There are numerous opportunities for adults to learn and practice their negotiation skills. Whether it’s working through an issue with a coworker, buying a home, or taking actual negotiation education classes, if you want to improve your negotiation outcomes, you can find ways to learn. But what about kids? Are they too young to learn … Read How To Share a Negotiation Education with Kids 
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 Resolution
What is Conflict Resolution?
Conflict resolution is the process of resolving a dispute or a conflict permanently, by adequately addressing each side’s interests so that they are satisfied with the outcome.
When disputes arise in business and personal relationships, it’s easy to avoid conflict to save the relationship. Nonetheless, it is possible to turn tense disputes into productive negotiations and maintain strong relationships.
However, parties involved in conflict resolution (and negotiation more generally) tend to engage in reactive devaluation—that is, they distrust and downplay the merit of offers from the other side simply because they come from an “opponent.”
For negotiators managing conflicts with distrustful parties, the following conflict resolution tactics helpful:
- Exercise strategic patience. Resist the urge to respond immediately to provocative acts. A slow-paced approach to conflict resolution can help de-escalate tensions while also strengthening parties’ motivations to end the dispute.
- When possible, meet in person. Business negotiators would be wise to meet with counterparts in person when possible. More so than phone calls, face-to-face meetings humanize negotiators and foster rapport.
- Enlist those the other party trusts. Look for people you and your counterpart both trust to mediate your dispute.Try to identify a neutral party within or outside the negotiation whose interests are aligned with yours and then provide that party with opportunities to voice a rationale for a proposed solution. Parties who are perceived by all sides as legitimate and fair will be the most successful messengers and can greatly increase the odds that your argument will be received and accepted.
Program on Negotiation co-founder William Ury emphasizes the importance of keeping the lines of communication open when dealing with difficult people and problems, saying: “You don’t deal with a problem with your neighbor by cutting the phone line.”
In our special free report – The New Conflict Management: Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies to Avoid Litigation – renowned negotiation experts uncover unconventional approaches to conflict management that can turn adversaries into partners. Download your copy right now, and we’ll notify you by email when we post new conflict resolution advice and information.
The following items are tagged Conflict Resolution:
Overcoming Resistance: The Influence Equation
Through breakout sessions, exercises, role plays, and other hands-on experiences, Carlebach will explain what to do when you encounter resistance. This session will introduce you to the Influence Equation—a simple, high-impact framework that will help you diagnose and overcome three major factors that fuel resistance in any given negotiation.
… Read Overcoming Resistance: The Influence Equation
Negotiation and Leadership Spring 2025 Program Guide
It’s often said that great leaders are great negotiators. But how does one become an effective negotiator? On-the-job experience certainly plays a role, but for most executives, taking their negotiation skills to the next level requires outside training.
… Read More
Using Conflict Resolution Skills: Trying to Forgive and Move Forward
In business negotiations, when a counterpart apologizes for harming or offending you, should you forgive and move forward? What if doing so seems impossible?
… Read More
NEW! 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 NEW! Harvard Mediation Intensive
Negotiation and Leadership Fall 2024 Program Guide
It’s often said that great leaders are great negotiators. But how does one become an effective negotiator? On-the-job experience certainly plays a role, but for most executives, taking their negotiation skills to the next level requires outside training.
… Read More
Lessons Learned from Cultural Conflicts in the Covid-19 Era
During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, new types of conflict arose. People would argue on Facebook or Twitter about whether stay-at-home orders had gone too far. Protestors—sometimes armed—showed up at state capitols, demanding the right to move about freely. In your own home, you might have been clashing with teens who trying to assert … Read More
Leveraging the Power of Emotions As You Negotiate
Bonus day for September Negotiation and Leadership program.
In this fascinating workshop, you will discover a powerful framework for understanding and addressing the challenging emotional dynamics that arise in everyday negotiations and conflicts.
… Read Leveraging the Power of Emotions As You Negotiate
Negotiate Strong Relationships at Work and at Home
The experts and editors from Harvard’s Program on Negotiation offer a sampling of advice to help you learn to foster relationships by building rapport, manage conflict in long-term relationships and negotiate business decisions with family members.
… Read More
Check Out the All-In-One Curriculum Packages – Available for Some of Our Most Popular Simulations
Introducing a new way to go in-depth when teaching the most important negotiation concepts and to measure learning outcomes.
If you are new to teaching negotiation or are looking to go in-depth on teaching key concepts, the All-In-One Curriculum Package will provide you with everything you need. The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center has created All-In-One Curriculum … Read More
Negotiating Difficult Conversations: Dealing with Tough Topics Productively
Course Dates: This course is closed
When negotiations become difficult, emotions often escalate and talks break down. To overcome barriers and turn negotiations from difficult to collaborative, from breakdown to breakthrough, you must learn to understand the inter- and intra-personal dynamics at play. In this program, you will examine how your own assumptions and behaviors can … Read More
Conflict Styles and Bargaining Styles
What type of bargainer are you? Many negotiation strategies are “one size fits all,” but our unique personalities and life experiences will shape how we carry out and react to such strategies. Familiarity with popular models of conflict styles and bargaining styles can help us better understand and work with our own proclivities and … Read Conflict Styles and Bargaining Styles
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
Conflict Resolution Examples in History: Learning from Nuclear Disarmament
What lessons can we learn from conflict resolution examples in history? The world of nuclear nonproliferation can be a valuable place to start, as few negotiations throughout history have had higher stakes.
… Read More
The Ladder of Inference: A Resource List
The ladder of inference describes how a negotiator, or any decision maker, relies upon her personal knowledge, or observable data, up the ladder of inference to the next stage, which is selected data.
… Read The Ladder of Inference: A Resource List
Teach Your Students to Take Their Mediation Skills to the Next Level
Mediation is a critical conflict resolution skill for students in a variety of fields: business, international relations, law, and public policy, to name a few. Once students have mastered mediation basics, they can hone their skills by trying to mediate more complex conflicts as well as by learning the key differences between facilitation and mediation. … Read More
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
Conflict Resolution Success Stories: A Surprising Tale from Congress
Conflict resolution success stories in the news can be few and far between. Too often, when a dispute arises, parties escalate the conflict through hardball tactics in negotiation (threats, lies, and the like) rather than taking steps to address and minimize it. When conflict resolution success stories do appear, we typically fail to absorb their … Read More
Negotiation Journal Now Open Access, New Issue Just Released!
The Negotiation Journal – a multidisciplinary publication focused on negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution – celebrates 40 years, joins MIT Press, and is now fully open access.
The Negotiation Journal is an international, multidisciplinary journal devoted to the publication of works that advance the theory, analysis, practice, and instruction of negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution. Now … 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
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
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
How to Manage Conflict at Work
Sooner or later, almost all of us will find ourselves trying to cope with how to manage conflict at work. At the office, we may struggle to work through high-pressure situations with people with whom we have little in common. We need a special set of strategies to calm tempers, restore order, and meet each … Read How to Manage Conflict at Work
What Is Collective Leadership?
When we think of successful leaders, we typically envision a solitary person—a president, CEO, or entrepreneur—drawing on their vision, charisma, and drive to inspire and direct others. As our world grows increasingly more connected and complex, however, this top-down approach to leadership is becoming increasingly outdated.
