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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Negotiation research you can use: Recovering from adverse events in negotiation

PON Staff   •  12/31/2018   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

When setbacks arise in negotiation— from a take-it-or-leave-it offer to a walkout to an unexpected economic downturn—we’re faced with several choices. We can end the negotiation temporarily or permanently, we can double down and escalate conflict and competition, or we can see the setback as an opportunity for growth. By training ourselves to take this last … Learn More About This Program

Negotiation Skills and Strategies at Work: Negotiating Jewish Identity

Katie Shonk   •  12/17/2018   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

negotiating skills

What does it mean to be Jewish in America? The question offers many opportunities to apply negotiation skills and strategies, writes Robert Mnookin in his new book, The Jewish American Paradox: Embracing Choice in a Changing World (PublicAffairs, 2018). The author of numerous books on negotiation, Mnookin is the Samuel Williston Professor of Law at … Learn More About This Program

ESL Negotiation: Avoid Confusion and Conflict

Katie Shonk   •  10/22/2018   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

esl negotiation

“The language of international business,” a British executive once said to Tufts University professor Jeswald Salacuse, “is broken English.” The observation is rooted in the fact that most international business and diplomacy is conducted in English, Salacuse writes in his book Negotiating Life: Secrets for Everyday Diplomacy and Deal Making (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). … Read ESL Negotiation: Avoid Confusion and Conflict

The Anchoring Bias Can Get Talks off to a Strong Start

Katie Shonk   •  10/16/2018   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

anchoring bias

Should you make the first offer in a negotiation? Typically yes, abundant research on the anchoring bias suggests. What is anchoring in negotiation? In negotiations centered on price or another figure, the party who moves first typically benefits by “anchoring” the discussion that follows on her offer—even if the anchor is arbitrary. For example, the … Learn More About This Program

A Contingent Agreement Can Allow Negotiators to Agree to Disagree

Katie Shonk   •  09/03/2018   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

contingent agreement

Negotiators often try to overcome their differences of opinion about how future events will unfold through persuasion techniques. A more fruitful approach might be to “bet” on your differing views with a contingent agreement. By adding incentives or penalties based on future performance to your contract, you protect both parties against risk. … Learn More About This Program

Need Some Negotiating Help? In the future, ask your phone

PON Staff   •  08/31/2018   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Today, many people use “virtual assistants,” such as the iPhone’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, to perform simple tasks and provide answers to straightforward questions. So-called chatbots, or bots, grease the wheels of everyday life by giving directions, looking up arcane facts, providing customer service, and much more. The best bots can also carry out lengthy conversations … Learn More About This Program

Negotiation Research You Can Use: When anger helps and hurts at the office

PON Staff   •  08/31/2018   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Most of us dread displays of anger at work, whether we’re the aggrieved party, the target of someone’s wrath, or just an innocent bystander. But anger can have benefits in the workplace when expressed constructively, airing differences that need to be addressed, improving relationships, and bringing injustice and mistreatment to light.

Despite the potential benefits of … Learn More About This Program

A Criminal Plea Bargain Simulation

PON Staff   •  08/28/2018   •  Filed in Daily, Negotiation Skills

criminal plea bargain

The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) at PON offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. State v. Huntley is a two-party criminal plea bargain negotiation between a prosecutor and a public defender for a man charged with aggravated rape.

Criminal Plea Bargain Scenario: Two police officers on routine patrol were … Read A Criminal Plea Bargain Simulation

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