Negotiation Skills

Negotiation is a deliberative process between two or more actors that seek a solution to a common issue or who are bartering over an item of value. Negotiation skills include the range of negotiation techniques negotiators employ to create value and claim value in their dealmaking business negotiations and beyond. Negotiation skills can help you make deals, solve problems, manage conflicts, and build relationships as well as preserve relationships. Negotiation skills can be learned with conscious effort and should be practiced once learned.

Negotiation training includes the range of activities and exercises negotiators undertake to improve their skills and techniques. Role-play simulations developed from real-world research and negotiation case studies, negotiation training provides benefits for teams and individuals seeking to create and claim more value in their negotiations.

The right skills allow you to maximize the value of your negotiated outcomes by effectively navigating the negotiation process from setup to commitment to implementation.

The Program on Negotiation’s Executive Education negotiation training programs include Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems, the Harvard Negotiation Master Class, and the Harvard Mediation Intensive.

This training allows negotiators to:

  • Acquire a systematic framework for analyzing and understanding negotiation
  • Assess and heighten awareness of your strengths and weaknesses as a negotiator
  • Learn how to create and maximize value in negotiations
  • Gain problem-solving techniques for distributing value fairly while strengthening relationships
  • Develop skills to deal with difficult negotiators and hard-bargaining tactics
  • Learn how to match the process to the context
  • Discover how effectively to manage and coordinate across and behind-the-table negotiations
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Emotional Leadership Can Have a Silver Lining in Negotiation

PON Staff   •  11/11/2021   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

emotional leadership

The negotiations that surrounded the 1962 Cuban missile crisis were some of the most tense and frightening in world history, and provide a high-profile example of emotional leadership. Having learned that the Soviet Union had deployed ballistic missiles to Cuba, the United States orchestrated a military naval blockade to prevent the Soviets from delivering more … Learn More About This Program

Dear Negotiation Coach: Negotiation Mistakes in Choosing the Room

PON Staff   •  10/19/2021   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

negotiation mistakes

In her book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters (Riverhead Books, 2018),Thrive Labs founder Priya Parker, a professional facilitator with a background in conflict resolution, argues that most of us just go through the motions when planning events, whether a dinner party, a conference, or a negotiation. The result is often … Learn More About This Program

Dear Negotiation Coach: Are There Benefits To the Absence of Truth in Negotiations?

PON Staff   •  09/07/2021   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

truth in negotiations

We hear a lot about the benefits of telling the truth in negotiations. But some negotiators find themselves struggling with the question of how trusting to be. Is there a benefit to mistrust in negotiation? Should you always assume your counterpart is telling the truth?
In negotiation, our outcomes depend in large part on our ability … Learn More About This Program

Dear Negotiation Coach: International Cultural Differences Around Trust

PON Staff   •  08/24/2021   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

international cultural differences

When choosing new business partners, we size them up to decide whether they are trustworthy. Interestingly, international cultural differences can influence the way in which we make such determinations, Jeanne Brett, Professor Emeritus of Management & Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and Louisiana State University professor Tyree Mitchell found in a new … Learn More About This Program

Skills of Negotiation: Launching a Quick Campaign

Katie Shonk   •  07/26/2021   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Skills of negotiation

Advice on how to negotiate a job offer often focuses on the candidate’s perspective, offering compensation negotiation tips and guidance on adding other issues to the discussion. But how can hiring organizations gain an edge when competing for star candidates?

The negotiation example of how Howard University lured Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones away from the … Read Skills of Negotiation: Launching a Quick Campaign

Real Life Negotiation Lessons Learned from Fiction

PON Staff   •  02/25/2021   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

The

When the COVID-19 lockdown began in March 2020—coinciding with his upcoming sabbatical—Harvard Business School professor Deepak Malhotra, a member of the Program on Negotiation Executive Committee, saw the perfect opportunity to try something new. The author of three previous books, he turned his hand to fiction, penning “The Peacemaker’s Code,” a thrilling novel grounded in … Learn More About This Program

Advanced Negotiation Techniques: Negotiating Partnerships Online

Katie Shonk   •  02/08/2021   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

advanced negotiation techniques

As the Covid-19 pandemic took hold in the spring of 2020, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) ground nearly to a halt. Many believed it would be impossible to build the trust and rapport needed to form successful partnerships from a distance. But as social distancing restrictions dragged on, deal making took off. Global companies struck deals … Learn More About This Program

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