… Read What Is Collective Leadership?
What is a Win-Win Negotiation?
In an episode of the American television show The Office, bumbling manager Michael Scott consults with a manual on conflict resolution while attempting to mediate a dispute between two of his subordinates, Angela and Oscar. After Scott explains that there are five approaches to resolving conflict, beginning with “win-lose,” an annoyed Angela interrupts: “Can we … Read What is a Win-Win Negotiation?
Cognitive Biases in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution – Common Negotiation Mistakes
Negotiators planning to engage in conflict resolution in a personal or business disputes should be aware of cognitive biases in negotiation, particularly when your dispute is being decided by a judge. Before doing so, you should consider carefully what psychologists, political scientists, and legal scholars have learned about judges from negotiation research and social science: … Read More
The Pitfalls of Negotiations Over Email
Negotiation research suggests that email often poses more problems than solutions when it comes to relationships, information exchange, and outcomes in conflict resolution negotiation scenarios. First, establishing social rapport via email can be challenging. The lack of nonverbal cues and the dearth of social norms regarding its use can cause negotiators to be impolite and … Read The Pitfalls of Negotiations Over Email
How to Solve Intercultural Conflict
The question of how to solve intercultural conflict is one of the most difficult ones facing negotiators. Misunderstandings and disputes caused by cultural differences can further complicate already challenging negotiations, whether you are doing business at home, abroad, or online. The following guidelines can help us achieve better results in cross-cultural communication and negotiation.
… Read How to Solve Intercultural Conflict
How to Negotiate Mutually Beneficial Noncompete Agreements
If you’re looking to get more leverage out of your next job negotiation, the noncompete agreement that may very well be tucked inside your employment contract could provide an opportunity to achieve the mutually beneficial win-win situation you desire.
… Read More
Managing Expectations in Negotiations
Successful negotiators work hard to ensure that when they and their counterpart leave a negotiation, both sides feel satisfied with the agreement. Why should you care whether the other side is pleased with negotiations or not?
… Read Managing Expectations in Negotiations
Bargaining in Bad Faith: Dealing with “False Negotiators”
We tend to forget—at our peril—that not everyone at the bargaining table wants to close a deal and may be bargaining in bad faith.
… Read More
What is Alternative Dispute Resolution?
So, you’re stuck in a serious dispute, but you’re desperate to avoid the hassle and expense of a court case. You’ve heard about alternative dispute resolution but are not sure what it entails.
… Read What is Alternative Dispute Resolution?
Jeswald Salacuse: A Great Scholar, Leader, and Negotiator
Jeswald Salacuse, a Tufts University professor and pivotal member of the Program on Negotiation, made rich and lasting contributions to the fields of negotiation, leadership, and beyond over the course of his distinguished career.
… Read More
10 Negotiation Training Skills Every Organization Needs
How can managers and their organizations increase the odds that negotiation training will lead to beneficial long-term results? Here are several pieces of advice, drawn from experts at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
… Read More
How to Negotiate in Good Faith
Have you ever negotiated with someone who seemed intent on sabotaging the negotiation or taking unfair advantage? If so, you would benefit from learning more about what it mean to negotiate in good faith.
… Read How to Negotiate in Good Faith
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
Negotiating Identity and Values-Based Disputes
How Do Parties in Conflict Negotiate Core Beliefs?
Identity and values-based disputes are particularly challenging to resolve, as identities are naturally inflexible and values are typically much less elastic than interest-based issues. In conventional interest-based negotiation, parties often do give up one thing in exchange for getting something they want more. This is often not possible … Read Negotiating Identity and Values-Based Disputes
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
Causes of Conflict: When Taboos Create Trouble
Among the many causes of conflict, taboo issues that arise in negotiation and other realms can be difficult to address. Here’s how to identify and broach these hot-button issues.
… Read Causes of Conflict: When Taboos Create Trouble
Conflict Resolution in the Ebook Era
New technologies bring new business models—and often, lawsuits follow. Various disputes involving ebooks in recent years highlight the need to approach negotiations carefully so that you can minimize the need for conflict resolution.
… Read Conflict Resolution in the Ebook Era
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.
… Read More
Does Using Technology in Negotiation Change Our Behavior?
Technology has infiltrated almost every element of our negotiations, as it has almost every aspect of our lives. Negotiation scholars have studied how negotiating via technological media affects the way we negotiate—concluding, for example, that doing business via email can increase misunderstandings and heighten conflict as compared to face-to-face meetings. But the ubiquity of technology … Read More
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
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
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.
… Read More
How to Deal with Difficult Customers
To hear some salespeople and service representatives tell it, difficult behavior from customers is at an all-time high. Stories of demanding customers proliferate in the press and on social media, while customers likewise complain that their needs increasingly are not being met by companies focused on the bottom line.
… Read How to Deal with Difficult Customers
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?
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
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
10 Real-World Negotiation Examples
Real-world negotiation examples can help us learn from the past and avoid repeating others’ mistakes. Here’s a recap of 10 real-world negotiation examples across government and industry that provide negotiation lessons for all business negotiators.
… Read 10 Real-World Negotiation Examples
Top 10 Dispute Resolution Skills
Too often, dispute resolution can be an acrimonious and unproductive process. The following 10 negotiation and conflict resolution strategies can help you find creative ways to reach mutually satisfactory agreements.
… Read Top 10 Dispute Resolution Skills
3 Negotiation Strategies for Conflict Resolution
When a dispute flares up and conflict resolution is required, the outcome can be sadly predictable: the conflict escalates, with each side blaming the other in increasingly strident terms. The dispute may end up in litigation, and the relationship may be forever damaged.
… Read 3 Negotiation Strategies for Conflict Resolution
AI Mediation: Using AI to Help Mediate Disputes
AI mediation is on the rise, with chatbots increasingly assisting human mediators in resolving disputes. Here’s what AI mediation is capable of—and where it falls short.
… Read AI Mediation: Using AI to Help Mediate Disputes
Interpersonal Conflict Resolution: Beyond Conflict Avoidance
To hear some tell it, we are experiencing an epidemic of conflict avoidance, finding new ways to walk away from conflict rather than engaging in interpersonal conflict resolution. Ghosting, for example—ending a relationship by disappearing—has become common. Numerous tech companies are being criticized for laying off people via email rather than in person. Many people … Read More
Negotiating a Non-Compete Agreement with Employers
In integrative negotiation, each side seeks to create and claim value with an eye towards the future of the negotiating relationship. One way of securing this relationship is a noncompete agreement: Employers sometimes ask potential employees to agree not to work for their competitors in the future but don’t assume such requests are nonnegotiable.
… Read More
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.
… Read More
How Conflict Examples Can Teach Us to Listen
Listening deeply to our counterparts is a critical negotiation skill. Here, we look at how conflict examples can help us transform unproductive conflict into opportunities to listen and learn.
… Read How Conflict Examples Can Teach Us to Listen
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
Famous Negotiators: Tony Blair’s 10 Principles to Guide Diplomats in International Conflict Resolution
In his memoir, the former world leader highlights lessons from the peace process in Northern Ireland. One of the world’s most famous negotiators, Tony Blair, offers 10 principles to guide diplomats in international conflict resolution.
