the line.

Professor Neale believes that negotiators require a different mindset, moving from the idea of negotiation as a battle to an opportunity for collaborative problem-solving. She advises to never begin a negotiation without understanding what your alternatives are or what happens to you in the case of an impasse? “If I have a really good alternative, then you're going to have to pay a premium for me to stay and play in this interaction. Otherwise, I can just walk” says Neale.

Yeboah followed that advice in his own negotiations. “Whether it's talking to a banker or talking to a potential equity investor, you think about what you want to achieve with that investment and what they want to achieve with that investment. And then you want to make sure that you marry the two aspirations,” he says. 

Listen to Yeboah’s real-world experiences of sticking to his values when negotiating and get Professor Neale’s practical tips for preparing well and negotiating better.

To find out more, or apply for Professor Neale's Influence and Negotiation Strategies Program, visit: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/exec-ed/programs/influence-negotiation-strategies-program

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