When a group of people are negotiating, what’s the best way to arrive at a decision? Ever since U.S. general Henry M. Robert published Robert’s Rules of Order in 1876, groups have relied on the principle of majority rule, measured with a simple yea or nay vote at the end of the negotiation process.

Majority rule appeals to our innate sense … read more »

Sometimes parties to a dispute disagree on key facts and forecasts but lack the technical or scientific expertise needed to come to a consensus. Suppose, for instance, that a developer is seeking to build a high-rise condominium building in a village that is experiencing a development boom. Longtime residents fight the proposal, arguing that another tall building would increase congestion … read more »

Negotiation skills are a critical, although often overlooked, aspect of water management, especially in situations where water crosses boundaries. Conflicts arise when water is managed as a fixed or scarce resource, and allocated in a way that assumes some parties will gain while others lose. In a recent blog post, Professor Lawrence Susskind examines how negotiation training can help … read more »

About the PON Summer Fellowship Program:

PON offers fellowship grants to students at Harvard University, MIT, Tufts University and other Boston-area schools who are doing internships or undertaking summer research projects in negotiation and dispute resolution in partnership with public, non-profit or academic organizations. The Summer Fellowship Program’s emphasis is on advancing the links between scholarship and practice in negotiation … read more »

Lawrence Susskind (Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology; author of Built to Win; co-author of Breaking Robert’s Rules and Breaking the Impasse)

Making public policy about energy has been a scattered, uncoordinated disaster. In this posting, the author argues for a negotiated, consensus building approach to energy planning.

Read More … read more »

Patrick Field is Managing Director at the Consensus Building Institute (CBI), Associate Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, and Senior Fellow at the University of Montana Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy. As one of the country’s most experienced group facilitators, Mr. Field has helped thousands of stakeholders reach agreement on organizational mergers, realignments, regulations, permits, and other … read more »

David Fairman is Managing Director at the Consensus Building Institute (CBI), Associate Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, and Lecturer in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT and a B.A. from Harvard College. At MIT, his academic focus is the application of negotiation and consensus building principles and tools … read more »

The PON Clearinghouse offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. Negotiating Budget Cuts at Newtowne Hospital is a six-person negotiation among hospital administration and employee representatives to reach consensus on budget cuts in three departments.

SCENARIO:

Dr. Van Hagen, a distinguished heart surgeon, will soon join the staff at Newtowne Hospital, a 750 bed teaching institution. … read more »

The Clearinghouse at PON offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. The Pullman Strike Role Play is a simulation from the Workable Peace Curriculum Series unit on the rise of organized labor in the United States.

This role play is set in the town of Pullman, Illinois, outside of Chicago, in 1894. Pullman is a … read more »

The Clearinghouse at PON offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. Teflex Products is a five-party, multi-issue negotiation among representatives of a pharmaceutical company, a medical drug manufacturer, and three consumer organizations over the delayed release of a new drug.

SCENARIO:

Midland Pharmaceutical Company has developed Renaid, a breakthrough drug that moderates kidney damage due to … read more »