… Read More
What is the Multi-Door Courthouse Concept
As a collaboration between UST School of Law and the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, the following is the transcript of a conversation between the creator of the multi-door courthouse, Harvard Law Professor Frank E.A. Sander, and the executive director and founder of the University of St. Thomas (UST) International ADR [Alternative Dispute … Read What is the Multi-Door Courthouse Concept
How to Handle Conflict in Teams: Lessons from Scientific Collaborations
How to handle conflict in teams? Most advice centers on eliminating conflict. But an expert on helping scientific collaborators work together fruitfully recommends finding ways to live with productive disagreement.
… Read More
When Dealing with Difficult People, Look Inward
Yes, there are difficult people in the world, but people often have good reason for behaving as they do. Reexamining our assumptions for bias can help us better understand them—and ourselves.
… Read When Dealing with Difficult People, Look Inward
Negotiation Skills: How to Become a Negotiation Master
Negotiation jujitsu means breaking the vicious cycle of escalation by refusing to react. Resistance should be channeled into activities such as “exploring interests, inventing options for mutual gain, and searching for independent standards.
… Read More
Negotiation with Your Children: How to Resolve Family Conflicts
Few negotiation examples in real life demonstrate the benefit of effective conflict resolution skills than those disputes that arise in the home, such as those between parents and children. Getting a good night’s sleep and eating a healthy dinner might seem like obvious goals for parents to have for their young children, but kids won’t … 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
Police Negotiation Techniques from the NYPD Crisis Negotiations Team
Few negotiators can imagine negotiation scenarios more stressful than the kinds of crisis negotiations the New York City Police Department’s Hostage Negotiation Team undertake. But police negotiation techniques employed by the New York City Police Department’s Hostage Negotiations Team (HNT) in high-stakes, high-pressure crisis negotiation situations, outlined in an article from Jeff Thompson and Hugh … Read More
Negotiation Journal celebrates 40th anniversary, new publisher, and diamond open access in 2024
The MIT Press is proud to announce it is the new publisher of Negotiation Journal, and that the journal will become a diamond open access publication in 2024. Founded in 1984 and copublished with the Program on Negotiation (PON), which is a consortium of Harvard, MIT, and Tufts housed at Harvard Law School, Negotiation Journal … 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.
… Read More
Negotiations in the News: Lessons for Business Negotiators
What can business negotiators learn from current negotiations in the news? Quite a bit, according to the dozens of negotiation experts who contributed to the January 2019 special issue of the Negotiation Journal, entitled “Negotiation and Conflict Resolution in the Age of Trump.”
… Read More
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
Increase Your Power in Negotiation
In July 2019, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the country’s consumer protection agency, voted to fine Facebook roughly $5 billion for mishandling its users’ personal data. It was by far the biggest penalty the U.S. government had levied against a technology company.
… Read Increase Your Power in Negotiation
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
Strategies to Resolve Conflict: Learning from Star Wars
When we think of conflict-management experts, we tend to think of mediators, lawyers, professors, and hostage negotiators. But what about Jedis, Wookiees, droids, and Sith? After all, “conflict is everywhere in Star Wars,” as Noam Ebner and Jen Reynolds write in the introduction to Star Wars and Conflict Resolution: There Are Alternatives to Fighting. From … Read More
Mediation Process and Business Negotiations: How Does Mediation Work in a Lawsuit?
How does mediation work in a lawsuit? What benefits can mediation offer businesses that deal with multiple contractual agreements, some of which may end in disputes? These questions were answered by Harvard Law School Associate Professor and negotiation expert Dan Greiner in an “Ask the Negotiation Coach” segment from our Negotiation Briefings newsletter.
… 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
For Business Negotiators, Patience Can be a Virtue
Business negotiators know that persistence and tenacity can make all the difference between impasse and a game-changing breakthrough. Take the saga behind Microsoft’s 2013 announcement of its pending $7.2 billion acquisition of Finnish mobile phone company Nokia’s handset and services business. The two parties engaged in many months of fruitless talks before either side believed … Read More
Dispute Resolution Example: The Chicago Symphony’s Contract Dispute
A 2019 contract dispute between the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and its musicians led to a disruptive seven-week strike, the longest in the venerable orchestra’s 128-year history. The unlikely intervention of Chicago’s mayor just before he left office managed to draw this thorny dispute resolution example to a mutually satisfactory finale while also highlighting the … Read More
Arbitration vs Mediation: The Definition of Mediation as a Problem Solving Process
Mediation is often thought of as a last step to adjudicate disputes. In this article, professor Lawrence Susskind spells out the hidden advantages of using mediation early in the process to solve problems and reach voluntary compliance agreements.
… Read More
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.
… Read More
Dispute Resolution: Building Momentum through Small Wins
Sometimes disputes are left to fester for years, even decades, until parties decide there is something to be gained from reaching agreement. In 2015, the nations of Bangladesh and India seized on an opportunity to push the “restart” button on a contentious border disagreement through dispute resolution. Such international conflict resolution examples can illustrate how … Read More
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
Crisis Negotiations: Advice for Ending Tense Standoffs
How can you engage in crisis negotiations with someone who doesn’t trust you? Consider bringing in individuals the other party does trust to play the role of mediator in the dispute, as the FBI did to promote a peaceful end to a standoff with occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in February 2016.
… Read More
Madeleine Albright’s Ways to Avoid Conflict In Negotiation: First, Put Yourself In Their Shoes
When parties can trade on their preferences across different issues, they reduce the need to haggle over price and percentages. But are there ways to avoid conflict in other types of negotiation?
… Read More
The Difficulty of Achieving a Win-Win Negotiation Outcome
In a negotiation, it may help to signal to your counterpart your willingness to engage in bargaining aimed at creating a win-win outcome for both parties.
… Read More
The Negotiation Journal Wants to Hear From You!
The Negotiation Journal would like your feedback on their Fall 2022 issue.
The Negotiation Journal is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal published by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. The journal publishes articles that expand theoretical and practical knowledge in the realms of negotiation, mediation, other forms of alternative dispute resolution, and conflict resolution in … Read The Negotiation Journal Wants to Hear From You!
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.
… Read More
MESO: Make Multiple Equivalent Simultaneous Offers to Create Value in Dealmaking Table
MESO negotiation, a negotiation strategy for creating value with a counterpart who may be reluctant to negotiate, allows negotiators to propose multiple offers without signaling commitment or preference for any one option. Business negotiators that practice integrative negotiation strategies often complain that although they try to focus on creating value, they run into far too many difficult … Read More
Dear Negotiation Coach: Responsible Negotiation Means Caring Beyond the Deal Closing
Alain Lempereur, has developed the concept of “responsible negotiation”, and answers questions about how to conduct more ethically sound negotiations.
