Are you hiring a mediator? When considering a potential mediator, create a mediation checklist and ask the following questions of those who have worked with him in the past.
… Read More 
When you download the New Conflict Management: Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies to Avoid Litigation you will learn how wise negotiators extract unexpected value using an indirect approach to conflict management.
Conflict Management
What is Conflict Management?
Without skilled conflict management, even the smallest disputes can grow to seemingly insurmountable heights.
In short, conflict management is the long-term management of intractable disputes so that they do not escalate out of control and the worst cases, potentially become violent. The challenge is in the fact that simmering resentment, mutual blame for ongoing problems, poor communication, and other deep issues often underlie arguments and make conflict management all the more difficult.
For instance, when parties have a long history of mistrust and suspicion, they tend to assume that the other party is completely unreasonable and acting out of spite. Even in the workplace, misunderstandings, power struggles, and stress can cause conflict to fester and take a toll on productivity.
So how can parties who no longer trust one another jointly make smart decisions for themselves and others?
The best conflict management processes and systems confront conflict directly. Here is some advice to help you improve your conflict management skills:
If you’re attempting to find a resolution on your own, try to allow for the possibility that your counterpart is capable of being rational and reasonable, and look at the causes of conflict from his or her point of view.
When a negotiator balks over seemingly unimportant details, try to get to the root of his or her concern. Deep-seated issues related to respect and identity could lie at the heart of the matter, and may need to be discussed before moving on to more substantive matters. This is as true in a high-stakes negotiation as it is in solving minor disputes between friends or coworkers.
Avoid the temptation to escalate tensions, as well. If a counterpart takes a tough opening stance in a negotiation or conflict management process, most people tend to escalate the situation with a bold move of their own, such as filing a lawsuit or taking the dispute public. Keep your negotiations private as much as possible, remain aware of your varying conflict styles, and offer token concessions to demonstrate your good will.
To find out more, download the New Conflict Management: Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies to Avoid Litigation where you can learn how wise negotiators extract unexpected value using an indirect approach to conflict management.
The following items are tagged Conflict Management:
Harvard Mediation Intensive
Led by mediation experts Audrey Lee and Alain Lempereur, the Harvard Mediation Intensive delves into mediation principles and processes through interactive presentations and hands-on exercises. From employment and business disagreements to public and international conflicts, you will discover effective ways to enable parties to settle their differences across a variety of contexts.
… Read Harvard Mediation Intensive
Negotiation Master Class November 2024 Program Guide
Over the years thousands of professionals have participated in negotiation programs at the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School. And after a few months or years of putting their negotiation skills and techniques to work, participants inevitably ask us, what’s next?
… Read More
Conflict-Management Styles: Pitfalls and Best Practices
People approach conflict differently, depending on their innate tendencies, their life experiences, and the demands of the moment. Negotiation and conflict-management research reveals how our differing conflict-management styles mesh with best practices in conflict resolution.
… Read More
Harvard Negotiation Master Class: Advanced Strategies for Experienced Negotiators – November 18–20, 2024
Strictly limited to 60 participants who have completed a prior course in negotiation, this first-of-its-kind program offers unprecedented access to experts from Harvard Law School, MIT, and the Harvard Kennedy School—all of whom are committed to delivering a transformational learning experience.
… Read More
Business Crisis Management: Crisis Communication Examples and How to Use Police Negotiation Techniques
In this free special report negotiation experts offers advice on how to turn crisis situations into collaborative negotiations. Throughout the report, you will discover how to apply the lessons of professional hostage negotiators, avoid disasters through careful planning, diffuse tensions with angry members of the public, and break through impasse with open communication.
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Mediation and the Conflict Resolution Process
It’s often the case that when two people or organizations try to resolve a dispute by determining who is right, they get stuck. That’s why so many disputes end up in court. There is a better way to resolve your dispute: by hiring an expert mediator who focuses not on rights but on interests—the needs, … Read Mediation and the Conflict Resolution Process
Semester Mediation and Conflict Management – Spring 2025
SEMESTER MEDIATION AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT – ONLINE
Course Dates: Mondays, beginning January 27, 2025 and ending on April 7, 2025 from 6 to 8 p.m. ET (Note: There will be no class the week of February 17, 2025) Faculty: David Seibel and Stevenson Carlebach Register Now – Spring 2025!
After years working on Wall Street and on the launch team … Read More
The New Conflict Management: Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies to Avoid Litigation
This report reveals how wise negotiators extract unexpected value using an indirect approach to conflict management. An aggressive management style can set you up for repeated failure. Direct conflict management approaches can be overly combative and counter-productive. Experienced negotiators know that compromise seldom succeeds. Win/lose is really lose/lose. The best negotiation strategy results in … Read More
Types of Conflict in Business Negotiation—and How to Avoid Them
Conflict in business negotiation is common, but it doesn’t have to be that way. There are steps we can take to avoid types of conflict and misunderstandings. Often, it helps to analyze the unique causes of conflict in particular negotiation situations. Here, we look at three frequent types of conflict in business negotiations and offer … Read More
Negotiation Workshop: Improving Your Negotiating Effectiveness
Course Dates: This course is closed
Too many negotiators leave value on the table. They painfully divide a small pie after a costly battle while failing to capture offsetting opportunities for joint gain, or win the battle, but at the cost to relationships and reputation that limit long-term value. Reliably negotiating optimal outcomes requires a keen … Read More
What is an Arbitration Agreement?
If you have ever owned a cell phone or been issued a credit card, odds are you’ve signed an arbitration agreement. You also may have signed an arbitration agreement when you started your current job or a past one, whether you remember doing so or not.
… Read What is an Arbitration Agreement?
Best Negotiators in History: Nelson Mandela and His Negotiation Style
The late Nelson Mandela will certainly be remembered as one of the best negotiators in history. He was clearly “the greatest negotiator of the twentieth century,” wrote Harvard Law School professor and former Program on Negotiation Chairman Robert H. Mnookin in his seminal book, Bargaining with the Devil, When to Negotiate, When to Fight.
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Top 10 International Business Negotiation Case Studies
International business negotiation case studies offer insights to business negotiators who face challenges in cross-cultural business negotiation.
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Conflict Management Skills When Dealing with an Angry Public
When negotiators get along well, creative problem solving is easy. When they become upset, however, they seem to forget everything they know about finding joint gain, to the point of giving up tangible wins simply to inflict losses on the other party. This is especially true in high-profile negotiations that turn nasty.
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Negotiation Strategies: Emotional Expression at the Bargaining Table
Most of the existing negotiation research on affect in negotiation has focused on emotional experience rather than on emotional expression.
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Cross-Cultural Communication in Business Negotiations
When preparing for cross-cultural communication in business negotiations, we often think long and hard about how our counterpart’s culture might affect what he says and does at the bargaining table.
… Read More
Conflict Resolution in the Family
In Lessons in Domestic Diplomacy, the New York Times’ Bruce Feiler, drawing on family conflict resolution negotiation examples in his past, offers a case study of conflict management by focusing on disputes in the home, asking, “how do we break out of negative patterns of conduct and proactively approach problems encountered in our everyday lives?”
… Read Conflict Resolution in the Family
The Two Koreas Practice Conflict Management
In August 2015, the decades-long conflict between South Korea and North Korea threatened to reach a breaking point. The causes of conflict between North and South go deep, but in this case, the South accused the North of planting landmines that seriously injured two South Korean border guards. South Korea retaliated with an old tactic … Read The Two Koreas Practice Conflict Management
Learn from the Best with the Great Negotiator Case Studies
No one can provide perspective on conflict resolution like experts who have been involved in some of the world’s most complex negotiations. Since 2001, the Program on Negotiation (PON) has bestowed the Great Negotiator Award upon distinguished leaders whose lifelong accomplishments in the fields of negotiation and dispute resolution have had compelling and lasting results. The … Read More
Elements of Conflict: Diagnose What’s Gone Wrong
In the heat of conflict, it can be difficult to think rationally about how you got where you are and how you might make things better. But by taking a break to consider the elements of conflict, you can move toward a more rational assessment of the dispute and come up with ways to address … Read More
Dispute Resolution on Facebook: Using a Negotiation Approach to Resolve a Conflict
For several years, Facebook has been working with social scientists to bring traditional methods of dispute resolution to cyberspace. The site has begun to offer users tools to resolve disputes with one another over offensive or upsetting posts, including insults and photos.
