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Not sure it's as profound to others as it was for me, but my biggest lesson in negotiation was the idea of negotiating in bulk. If, say, there are 20 points to work through, the idea is to know before the negotiation starts which of them you're going to insist on, which you're willing to barter for, and which you're ok to lose (i.e. barter with).

As opposed to fighting through each of the 20 items one by one...

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You're right about knowing where you stand on each item going into the negotiation. It's important to point out, however, that savvy corporate negotiators will insist on stepping through one item at a time, taking a strong position on most and offering up only a token gesture or two in order to disguise their true interests, build leverage and the appearance of good faith.

I don't think he means "tell the other party where your priorities lie". I think he means "don't negotiate and finalize each point one at a time" because if you do that, then you can't give on something you don't care about in order to get more of something you do care about. I remember getting that exact same insight from a previous HN thread.

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