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How to Overcome Cultural Barriers in Negotiation
Imagine that you’re the American representative of a U.S. food company, and you’re hoping to procure a new ingredient for several of your products from a German company. A representative from the company is flying in to meet with you. Do you expect your German counterpart to behave differently than the Americans you typically deal … Read How to Overcome Cultural Barriers in Negotiation
Teaching Critical Leadership Skills
Running a multinational corporation, starting a small business, or leading a diplomatic mission all require critical leadership skills. Being an effective leader necessitates negotiating both within your organization and with external partners. In Real Leaders Negotiate, author Jeswald Salacuse explains that leaders can increase their effectiveness by using negotiation in each of the three phases … Read Teaching Critical Leadership Skills
Negotiation in the News: The Art of Communication and Conflict Resolution
What do you do when you believe you’ve been wronged, the offending party won’t talk to you, and you have no legal recourse? Would you look for new paths for communication and conflict resolution? Or would you go public?
That’s what the world-renowned art museum the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, did in January 2019 to … Read More
Moving Toward Group Conflict Resolution
Over the years, what many believe to be Jesus’s tomb in Jerusalem’s Old City has been the site of tensions that have at times escalated into violence. Inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic communities guard the shrine surrounding the tomb, which they consider the holiest site in … Read Moving Toward Group Conflict Resolution
In Business Disputes, Conflict Resolution Styles Can Make All the Difference
Business disputes don’t have to be antagonistic. Nor does litigation need to be the go-to method of solving conflicts. Thoughtful negotiation can often often result in an amicable solution. To see the difference between two different conflict resolution styles, take a look at two real-life copyright cases in the music industry.
Imagine that you’re an up-and-coming … 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
Methods of Dispute Resolution: Building Trust in Online Mediation
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, mediators and other negotiation practitioners often insisted on meeting in person, convinced that online methods of dispute resolution lack “the human touch”—the warmth, energy, body language, and other subtle factors that build essential ingredients in conflict resolution, including trust, empathy, and rapport.
But when lockdowns and social-distancing restrictions took hold in the … Read More
Lessons Learned from Teaching Online: Pedagogy in a Pandemic
The exercises and videos developed for teaching online can also help improve in-person courses.
As teachers and trainers around the world are working to transition their courses online and wondering about how their approach to teaching will be altered moving forward, the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) asked some of our experienced online teachers to share … Read More
Lessons learned from a great negotiation leader
Leadership in negotiation
In academia, there are often subtle conflicts between the executive staff who run programs and centers, and the academics connected to them. Only a talented leader can consistently weave together such groups and integrate very different views. Susan has been such a leader for many years. She provides a vision of doing all we … Read Lessons learned from a great negotiation leader
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
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
In Conflict Resolution, President Carter Turned Flaws Into Virtues
When it comes to conflict resolution, surprisingly useful nuggets of advice come from the realm of international conflict. Take the Camp David Accords of 1978, as described minute-by-minute by Lawrence Wright in his new book, Thirteen Days in September. U.S. President Jimmy Carter made history by negotiating a peaceful end to the conflict between Israel … Read More
Overcoming Cross-Cultural Barriers to a Negotiated Agreement: Negotiation Ethics and International Negotiations
Cross cultural negotiation examples provide insights into how negotiation techniques change depending on the context in which negotiators find themselves. As Professor Cheryl Rivers of Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, points out in a recent negotiation research literature review, seasoned negotiators often hear stories about the unethical behaviors of people of other nationalities.
… 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.
… Read More
Teach Your Children How to Resolve Conflicts With This Book
We’ve all been there. One kid wants it his way; the other wants it her way and an inevitable conflict ensues. Shouting, crying, and harsh words are often part of the mix—creating stress for everyone, including the parents who just want to know how to resolve conflicts.
… Read More
Why Is Sincerity Important? How to Avoid Deception in Negotiation
Why is sincerity important at the bargaining table and how do negotiators avoid deception in negotiations? Your counterpart may not realize that her behavior is unethical, and even when she does, she may justify her behavior as being ethical in this particular case.
… Read More
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
Conflict Negotiation Skills for Broken Contracts
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, many agreements—renting a concert venue, hiring workers for a new café chain, acquiring a company—became untenable or illogical overnight. But it’s not easy to exit a signed contract without risking a costly legal dispute. By sharpening our conflict negotiation skills, we can negotiate satisfactory solutions without ending up in court. One … Read Conflict Negotiation Skills for Broken Contracts
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
Negotiation in Business: Ignore Sunk Costs
Think about what your house, condominium, or some other valuable asset might be worth in today’s market. Did the price you paid for it affect your answer?
… Read Negotiation in Business: Ignore Sunk Costs
How to Negotiate Online
International negotiators are often faced with the problem of how to overcome cultural barriers to communication. When you communicate in person, social norms – including body language, manners, and physical appearance – guide your behavior and ease the process. Here are some tips on how to negotiate online and building a rapport with your counterpart … Read How to Negotiate Online
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
Conflict Resolution and Opportunities for Mutual Gains in Negotiation
Poor communication explains many of our negotiation mistakes, write Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton in Getting to Yes, their landmark book. Here are four negotiation skills tips adapted from Susan Hackley’s May 2005 article “Can You Break the Cycle of Bad Communication?,” first published in Negotiation.
… Read More
Irrationality in Negotiations: How to Negotiate the Impossible
Negotiators often struggle with the task of bargaining with those who behave rashly, reason poorly, and act in ways that contradict their own self-interest. But as it turns out, behavior that negotiators often view as evidence of irrationality may in fact indicate something entirely different.
… 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
Negotiation Ethics: How to Navigate Ethical Dilemmas at the Bargaining Table
After buying a new car, you’re eager to sell your old car. It looks well kept, but you had problems with the engine last winter. Now it’s late summer. Should you tell prospective buyers about the engine, which might or might not act up when the weather turns?
… Read More
Women Negotiators and Barriers to the Bargaining Table
The barriers women negotiators face when negotiating for jobs and career advancement are well known: Women who ask for more money or better opportunities can face a backlash for violating traditional gender norms.
… Read More
What is BATNA?
What is BATNA? Negotiations in which each counterpart has a best alternative to a negotiated agreement are scenarios in which the incentive to work together must exceed the value of alternatives away from the negotiation table.
… Read What is BATNA?
Make the Most of Negotiation Skills Training
Across the globe, negotiation skills training has become a common activity in managerial life. Organizations often take steps to improve their managers’ negotiation skills and their ability to manage other negotiators by enrolling them in negotiation skills training programs.
… Read Make the Most of Negotiation Skills Training
Negotiation Case Study: Sincerity’s Power in Negotiation
Most of us have had the experience of delivering an apology that fell on deaf ears. When apologies fail to achieve their aims, poor delivery is usually to blame. The importance of sincerity in such a situation cannot be overstated, because if the recipient thinks your apology is less than sincere, she is unlikely to … Read More
Conflict Negotiation Skills for Ending Partnerships Peacefully
The process of dissolving a partnership can be wrenching, whether the split is undertaken by a couple, business partners, or an organization. But as many real-life examples of conflict resolution show, there are proven ways to calm the turmoil that often accompanies partnership dissolutions and set parties up for a hopeful future. Among conflict resolution … Read More
How Fast-Food Workers Used Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to Demand Higher Wages
Labor unions are the most obvious example of negotiating coalitions. If an individual employee made demands of its employer, the company could threaten to hire someone else.
