Negotiations are the stuff of business life, and volumes of advice tell managers how to prepare for and conduct them. But most of the advice applies to deals that are simpler than those pursued today. Negotiations now typically involve many parties that have an interest in the outcome—the "stakeholders"—and require decisions on many complex issues. Immense sums of money may ride on the outcome.

Sophisticated support for negotiators is available—for example, computer simulation models based on dynamic game theory. These models can predict the behavior of stakeholders in multiparty deals and guide negotiators to winning strategies. As yet, however, few business leaders feel comfortable surrendering their personal judgment on such crucial issues to a "black box."

We have therefore been developing a middle way: a set of readily understood tools to help decision makers in complex multiparty negotiations.¹ With the help of these tools, negotiators can develop strategies that are not only favorable to them but also palatable to the other parties. This method rests on the same logic as sophisticated simulation tools but doesn’t require an elaborate computer model. It has been used so far to develop strategies for several real-life negotiations and is appropriate whenever many...