engagement

The following items are tagged engagement.

How to Negotiate When You’re Literally Far Apart

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Imagine that you’re the CEO of a sports clothing manufacturer based in Chicago. You recently traveled to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to meet with a distributor who has a rich and diverse network in the European sports market.

During the business trip, you both express enthusiasm about the possibility of a joint venture and agree to give the potential alliance more thought.

Back home, you learn that one of your competitors has discussed similar plans with the same distributor.

Teaching Negotiation @ Online: Spring NP@PON Faculty Dinner Explores Online Learning

Posted by & filed under Pedagogy at the Program on Negotiation (Pedagogy @ PON).

Online learning is going through a renaissance. The Khan Academy is reaching millions with its decidedly low-tech approach while MIT and Harvard announced a very ambitious platform called edX just this month.[1] Proponents think we can learn from the less successful efforts of the 1990s and get it right this time. On April 17th, a group of PON faculty and educators gathered to share their experiences and perspectives on what works well online, where we are falling short and what the future of online learning might look like when it comes to teaching negotiation. The panelists for the event were Lori Abrams, developer of an online-based Negotiation Strategies course at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, Peter McAteer, CEO of Corporate University Xchange (CorpU) and David Fairman, Managing Director of the Consensus Building Institute (CBI). The session was facilitated by Professor Lawrence Susskind from MIT.

Teaching Negotiation Online: Lessons from Teaching in the Simmons College School of Management MBA and MHA Degree Programs

Posted by & filed under Pedagogy at the Program on Negotiation (Pedagogy @ PON).

Simmons College believes that it is important for people in a leadership position, in almost any profession, to have a basic understanding of, and competency in, the negotiation process. Therefore, negotiation is a required course for the Simmons School of Management Master in Business Administration (MBA) and Master in Health Administration (MHA) degrees. The author designed and teaches the negotiation course for the Simmons online MHA program. In this program, the negotiation course is the lead course in the curriculum, and serves as a foundation course. The students are mid-career, health-systems professionals, many of whom have terminal degrees in their clinical areas of expertise. The author also teaches negotiation in the MBA program, where she designed the course as a “blended” experience, with some lessons taught online between face-to-face class sessions.

Role-Play Simulations and Managing Climate Change Risks

Posted by & filed under Pedagogy at the Program on Negotiation (Pedagogy @ PON).

Climate change risks are an increasingly important consideration in many decisions with long-term implications, such as choices around economic development and infrastructure investment. It does not make sense to invest in projects that will be destroyed by sea-level rise or undermined by sustained drought. The enormous uncertainty associated with climate change makes it difficult, however, for decision-makers to plan ahead. This is particularly true in developing countries, where pressing needs like poverty reduction often trump long-term considerations about sustainability.

Roger D. Fisher, 1922-2012

Choosing to Help

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

It is the spring of 1997 and I am sitting in Pound 107 while Roger Fisher ’48, Williston Professor of Law, Emeritus, is telling a story about his serving as a weather reconnaissance pilot in World War II. As a teaching assistant for the Negotiation Workshop, I have heard the story at least a dozen times by now and feel my mind wandering. And yet, against my will, as the story reaches its crescendo and the combination punch line/negotiation issue flows from Roger’s lips, I find myself involuntarily leaning forward and, a second later, helplessly bursting into laughter. The note I jot down to myself is: “All of life is about who tells better stories.”

The Pitfalls of Faulty Contracts

Posted by & filed under Sales Negotiations.

Some of the trickier aspects of designing the right contract with your agent include properly aligning her incentives and monitoring her work. Supervising your agent can be especially hard when she knows more than you do about the area of work. For example, hiring an agent who’s a lawyer and paying her on an hourly basis may induce her to spend more time than you think you necessary – at your expense. She might become a literary perfectionist, spending hours crafting and polishing an offer letter to the other side when, as far as you’re concerned, the second draft would have done just fine. To prevent her from running up needless hours, you might opt instead for a fixed-fee engagement. Then, however, she may cut corners, doing just enough to reach her fee.

Corporate Stakeholder Engagement and Mineral Extraction in Colombia

Posted by & filed under Dispute Resolution, MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program.

I want to make four simple points regarding corporate social responsibility and mineral extraction in Colombia. I presented these ideas several weeks ago at a Harvard Law School seminar sponsored by the Colombian government. We had senior officials present along with a great many Colombian graduate students studying at Boston-area schools. I think these prescriptions apply globally, but they are especially relevant in Latin America.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) provides a new point of entry for those concerned about the social and environmental impacts of mineral extraction.

Are You Listening to Me?

Posted by & filed under Dispute Resolution.

For your next negotiation, what would you pay for a gadget that shows you how well you’re engaging the other side?

It would tell you when you’ve been persuasive enough to close a deal.

It would also alert you when the other side has tuned you out, so you’d know how to take a different tack.

A team of researchers at MIT’s Media Laboratory are developing just such a device: specifically, software for cell phones and PDAs that analyzes speech patterns and tone of voice to determine how people are relating in conversation.