… 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
Prepare for the Semester: Negotiation Pedagogy Articles from the Negotiation Journal
Whether you are going to be teaching negotiation next semester for the first time, or are a seasoned negotiation instructor, insightful research in negotiation pedagogy can help you approach your course in more effective and innovative ways. The Negotiation Journal, from the Program on Negotiation (PON), has a collection of articles on negotiation pedagogy that … Read More
BATNA in Negotiation: A Key Source of Power
In July 2019, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) imposed a roughly $5 billion fine on Facebook for mishandling its users’ personal data. It was the biggest penalty the U.S. government has levied against a technology company, yet in Congress and beyond, praise for the settlement was muted. The agreement highlights the difficulty of negotiating … Read BATNA in Negotiation: A Key Source of Power
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
Operating Short-Term to Long-Term through the COVID-19 Pandemic: Negotiating a Global Renaissance with Science Diplomacy
In case you missed it, Paul Berkman, Professor of Practice in Science Diplomacy and Founding Director of the Science Diplomacy Center at Tufts University, recently gave a Zoom talk about science diplomacy in the age of COVID-19, hosted by the Program on Negotiation (PON).
We now are in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, when … Read More
Check Out Video Highlights from the 2019 Negotiation Pedagogy Conference
On November 15th, 2019, the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) hosted a conference on excellence and innovation in negotiation pedagogy.
Negotiation and dispute resolution teachers and trainers from around the world came to Cambridge to learn about new approaches and share their experiences. Speakers at the conference spotlighted innovative instructional techniques in many diverse fields of … 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
Notable Negotiation Books for 2020
If one of your new year’s resolutions is to strengthen your skills needed for negotiation, the following recent negotiation books—and one journal special issue—will help you do just that with their host of perspectives and strategies. These negotiation books will also entertain and educate you along the way with insights on topics such as political … Read Notable Negotiation Books for 2020
2019 Negotiation Pedagogy Conference
Join us in Cambridge on Friday, November 15th, 2019 for a conference on excellence and innovation in teaching negotiation.
The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) at the inter-university Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is pleased to announce that the 2019 Negotiation Pedagogy Conference will take place on Friday, November 15th, 2019 at Harvard Law … Read 2019 Negotiation Pedagogy Conference
Conflict and Negotiation Case Study: Long-Term Business Partnerships and Negotiated Agreements
To protect the future interests of their organization, negotiators sometimes must accept fewer benefits or absorb greater burdens in the short run to maximize the value to all relevant parties – including future employees and shareholders – over time.
Suppose that the operations VPs of two subsidiaries of an energy company are preparing to negotiate the … 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
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
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
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
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
Business Negotiation Solutions: To Eat or Not to Eat?
We’ve all shared a meal with a negotiating counterpart at one point or another, whether a business lunch, a working dinner, or sandwiches in a conference room. What are the advantages and potential pitfalls of combining food and drink with negotiation? Here, we offer business negotiation solutions for those who are trying to decide whether … 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
Corporate Negotiation Pitfalls: The Case of Facebook
In corporate negotiation, negotiators often care most about getting the best price possible, assessing the other party’s ability to follow through, and closing the deal. Unfortunately, such business preoccupations can lead dealmakers to overlook potential ethical concerns, as current negotiations in the news often attest. Examining some of Facebook’s recent corporate negotiation mistakes, we describe … Read More
Conflict Resolution Scenarios: Negotiating Values
The most heated types of conflict in organizations and in our personal lives often concern our core values, such as our personal moral standards, our religious and political beliefs, and our family’s welfare. Such values conflicts can escalate and intervening quickly in cases of conflict is essential. The following three conflict resolution scenarios can help … Read Conflict Resolution Scenarios: Negotiating Values
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
Try to Avoid the Winners Curse When Negotiating
In a winner’s curse negotiation scenario, the winner may often find herself on the losing end of the deal. Ever win something you wanted, then realize too late you got a raw deal? Here’s how to recognize when backing away is your best bet in a negotiation.
… Read Try to Avoid the Winners Curse When Negotiating
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
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
How to Write a Contract that Lasts
Joint ventures, strategic alliances, purchasing agreements, and other types of partnerships between organizations often begin with a great deal of promise—and a hefty amount of risk. Serious misunderstandings and opportunistic behavior are relatively common in such relationships. Formal contracts offer a method for reducing such risk, but negotiators and their attorneys are often unsure about … Read How to Write a Contract that Lasts
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
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
Women Negotiators Break New Ground
In many other parts of the world, women face the daunting challenge of winning a place at the negotiating table in the first place. In particular, UN Women, an agency of the United Nations, has noted that women are vastly underrepresented in formal peace negotiations worldwide.
… Read Women Negotiators Break New Ground
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
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
Peace and Conflict Resolution with Difficult Partners
When peace and conflict resolution are your goals, what should you do when your would-be counterpart doesn’t want to come to the negotiating table? U.S. president Donald Trump faces this question as he tries to determine the right path to take with North Korea.
Tensions have ratcheted up lately as concerns mount that North Korea could … Read More
Announcing the 2017 PON Summer Fellows
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, nonprofit or academic organizations. The Summer Fellowship Program’s emphasis is on advancing the links between scholarship and practice in negotiation and … Read Announcing the 2017 PON Summer Fellows
Difficult Negotiation Going Nowhere? Consider an Apology
If you’ve ever offended a fellow negotiator with words or actions, you know how hard it can be to make amends.
… 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
Types of Power in Negotiation: Using Negotiation Research to Eliminate Gender Difference in Bargaining Scenarios
Here are four strategies from negotiation research on types of power in negotiation and how to minimize gender differences in bargaining scenarios and in negotiations.
… 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
How to Deal with a Difficult Mediator
Francesca Gino, Program on Negotiation faculty member and author of the bestselling book, Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed and How We Can Stick to the Plan, tackles this question from a Negotiation Briefings reader concerning how to deal with a mediator that is abrasive, dismissive, or even rude.
… Read How to Deal with a Difficult Mediator
Maintaining Your Power in Negotiations
Given the pitfalls of having a position of relative power, what is a powerful negotiator to do? By following these steps, you can keep your edge while encouraging cooperative, rather than competitive, behavior.
… Read Maintaining Your Power in Negotiations
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
PON Remembers Howard Raiffa
The Program on Negotiation would like to honor the memory of beloved colleague Howard Raiffa by highlighting his vast contributions to the field of decision making, negotiation, and dispute resolution. Howard Raiffa was one of the four principal co-founders of the Harvard Kennedy School and the Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Managerial Economics Emeritus, a … Read PON Remembers Howard Raiffa
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
How Your Organization Can Benefit from Mediation Techniques
If you manage people, disputes will show up at your door. The marketing VP protests that the budget cap you and your new finance VP proposed is hindering a research initiative you supported. Two young sales representatives are embroiled in a turf war. Your administrative assistant is upset because the HR director won’t approve 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
Dispute Resolution: Mandatory Arbitration Agreements Under Fire
A shake-up is afoot regarding large companies’ use of mandatory arbitration to settle disputes with consumers.
