“Any deal is better than walking away.” Really ?

Anais N.
2 min readOct 19, 2017

Let’s take a case study often used, involving Disney and a group of environmentalists to illustrate this point.

Disney wants to build a new theme park and the environmentalists are opposed. They go around and around on what Disney could do to protect the environment while still building the park. The two sides are unable to reach an agreement, and the deals falls apart.
The result ? The new park isn’t built. However, shortly,

There are some cases that offer no win-win solution, and it’s actually better to walk away.

When you uncover the interests of the different players, it’s pretty clear, there’s no intersection between their goals, and walking away is the best choice.

Many of us hold to the mistaken assumption than any deal is better than walking away. This certainly isn’t the case, and walking away from a deal should always be considered a viable option.

The best way to know whether you should walk away from a deal is to understand your other choices, so you can accurately compare them to the deal at hand.

Always know your BATNA : Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement when you start to negotiate.

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