… Read More
Employee Mediation Techniques – Resolve Disputes and Manage Conflict with These Mediation Skills
If you manage people, disputes will show up at your door. Here are some mediation techniques from the world of alternative dispute resolution to help you resolve conflicts with employees in the workplace.
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A Case Study of Conflict Management and Negotiation
In this case study of conflict management, the Program on Negotiation offers advice drawn from negotiation research about forming negotiating teams and avoiding conflicts within teams and working groups.
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Conflict Negotiation Strategies: When Do Employees Choose to Negotiate?
How does the desire to negotiate stack up against other workplace decision-making procedures? Negotiation seems to be the preferred decision-making mechanism when employees are seeking individually tailored solutions.
… Read More
Union Strikes and Dispute Resolution Strategies
When a conflict looms, it can be tempting for each side to try to make unilateral decisions on key issues because of the belief that negotiations with the other side will be a dead end. This dispute resolution strategy may pay off in the short term, but it’s important to factor in the long-term costs … Read Union Strikes and Dispute Resolution Strategies
Business Conflict Management
In the business world, workplace disputes are all too common. Consider these real-life conflict scenarios: a group of employees who, working overtime to make up for staff shortages, complain to their manager that they aren’t getting paid enough for the extra time. A colleague confides about his boss’s verbal abuse. Two employees argue openly about … Read Business Conflict Management
Power Asymmetry and the Principal Agent Problem
This video simulation on power asymmetry and principal agent dynamics by Professor Lawrence Susskind and Robert Wilkinson was designed to give students insights into the challenges surrounding difficult conversations, both with people across the table, as well as with people on their own side.
… Read Power Asymmetry and the Principal Agent Problem
5 Conflict Resolution Strategies
Whether a conflict erupts at work or at home, we frequently fall back on the tendency to try to correct the other person or group’s perceptions, lecturing them about why we’re right—and they’re wrong. Deep down, we know that this conflict management approach usually fails to resolve the conflict and often only makes it worse.
… Read 5 Conflict Resolution Strategies
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Training: Mediation Curriculum
In 2009, we collected many types of curriculum materials from teachers and trainers who attended the Mediation Pedagogy Conference. We received general materials about classes on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as well as highly specific and idiosyncratic units like Conflict Resolution through Literature: Romeo and Juliet and a negotiating training package for female managers … Read More
Case Study of Conflict Management: To Resolve Disputes and Manage Conflicts, Assume a Neutral 3rd Party Role
In their book Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (Penguin Putnam, 2000), authors Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen tell us how to engage in the conversations in our professional or personal lives that make us uncomfortable by examining a case study of conflict management. Tough, honest conversations are critical for managers, … Read More
3 Types of Conflict and How to Address Them
In the workplace, it sometimes seems as if conflict is always with us. Miss a deadline, and you are likely to face conflict with your boss. Lash out at a colleague who you feel continually undermines you, and you’ll end up in conflict. And if you disagree with a fellow manager about whether to represent … Read 3 Types of Conflict and How to Address Them
What is Conflict Resolution, and How Does It Work?
If you work with others, sooner or later you will almost inevitably face the need for conflict resolution. You may need to mediate a dispute between two members of your department. Or you may find yourself angered by something a colleague reportedly said about you in a meeting. Or you may need to engage in … Read More
Conflict Management: Intervening in Workplace Conflict
Question: I’m aware of lots of unresolved personnel issues that seem to be festering in my department, such as complaints about someone who is not doing his share of the work, another person whose griping is causing a drop in morale, and two coworkers who can’t seem to get along. I’m comfortable negotiating with customers, … Read More
Top Ten Posts About Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution is the process of resolving a dispute or a conflict by meeting at least some of each side’s needs and addressing their interests. Conflict resolution sometimes requires both a power-based and an interest-based approach, such as the simultaneous pursuit of litigation (the use of legal power) and negotiation (attempts to reconcile each party’s … Read Top Ten Posts About Conflict Resolution
Redevelopment Negotiation: The Challenges of Rebuilding the World Trade Center
In the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center more than 20 years ago in New York City, there were difficult questions and challenges facing those who were involved in the redevelopment negotiation. For instance, how do we build consensus around complex solutions when there are emotionally charged issues at stake?
The Teaching Negotiation … Read More
India’s Direct Approach to Conflict Resolution
In our global economy, organizations have unprecedented opportunities to grow by forming partnerships worldwide. Yet when we are negotiating abroad, cultural, language, and other differences can lead to misunderstandings that may eventually spiral into conflicts ranging from labor strikes to lawsuits to broken partnerships that require conflict resolution.
… Read India’s Direct Approach to Conflict Resolution
Communication and Conflict Management: Responding to Tough Questions
Most of us feel compelled to respond honestly and completely to direct questions in negotiation, communication and conflict management, even when doing so could hurt us. If you are currently underpaid, for example, answering the first question truthfully is liable to keep you that way.
… Read More
How to Maintain Your Power While Engaging in Conflict Resolution
By following these steps, you can keep your edge while encouraging cooperative, rather than competitive, behavior in conflict management.
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Download Your Next Mediation Video
Use Video Examples to Teach Your Students to Become Better Mediators
Parties engaged in disputes are often unable to reconcile their differences alone, or fail to reach outcomes that are adequate for everyone. Mediators can add a great deal of value by helping parties to efficiently and effectively examine the issues at hand, take the interests … Read Download Your Next Mediation Video
Teach Your Students to Negotiate Climate Change
How Can Communities Negotiate Climate Change Risks?
With ocean temperatures rising and hurricanes growing more frequent and severe, the impacts of climate change are dramatically affecting many communities. The severe flooding brought on by repeated storms has forced the impacted communities to confront a range of public health risks, as well as evaluations of drainage and … Read Teach Your Students to Negotiate Climate Change
10 Popular Business Negotiation Articles
Here are ten popular business negotiation articles on the Program on Negotiation website. Drawn from a variety of negotiation case studies as well as negotiation research, the following articles offer strategies for engaging in integrative negotiations aimed at creating win-win scenarios for each party at the negotiation table.
… Read 10 Popular Business Negotiation Articles
Lessons for Business Negotiators: Negotiation Techniques from International Diplomacy
Executives rarely view themselves as diplomats engaged in international diplomacy but business negotiators often find the two fields share negotiation skills and negotiation techniques. Rightly or wrongly, diplomacy evokes images of frivolity – days spent wandering exotic capitals, nights spent cruising embassy cocktail parties.
… Read More
Four Ways to Manage Conflict in the Workplace
Samantha was livid. While making a presentation during a meeting that both attended, Brad, a newcomer in her department, had shared some slides during a presentation that were clearly based on ideas for a project she’d shared with him privately—without giving her credit. Samantha angrily confronted Brad in his office after the meeting; he became … Read Four Ways to Manage Conflict in the Workplace
Collaborative Leadership: Managing Constructive Conflict
Looking at the role of leadership in negotiation, we see that collaborative leadership can involve promoting conflict in negotiating and decision-making teams—as long as that conflict is managed constructively.
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Team Negotiation: Tackle Common Pitfalls
When a team negotiates on behalf of an organization, it can often achieve more than an individual would, thanks to team members’ cumulative knowledge and experience. Yet team negotiation can create new problems. Groupthink—the tendency to go along with the dominant point of view rather than challenging it—can promote overly simplistic decision making in teams … Read Team Negotiation: Tackle Common Pitfalls
How to Control Your Emotions in Conflict Resolution
To guard against acting irrationally or in ways that can harm you, authors of Beyond Reason: Using Emotions As You Negotiate Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro advise you to take your emotional temperature during a negotiation. Specifically, try to gauge whether your emotions are manageable, starting to heat up, or threatening to boil over.