… 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
Negotiation Research Demonstrates the Impact of Memory on Decision Making Processes in Bargaining Scenarios
Recent negotiation research published by Psychological Science from Program on Negotiation faculty member and assistant professor at Harvard University’s Department of Psychology Joshua Greene and his colleague Elinor Amit explores the impact vivid mental imagery has on decision-making processes for negotiators. The negotiation skills insights that can be obtained from such negotiation research are many … Read More
Make the Most of Mediation in Negotiations and Dispute Resolution
What at first seemed like a minor misunderstanding has spiraled out of control. A Chicago-based printing company hired your Chicago-based IT consulting firm to train its staff to use its new computer system.
… Read More
Announcing the 2016 PON Summer Fellows
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 scholarship and practice in negotiation and … Read Announcing the 2016 PON Summer Fellows
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
For Kesha, Support of Peers Could Bring Settlement Leverage
Business negotiators are typically advised to keep their dealmaking and dispute resolution efforts private. Complaining about an adversary’s negotiation and conflict resolution strategies to the press or on social media can escalate disputes and increase the likelihood of impasse.
Yet when a negotiation becomes so contentious that it requires formal dispute resolution, such as a lawsuit, … Read More
Negotiation in the News: Arm’s Length Peacemaking
For 70 years, the governments of Japan and South Korea disagreed over what Japan might owe the Korean women its soldiers abused during World War II. The story of how they finally came to agreement reminds us of the importance of including all interested parties in conflict-resolution efforts.
An unresolved issue
During the war, tens of thousands … Read Negotiation in the News: Arm’s Length Peacemaking
With Patient Approach, FBI Steered Oregon Occupiers Toward Their BATNA
The 41-day armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon ended on February 11 when the last occupiers surrendered. Federal authorities in six states also arrested seven others accused of being involved in the occupation, according to the Associated Press. The standoff had begun when Ammon Bundy and his followers took over the … Read More
The Fiscal Cliff and the Debt Ceiling: Program on Negotiation Chair Robert Mnookin Discusses Recent and Future Negotiations Between Congressional Republicans and the White House
What methodology was driving the posturing and statements behind congressional Republicans and the Obama administration’s negotiations regarding the debt ceiling and how both sides came together to avoid going off of the “fiscal cliff.”
… Read More
Identity, Culture and Conflict Resolution
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is pleased to host the New England Association for Conflict Resolution 2015 Fall Program: Identity, Culture and Conflict Resolution Wednesday, October 21, 2015 UPDATED Schedule Registration – 6:30 – 7:15 pm NE-ACR Fall Program – 7:15 pm to 9:20 pm Location: Austin Hall North, Harvard Law School Free and open to the public.
Pre-registration encouraged, … Read Identity, Culture and Conflict Resolution
Negotiating Skills and Negotiation Tactics: Damage Control in Conflict Resolution
Framing in negotiation, and the negotiating skills and negotiation tactics that go behind effective bargaining, can help not only achieve a negotiator’s goals at the bargaining table, but also can anticipate the fallout or kickback received from parties away from the negotiation table. President Obama’s tax-cut negotiations with Senate Republicans in late 2010 offer cautionary … Read More
Announcing the 2015 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 scholarship … Read Announcing the 2015 PON Summer Fellows
Announcing the 2015-2016 PON Graduate Research Fellows
The Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellowships are designed to encourage young scholars from the social sciences and professional disciplines to pursue theoretical, empirical, and/or applied research in negotiation and dispute resolution. Consistent with the PON goal of fostering the development of the next generation of scholars, this program provides support for one year of … Read More
Negotiation Ethics and Lies at the Negotiation Table
Negotiation ethics can be linked to context and environment – as well as to jealousy experienced by negotiating counterparts. The negotiation research of Maurice E. Schweitzer and Simone Moran is discussed.
… Read More
Conflict Resolution When Dealing with Difficult People: Shutting Down the Government and Negotiation Strategies
Program on Negotiation faculty discuss the negotiation strategies used by US President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans negotiating the end of the shutdown of the United States government.
… Read More
New Perspectives on Large-Scale Systems Change
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is pleased to present New Perspectives on Large-Scale Systems Change with
Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld
Professor, School of Labor and Employment Relations (LER) at the University of Illinois
Thursday, April 23
12:15 – 1:30 pm
Wasserstein Hall Room B010 (Basement level)
Harvard Law School
About the talk:
Broad societal challenges, such as global climate change, industrial revitalization, and personalized medicine … Read New Perspectives on Large-Scale Systems Change
What Does Conflict Management Mean in Business Negotiations with Competitors?
They say it pays to keep your friends close and your enemies closer, but in business negotiation, keeping your enemies—or competitors—close could end you up in court, as Apple’s recent encounter with the U.S. Department of Justice suggests.
The story begins back in 2007 when, unhappy with Amazon’s low, flat price of $9.99 for e-books, five … Read More
“Making Conflict Work”: A Book Talk with Dr. Peter Coleman
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is pleased to present: Making Conflict Work: Harnessing the Power of Disagreement with Dr. Peter Coleman
Thursday, April 9
12:00 – 1:15 PM
Hauser 102
Harvard Law School Campus
Free and open to the public.
About the book:
Work conflict is risky. It can go bad and poison employee health, work relationships and organizational climates, or … Read More
Israeli-Palestinian Process After the Israeli Election: Recalculating the Route
The Program on Negotiationat Harvard Law School is pleased to present Israeli-Palestinian Process After the Israeli Election: Recalculating the Route with Attorney Gilead Sher Head of the Center for Applied Negotiations (CAN) Senior Research Fellow, Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University
Moderated by
Professor Robert H. Mnookin
Samuel Williston Professor of Law
Chair, Program on Negotiation
Harvard Law School
Monday, March 30
4:00 pm
Austin West 111
Harvard Law … Read More
Reflections of a Mediator: Preventive Diplomacy in an Age of Conflict
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is pleased to present: Reflections of a Mediator: Preventive Diplomacy in an Age of Conflict with
Dr. Johnston Barkat Assistant Secretary-General United Nations Ombudsman and Mediation Services
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
12:15 – 1:30PM
Pound Hall 100
Harvard Law School campus
Free and open to the public. A non-pizza lunch will be provided.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Johnston Barkat is the Assistant Secretary-General heading … Read More
Student Opportunity: Harvard International Negotiation Crisis Simulation
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, the Gleitsman Program for Leadership on Social Change at the Center for Public Leadership, the Harvard Kennedy School Negotiation Project, and the Belfer Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project are pleased to announce: Registration Is Now Open for the 1st Annual Harvard International Negotiation Crisis Simulation
Application:
Undergraduates, graduates, and PhD students from … Read More
50th Anniversary of A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School invites you to join us for A 50th Anniversary Celebration of A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations with Robert B. McKersie and Richard E. Walton A live webcast of this event will be available for viewing at http://media.fas.harvard.edu/core/live/hls-live.html
Thursday, March 5, 2015
12:00 p.m. Registration opens
1:00 – 5:30 p.m. Program
5:30-6:30 p.m. Reception
Wasserstein … Read More
Conflict Resolution: To Avoid Destructive Competition, Take the Pledge
Cooperative negotiators know that more value can be had at the bargaining table if they take an integrative bargaining approach to negotiations. Read here to find out how much value negotiators can create by cooperating with counterparts.
