A few publications by and about us

• The book which first described our approach to negotiation in detail is The Manager as Negotiator: Bargaining for Cooperation and Competitive Gain, published by the Free Press in New York.
• "A Really Good Deal," written by Harvard Business Review editor Thomas Stewart and published November 01, 2003, describes a series of articles written by Jim, Ron, and David that appeared in the Harvard Business Review.
• A Harvard Business Review editorial, " A Really Good Deal," about James K. Sebenius, David A. Lax, and Ron S. Fortgang.
• A September 1, 2004 Negotiation article, " Anchoring Expectations," by David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius.
• An August 3, 2004 Financial Times article, " Negotiation: the right set-up makes a deal," by David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius.
• A version of a July/August 2004 Ivey Business Journal article, " How No-Deal Options Can Drive Great Deals: When Actions Away from the Table Eclipse Face-to-Face Negotiation," by David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius.  This version has the full set of citations and sources (omitted by editorial policy from the published version).
• Negotiation article, " When a Contract Isn't Enough: How to Be Sure Your Agent Gets You the Best Deal," by James K. Sebenius.
• " A Better Way to Negotiate: Backward," by James K. Sebenius. (Reprinted from a July 1, 2004 Negotiation article.)
• A February 1, 2004 Negotiation article, " Negotiating in Three Dimensions," by James K. Sebenius.
• A November 01, 2003 Harvard Business Review article, " 3-D Negotiation: Playing the Whole Game," by David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius.
• A February 01, 2003 Harvard Business Review article, " Negotiating the Spirit of the Deal," by Ron S. Fortgang, David A. Lax, and James K. Sebenius.
• A March 01, 2002 Harvard Business Review article, " The Hidden Challenge of Cross-Border Negotiations," by James K. Sebenius.
• An article briefly summarizing our advice, "The art of getting the best deal," appeared in the Financial Times in October 2000.
• An April 2001 Harvard Business Review article, "Six Habits of Merely Effective Negotiators," by James K. Sebenius, contains a distillation of our advice for avoiding common, costly errors in negotiation.
• A June 17, 1996 Forbes article profiled David Lax and described some of our personal and professional negotiations.
• Lessons from a close analysis of one company's negotiating strategies for completing difficult acquisitions in Italy, France and Germany is contained in the article, "Negotiating Cross-Border Acquisitions," in Sloan Management Review, by James K. Sebenius. Winter 1998.
• An article profiling us and some of our recent research in negotiating strategies is "Building Bridges: New Dimensions in Negotiation," in Working Knowledge, October 12, 1999, by Anita Harris.
  Note: Registration (free) necessary.
• Ideas for "virtual strikes" that we developed for avoiding player's strikes in professional sports have been described by us in articles published in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

A few of our negotiation case studies of particular interest

• Double Dealmaking in the Browser Wars (A) and (B)
• Honda-Rover (A): Crafting an Alliance
  • Honda-Rover (B): Honda Draws the Line
  • Honda-Rover (C): "The Sting"
  • Honda-Rover (D): The Changing Tide of the BMW-Rover Alliance
• Steve Perlman and WebTV (A)
  • Steve Perlman and WebTV (B)
• Morgan Stanley and S.G. Warburg: Investment Bank of the Future (A)
  • Morgan Stanley and S.G. Warburg: Investment Bank of the Future (B)
  • From Wall Street to Main Street: Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Co.
• Stone Container in Costa Rica (A)
  • Stone Container in Costa Rica (B)
• Negotiating the Law of the Sea

Links to high level Harvard executive programs in negotiation in which our principals play central roles

(Note: these programs have no affiliation with Lax Sebenius LLC. Contact the Harvard sites directly for more information.)

• Strategic Negotiation: Dealmaking for the Long Term, presented by the Harvard Business School, in London and Boston; a week-long, intensive program in which, according to HBS, "some of the world's most influential business leaders will work with some of the world's most sophisticated negotiators to explore powerful dealmaking concepts and skills that maximize a negotiator's ability to create and claim value on a sustainable basis."
• Strategic Public Sector Negotiation, presented by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, in Cambridge; a week-long, intensive program which, according to the Kennedy School, is for "senior level executives in government and their international equivalents, and senior executives in private and nonprofit organizations with heavy government interface. Negotiating successful formal agreements and productive informal understandings."