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In Real-Life Conflict Scenarios, Promote Constructive Dissent
Real-life conflict scenarios can keep groups from being effective. But at a press conference on March 6, Trump suggested that any conflict within the White House has been beneficial: “I like conflict. I like having two people with different points of view, and I certainly have that, and I make a decision. But I like … Read More
Simple Conflict Management Tools Keep Order in the Senate
On January 19, 2018, the government was on the brink of a shutdown due to the Senate’s inability to agree on a spending bill. About 17 centrist Democratic and Republican senators crowded into the Capitol Hill office of Republican senator Susan Collins of Maine. But their common goal—negotiating a deal to end the shutdown—was reportedly … Read More
Preparation for Negotiation: Get Off on the Right Foot
The opening stages of negotiation can be filled with uncertainty. How assertive should you be? How can you set yourself up for success? What should an opening offer look like? To answer these questions accurately, thorough preparation for negotiation is key. Negotiation research offers guidelines to get talks off on the right track.
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Dear Negotiation Coach: Putting Personal Conflict Management Into Practice
Negotiation and bargaining isn’t limited to the business world. There are many situations where personal conflict management skills are helpful. We received a question regarding this topic recently.
… Read More
Fostering Constructive Conflict in Team Negotiation
Conflict can, indeed, be an asset in team negotiation and decision- making, but only if it’s managed constructively.
… Read More
When Dealing with Difficult People, Try a Complementary Approach
To hear President Donald Trump tell it, the United States under President Barack Obama had bungled one negotiation after another on the global stage due to an inability to stand firm and take tough stances on key issues when engaging in difficult conversations.
… Read More
Repairing Relationships Using Negotiation Skills
Negotiation is not only something we do at work; often the toughest negotiations we encounter are in our personal lives. Some of the most successful negotiation examples of the power of negotiation skills in dispute resolution is when they repair relationships between friends.
… Read Repairing Relationships Using Negotiation Skills
A Business Negotiation Case Study: Ending the NHL Lockout
How can negotiators overcome impasse and achieve win-win negotiated agreements at the bargaining table? This example illustrates the power of expanding the focus of the negotiations by looking for tradeoffs.
… Read More
Teach Your Students to Negotiate the Technology Industry
Technology is a pervasive feature of modern life, providing countless benefits ranging from new cancer treatments to smart phones. Especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, technology has been embedded in many parts of our everyday lives. Technology can also be a source of disruption and is at the root of many disputes. Parties … Read More
Examples of Difficult Situations at Work: Consensus and Negotiated Agreements
How do negotiators reach consensus while engaged in intense negotiated agreements, often contentious, bargaining sessions with their counterparts? Here are some ways negotiators have reached consensus with colleagues and counterparts in the workplace.
… Read More
Negotiation Research on Mediation Techniques: Focus on Interests
There is a better way to resolve your dispute: by hiring an expert mediator with a focus on interests – the needs, desires, or concerns that underlie each side’s positions according to negotiation research on mediation techniques.
… Read More
Difficult Situations at Work – Negotiation Skills for Dealing with Difficult People
Here are a few examples of difficult situations at work and some negotiation skills for dealing with difficult people we encounter in every area of life. First, negotiators should ask themselves: Why do some people get under our skin?
… Read More
Negotiation Skills from the World of Improv for Conflict Management
A Q&A with Michael Wheeler, author of The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World.
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How Your Communication Style Impacts Value Creation
In negotiation, we bring our unique personalities and styles to the table. A reserved, cautious person is likely to bargain differently than someone who is outgoing and proactive, for example. There is much we can do to improve our negotiation performance—such as preparing thoroughly and using proven persuasion strategies. But can we also improve our … Read More
BATNA Analysis Can Help You Avoid the Agreement Trap
In both our personal and our business negotiations, “getting to yes” is typically the ultimate goal. Negotiation research and advice tend to focus on identifying the conditions that can help people overcome their differences, relax firm positions, and reach harmonious terms that could lead to a mutually fulfilling long-term relationship.
This mindset risks downplaying the fact … Read More
Negotiation Research You Can Use: Are Women More or Less Likely than Men to Use Deceptive Tactics in Negotiation
Men tend to claim more resources than women in negotiation. Why? Gender discrimination and men’s greater propensity to negotiate are two explanations backed up by research. In a study, University of North Carolina professor Jason R. Pierce and Northwestern University professor Leigh Thompson identified another reason: men are more willing than women to resort to … Read More
Digitally Enhanced Simulation Packages – With Live Data Analytics
In-depth Teaching Materials with Real Time Data Analytics Designed to Enhance Teaching Negotiation
From the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) at PON, and iDecisionGames: digitally enhanced simulation packages designed to take your teaching to the next level.
The Enhanced Simulation Package from the TNRC and iDecisionGames brings a new, interactive learning experience to teaching negotiation. This easy … Read More
What Are Our Students Actually Learning? Gauging Effectiveness in Teaching Negotiation
Ways of Gauging Effectiveness in Teaching Negotiation
Most instructors aspire to do more than simply teach students about negotiation. They want to teach students how to negotiate more effectively. That’s an ambitious goal, given the complexity of the process. Negotiation success requires keen analysis and deft social skills, along with a mix of confidence and humility. … Read More
Negotiating Organizational Development
Teach Your Students to Promote Organizational Development and Build Leadership Skills
Efforts to impact change in any kind of organization usually involve multiple kinds of negotiations or consensus-building efforts. Organizational development is most effective when the participants in the organization, whether public, private or civil society, are directly engaged in deciding what might need to change, … Read Negotiating Organizational Development
The Best Negotiation Exercises, Simulations and Videos
Have you planned your curriculum and purchased your teaching material for next semester? We’re here to help you to find the best negotiation exercises and teaching aids for your negotiation classes.
… Read More
Teach Your Students Value Distribution with a Simulation on Solar Power
Do your students really understand the difference between value distribution and integrative negotiation, and have you given them a chance to practice their distributive bargaining skills? Do they understand that every negotiation includes elements of both value creation and value distribution? To help teach these key negotiation skills the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) has developed a … Read More
Entrepreneurship and Negotiation: Call for Papers and Proposals
The Negotiation Journal is Hosting a Virtual Conference for its Special Issue on Entrepreneurship and Negotiation
While negotiation and entrepreneurship scholars have traditionally worked in different circles, their work increasingly intersects as the two fields co-evolve. Both entrepreneurship and negotiation involve dynamic, strategic, interpersonal activities that seek to create and claim some form of value. Both … Read More
Tips for Teaching Simulations Online: Q&A with David Seibel
Check out the video from our recent session on teaching simulations online to pick up tips for running negotiation exercises remotely!
Apprehensive about using role-play simulations in your remote or online blended course? Pick up tips on how to make simulations run smoothly over video, including how to best manage breakouts, run multiparty simulations, report results, … Read More
Definition of Mediation and the Mediation Process: The Impact of Lawyers on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
How does the presence of lawyers affect the mediation process and mediations in general? You might guess that when one or both sides bring an attorney to a mediation, the process would become more contentious and adversarial, with impasse more likely, than if the parties worked solely with a mediator.
… Read More
Dealing with Difficult Employees
When dealing with difficult employees, leaders often feel overwhelmed and frustrated by a task that can seem like a distraction from broader organizational goals. But managing personnel issues, including conflict among employees, is a pivotal leadership task—and one that can be improved with knowledge and practice. The following solutions for dealing with difficult employees will … Read Dealing with Difficult Employees
A Win Win Negotiation Case Study Using Mind Mapping Negotiation Skills
A win win negotiation case study using mind mapping to discover your counterpart’s interests for collaborative, integrative negotiations can occur.
… Read More
Conflict Management: The Challenges of Negotiating Online
Negotiation research suggests that e-mail often poses more problems than solutions when it comes to relationships, information exchange, and outcomes. Here is a case study of conflict management and negotiation about the challenges of building rapport with your counterpart when negotiating online.
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Integrative Negotiations: Dispute Resolution Through Joint Fact-Finding
Sometimes parties to a dispute disagree on key facts and forecasts but lack the technical or scientific expertise needed to come to a consensus. Suppose, for instance, that a developer is seeking to build a high-rise condominium building in a village that is experiencing a development boom. Longtime residents fight the proposal, arguing that another … Read More
Employee Grievances: Are Most Legal Disputes Resolved in Litigation or Arbitration?