… 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
In “Chinatown” Conflict Resolution, the Dust Clears
Using conflict resolution techniques, the city of Los Angeles recently achieved an impressive victory by ending a 100-year battle with California’s Owens Valley over water rights and air pollution.
The dispute dates back to the early 1900s, when agents working for the city of Los Angeles, posing as farmers and ranchers, bought up most of the … Read More
For Conflict Resolution in Asia, A Simple Handshake Could Go Far
When disputes arise between international negotiators, sometimes a simple gesture of reciprocity can turn a boiling conflict into an amicable resolution. In this article the Program on Negotiation explores how a “simple handshake” between the leaders of Japan and the People’s Republic of China helped ease long-held tensions between the two countries.
… Read More
Responding to the Conflict in Syria: An Insider’s Perspective
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and the Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution are pleased to co-present: Responding to the Conflict in Syria: An Insider’s Perspective
with Dr. Amro Taleb
Wednesday, January 28
12:00 – 1:30 p.m.
Wasserstein Hall Room B10 (Basement Level)
Harvard Law School campus
About the Speaker:
Dr. Amro Taleb is a Syrian and Canadian citizen … Read More
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
In Conflict Resolution, Fairness Concerns Loom Large
On June 30, compensation expert Kenneth R. Feinberg unveiled a plan to give restitution to victims of accidents related to the fatal ignition flaw in 2.6 million General Motors vehicles. The plan—designed to be as generous as other compensation plans Feinberg has overseen, including payouts to victims of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings—is part of … Read More
When Conflict Doesn’t Require Conflict Resolution
Most of us dread conflict and the need to engage in conflict resolution. Yet we may be reaping benefits from certain forms of conflict on the job, according to a new study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Researchers Gergana Todorova (the University of Miami), Julia B. Bear (Stony Brook University), and Laurie R. Weingart … Read When Conflict Doesn’t Require Conflict Resolution
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School: Three Decades of Scholarship and Practice
Founded in 1983, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School is a pioneer in the fields of negotiation, mediation, and alternative dispute resolution.
In commemoration of the program’s 30th anniversary this year, the Program on Negotiation is proud to present a video describing many of PON’s various educational and research activities.
According to Chair Robert Mnookin, … Read More
PON Podcast: My Neighbourhood with Julia Bacha, Just Vision
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School held a panel discussion following a screening of My Neighborhood, a Just Vision documentary. The podcast is now available.
… Read More
The Program on Negotiation to screen Roger Fisher’s The Advocates
The Program on Negotiation will present an episode of The Advocates, an award winning television show created in 1969 by the late Roger Fisher.
… Read More
Israeli Settlement Withdrawal: Negotiation lessons from the past, and planning for the future
This presentation by Karen Lee Bar-Sinai and Prof. Robert Mnookin is the fourth seminar exploring the role of urban planning in negotiation, co-sponsored by the Middle East Negotiation Initiative (MENI) at the Program on Negotiation and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
… Read More
PON Film Series Event: My Neighbourhood Screening with Julia Bacha, Just Vision
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School are pleased to present a screening of “My Neighborhood,” a new Just Vision documentary. A panel discussion will be held after the screening with Julia Bacha, director/producer of My Neighbourhood.
… Read More
PON co-sponsors negotiation skills training for Israeli and Palestinian students
Thanks to leadership from the Middle East Negotiation Initiative (MENI) of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, a series of negotiation skills trainings was recently provided to eleventh grade students from Jewish and Arab schools in Israel. These two-day workshops, co-sponsored by the Program on Negotiation and the Amal Network and funded by … Read More
The Role of Designers in Negotiating Israeli-Palestinian Borders
This presentation by Karen Lee Bar-Sinai and Prof. Robert Mnookin is the third of four seminars exploring the role of urban planning in negotiation, co-sponsored by the Middle East Negotiation Initiative (MENI) at the Program on Negotiation and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
… Read More
Unilateral Initiatives in the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict
Yaakov Katz, a correspondent for The Jerusalem Post and Jane’s Defence Weekly, and Prof. Robert Mnookin, the Samuel Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, will discuss Unilateral Initiatives in the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.
… Read More
The Role of Urban Planners in Negotiations: Case Study of Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations
Can urban planning tools help negotiators develop creative solutions to complex disputes? Karen Lee Bar-Sinai, Loeb Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), recently explored this topic in a talk entitled “The Role of Urban Planners in Negotiations: Case Study of Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations.” The first in a series of seminars co-sponsored by the Middle … 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
Robert Mnookin Honored by International Academy of Mediators with Lifetime Achievement Award
Program on Negotiation Chair Robert Mnookin was honored by the International Academy of Mediators with a lifetime achievement award during the organization’s fall 2012 conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
… Read More
The Program on Negotiation Mourns the Loss of Co-Founder Roger Fisher
Roger Fisher, co-founder of the Program on Negotiation and the Harvard Negotiation Project, died on August 25 at age 90. A true pioneer and leader, he helped launch a new way of thinking about negotiation, and he worked tirelessly to help people deal productively with conflict.
“Through his writing and teaching, Roger Fisher’s seminal contributions literally … Read More
A Common Ground Approach to Societal Conflict Resolution
The Program on Negotiation is pleased to present:
A Common Ground Approach to Societal Conflict Resolution with
John Marks President and Founder of Search for Common Ground and
Susan Collin Marks
Senior Vice President of Search for Common Ground
Monday, October 15th, 2012
12 p.m. – 1 p.m.
Wasserstein 2004
Harvard Law School Campus
Please bring your own lunch; soft drinks and cookies will be served
About … Read More
2012 Program on Negotiation Fall Open House
Interested in negotiation and conflict resolution?
Come to the Program on Negotiation Open House!
The open house will begin at 6:30pm on Wednesday, October 3rd in Milstein East B in the new Wasserstein building, on the Harvard Law School campus.
Meet students and faculty interested in Alternative Dispute Resolution and learn how to get involved. Students from the … Read 2012 Program on Negotiation Fall Open House
A Peacekeeper Abandons Negotiations in Syria
On August 2, Kofi Annan announced he was resigning as the special peace envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League. reports Rick Gladstone in the New York Times. Since February, the former Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.N. Secretary General has attempted to negotiate a resolution of the Syrian conflict. The peaceful … Read A Peacekeeper Abandons Negotiations in Syria
The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts
“The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts” with Dr. Peter T. Coleman Director of the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution and Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University When: Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Time: 12 – 1 p.m.
Where: Wasserstein Hall, Room B10, Harvard Law School Campus
Please bring your lunch. Drinks and desserts provided.
One … Read More
2012 Great Negotiator Award event will honor former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III on March 29th
The Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School and the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) will jointly honor former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker, III with the 2012 Great Negotiator Award on Thursday, March 29, 2012, at the Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School.
