Negotiation Skills

In late October, the Detroit Tigers were preparing to face off against the San Francisco Giants in Major League Baseball’s World Series. In 2002 and 2003, the Tigers had two of the worst seasons in baseball history, losing a combined 225 games. But through years of calculated decision making and negotiations, team president Dave Dombrowski … Read Team Building, One Player at a Time

During talks, effective relationship negotiators focus on a variety of noncontractual issues, including:

Getting to know the other side well
Establishing a positive personal chemistry between the leadership of the companies involved
Understanding and respecting each other’s cultures, expectations, and goals
Putting mechanisms in place to foster communication after the contract is signed
Ensuring that the proposed deal is … Learn More About This Program

The old saying goes, “there is no ‘I’ in team,” but recent research by Program on Negotiation faculty member and Harvard Business School Associate Professor Francesca Gino and others suggests that an organization should pay attention to the various individuals it recruits, and by doing so it can improve employee retention and productivity. … Read There is No ‘I’ in Team, Only in Organizations

Great Negotiator Award winner and former United States trade representative (1997-2001) to Japan and China, Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky visited Harvard Law School to speak with students in HLS Clinical Professor Robert Bordone’s Advanced Negotiations Workshop course on October 3. … Learn More About This Program

How can you gain an edge when you’re in the seemingly weak position of negotiating a favor from a government or powerful bureaucracy? Present the other side with a draft agreement that authorizes or approves your request. Busy bureaucrats who lack a strong grasp of the details at hand are likely to seize on your … Read Why Busy People Like Drafts

How important is body language to how you are perceived?

How about when you are debating national policy in front of millions of television viewers? … Learn More About This Program

Before launching a workaround, run through this list of skills-based strategies adopted from Getting Past No: Negotiating Your Way from Confrontation to Cooperation by William Ury (Bantam, 1993). Only attempt a workaround if you’ve tried them all without success: … Read Try Skills-Based Strategies First

By following these tips in your next negotiation, you’ll improve the chances of meeting everyone’s interests. … Read A Value-Creation Checklist: Five Helpful Tips

Experiments conducted by Program on Negotiation faculty member Francesca Gino and her colleague Sreedhan Desai suggest that remembering childhood memories may cause a person to behave in a more ethical manner. … Learn More About This Program

Roger Fisher, co-founder of the Program on Negotiation and the Harvard Negotiation Project, died on August 25 at age 90. A true pioneer and leader, he helped launch a new way of thinking about negotiation, and he worked tirelessly to help people deal productively with conflict.

“Through his writing and teaching, Roger Fisher’s seminal contributions literally … Learn More About This Program