Sequential, opaque negotiations can provide tremendous advantage in certain negotiation scenarios involving multiple parties. This is demonstrated not only in more recent game theory developments but is also clearly observable in a variety of practical examples. A more collaborative consensus building approach can also be advantageous in some scenarios, but would not have been as effective in the Harborco negotiations.
Negotiations
The order in which things are said is almost as important as what is said, and in some cases it is even more important. This has been a long-recognized fact in the world of rhetoric and basic composition from time immemorial. It is only relatively recently, however, that this fundamental truth has been explicitly and consciously explored in the realm of negotiating and information strategy. The additional factor of who receives what information at what time, and the order in which separate entities are approached with different pieces of information, adds a similar but exponentially complicating factor to information exchanges during a negotiating practice. This was made very clear during the Harborco negotiations, as our team was able to use effective negotiation sequencing to our advantage. By striking certain deals first, supplying information and signaling intentions and plans selectively and on a time- and order-specific basis, the Harborco negotiations were handled more smoothly and more effectively than might otherwise have been the case.
Effective Sequencing
Through a series of increasingly complex examples and a sound explanation of what is ultimately relatively straightforward probability theory, Sebenius makes the importance of sequencing in negotiations and deal-making quite clear. There are many reasons that one party to negotiations might have their willingness to agree with certain deals or take certain actions altered by knowledge of the decisions others have made -- previous or hoped for alliances come into play when the decision of one allied party is known, risks can be reduced and/or rewards increased for one party by another party's decision or other information input, and so on. This was certainly the case in the Harborco negotiations, where several parties with complex relationships -- some shared goals, many oppositional goals, and other reasons for forming or refraining from certain allegiances -- needed to be dealt with in order to bring the negotiations to a "successful" (as variously defined by the different entities) conclusion.
Our group was able to use sequencing quite effectively, meeting with strategic allies -- those that had a position close enough to our own and with either enough concordance or persuasive/overriding power with those entities more opposed to our position -- securing agreements and certain aspects of the deal from these parties before moving to tougher negotiations. This enhanced our position with primary opponents both by giving us greater clout from which to assert our position and by enabling more persuasive deals to be made, making certain concessions through strategic allegiances that did not cause great detriment to our outcome but that created significant enough benefits for opposing entities to make deal-making possible. Had negotiations taken place in a simultaneous fashion, without the benefits of the initial agreements that smoothed the final round of negotiations would not have been reached, and the outcome would likely have been very different.
Non-Transparent Negotiation
One of the automatic outcomes of any sequential negotiations, whether the sequencing is purposeful and consciously planned or not, is that there is necessarily a certain lack of transparency in certain rounds of negotiation and/or in the level of information sharing over time. That is, by reaching agreements and/or sharing information with parties in a selective and temporally ordered fashion, some parties are necessarily left out of certain rounds of information sharing and will not be privy to the same set of facts at the same time. This occurs regardless of intention or of any perceived benefit of such opacity and is not always the result of planned selectivity in negotiations and information sharing, and though there are indeed some advantages to selective information sharing and the lack of transparency involved in sequencing negotiations there can also be some disadvantages.
The advantages to this opacity are clear: by exerting greater control over the flow of information, keeping certain things hidden or secret from certain entities on a planned basis, the negotiating position is strengthened. Hidden knowledge about other entities involved in the negotiations can be especially useful in helping to reach advantageous arrangements in complex, multi-party negotiations. At the same time, the simple lack of transparency can cause distrust between parties regardless of specific details or concerns -- opacity naturally breeds uncertainty and mistrust. A scenario that allows one party to conduct secret or opaque negotiations also typically allows other parties to do the same, too, meaning there is the same potential for disadvantage as there is for advantage. Secret and unknown deals can be struck by other parties as well, that is, and there is ample reason to believe that other groups will do so given an opportunity and the advantages that such deals can entail. Transparency is instill in negotiations precisely to create trust and to constrict movements to those that can openly be taken, thus any system that limits transparency creates risks for all parties.
Robert's Rules
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