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Capital Allocators · Monday, August 31, 2026

Negotiation as Investigation: The Value of Pre-Negotiation Homework

Yale professor Daylian Cain highlighted that effective negotiation is akin to thorough investigation. He advised negotiators to dedicate significant time before a meeting to understand the other party's desires, motivations, and priorities.

personDaylian Cain

The tape

3 quotes
People don't learn enough about the person sitting across from them before they meet them.
Daylian Cain
A lot of it is elbow grease, like before I meet you, three weeks ahead of time, if you and I are negotiating, I want to know what do you want, why, in what order?
Daylian Cain
And so you're trying to figure out what are the right trees to bark up.
Daylian Cain
Heard on Capital Allocators — “Best of Negotiations: Daylian Cain, published Monday, August 31, 2026. Heardvine summarizes and quotes with attribution and timestamps, and links to the original everywhere.
Transcribed via Gemini audio transcription · $0.07