A common question asked is, “If most legal disputes are resolved in litigation, is there room for arbitration or mediation?”
… Read More
New Conflict Management Skills: Understand How to Resolve “Hot Conflicts”
Negotiating effectively with colleagues can be more challenging than dealing with outsiders. Conventional wisdom advises addressing team conflict by staying focused on tasks and avoiding relationship issues. Yet a case study of conflict management by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson and Diana McLain Smith of The Monitory Group concludes that this approach to dispute … Read More
International Negotiation Role Playing: Understanding the Theory and Practice of Systemic Peacebuilding
Policymakers, practitioners, and academics have seized on the need for peacebuilding negotiation strategies in international negotiation to be as complex and adaptive as the societies within which they work.
As a result, there are loud calls for “whole of government” or “whole of community” approaches that cross traditional sectoral boundaries. The problem is that these approaches are … Read More
Teaching with Video-Based Negotiation Scenarios
Access to multimedia content has rapidly increased throughout the world, with videos and short clips permeating our daily life. We are consuming, producing, and interacting with videos more now than ever before. In light of increasing video fluency and interest in using videos in education, the Program on Negotiation’s Teaching Negotiation Resource Center is creating … Read Teaching with Video-Based Negotiation Scenarios
Internal Negotiation: How to Set Up For Success
U.S. Federal Agency Personnel Negotiate Inter-Agency Issues to Better Collaborate with Host Government Officials and Combat HIV/AIDS
Most negotiations between companies, organizations, or governments are broken down into internal negotiation and external negotiation. Internal negotiation occurs between members of the same company, organization, or government in preparation for negotiations with an external entity. There is a … Read Internal Negotiation: How to Set Up For Success
South Korea’s Innovative Long-Term Negotiation Strategy with North Korea
In negotiation, a combination of several negotiation strategies may be needed to move past a difficult impasse. The decades-long protracted negotiations between North Korea and South Korea provides such a case study.
… Read More
Negotiation research you can use: To build rapport, be a (subtle) copycat
When people spend time together, they often begin to unconsciously mimic each other’s nonverbal behaviors, such as their body language and facial expressions, and verbal behaviors, including words, expressions, and phrases. While being deliberately mimicked for laughs is annoying (ask any parent of young kids), people actually tend to like those who subtly mimic them better … Read More
Culture in Negotiation: Preparing for International Negotiation
In his book How to Negotiate Anything with Anyone Anywhere Around the World, Frank L. Acuff advises readers to expect Germans to be reserved, hard bargainers who may be offended by personal questions and tardiness. Those negotiating with Chinese counterparts are cautioned to avoid direct questions and to prepare to make numerous concessions. And negotiators … Read More
Negotiation and Conflict Management Styles
In negotiation and conflict management, we bring our unique personalities and styles to the table. A reserved, cautious person is likely to bargain differently than someone who is outgoing and proactive, for example. There is much we can do to improve our negotiation performance—such as preparing thoroughly and using proven persuasion strategies. But should we … Read Negotiation and Conflict Management Styles
Advanced Negotiation Techniques: Online Dispute Resolution
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, negotiators are increasingly making deals and resolving disputes online. But a trend toward online dispute resolution (ODR) was already in the making before we all began to quarantine. On July 15, experts discussed how technology can help us effectively and efficiently resolve disputes in a roundtable discussion, “AI Agents Negotiating Deals … Read More
Cross-Cultural Video: Negotiation Examples, Lessons And Advice From PON Faculty
Do you teach negotiation to students from different cultural backgrounds? Are you teaching students how to negotiate in a cross-cultural context? Do you teach a “one world” model of negotiation; or, are there cultural variables that require changes in the basic model of negotiation that you teach?
The Program On Negotiation at Harvard Law School invited … Read More
Negotiation research you can use: When men are—and aren’t—more likely to negotiate than women
Women can be less likely than men to initiate negotiations, a meta-analysis of existing studies on the topic concluded last year. Because negotiation is widely perceived as requiring stereotypically “masculine” traits, such as assertiveness and independence, rather than stereotypically “feminine” traits, such as concern for others and passivity, women may feel less comfortable launching negotiations than … Read More
Mediation and Conflict Management Seminar: Attend in Person or Online!
The Mediation and Conflict Management Seminar starts Monday January 27 – don’t miss your last chance to register!
The Program on Negotiation (PON) offers a semester-length seminar on mediation and conflict management designed to raise your awareness of your own approach to conflict. Led by David Seibel and Stevenson Carlebach, renowned mediators and dynamic instructors, this … Read More
Conflict Management and Negotiating When Pride is at Stake
The fallout from Iceland’s financial crisis offers a case study in dealing with those who have suffered a significant blow to their self-esteem. In late 2008, Iceland teetered on the edge of bankruptcy following the collapse of its three largest banks. Since becoming independent of the government in 2002, the banks had pursued a strategy … Read More
Powerful Conflict Resolution Games to Help You Teach Negotiation
From complicated negotiation strategies to artful subterfuge, conflict resolution games are one of the very best ways to prepare for the challenges of real-world negotiation. Games that employ a Prisoner’s Dilemma structure (where rational parties may not cooperate despite their best interests) enable participants to analyze negotiations, make strategic decisions, and anticipate their counterpart’s next … Read More
How Negotiation Role-Play Simulations Can Help You Resolve Environmental Disputes
From complicated land use debates to the regulation of pollutants, environmental negotiations are fraught with dynamic legal, scientific, and societal considerations. Because many of the natural resources in question are limited and fragile, disputes over them can be particularly difficult.
To help educate professionals about how to work through challenging environmental and sustainability negotiations, the Program … Read More
Using Negotiation Games to Develop Skills for Commercial Dispute Resolution
Teach your students the art of negotiating for success with these great negotiation games.
… Read More
Teaching Real Estate Negotiation: How to Identify and Create Value
How do you teach your students to identify and create value in real estate negotiations?
Real estate negotiation can be difficult for both the buyer and the seller. Teaching real estate negotiation can involve value creation, distributive bargaining, as well as issue linkages. It is important for both buyers, sellers, and agents to identify ways to … Read More
When Family Business Disputes Require Conflict Resolution
Unfortunately, business disputes—and the need for conflict resolution—can be common when family members do business together.
… Read More
Negotiation Role-Plays for Building Critical Skills
Here is a brief story about about a teenager named Chris Jensen.
On his way home from basketball practice, he walked into a grocery store and shoplifted some candy bars and a soda. The storeowner saw him, chased after him, and, as luck would have it, they ran right into a police officer.
But instead … Read More
Teach Your Students Cross-Cultural Negotiation
As our world grows increasingly interconnected, we are more likely to find ourselves negotiating in a cross-cultural context. The diverse makeup of many societies and global nature of business today make cross-cultural negotiation a regular part of life. Also, unfortunately, many major disputes in need of resolution cross ethnic and cultural lines. Furthermore, it is important … Read Teach Your Students Cross-Cultural Negotiation
Creating Value in Negotiations through Word Choice
When the delegates from the Group of 20—the world’s 20 largest economies, or G20—met in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in December 2018 to negotiate reforms to the global trading system, the words they didn’t use turned out to be just as important as the ones they did when it came to creating value in negotiations.
… Read More
Best-In-Class Negotiation Case Studies
What’s one of the best ways to teach the art and science of negotiation? Case studies and articles that spark lively discussion or facilitate self-reflection. Based on real-world examples, these teaching resources are designed to help students envision how to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom and beyond.
The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) at … Read Best-In-Class Negotiation Case Studies
Role Play Simulations to Help You Become a Better Mediator
When opposing parties cannot come to a satisfactory resolution, a strong mediator can make all the difference. By effectively examining the issues at hand and helping parties identify creative solutions, a well-trained mediator builds consensus where there once was none.
To help professionals learn the art of mediation, the Program on Negotiation’s Teaching Negotiation Resource Center … Read More
Negotiation Case Studies: Teach By Example
There are good negotiators and there are great ones.
