Bharani's

Negotiation is such a fundamental “threshold” skill that it’s nearly impossible for you to succeed long-term without developing skills in this area. Unfortunately, many people get the wrong idea about what negotiation is and how works.

There’s the infamous story about the guy who accidentally dropped a quarter in an outhouse, so he pulled out a $20 bill and threw it in afterward. When asked why, he said, “If I’ve got to go down there, it had better be worth my while.”

In a 1994 study, 37 psychology students were asked to estimate how long it would take to finish their senior theses. The average estimate was 33.9 days. They also estimated how long it would take "if everything went as well as it possibly could" (averaging 27.4 days) and "if everything went as poorly as it possibly could" (averaging 48.6 days). The average actual completion time was 55.5 days, with only about 30% of the students completing their thesis in the amount of time they predicted. The researchers asked their students for estimates of when they (the students) thought they would complete their personal academic projects, with 50%, 75%, and 99% confidence. • 13% of subjects finished their project by the time they had assigned a 50% probability level; • 19% finished by the time assigned a 75% probability level; • 45% (less than half) finished by the time of their 99% probability level. In project management, this is sometimes referred to as