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The following items are tagged prof.

Planting the Seeds of Peace

Posted by & filed under Middle East Negotiation Initiative, Negotiation Skills.

Tucked away in an idyllic corner of Maine is a summer camp that features many traditional American activities: singing around bonfires, flag raising ceremonies, Color Wars, and chilly dips in the lake. Less ordinary, however, are the daily dialogue sessions, where Israeli and Palestinian campers heatedly discuss their identities, homelands, politics, and pain.

Meet Seeds of Peace, the organization that runs this one-of-a-kind camp – and our client organization for a very unique clinical project. We – Krystyna Wamboldt (JD ’12), Rachel Krol (JD ’12), and Professor Robert Bordone (JD ’97) – partnered with Seeds of Peace to lead a skills-building workshop for the organization’s older youth, focused on interests-based, problem-solving negotiation.

As part of the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP), our three person team traveled to Jerusalem in January 2012 to teach negotiation and mediation skills to a group of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers, all former campers at Seeds of Peace. For three days, the “Seeds” did a range of activities, including several role-plays and active listening exercises. On the final day of the program, the students put their new skills to use in a group negotiation simulation about the conflict in Northern Ireland.

“It was incredible to look around the room and see both Palestinian and Israelis working together during the Ireland simulation,” said Rachel. “It was a challenging negotiation, yet they were communicating effectively, asking questions, listening to each other, and asserting their own interests while working towards a common goal. It was a wonderful sight!”

Closing the Deal is Only the Beginning of the Endgame

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

Often it is the relatively small details of an agreement that can cause the most consternation in negotiation. When viewed in light of the big picture, these details can be of minor importance, but while in the heat of the action they can become points of contention capable of derailing the process altogether, especially if these points are left unresolved and the two parties have to come back to the negotiating table again in the future. Tufts University Fletcher School of Diplomacy professor and Program on Negotiation faculty member Jeswald Salacuse recently described four such scenarios in his article “The Endgame” for the Winter 2012 edition of Tufts Magazine.
Professor Salacuse emphasizes that having good negotiation skills while in the midst of battle is important, but of equal importance is the ability to execute a good endgame. Professor Salacuse offers four methods to close the deal:
Set a deadline.
Not all issues have to be decided immediately.
Invite an influential third-party.
Solicit the opinions of an expert.

PON Summer Fellowship Program

Posted by & filed under PON Summer Fellowships, Students.

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 and

How comparisons affect satisfaction

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

Social comparisons are a critical factor in guiding negotiator satisfaction, Maurice E. Schweitzer of the University of Pennsylvania and Yale psychologist Nathan Novemsky have found in their research. Not only do negotiators compare their profit from a deal with the profit they imagine their counterpart earned, but they also compare their profit with the profits

Making threats strategically

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

In negotiation, the time, energy, and resources that you devote to reaching agreement can suggest that you’re desperate for a deal—any deal. The greater your investment in the negotiation, the less credible the threat of walking away becomes.

In such instances, one way to make this threat more credible is to find someone else to take

Are you taking too much credit?

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Many years ago, researchers Michael Ross and Fiore Sicoly of the University of Waterloo asked husbands and wives to estimate the percentage of the household work they did. On average, the total amount of work claimed by each couple far exceeded 100%. The husbands and wives felt they were contributing more than was actually the

Hardball tactics from a major leaguer

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Adapted from “Becoming a Team Player: Lessons from Professional Athletics,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter, October 2009.

In Major League Baseball (MLB), one particular player’s agent is widely blamed for the contentious nature of contract negotiations: Scott Boras. Boras has negotiated unprecedented contracts for many of the most highly paid players, including Manny Ramirez, Johnny

Avoid judicial bias with negotiation

Posted by & filed under Conflict Resolution, Daily.

Adapted from “Blind Justice? Think Twice Before Going to Court,” by Chris Guthrie (professor, Vanderbilt University Law School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter, April 2007.

Planning to resolve a personal or business dispute in court? Consider that judges don’t make decisions based on a thorough accounting of all the relevant and available information.  Instead, like

When negotiation goals backfire

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations, Daily.

Adapted from “Managers: Think Twice Before Setting Negotiation Goals,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter, May 2009.

In the years leading up to its collapse, energy-trading company Enron promised its salespeople large bonuses for meeting challenging revenue goals. This focus on revenue rather than profit contributed to widespread fraud and, ultimately, to the firm’s downfall.

To encourage