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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Does Using Technology in Negotiation Change Our Behavior?

PON Staff   •  10/16/2025   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

technology in negotiation

Technology has infiltrated almost every element of our negotiations, as it has almost every aspect of our lives. Negotiation scholars have studied how negotiating via technological media affects the way we negotiate—concluding, for example, that doing business via email can increase misunderstandings and heighten conflict as compared to face-to-face meetings. But the ubiquity of technology … Learn More About This Program

Six Guidelines for “Getting to Yes”

Katie Shonk   •  10/15/2025   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

getting to yes

In their revolutionary book Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Penguin, 3rd edition, 2011), Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton introduced the world to the possibilities of mutual-gains negotiation, or integrative negotiation. The authors of Getting to Yes explained that negotiators don’t have to choose between either waging a strictly competitive, win-lose … Read Six Guidelines for “Getting to Yes”

Bargaining Power in Negotiations: Leveling the Playing Field

PON Staff   •  10/15/2025   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Wealth and Fairness

Powerful negotiators can be formidable opponents. That’s in part because their bargaining power in negotiations—such as a high position in a hierarchy, wealth, or a great BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement)—gives them considerable leverage. In addition, powerful individuals tend to demand more for themselves, in violation of fairness norms. Here’s a closer look … Learn More About This Program

Power in Negotiation: The Impact on Negotiators and the Negotiation Process

PON Staff   •  10/13/2025   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

power in negotiation

According to Dacher Keltner of the University of California at Berkeley and his colleagues, power in negotiation affects two primary neurological regulators of behavior: the behavioral approach system and the behavioral inhibition system. Powerful negotiators demonstrate “approach related” behaviors such as expressing positive moods and searching for rewards in their environment. … Learn More About This Program

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