Once a year, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School selects an outstanding individual who embodies what it means to be a truly great negotiator. To earn the Great Negotiator Award, the honoree must be a distinguished leader whose lifelong accomplishments in the field of dispute … Read Negotiation Case Studies: Teach By Example
Negotiation Exercises to Help Your Students Avoid Cross-Cultural Pitfalls
Avoid cross-cultural misunderstandings with these negotiation exercises
It’s no secret that communication and negotiation etiquette varies widely across cultures. In France, for example, it is rude to talk money over dinner, while in Brazil the American ‘A-OK’ gesture (thumb and forefinger forming a circle) can be a major insult.
The increasingly diverse and global nature of business … Read More
Global Impact Negotiation Simulation
International law and diplomacy is a rapidly evolving field that depends on the brokering of agreements between nations and other stakeholders. Whether there are language barriers, cultural differences, or both, some of the most challenging negotiations involve parties from different nations. Because of the relative lack of clear legal precedents and the difficulties of enforcement, … Read Global Impact Negotiation Simulation
Workable Peace Curriculum Series
Note: Each of the seven individual Workable Peace Series curriculum units can be purchased separately. Please click on the links below for information about purchasing individual units.
About Workable Peace
The Workable Peace curriculum – a conflict resolution program for high school students and young adults – is a product of the Workable Peace Project, directed by … Read Workable Peace Curriculum Series
Best-In-Class Negotiation Case Studies You Can Use to Train
What’s one of the best ways to teach the art and science of conflict resolution? With negotiation case studies that spark lively discussion or facilitate self-reflection. Based on real-world examples, these teaching resources are designed to help students envision how to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom and beyond.
… Read More
Conflict-Solving Strategies: The Value of Taking a Break
Business negotiators coping with deeply entrenched conflict often feel defeated and hopeless when conflict-solving strategies fail. However, research from the world of international conflict suggests that taking repeated breaks from conflict can improve the odds of reaching agreement down the road. The research and resulting negotiation strategies may offer new hope to business negotiators.
… Read More
In business negotiation, get your words’ worth
Wise negotiators put a lot of time and effort into making sure they’re ready to do business. They set ambitious goals, research their bottom line, explore their alternatives, and find out as much as they can about their counterpart. They may give less consideration, however, to the words they’ll use to persuade, question, debate, and brainstorm … Read In business negotiation, get your words’ worth
The Wired Negotiator: Using Technology in Negotiation
Everyone negotiates every day. How we negotiate is changing dramatically due to the use of various technological tools. People need not fear this change. Rather, they should understand the different technology at their disposal, grasp the pros and cons, and determine how to select the best medium to suit their needs, negotiation style, and approach. … Read More
Add Variety to Your Curriculum with These Top Simulations
Update Your Teaching Materials with Our Top Negotiation Role Play Simulations
The field of negotiation is constantly evolving, and as such, requires new ways of teaching negotiation. It can sometimes happen that students come into a class having already encountered the negotiation simulation being used in the course, or that a different kind of exercise is … Read More
Teach Coalition Management in Multiparty Negotiations
Multiparty negotiations can be difficult to manage if you are unprepared for the formation of coalitions. Two-party and multiparty negotiations share some important similarities: the goal of discovering the zone of possible agreement, for example. However, there are some key differences that set them apart. As soon as the number of parties increases past two, … Read More
Teaching Negotiation Online: Where Do We Start?
Best Practices of Course Design and Delivery When Teaching Negotiation Online
At the May, 2018 Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) Faculty Seminar, Professors Lawrence Susskind and Michael Wheeler discussed the pedagogical implications of teaching negotiation online.
In a follow-up to the December, 2017 TNRC Faculty Seminar on Gauging Effectiveness in Teaching Negotiation, Professor Susskind and Professor Wheeler … Read Teaching Negotiation Online: Where Do We Start?
The Moral Quandary: Negotiation Exercises Featuring Ethical Dilemmas
In a negotiation, few issues heighten tensions faster than when one party feels that the other party has done something ethically or morally incorrect.
To help professionals prepare for times like this, the Program on Negotiation’s Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) offers a variety of negotiation exercises designed to teach participants how to handle disputes that … Read More
Entrepreneurial Negotiation – New Book on Negotiation Challenges for Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurial Negotiation: Understanding and Managing the Relationships that Determine Your Entrepreneurial Success
The great majority of startups fail, and most entrepreneurs who have succeeded have had to bounce back from serious mistakes. Entrepreneurs fumble key interactions because they don’t know how to handle the negotiation challenges that almost always arise. They mistakenly believe that deals … Read More
Kissinger the Negotiator: New Book on Dealmaking and Diplomacy
Lessons from Dealmaking at the Highest Level
In this groundbreaking, definitive guide to the art of negotiation, PON faculty James Sebenius (Harvard Business School) and Robert Mnookin (Harvard Law School), along with R. Nicholas Burns of the Harvard Kennedy School, offer a comprehensive examination of one of the most successful dealmakers of all time: Henry Kissinger.
Politicians, … Read More
Teach Your Students Dispute Resolution for Their Everyday Lives
Negotiation refers to the process of working out agreements that meet each party’s needs and address their interests. People negotiate all the time in their everyday lives: in the workplace, within families, and when buying goods and services. Knowing which negotiation strategies to use in different circumstances can make a significant difference. The Teaching Negotiation … Read More
Negotiation Research You Can Use: When anger helps and hurts at the office
Most of us dread displays of anger at work, whether we’re the aggrieved party, the target of someone’s wrath, or just an innocent bystander. But anger can have benefits in the workplace when expressed constructively, airing differences that need to be addressed, improving relationships, and bringing injustice and mistreatment to light.
Despite the potential benefits of … Read More
How to Manage Conflict at Work
A 62-year-old salesman believes he has convincing evidence that his boss passed him over for a promotion because of his age. What options does he have? He could let the matter drop and perhaps look for another job. He could file an employment-discrimination lawsuit. Or, if his company offers mediation services, he could have the … Read How to Manage Conflict at Work
Conflict Management: A Creative Approach to Breaking Impasse
Suppose that you and your negotiating counterpart become deadlocked after exchanging a series of offers and counteroffers. With each of you anchored on very different positions, you can’t seem to find a solution that pleases you both.
… Read More
Teach Your Students to Manage Two Party and Multiparty Negotiations
Check Out Our Bestselling Two Party and Multiparty Negotiation Simulations
More than just the increased number of parties at the table, there are key differences in how negotiators manage two party versus multiparty negotiations. Power disparities can be exacerbated in two party negotiations, however the opportunities for option generation can also be increased. The formation of … Read More
Learn from the Best with the Great Negotiator
No one can provide perspective on conflict resolution like experts who have been involved in some of the world’s most complex negotiations. Since 2001, the Program on Negotiation (PON) has bestowed the Great Negotiator Award upon distinguished leaders whose lifelong accomplishments in the fields of negotiation and dispute resolution have had compelling and lasting results.
The Great … Read Learn from the Best with the Great Negotiator
Family Business Conflict Resolution and Negotiation
Business transactions between family members and friends can be difficult. Close ties are generally founded on the expectation that we’ll look out for each other’s welfare and not “keep score.” In business relationships, by contrast, we expect to be compensated based on how much effort, time, and money we expend. We’re likely to experience a … Read More
Teach Your Students Negotiation Psychology
The negotiation psychology of the parties at the table can contribute significantly to the likelihood of reaching an agreement. In Beyond Reason, world-renowned negotiator Roger Fisher and psychologist Daniel Shapiro advise “ignore emotions at your own peril. Emotions are always present and often affect your experience. You may try to ignore them, but they will not … Read Teach Your Students Negotiation Psychology
NEW BOOK! Conflict Resolution for Children
Trouble at the Watering Hole: Teach Your Children About Conflict Resolution With This New Book
This fun and educational book from the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) builds a foundation for kids to learn ways to constructively resolve problems and to build strong skills that can be used to resolve conflict for the rest of their … Read NEW BOOK! Conflict Resolution for Children
Conflict Negotiation Strategies for Business Negotiators
When closing a deal, new business partners are typically optimistic about the path ahead. But somewhere down the line, conflict is almost inevitable. One party may miss a deadline. The two sides may interpret contract terms differently. Changing economic conditions may make it difficult for one side to uphold its end of the deal.
