Bargaining chips. (Start Up) (column)

Bargaining Chips

Despite global turmoil, Dan Burnstein sees happy days ahead. Call him an optimist.

Burnstein believes there's a growing recognition that armies and nuclear arsenals are not the best means to settle disputes, that people are beginning to realize talking is more productive and less expensive.

What's true for petulant nations goes double for sparring business associates and divorcing spouses. Deceit and subterfuge, threats and intimidation, emotional outbursts--they all produce dubious and costly results. It's better to employ personal influence and negotiating skills, says Burnstein, founder of Beacon Expert Systems, and the creator of Negotiator Pro, a software program he introduced last August.

Business hierarchies are breaking down, Burnstein says, so more people have more responsibility for closing deals. Yet few of them are properly prepared to do so.

"Almost everybody wants to be a better negotiator," he says, tilting back his chair in the cramped office on the third floor of his huge Victorian in Brookline, "Yet they think it's something you either have or you don't. They don't believe you can be taught negotiation."

A few years ago, Burnstein didn't believe it, either. A civil litigator for ten years, he thought he knew all there was to know about negotiation. Then, while producing a videotaped course on negotiation for Harvard Law School, he realized he was mistaken--there was plenty to learn. He perceived a need and set about filling it. Negotiator Pro, he thinks, is the answer.