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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Getting to No

PON Staff   •  08/31/2010   •  Filed in Daily, Negotiation Skills

Adapted from “When You Mean No, Say So!” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Too often, we say yes when we shouldn’t. Wanting to be team players at work, we postpone a family vacation. Or we pitch in on a community project when we have no time for it. In the short term, we please whoever … Read Getting to No

Trusting from Square One

PON Staff   •  08/30/2010   •  Filed in Daily, Negotiation Skills

Adapted from “How Much Should You Trust?” by Iris Bohnet (professor, Harvard Kennedy School) and Stephan Meier (professor, Columbia Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

What’s the best way to cope with a fellow negotiator who has betrayed your trust? Ignoring the problem is rarely the best solution.

When you distrust someone, you’re forced to … Read Trusting from Square One

Daniel Shapiro featured in article about negotiation in Oprah Magazine

PON Staff   •  08/30/2010   •  Filed in Daily, Negotiation Skills

In her article Mastering the Art of Making a Deal, Valerie Monroe consults Professor Daniel Shapiro for advice on negotiation. The article chronicles Monroe’s attempt to negotiate all of her transactions over the course of a day. Monroe references Beyond Reason, by Professor Shapiro and Professor Roger Fisher as well as William Ury’s book Getting … Learn More About This Program

Social Comparisons In Ultimatum Bargaining

PON Staff   •  08/20/2010   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Author: Iris Bohnet, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; director of the Women and Public Policy Program; associate director of the Harvard Decision Science

The effects of social comparisons in ultimatum bargaining are explored in this paper. Iris Bohnet examines their relevance in general and over time. The economic significance of these effects is examined, … Read Social Comparisons In Ultimatum Bargaining

When Power Corrupts

PON Staff   •  08/17/2010   •  Filed in Daily, Negotiation Skills

Adapted from “Does Power Corrupt in Negotiation?” First published in the Negotiation newsletter.

How does power affect negotiators? In a study of hundreds of pairs of negotiators, researchers Elizabeth A. Seeley of Amherst College and Wendi Gardner and Leigh L. Thompson of Northwestern University examined this question using a simulation called “Viking Investments” (written by Len … Read When Power Corrupts

Caveat Emptor?

PON Staff   •  08/16/2010   •  Filed in Daily, Negotiation Skills

Adapted from “Fair Enough? An Ethical Fitness Quiz for Negotiators,” by Michael Wheeler (professor, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Imagine that you bought a rustic cabin at its asking price. Now flash-forward a few years. You’ve enjoyed the place immensely but just learned that a motorcycle racetrack will be up and running … Read Caveat Emptor?

A Decision-Making Perspective to Negotiation: A Review of the Past and a Look into the Future

PON Staff   •  08/13/2010   •  Filed in Negotiation Skills

Author: Max Bazerman, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, author of Judgment in Managerial Decision Making; co-author of Negotiation Genius and Predictable Surprises

Over the past 30 years, the collaboration between the social sciences and the practical application of new ideas in negotiation have provided exciting results. In this paper, Max Bazerman … Learn More About This Program

Choose Your Words

PON Staff   •  08/10/2010   •  Filed in Daily, Negotiation Skills

Adapted from “Metaphorical Negotiation,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Negotiators talk about building agreement, bluffing the opposition, and volleying offers back and forth. According to mediator Thomas Smith, careful attention to such metaphors can reveal deeper meaning beneath the explicit words that people use, notably regarding how they view the negotiation process and their relationship … Read Choose Your Words

Keeping Your Options Alive

PON Staff   •  07/26/2010   •  Filed in Daily, Negotiation Skills

Adapted from “Better or Best: Keeping Your Options Open,” by Michael Wheeler (professor, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Jim, a well-regarded residential developer operating outside Philadelphia, has been scouting around for a site for his next project. Two properties seem promising. The Abbott estate consists of 75 acres of woodlands and some … Read Keeping Your Options Alive

When Does Personality Matter?

PON Staff   •  07/26/2010   •  Filed in Daily, Negotiation Skills

Adapted from “When Tough Talk Is Beside the Point,” by Hal Movius (instructor, The Program on Technology Negotiation, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Most of us intuitively believe that personality traits such as toughness matter a great deal in negotiation. Yet studies by Bruce Barry and Raymond Friedman of … Read When Does Personality Matter?

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