Negotiation Skills

Adapted from “How to Defuse Threats at the Bargaining Table,” by Katie A. Liljenquist (professor, Brigham Young University) and Adam D. Galinsky (professor, Northwestern University), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

Sooner or later, every negotiator faces threats at the bargaining table. How should you respond when the other side threatens to walk away, file a … Read Questioning threats

Working It Out is a 27-page handbook designed to introduce high school students to problem-solving, interest-based negotiation. Written by Getting to YES co-author Roger Fisher and Difficult Conversations co-author Douglas Stone, Working It Out presents core concepts from both books in a clear, simple format with plenty of age-appropriate examples from family, school, workplace and … Read Opening students up to negotiation

Adapted from “How Body Language Affects Negotiation,” first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

In a real-life example of the power of image, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, a German, successfully passed himself off as a member of the Rockefeller family for many years while living in the United States. Armed with little more than an aloof personality and … Read Smoking out liars

Adapted from “Making Threats Credible,” by Deepak Malhotra (professor, Harvard Business School), first published in the Negotiation newsletter.

While the stakes are usually lower, negotiation often resembles a game of Chicken. Both sides make threats in an effort to change their counterpart’s behavior or beliefs. You might threaten to take your business elsewhere unless the other … Read Make your threat more credible

The PON Clearinghouse offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. Negotiating Budget Cuts at Newtowne Hospital is a six-person negotiation among hospital administration and employee representatives to reach consensus on budget cuts in three departments.

SCENARIO:

Dr. Van Hagen, a distinguished heart surgeon, will soon join the staff at Newtowne Hospital, … Read Budget turmoil inside a hospital

The PON Clearinghouse offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises.  The following role simulation is a two-team, multi-issue negotiation between representatives of a restaurant conglomerate and a neighborhood organization over zoning requirements for a possible fast-food restaurant in a historic university neighborhood.

The City of Lamebridge in the State of … Read A fast food chain in your historic town?

The PON Clearinghouse offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. The following role simulation is a six-person integrative negotiation among representatives of a manufacturing company, an occupational safety agency, a union, a local fire department, and a local technical expert to settle claims of safety violations … Read Occupational safety

The Clearinghouse at PON offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. The following role simulation is a two-party short awareness-building exercise in which student and professor meeting regarding problems arising from a borrowed manuscript and the student’s research aspirations.

SCENARIO: A law student has an appointment with the only professor who … Read A professor’s missing manuscript

The Clearinghouse at PON offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. The Pullman Strike Role Play is a simulation from the Workable Peace Curriculum Series unit on the rise of organized labor in the United States.

This role play is set in the town of Pullman, Illinois, outside of Chicago, … Read The beginning of organized labor

The Clearinghouse at PON offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. Tendley Contract is a two-party integrative contract negotiation between a computer consultant and a school district representative at an apparent impasse over different expectations over cost of services.

SCENARIO: A school district and a computer consultant are negotiating a … Read Salvaging the deal