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.

Negotiation training courses include Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems, the Advanced Negotiation Master Class, Harvard Negotiation Institute programs, and the PON graduate seminars.

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 Skills: View Your Counterpart as an Agent

PON Staff   •  01/26/2015   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Looking for yet another way to build your power at the negotiating table? Examine the incentives of your counterpart—and then consider whether they align with those of the group she represents. In most business negotiations, notes Harvard professor Guhan Subramanian, your counterpart is acting as her organization’s representative, or agent (just as you’re acting as … Learn More About This Program 

Negotiation Skills: Overcoming the Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) Syndrome

PON Staff   •  01/17/2015   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Lawrence Susskind (Ford professor of Urban and Environmental Planning, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology; author of Built to Win; co-author of Breaking Robert’s Rules and Breaking the Impasse)

NIMBY opposition is counterproductive, costly and unnecessary. In this posting, the author explains a proven process for getting around it and settling disputes before they have a chance … Learn More About This Program 

Harvard Programs Host Discussion on “Why Is It Hard to Talk About War? Bridging the Civilian – Military Divide” with Congressman-Elect Seth Moulton and PON Managing Director Susan Hackley

PON Staff   •  01/13/2015   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

On December 8, 2014, Congressman-Elect Seth Moulton and Managing Director Susan Hackley co-presented at Harvard’s Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution. This seminar series is sponsored by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, The Weatherhead … Learn More About This Program 

For Sony Pictures Execs, The Interview Tested Negotiation Skills

PON Staff   •  12/30/2014   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

On December 17, Sony Pictures Entertainment made the unprecedented move of canceling the scheduled release of a major motion picture, the Seth Rogen comedy The Interview, due to the threat of terrorist attacks from hackers. The nation’s largest multiplex theater chains had already decided not to show the film in the wake of the threat … Learn More About This Program 

The insincere negotiator: The risks of emotional displays

PON Staff   •  12/15/2014   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Anger can carry an advantage in negotiation, past research has shown. When we display anger, our counterparts tend to view us as powerful and intimidating. Consequently, they make more concessions than they would ordinarily and lower their demands.

On the flip side, negotiators who appear happy tend to do worse than others. Happiness and contentedness appear … Learn More About This Program 

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