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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For Steve Ballmer, Negotiation Skills Go on the Back Burner

Katie Shonk   •  06/10/2014   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

On May 30, the National Basketball Association (NBA) announced it had approved former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s record-breaking $2 billion offer to buy the Los Angeles Clippers from Shelly Sterling, wife of Clippers owner Donald Sterling. In April, the NBA banned Sterling from the league for life after racist remarks he made during a phone … Learn More About This Program

2014 Winner of the Raiffa Doctoral Student Paper Award

PON Staff   •  05/22/2014   •  Filed in Awards, Grants, and Fellowships, Negotiation Skills

The Program on Negotiation has awarded Eugene B. Kogan the 2014 Howard Raiffa Doctoral Student Paper Award for his paper “Coercing Allies: Why Friends Abandon Nuclear Plans.” This paper was submitted as his thesis for the Ph.D. program at Brandeis. Mr. Kogan is currently a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow in the International Security Program at … Learn More About This Program

Disappointed by Results? Improve Accountability in Business Negotiations

PON Staff   •  05/19/2014   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

When it comes to planning and carrying out talks, negotiators are too often left to their own devices.

Here’s how to guide your employees toward better results.

How satisfied are you with the outcomes that negotiators in your organization achieve?
Most likely, you can think of a few successes worth crowing about, a few you’d like to sweep … Learn More About This Program

Great Negotiator 2014 Tommy Koh Describes Negotiation as an Art and Science

PON Staff   •  05/09/2014   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Program on Negotiation and Harvard Kennedy School’s Future of Diplomacy Project Great Negotiator award winner for 2014, Singaporean diplomat Tommy Koh, wrote an article about his experience winning the Great Negotiator award from Harvard University and the insights into negotiation he offered while honored here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. … Learn More About This Program

Low-Drama Negotiation Skills at the “Late Show”

Katie Shonk   •  04/29/2014   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Just one week after David Letterman revealed his decision to leave his long-running talk show, the Late Show with David Letterman, CBS announced that comedian Stephen Colbert would be his replacement. The negotiations surrounding the changing-of-the-guard were remarkably business-like and calm for the tumultuous world of late-night television.

Letterman debuted his show Late Night in 1982 … Read Low-Drama Negotiation Skills at the “Late Show”

Have You Negotiated How You’ll Negotiate?

PON Staff   •  04/18/2014   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

A large pharmaceutical company was engaged in licensing negotiation with a small biotech firm over the terms of a technology transfer.

When the talks reached a standstill over royalty rates, the two sides began an all-weekend marathon session.

Each side came armed with supporting arguments and data, but, by Sunday afternoon, they had failed to converge toward … Read Have You Negotiated How You’ll Negotiate?

With “Surrender,” John Boehner Shows Keen Negotiation Skills

Katie Shonk   •  02/25/2014   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

On February 11, House of Representatives Speaker John A. Boehner reportedly rendered his Republican colleagues speechless. At a meeting of the Republican Capitol Hill Club, Boehner announced that he would bring to a vote a measure to raise the U.S. government’s borrowing limit without preconditions until March 2015, as reported in the New York Times.

The … Learn More About This Program

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