Using transcripts from the Program on Negotiation’s Great Negotiator Award seminars, as well as teaching cases based on the work of the Great Negotiators, this article analyzes how several of these Great Negotiators worked to make connections and establish good working relationships with their negotiating counterparts. Connection requires taking on a stance of curiosity about one’s counterparts, cultivating good relationships as a way to learn about them and their priorities, using moves that facilitate their ability and willingness to negotiate, and helping them save face in front of their key constituencies. Making connected moves at the moment can lead to turning points in a negotiation.
