Stanford Technology Ventures Program; Arbor Advisors
Stan Christensen is a partner at Arbor Advisors, an investment banking firm where he negotiates on behalf of mid-market technology companies. He has nearly twenty years of experience in both transactional and operations roles and has worked on hundreds of transactions. Before starting Arbor, he was the General Manager of Eazel, a Linux-based software startup. He started his career in corporate finance on Wall Street, and then worked for ten years with CMG, a negotiation advisory firm affiliated with The Harvard Negotiation Project. In this capacity he worked with corporations and governments-advising, negotiating, and mediating transactions and conflicts. In 1996 he was selected as a Kellogg Fellow for his work in the non-profit and public sectors. He is a member of The Council On Foreign Relations and currently teaches a course on Negotiation at Stanford University in The School of Engineering.
He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Brigham Young University.
Related Links: stvp.stanford.edu arboradvisors.com/
Last Updated: Mon, Oct 30, 2006
Stan Christensen talks about his experience in negotiating salaries and fills the conversation with interesting personal experiences. He believes that developing a best alternative to a negotiated agreement and having a good idea about the objective criteria is key to effective negotiation of salaries.
Dan Springer, CEO of Responsys, acknowledges that the most frequent and important negotiations often occur with customers. Furthermore, Springer advises that the keys to a successful negotiation with customers include: 1) Preparation to discover what the customer wants and 2) Identifying the few things on which you will stand firm.
Stan Christensen, a partner at Arbor Advisors, offers advice on transactional negotiations and relationship management geared toward the student embarking upon their career. Topics covered include choosing a career, on-the-job expectations, work/life balance, and benefit mediation
Dan Springer, CEO of Responsys, provides counter-intuitive advice to young people by suggesting that when starting your career you should negotiate for the lowest possible title and salary at the organization of your choice. Although Springer provides this advice light-heartedly, he does so to emphasize the importance of setting up a situation in which you can exceed expectations and can rise to the top. In addition, he warns about the dangers of negotiating to hard for higher salary or positions which potentially make organizational members uncomfortable or lead to expectations that are difficult to meet.
Young explains how his children have taught him to be more creative with his negotiation methods. With kids, you have to navigate many times to reach a goal, he notes. He has also learned to recognize his best traits and those he needs to improve.
Stan Christensen highlights the fact that negotiations are serial events. He notes that it is important for one to realize this as you would encounter the same people in the future. He illustrates this fact from his experience in Seoul.
Steve Young, former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, describes the lessons he's learned in negotiating with teammates, agents, and in his personal life. Interviewed as a guest in Stan Christensen's Negotiations course, Young provides insight through humorous anecdotes across a broad range of experience. In particular, he describes different negotiation tactics that were useful throughout his career as a quarterback, lawyer, and entrepreneur. While earning his spot as the fiery leader of the 49ers, balancing life with children, and undergoing multiple business ventures, Young highlights the use of accountability, soft skills to deal with personal feelings, and working hard with no excuses, to achieve success.
Stan Christensen, partner at Arbor Advisors and Stanford instructor, advises those planning a career not to be overly concerned with a linear path. While certainly there are some jobs that require specific training and expertise, the majority of positions in the business world are available to the savvy and the willful who are willing to work their way in.
Young explains how he was able to overcome the pressure of being compared to legendary 49ers quarterback Joe Montana. The best strategy, he notes, was to focus on finding out how good he could get, not how much better he could be than Montana. This helped him move in the right direction and got his career going as well. Later on, he became known as the fiery leader of the 49ers. 
Stanford lecturer and Arbor Advisors Managing Director Stan Christensen discusses legal issues related to startups and entrepreneurs with attorney Martin Nichols, partner at DLA Piper. The conversation covers selecting and working with legal advisors, issues of compensation and negotiation, and the need for entrepreneurs and companies to always seek practical and efficient advice.
Dan Springer, CEO of Responsys, shares tactics for nurturing and protecting human capital. Springer argues that managers often make the mistake of giving unrewarding but urgent work to their best performers, which is a short term strategy that can lead to burnout and the loss of a company's best human capital. Instead, managers and entrepreneurs should focus on the long term and give their most rewarding tasks to star performers in order to nurture and protect them, because ultimately these team members provide the most value to the company.
According to attorney Martin Nichols, entrepreneurs need to have a great deal of trust when sharing intellectual property with venture capitalists, as VCs often will not sign non-disclosure agreements. If a client is working on patentable technologies, Nichols suggests trying to button up those issues before going to meetings.
Dan Springer, CEO of Responsys, suggests strategies to retain good people. Springer suggests that the most important strategy is to help team members feel excited about their career path, whatever that might be. In addition, Springer has found that smaller rewards throughout the year for excellent work have a large effect in helping employees feel appreciated and want to stay with the company.
Stanford instructor and Arbor Advisors partner Stan Christensen strongly advises career carvers to save salary negotiations for last, and not to overlook the myriad other topics of new employment to be discussed, including time off, assignment specifics, start dates, etc. When it is time to discuss dollars, do your due diligence and have competitive salaries at hand. This will make asking for more money a mere matter of fact, rather than an emotional escapade. Other tips include getting promises in writing, and dealing directly with your future boss whenever possible.
Individuals or startups seeking legal advice need to obtain solid referrals on all prospective attorneys. Martin Nichols, partner at legal firm DLA Piper, believes entrepreneurs often don't need big legal teams, but should always seek efficient legal teams.
Attorney Martin Nichols suggests separating legal issues from business issues before entering into negotiations. This strategy is often very helpful, particularly in face-to-face negotiations. In meetings and conference calls, Nichols sets out an agenda and key issues, and then tries to come up with a basket of issues for the business people to try and work out with their counterparts.
Secretary Shultz discusses what he learned about negotiation while serving in both the Nixon and Reagan administrations. Topics covered include how to know when to go to the negotiation table, the role of trust in negotiation, confronting the dilemma of when to use force in a dispute, as well as the Secretary's opinions on negotiating in the current political landscape. Current events covered include the Arab Israeli conflict, the war in Afganistan, the fall of the Soviet Union, and how the media has changed the modern negotiation landscape. 
Young talks about fostering great relationships with his teammates and learning how to overcome the competition by using his negotiation skills. He describes how most of the negotiations he has been involved with have been symbiotic. It is important for people to feel that they are not being taken advantage of because you will lose out in the long haul, he says. 
Stan Christensen is a partner at Arbor Advisors, an investment banking firm where he negotiates on behalf of mid-market technology companies. In this lecture, Christensen builds a framework and illuminates a few of the classical mistakes in negotiation. He defines negotiation as an attempt to persuade or influence a situation. He emphasizes relationship management and problem solving as being fundamental to negotiation. He also alludes to the conceptual framework by illustrating examples from his vast global experience.