12 Guidelines for Making Concessions

Donald Hendon, Matthew Roy, and Zafar Ahmed (2003) provide the following 12 guidelines for making concessions in negotiation:

1. Give yourself enough room to make concessions.

2. Try to get the other party to start revealing their needs and objectives first.

3. Be the first to concede on a minor issue but not the first to concede on a major issue.

4. Make unimportant concessions and portray them as more valuable than they are.

5. Make the other party work hard for every concession you make.

6. Use trade-offs to obtain something for every concession you make.

7. Generally, concede slowly and give a little with each concession.

8. Do not reveal your deadline to the other party.

9. Occasionally say “no” to the other negotiator.

10. Be careful trying to take back concessions even in “tentative” negotiations.

11. Keep a record of concessions made in the negotiation to try to identify a pattern.

12. Do not concede “too often, too soon, or too much.”

Source: Summarized from Donald W. Hendon, Matthew H. Roy, and Zafar U. Ahmed, “Negotiation concession patterns: A multi-country, multiperiod study:” American Business Review, 2l (2003), pp. 75-83.