Learn how to negotiate like a diplomat, think on your feet like an improv performer, and master job offer negotiation like a professional athlete when you download a copy of our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.


negotiation skills training

What is Negotiation Skills Training?

When looking for negotiation skills training for yourself or for your team, be aware that the best negotiation courses encourage both collaboration and competition.

In the best negotiation skills training courses, executives and other trainees are taught not only how to effectively manage the negotiations they face, but also how to uncover new negotiation opportunities they may otherwise have missed.

Unfortunately, after engaging in a couple of days of training, employees return to the office and attempt to apply what they learned, only to find that their new knowledge often fails to “stick.” They quickly abandon the best practices they learned during negotiation skills training and replace them with ineffective old habits. Why?

There are several practices that can prevent negotiation skills training from passing on lifelong skills:

  1. Well-delivered lectures by compelling speakers can be a fascinating means of learning new knowledge and being entertained, but lectures alone are an inadequate means of helping people improve their negotiation skills.
  2. Organizations often encourage their negotiators to focus on narrow, concrete measures, such as purchase price, when judging whether a negotiation was successful. In the process, they teach their negotiators to overlook other important factors, such as relationship building, long-term risks, and the amount of time and resources devoted to a negotiation.
  3. Many people fail to recognize the importance of methodical review and practice of new skills after engaging in negotiation skills training.

So how can managers and their organizations increase the odds that negotiation skills training will lead to beneficial long-term results?

  1. The best negotiation training courses should be a joint effort between the trainers and the organization, considering the specific challenges facing your organization.
  2. Negotiation simulations, which allow participants to role-play real-world negotiation situations, are a key component of effective negotiation skills training.
  3. Negotiators’ new and improved strategies won’t solidify into good habits if they aren’t given lots of opportunities to practice their new skills on the job.

To learn more about negotiation skills training, download a complimentary copy of our special report, Negotiation Training: How Harvard Negotiation Exercises, Negotiation Cases and Good Negotiation Coaching Can Make You a Better Negotiator, right now!

 

The following items are tagged negotiation skills training:

Implement Negotiation Training in Your Organization

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Training.

Organizations across the globe spend many millions of dollars each year on negotiation training for their employees. This training can be in-house, led by consultants and other experts, or employees can travel to training programs at universities and elsewhere. After engaging in a couple of days of training, employees return to the office and attempt … Read More

Advanced Negotiation Techniques: Online Dispute Resolution

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, negotiators are increasingly making deals and resolving disputes online. But a trend toward online dispute resolution (ODR) was already in the making before we all began to quarantine. On July 15, experts discussed how technology can help us effectively and efficiently resolve disputes in a roundtable discussion, “AI Agents Negotiating Deals … Read More

Negotiation Training with Heart

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Training.

In typical negotiation skills training, we are taught to get beyond our emotions and look at situations rationally. There’s merit to this approach, of course, as feelings can cloud our judgment. But consider what Lieutenant Jack Cambria, who retired in August as the longest-running head of the New York Police Department’s (NYPD’s) hostage negotiation team, … Read Negotiation Training with Heart

Negotiation Training: Turning the Lows of Colorado’s Marijuana Laws into Highs

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Training.

In negotiation courses, trainees learn effective management strategies for their negotiations and how to find new negotiation opportunities at the bargaining table. Using an example from the city of Denver, Ben Markus reports for NPR’s Weekend Edition that Colorado’s recent legalization of marijuana has posed challenges to local jurisdictions in enforcing current federal law which … Read More

Video: Professor Robert Mnookin leads negotiation skills training for Jewish and Arab students in Israel

Posted by & filed under International Negotiation, Middle East Negotiation Initiatives.

In this video, Professor Robert H. Mnookin, Chair of the Program on Negotiation, reflects on his experience leading a negotiation workshop for high school students in Israel. The key negotiation skills emphasized in the workshop were active listening and the ability to understand the perspective of the other side. As Professor Mnookin states … Read More

How to Lighten Your Burdens

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

For decades, General Electric (GE) and the Environmental Protection Agency sparred over who would pay for the removal of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, that GE had discharged into New York’s Hudson River, a cleanup project expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. In October 2005, the two sides came to an agreement. … Read How to Lighten Your Burdens