When a … Read More
Negotiating with Family
Legal Disputes Where Emotions Override Reason
Negotiating with a colleague or client can be complicated, but negotiating with a family member can cause us to leave reason at the door. Negotiating with family, where emotions are heightened, can lead to a reluctance to compromise. This is especially true when it comes to legal disputes between family … Read Negotiating with Family
Negotiation Ethics May Be a Slippery Slope
Negotiation researchers have refuted the widespread belief that honesty varies widely among individual negotiators. Rather, because people respond strongly to their environment, personal standards for negotiation ethics often vary depending on the context.
… Read Negotiation Ethics May Be a Slippery Slope
Teach Your Students to Negotiate the Principal-Agent Relationship with Fie’s Agent
Negotiate International Sports Contracts
In many business negotiations, especially those involving athletes, you will find an agent negotiating on behalf of the principal party. This unique principal-agent relationship can cause challenges at the negotiating table. The agent may have different preferences from their principal party. Agents may also have different incentives from the principal. Agents may … Read More
Negotiate International Energy Contracts with ENCO
ENCO: Negotiating International Contracts in the Face of Political Instability
Negotiating international contracts can be tricky, and unstable, especially when governments are parties in the negotiation. ENCO is a Texas-based power company that has begun to move aggressively into emerging markets. The Indian government has approached ENCO to build an electrical generating plant to increase the power … Read More
Negotiation research you can use: When being yourself gets you the job
“Just be yourself”: It’s probably the most common advice given to job interviewees. But research suggests most people don’t follow the old cliché: in a study by Julia Levashina and Michael A. Campion, at least 65% of job candidates actively misrepresented themselves, and at least 87% concealed aspects of themselves to create what they felt … Read More
Crossed Wires? Negotiation Games To Help Your Business Deal Sidestep Legal, Technical And Emotional Glitches
What’s faster than the pace of technological development? The pace of lawsuits being filed about the adoption of new technologies, patent infringement, and intellectual property rights. In our modern world, professionals must be able to resolve highly challenging technology-related disputes – often before they reach the courtroom. That’s where the Program on Negotiation’s Teaching … Read More
Gender Discrimination: How to Reach a Negotiated Agreement
As you know, gender stereotypes often enter the negotiation process. Women and men are perceived to, and often do, act differently in negotiations. Furthermore, gender-based discrimination—such as less pay, unequal treatment, and sexual harassment—is often a source of conflict. With the resources available through the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC), professionals can learn how to … Read More
Negotiating Indigenous Land Rights
Teach Your Students to Address Fundamental Value Differences While Negotiating Indigenous Land Rights
Indigenous land rights have been a key aspect of negotiations by private companies and governments around the world. Indigenous land rights are the rights of indigenous peoples to land and natural resources, which they have occupied for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. … Read Negotiating Indigenous Land Rights
Bullard Houses Role-Play Simulation Helps Researchers Explore Gender Inequality
In a recent Slate.com article, writer and PhD in Psychology Jane Hu described the findings of a research study by Professor Laura J. Kray, University of California, Berkeley.
Kray, along with co-authors Jessica Kennedy, PhD, and Alex Van Zant, PhD, investigated the role gender played in negotiation and focused specifically on whether the stereotype of women … Read More
Manage Family Conflict When Business Negotiations Go Bad
Conventional wisdom warns us against doing business with family members. Negotiations between people linked by close ties can result in hurt feelings, damaged relationships, or simply the nagging feeling that a better deal was within reach.
Yet circumstances sometimes require us to negotiate financial matters with a relative. In other situations, someone close to you may … Read More
Real Leaders Negotiate to Meet Their Organization’s Goals
Imagine a typical leader, and you might think of someone who is bold, decisive, visionary, assertive, and charismatic. Now think about the kinds of actions that such a leader might regularly engage in. Delegating, making top-down decisions, and otherwise exerting one’s power might immediately come to mind.
A behavior that’s not typically at the top of … Read More
Teach Your Students Spoiler Management in Negotiations
What can you do to protect a negotiation from spoilers?
The greatest risk to a negotiation can come from parties at the table who are intent on spoiling the agreement. Spoilers are parties in a negotiation who believe that the agreement will threaten their power and interests, and so they spoil the negotiation.
Some spoilers have limited … Read More
Revolutionize How You Teach TNRC Negotiation Exercises and Role-Plays
You’ve told us that using technology in your teaching is important so we spent some time evaluating various platforms and software that help negotiation teachers and trainers to utilize the power of role-plays in their classes. The team at iDecisionGames has created a web-based platform that offers many benefits and opportunities to transform how you … Read More
Arbitration vs Mediation: Using Teambuilding and ADR in Negotiation
During his years as George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of State, one of James A. Baker, III’s, goals was to encourage the free-market reforms that Communist Party of the Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had launched in the late 1980s. One day during his tenure, a high-level Bush administration official commented in the press that … Read More
Business Negotiations: Win-Win Strategy for Hospices de Beaune Vineyards
When the old ways of doing business aren’t working anymore, it may be time to break with tradition. Of course, doing so can be easier said than done.
… Read More
BATNA: Negotiation Preparation to Help Avoid Giving Up at the Bargaining Table
When you expect an opponent to be competitive, your confidence in the outcomes you can achieve in negotiation is likely to plummet. In negotiation research with Adam Galinsky of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, negotiators were provided with some background about their counterpart including information on how competitive their counterpart has been in previous negotiations.
… Read More
An Alternative to Traditional Dispute Resolution Instruction
Many negotiation and mediation instructors draw from other disciplines for a range of purposes. Insights from social psychology, for instance, can help students understand, explain, or predict certain interpersonal and inter-group dynamics. Ideas from economics and game theory can shed light on various value-creation principles.
… Read More
In Conflict Resolution, Look for Trusted Partners
How can you engage in conflict management with someone who doesn’t trust you? Consider bringing in someone the other party does trust to mediate the dispute, as the FBI and the occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon did to promote a peaceful end to their standoff in February 2016.
… Read In Conflict Resolution, Look for Trusted Partners
Is Your Negotiation Style Holding You Back?
All of us have a personal approach to negotiation, or negotiation style. Here’s how to make the most of yours.
… Read Is Your Negotiation Style Holding You Back?
Conflict Management: Anger – The Good and the Bad
Most negotiations are “mixed motive” in structure, requiring us both to compete to claim value and to cooperate to create value. The ability to move back and forth between these two goals is a critical – and difficult – skill to master.
… Read Conflict Management: Anger – The Good and the Bad
Negotiation Scenario: Hammering out Local Strategies for Managing Climate-related Public Health Risks
Climate change is already causing increased temperatures, more intense storms, and rising sea levels in many parts of the world. The threats, particularly the impacts on human health, are daunting. Despite uncertainties about the timing and severity of the impacts of climate change in each location, this simulation asserts that cities and towns must take … Read More
Exploring New Opportunities to Negotiate in Conflict Resolution
Many U.S. law schools are in crisis, to hear some tell it. To combat economic downturns, many law firms instituted policies of mass layoffs and pay cuts. Years after the 2008 financial recession, few have recovered.
… Read More
Conflict Resolution Games: Life, Death, and Career Consequences
High-Stakes Conflict Resolution Games
In Drug Testing in the Workplace—a popular role-play from the TNRC—a truck driver tests positive for marijuana in a random drug test. To play this conflict resolution game, participants assume the roles of truck driver, personnel director, and a representative from the Employee Assistance
Program Center, and then explore the question:
What is the … Read More
World in Crisis! One of the Most Immersive and Rewarding Negotiation Games Ever Created
This negotiation simulation comprised “the most intense, challenging and educational days of my life” reported one participant. What sort of experience could possibly elicit such a comment? One of the most immersive and rewarding negotiation games ever developed: a 72-party mega-simulation called the Transition Exercise!
The Transition (Excercise Trailer) from MediaTank on Vimeo.
