Never paint yourself into a corner

If you state your limits immediately when negotiations begin, you violate a fundamental tenet of sound negotiations. You probably already learned this rule while fixing up your first apartment: Never, ever paint yourself into a corner. In negotiations, you paint yourself into a corner by taking a strong stand and not leaving yourself an alternative, or an out. In other words, don’t start a negotiation by telling someone that you won’t pay one dime more than 50 bucks (or whatever) unless you know that other stores offer the same product within your price range. Such an announcement paints you into a corner when no alternative exists.

In fact, the final instruction the judge reads to the jury before sending the members to deliberate a case is not to announce their position too quickly. In California, those final words are “

The attitude and conduct of jurors at the beginning of their deliberations are very important. It is rarely helpful for a juror, on entering the jury room, to express an emphatic opinion on the case or to announce a determination to stand for a certain verdict. When one does that at the outset, a sense of pride may be aroused, and one may hesitate to change a position even if shown that it is wrong. . . .”

Too bad no one reads these words to us as we start each day.