Marathon Sessions

Marathon sessions lead to agreement.  All night meetings between labor and management are common in industrial bargaining history.  Many of the great mergers and billion dollar deals we read about result from close-quarter talks that go on uninterrupted for days.  Marathon negotiations have always played a critical role in diplomacy and international trade talks.

When people spend long hours together-when they sweat and strive, play and laugh, drink and relax together-there is a good chance they will get to know each other.  By working together and sharing a common emotional experience, they become partners in a sense. They may reveal to each other the constraints they face at home and risks they are subjected to.  What a marathon session can do is reduce the abstractions and stereotypes of conflict and turn the talks into a person-to-person give and take.

There is a hidden ingredient in every negotiation-how people feel toward each other as individuals.  This is the “attitudinal” dimension of negotiation.  An agreement is hard to reach if the chemistry between the parties is not right.  What is required is a commitment to mutual satisfaction, a feeling of trust that they will do as they say and if trouble arises help each other over the rough spots.

The marathon works for another reason.  When two parties negotiate they are isolated, at least to an extent, from those they represent.  It becomes “us” (those in the conference room) against “them” (those in both organizations outside the room).  A long uninterrupted session increases the likelihood that such feelings of solidarity against outside forces will develop.  Both parties have a chance to talk off the record.

I am in favor of all night uninterrupted sessions under these conditions:

• When the impetus toward agreement already exists and a long session can help guarantee that outside influences will not raise new questions or otherwise deflect a settlement.


• When the parties have repeated the same arguments to the point that they are themselves tired and ready for compromise.


• When the negotiators respect each other.


• Both parties have the stamina to handle the stress of long sessions without suffering physically or mentally.


• When the discussions have progressed to the point where divergent issues and positions have a reasonable likelihood of being moved toward agreement.

On balance, a negotiator is better served by short sessions with long breaks than vice-versa.  Marathon sessions lasting to early hours of morning are dangerous to those who lack stamina and whose goals are not clear.  That’s when big mistakes are made.