Why Be Ethical?
Countless negotiation experts stress the importance of a negotiator behaving and strategizing with the LONG TERM in mind. Therefore, a negotiator should be ethical in a negotiation for many reasons, including:
- Your Conscience A negotiator cannot turn his or her conscience on or off like a switch. Unethical behavior in a negotiation environment is a slippery slope to unethical behavior in your real life.
- Your Reputation In today's hyper-connected world, reputations spread faster than ever before. Protect your reputation!
- Deals Recur In today's market place, product cycles are shorter and so are the cycles between deals. The person you are negotiating with today, might be on the other side of the table tomorrow.
- People Recur People are moving between companies more than ever before, so there is the chance that a negotiator will see the person on the other side of the table at another firm, in one form or another, at a later day. This is especially true, if the negotiator stays in the same industry.
- Creates Value If the other side believes the negotiator ethical, then he or she will often find greater value in the negotiator's proposals.
- Creates New Opportunities Many deals today are spawned by referrals. Will the person on the other side of the table refer you for future business in or outside of the company?
- Legal Risk Ethics and the legal domain overlap. For example, lying is both unethical and can be illegal. Lying in a negotiation or practicing malicious business practice can invite litigation or even result in fines by the government or a prison sentence .
- Loss of Profits Similar to legal risks, misrepresentation in a negotiation can result in re-negotiations of agreements and loss of profits.
- Dreaded No-Deal If the parties in a negotiation cannot trust each other, then there is a chance that an agreement cannot be reached, even if a deal was financially beneficial to both parties.
Here is a great interview with Professor Haracio Falcao from Insead University on the Value of Ethics in Negotiations:
*Sources of all content found on Sources page.