As negotiations move toward a close with agreement in sight, negotiators must attend to two key aspects of communication and negotiation simultaneously: the avoidance of fatal mistakes and the achievement of satisfactory closure in a constructive manner.

Avoiding Fatal Mistakes

Gary Karrass focusing on sales negotiations in particular, has specific advice about communication near the end of a negotiation. Karrass enjoins negotiators to “know when to shut up”, to avoid surrendering important information needlessly, and to refrain from making “dumb remarks” that push a wavering counterpart away from the agreement he or she is almost ready to endorse. The other side of this is to recognize the other party’s faux pas and dumb remarks for what they are and refuse to respond to or be distracted by them. Karrass also reminds negotiators of the need to watch out for last-minute problems, such as nit-picking or second-guessing by parties who didn't participate in the bargaining process but who have the right or responsibility to review it. Finally, Karrass notes the importance of reducing the agreement to written form, recognizing that the party who writes the contract is in a position to achieve clarity of purpose and conduct for the deal.

Achieving Closure

Achieving closure in negotiation generally involves making decisions to accept offers, to compromise priorities, to trade off across issues with the other party, or to take some combination of these steps. Such decision-making processes can be divided into four key elements: framing, gathering intelligence, coming to conclusions, and learning from feedback.