This one-of-a-kind, intensive, multi-party … Read More
How to Avoid the Negative Impact of Goal Setting: Setting Realistic Objectives in Negotiations
Imagine that you’re a freelance marketing consultant who is negotiating the conditions of a long-term assignment with a new client. As you think about what you will charge, you set a goal that you consider to be challenging but not impossible. The project manager balks when you first quote your rate, but you end up … Read More
The Right Way to Say I’m Sorry
On April 6, former Massey Energy CEO Donald Blankenship was sentenced to a year in prison and a $250,000 fine, the maximum punishment allowed, after receiving a misdemeanor conviction for conspiring to flout mine safety rules. In 2010, 29 Massey miners were killed in the Upper Big Branch coal dust explosion in West Virginia, while … Read The Right Way to Say I’m Sorry
Conflict Management Training and Negotiation Research: How Nervous Energy Affects Negotiation Scenarios and Attempts at Conflict Resolution
Negotiation is often characterized as a physiologically arousing event marked by pounding hearts, queasy stomachs, and flushed faces. We might assume that heightened physiological arousal would mar our negotiation performance, but this is only true for some, researchers Ashley D. Brown and Jared R. Curhan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found in a new … Read More
Conflict and Conflict Resolution at Work
In the workplace, negotiations with coworkers over issues such as project assignments, departmental funding, and vacation requests can sometimes flare into conflicts. When they do, the experience can be stressful, and the organizational outcomes sometimes suffers as a result.
… Read Conflict and Conflict Resolution at Work
Case Study: Teaching with a Powerful Negotiated Agreement
What do a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, the CEO of an international financial advisory firm, and the former United States ambassador to the United Nations have in common? They’ve all received the Great Negotiator Award.
Every year, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School bestows this prestigious honor on distinguished leaders whose lifelong accomplishments in … Read More
In Acrimonious Disputes, Conflict Management is Key
Parties to a business dispute often become so focused on beating the other party that they lose sight of their most important goals. Conflict management efforts can be even more intense and seeming insurmountable between estranged romantic partners with a history of acrimony and distrust.
Consider rock star Madonna’s ongoing legal dispute with her ex-husband, film … Read More
The Negotiation Simulation Method: Teach Legal Lessons by Immersive Means
In complex legal negotiations, money, reputations, and sometimes even lives are often at stake. Legal professionals must know how to read and debate the law as well as fully embrace the art and science of negotiation.
To help attorneys and other legal professionals become well versed in law and court-based negotiation, the Program on Negotiation’s Teaching … Read More
Negotiation Exercises Designed To Help Settle Workplace Conflict
From brokering a deal to negotiating a sale, there are many disputes that happen at work. Among the most challenging are those involving employers and employees. That’s the case with Binder Kadeer: Consultation in the Company, a negotiation exercise brought to you by the Program on Negotiation’s Teaching Resource Center (TNRC).
… Read More
Bridging the Religious Divide: Transforming Conflict when Emotions and Religion are at Play
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, the Harvard International Negotiation Program, and the Religions and the Practice of Peace Colloquium are pleased to host: Bridging the Religious Divide: Transforming Conflict when Emotions and Religion are at Play
with
Daniel L. Shapiro Director, Harvard International Negotiation Program Associate Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital and
Rev. Septemmy E. Lakawa
Research Associate … Read More
Announcing the 2015 Winners of the PON Paper Prizes
The Program on Negotiation has awarded Bruno Verdini the 2015 Howard Raiffa Doctoral Student Paper Award for his paper “Charting New Territories Together: Laying the Foundations for Mutual Gains in United States – Mexico Water and Energy Negotiations.” This paper was submitted as his dissertation for the Ph.D. program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Emily Cole Groden … Read More
Analyzing the Name Dispute between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece: Twenty Years after the Interim Agreement
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is proud to present Analyzing the Name Dispute between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece: Twenty Years after the Interim Agreement with
Mr. Matthew Nimetz Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and
Dr. Daniel Serwer Senior Research Professor of Conflict Management Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and
Mr. Boshko Stankovski
Graduate Research Fellow, Program … Read More
Conflict Management in Negotiation: Training with the Enemy
Negotiation skills tips to help create value during your next session at the bargaining table. Read how collaboration and competition can lead to value creation in business negotiations.
… Read More
Majority Rules: In Congress, Conflict Management Through Coalitions
After years of gridlock, the U.S. Congress surprised many observers by passing a $1.1 trillion spending bill in December due to the formation of an unlikely coalition made up of moderate Republicans and Democrats.
… Read More
In Rome, Conflict Management Turns Operatic
When financial disputes arise between longstanding partners, both insiders and outsiders often note, “It’s not about the money.” Simmering resentment, mutual blame for ongoing problems, poor communication, and other deep issues often underlie arguments over money and make conflict management all the more difficult. Parties may reach agreement on monetary issues, but if they fail … Read More
Dispute Resolution: The Case of the Broken Speakers
“Indirect confrontation” may be a useful way of helping a counterpart save face, writes professor Jeanne Brett of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in an August 2010 article in the journal Negotiation and Conflict Management Research.
… Read More
Lawyers in Mediation and the Mediation Process
How does the presence of lawyers affect the process of mediation? You might guess that when one or both sides bring an attorney to a mediation, the process would become more contentious and adversarial, with impasse more likely, than if the parties worked solely with a mediator. That conventional wisdom is contradicted by new research … Read Lawyers in Mediation and the Mediation Process
At the Office, Conflict Management is Key
In the workplace, misunderstandings, power struggles, and stress can cause conflict to fester and take a toll on productivity. The best organizations put in place conflict management processes and systems to confront conflict directly. Unfortunately, too many organizations fail to do so—and suffer the consequences of sweeping conflict under the rug.
Take the case of Paradigm … Read At the Office, Conflict Management is Key
Intercultural Negotiations: When Negotiators Try Too Hard
Adapted from “Coping with Culture at the Bargaining Table,” first published in the May 2009 issue of Negotiation.
Though intercultural negotiating schemas can be useful, negotiators often give too much weight to them, according to an article in the May issue of the journal Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, “Starting Out on the Right Foot: Negotiation Schemas When … Read More
Conflict Management – What You Need to Know Before You Click “Like”
A new conflict-management policy from General Mills, the food company behind products such as Cheerios, Bisquick, and Betty Crocker, may lead it to lose some friends on social media.
The manufacturer recently added language to its website alerting consumers that they relinquish their right to sue the company simply by downloading coupons, “liking” General Mills on … Read More
Happy Holidays from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School!
We at the Program on Negotiation wish all of our friends a very happy holiday season. We are honored to work with you in helping improve the theory and practice of negotiation, conflict management, and problem-solving, at home and around the world. Best wishes for a joyful 2014!
… Read More
In Conflict Management, The Devil is in the Details
Negotiators engaged in conflict management are commonly advised to focus on the big picture, but sometimes it’s the smaller signs that can derail an agreement.
That was literally the case in July when the U.S. government’s plans to engage in peace talks with the Taliban were scuttled over a simple sign and other symbols, as Dion … Read More
Bet you didn’t know…When learning is the best goal of all
Abundant negotiation research suggests that negotiators are better off setting specific, challenging goals rather than vague “I’ll do my best” goals. In a new study, Kevin Tasa of York University in Toronto and his colleagues take a first look at whether it’s better to focus your specific goals on the negotiation process or on its … Read More
Conflict Management: Obama Compromises on Birth Control Rule
On February 1, the Obama administration proposed a compromise to a federal policy requiring health insurance plans to provide free contraceptives to women.
The proposal would expand the number of groups that need not pay directly for birth control coverage, the New York Times reports. Some religiously affiliated hospitals, universities, and social service agencies would join … Read More
Women and Negotiation: Their Place at the Table in the US and Abroad
Katrin Bennhold, staff writer for the International Herald Tribune, and Paula Gutlove, Professor of Negotiation and Conflict Management Practice at the Simmons College School of Management, will present a talk on Women and Negotiation.
… Read More
Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) to Help NYC Councilman Daniel Garodnick Develop a Plan to Cut the City’s Annual Legal Payouts
The Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) will conduct a study for New York City Councilman Daniel Garodnick examining the municipality’s annual legal settlement payouts, the New York Daily News reports.
