Daylian Cain is a Senior Lecturer in Negotiations, Leadership and Ethics at the Yale University School of Management. His research focuses on “judgment and decision-making” and “behavioral business ethics.” In other words, he studies the reasons why smart people do dumb things. Daylian teaches a course in negotiations and we turned to that for the subject of this show.

Our conversation covers tactics for successful negotiating, things like preparing, deciding whether to ‘go first’, playing a weaker hand, asking for more, and gaining value from walking away. We close with current research in the field and in a closing question, tips on delivering effective constructive criticism.

This was the last conversation I recorded before the onset of shelter-in-place, and I’ve been chomping at the bit to put it out ever since.

Daylian refers to an online course he taught in April, and that sold out faster than he ever imagined. He’s put together a new online training program called Negotiating in Difficult Times that I’m excited to take.

The presale is now available, which you can access at negotiationmindgames.com.

He’s kindly offered a 20% discount to listeners of the show – just use the coupon code “allocators” when you sign up.