… Read More
Thirteen Days in the Age of Nuclear Threat: Negotiation Lessons for Peaceful Coexistence
In recognition of the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis,
PON is pleased to present
Thirteen Days in the Age of Nuclear Threat: Negotiation Lessons for Peaceful Coexistence
with
Bruce Allyn
Author and Practitioner in the field of Conflict Resolution
and
Alain Lempereur
Professor of Coexistence and Conflict Resolution at Brandeis University
Thursday, October 25, 2012
5:30 pm
Langdell North, Room 225
Harvard Law School campus
About … Read More
Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program is Nominated for an Innovating Justice Award
The Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) is nominated for an Innovating Justice Award for its proposal, “Retooling Legal Education and Dispute Systems Designers.”
… Read More
Daniel Shapiro receives award for his innovative work on identity-based conflict
Harvard psychologist and PON affiliated faculty member, Daniel L. Shapiro, Ph.D., has been awarded the highly competitive Otto Klineberg Intercultural and International Relations Award by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). SPSSI recently announced the award in recognition of his article, “Relational Identity Theory: A Systematic Approach for Transforming the Emotional … Read More
Professor Shapiro in the Harvard Gazette
Daniel L. Shapiro, an assistant professor of psychology, invited a special guest lecturer, actor Richard Olivier (Sir Laurence Olivier’s son), to give a talk to his Harvard negotiation and conflict management class about William Shakespeare’s play, “Henry V.” Olivier and Shapiro showed how the play offers powerful examples on why being an inspired leader helps … Read Professor Shapiro in the Harvard Gazette
Announcing the 2011 PON Summer Fellows
About the PON Summer Fellowship Program:
PON offers fellowship grants to students at Harvard University, MIT, Tufts University and other Boston-area schools who are doing internships or undertaking summer research projects in negotiation and dispute resolution in partnership with public, non-profit or academic organizations. The Summer Fellowship Program’s emphasis is on advancing the links between … Read Announcing the 2011 PON Summer Fellows
2011 Winner of the Roger Fisher/Frank E. A. Sander Student Paper Prize Announced
Congratulations to Jessica Beess und Chrostin (HLS ’13), the 2011 Fisher/Sander Prize Winner, for her paper “Cross-Border Class Actions and Aggregate Dispute Resolution: Where We Are and How to Move Forward.”
This prize was established in 2007 by the Program on Negotiation in honor of Professors Roger Fisher, the Williston Professor of Law, Emeritus, and Frank … Read More
To Reflect and Trust
Eileen Babbitt (Professor of International Conflict Management Practice at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University)
Building consensus and sharpening problem solving skills should be part of every negotiation. Some divisions between groups are so emotionally fraught, however, that the facilitators need enhanced training first. In this interview, Eileen Babbitt discusses a “to reflect … Read To Reflect and Trust
New Constitutionalism: An Approach to Human Rights from a Conflict Transformation Perspective
Author: Eileen Babbitt, Professor of International Conflict Management Practice at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
The pursuit of human rights can be helped along by paying more attention to the principles of conflict transformation. This piece shows how countries that have known violent internal conflict can use the negotiating of a constitution … Read More
Multiparty Negotiation wins IACM Outstanding Book Award
Multiparty Negotiation by Lawrence Susskind and Larry Crump (2008) won the International Association for Conflict Management’s 2008-2009 Outstanding Book Award at the 23rd annual IACM Conference last week.
The IACM committee stated that:
– This book is one of the most ambitious set of readings in recent memory, along side the Druckman and Diehl volumes on Conflict … Read More
Sreedhari Desai wins IACM Graduate Scholarship
Ms. Sreedhari Desai, the PON 2009-2010 Graduate Research Fellow, received the International Association for Conflict Management’s Graduate Scholarship award for two of her papers. The first, “Some Like it Hot: Why Some People Respond Negatively to Procedural Fairness,” (co-authored with Drs. Harris Sondak and Kristina Diekmann) can be downloaded here. The second, “When Executives Rake … Read Sreedhari Desai wins IACM Graduate Scholarship
International Association for Conflict Management’s 23rd Annual Conference
In collaboration with the Program on Negotiation and other cosponsors, the 23rd annual International Association for Conflict Management conference will be held in Boston July 24-27. The conference will feature a combination of poster and paper sessions, workshops, symposia, and roundtables. The IACM conference highlights the interdisciplinary nature of IACM and the excellent scholarship of … Read More
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. 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
Announcing the 2010 PON Summer Fellows
About the PON Summer Fellowship Program:
PON offers fellowship grants to students at Harvard University, MIT, Tufts University and other Boston-area schools who are doing internships or undertaking summer research projects in negotiation and dispute resolution in partnership with public, non-profit or academic organizations. The Summer Fellowship Program’s emphasis is on advancing the links between … Read Announcing the 2010 PON Summer Fellows
2010 Winner of the Roger Fisher/Frank E. A. Sander Student Paper Prize Announced
Congratulations to Jamison Davies (HLS ’11), the 2010 Fisher/Sander Prize Winner, for his paper “Formalizing Legal Reputation Markets.”
This prize was established in 2007 by the Program on Negotiation in honor of Professors Roger Fisher, the Williston Professor of Law, Emeritus, and Frank E. A. Sander, the Bussey Professor of Law, Emeritus, two founders of the … Read More
What should journalists and conflict management professionals learn from each other?
“In the Global Village, Can War Survive?” by Program on Negotiation managing director Susan G. Hackley looks at the work of journalists and conflict management professionals, two groups who operate in the demanding world of conflict, and suggests ways they could – and should – learn from each other. “Conflict management professionals should tell their … Read More
Summary of Mediation Pedagogy Conference Participant Survey Results
To better understand the teaching needs of the mediation community, Negotiation Pedagogy at the Program on Negotiation (NP@PON) organized a Mediation Pedagogy Conference in May of 2009. In advance of the conference, an 18-question online survey was sent to the 175 conference presenters and registered participants. The 75% response rate allowed us to illuminate important … Read More
The Role of Track I actors in Reconciliation: The UN in Iraq
“The Role of Track I actors in Reconciliation: The UN in Iraq”
with Eileen Babbitt
Date: December 8, 2009
Time: 4-6 PM
Where: CGIS Building, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs,
1737 Cambridge Street, Second Floor, N-262 (Bowie Vernon Room), Cambridge MA
Contact Chair: Donna Hicks (dhicks@wcfia.harvard.edu).
Speaker Bio
Eileen F. Babbitt is Professor of International Conflict Management Practice and Director of the International Negotiation … Read More
Boston Globe highlights mediation trainings for Iraqis
“The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is a renowned source of expertise in the field,” reported the Boston Globe today in its story, “Iraq latest crucible for Harvard mediation.” Reporting on the work done by conflict resolution professionals at Conflict Management Group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the report notes that “The blood not spilled … Read More
2009 Winner of the Roger Fisher/Frank E. A. Sander Student Paper Prize Announced
Congratulations to Sean McDonnell (HLS ’09), the 2009 Fisher/Sander Prize Winner, for his paper “Fighting With Faith: The Role of Religion in Dealing With Modern Conflict.”
This prize was established in 2007 by the Program on Negotiation in honor of Professors Roger Fisher, the Williston Professor of Law, Emeritus, and Frank E. A. Sander, the Bussey … Read More
Mediation Pedagogy Conference
Registration is now closed for the NP@PON Mediation Pedagogy Conference.
Professors Lawrence Susskind (MIT) and Michael Wheeler (Harvard Business School) are pleased to announce a Mediation Pedagogy Conference to be held by Negotiation Pedagogy at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School (NP@PON). This two-day Conference will be held Friday, May 15 and Saturday, May … Read Mediation Pedagogy Conference
PON’s New Website
Welcome to the new website for the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School! As we come fully online, we welcome your comments and patience as we finish launching the new site. We hope to be a resource for you by providing comprehensive information on all aspects of negotiation and conflict management through our research, … Read PON’s New Website
Conflict Management in South Asia: A Discussion of Mercy Corps CMG’s Programs in the Region
Dr. Rebecca Wolfe is a Senior Program Officer with Mercy Corps Conflict Management Group. She is responsible for developing and implementing conflict management programs, including writing proposals, designing assessments, conducting evaluations and designing and delivering trainings. Since joining Mercy Corps, she has spent the majority of her time working in Asia, including Sri Lanka, Nepal, … Read More