The Great Negotiator Award … Read More
The Secret Talks That Led to the Fall of Apartheid
“The Secret Talks That Led to the Fall of Apartheid”
with Michael Young
Date: Tuesday, March 6, 2012 Time: 7:30 – 9 PM
Where: Langdell North, Harvard Law School
Event is free and open to the public; Refreshments will be served
Co-sponsored by: Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Mediation Program, Harvard Negotiation Law Review, and Harvard … Read More
PON faculty member leads Water Diplomacy Workshop
This summer, senior Arab and Israeli water negotiators and policymakers will convene in Cambridge, Massachusetts, along with individuals from more than 15 other countries to participate in the Water Diplomacy Workshop (www.waterdiplomacy.org) — a highly interactive, train-the-trainer program designed to help senior water managers improve their capacity to resolve complex water disputes. The initiative is … Read PON faculty member leads Water Diplomacy Workshop
Video: Professor Robert Mnookin leads negotiation skills training for Jewish and Arab students in Israel
In this video, Professor Robert H. Mnookin, Chair of the Program on Negotiation, reflects on his experience leading a negotiation workshop for high school students in Israel. The key negotiation skills emphasized in the workshop were active listening and the ability to understand the perspective of the other side. As Professor Mnookin states … Read More
Video: Moving beyond barriers with Eileen Babbitt
In this video, Eileen Babbitt, Director of the International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, outlines three types of obstacles that generate barriers in negotiations, and how to move beyond them. This video includes excerpts from a session taught by Dr. Babbitt at the Program on Negotiation for Senior … Read Video: Moving beyond barriers with Eileen Babbitt
Beyond diplomacy: Embedding peace and conflict transformation processes in Nepal and Lebanon
“Beyond diplomacy: Embedding peace and conflict transformation processes in Nepal and Lebanon”
with Jeff Seul Chairman, Peace Appeal Foundation and
Martin Wahlisch
International Lawyer and Researcher, Common Space Initiative (Beirut)
Date: November 8, 2011
Time: 4:00-6:00 PM
Where: Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
1737 Cambridge Street, Room K-354, Cambridge MA
Contact Chair: Donna Hicks (dhicks@wcfia.harvard.edu).
Speaker Bios
Jeff Seul, Chairman of the Peace Appeal Foundation, is a partner in … Read More
Dealing with emotions during tough economic times
A major measure of the economy is the prevailing mood. A bleak job market and less-than-rosy economic outlook influence how we feel in an organization. Tighter budgets and increased layoffs are causes for concern, and many of us respond with “fight or flight” behavior. We defend our turf or avoid tense conversations in the hopes … Read Dealing with emotions during tough economic times
2011 Program on Negotiation Fall Open House
Interested in negotiation and conflict resolution?
Come to the Program on Negotiation Open House!
The open house will begin at 6:30pm on Monday, October 3rd in the PON Library, Pound 513, Harvard Law School.
Meet students and faculty interested in Alternative Dispute Resolution and learn how to get involved. Students from the Boston area and beyond are welcome … Read 2011 Program on Negotiation Fall Open House
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
Video: PON-sponsored negotiation workshop engages Jewish and Arab students in Tel Aviv
In March 2011, Professor James Sebenius, Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, led a negotiation workshop for Jewish and Arab high school students in Tel Aviv, as part of a pilot program co-sponsored by the Program on Negotiation, with support from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. This innovative program offered three … Read More
Video: Arab and Jewish high school students learn negotiation skills with PON
Dr. Shula Gilad, Senior Fellow at the Program on Negotiation, recently helped launch an innovative new program for high school students in Israel. With support from the Office of Public Affairs of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, the Program on Negotiation co-sponsored three two-day workshops, which brought together a total of 180 Arab and … Read More
Announcing the 2011-2012 PON Graduate Research Fellows
The Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellowships are designed to encourage young scholars from the social sciences and professional disciplines to pursue theoretical, empirical, and/or applied research in negotiation and dispute resolution. Consistent with the PON goal of fostering the development of the next generation of scholars, this program provides support for one year of … Read More
Exhaust the Limits: The Life and Times of a Global Peacemaker
Exhaust the Limits: The Life and Times of a Global Peacemaker
with Charles F. “Chic” Dambach President & CEO, Alliance for Peacebuilding
Date: May 16, 2011
Time: 12:00PM to 1:30PM
Where: Hauser Hall, Room 102, Harvard Law School Campus
Chic Dambach will discuss his new memoir, Exhaust the Limits: The Life and Times of a Global … Read More
Budrus
Ayed Morrar, an unlikely community organizer, unites Palestinians from all political factions and Israelis to save his village from destruction by Israel’s Separation Barrier. Victory seems improbable until his 15-year-old daughter, Iltezam, launches a women’s contingent that quickly moves to the front lines.
Struggling side by side, father and daughter unleash an inspiring, yet little-known movement … Read Budrus
Knocking
At first glance, Knocking is about Jehovah’s Witnesses, the door-to-door proselytizers we like to hide from. But there’s a bigger story as the film asks whether they are a necessary annoyance in a free society. What if you wanted to speak, publish, worship or live as you choose but belonged to the marginalized group of … Read Knocking
Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood – Obstacles to Peace in the Middle East or Opportunities?
“Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood- Obstacles to Peace in the Middle East or Opportunities?” with
Robert Pastor Date: February 15, 2011
Time: 12:00PM to 1:30PM
Where: Pound Hall, Room 202, Harvard Law School Campus
The foreign policy of the United States and its allies have been based on the premise that all three organizations are immutable threats to … Read More
Save the Dates: Announcing the PON Spring 2011 Events Calendar
The Program on Negotiation Spring 2011 Events Calendar: February 1: Herbert C. Kelman Seminar on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Negotiation, Conflict and the News Media: Cambodia, Kevin Doyle and Steve Marks, 4:00pm-6:00pm
February 15: Brown Bag Lunch Series: Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood – Obstacles to Peace in the … Read More
Prof Mandell Featured on Kennedy School Website
PON affiliated professor Brian Mandell was interviewed for an article on the Harvard Kennedy School homepage today discussing his intersession course, Advanced Workshop in Multiparty Negotiation and Conflict Resolution. Click here to read the full article.
“The class — of which the objective is to develop the next generation of master negotiators — is structured so … Read Prof Mandell Featured on Kennedy School Website
Robert Bordone and HNMCP featured in the HLS Bulletin
“Uncommon Loss: Common Bond,” published in the Harvard Law School Bulletin discusses Project Common Bond, which was started by two former Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program students working with Professor Robert Bordone and clinic associate, Toby Berkman.
“For teens… from around the globe with family members killed or seriously injured in acts of violence, … Read More
The Big Question
A troubled man bursts into your child’s schoolhouse. Without warning, he chases out all the boys and lines the girls up. Then he begins to shoot them one by one. For decades your people’s backs have been broken by the oppressive yoke of Apartheid. Suddenly, the tables are turned and you and your friends are … Read The Big Question
“Can Ethnic Divisions be Healed for the Good of all Kenyans?”
“Can Ethnic Divisions be Healed for the Good of all Kenyans?”
with Robert Rotberg and Gwen Thompkins
Date: October 19, 2010
Time: 4-6 PM Where: CGIS Building, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, 1737 Cambridge Street, Room N-262, Cambridge MA Contact Chair: Donna Hicks (dhicks@wcfia.harvard.edu). Speaker Bios
Robert Rotberg is Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution, Belfer Center for Science and … Read More
Program on Negotiation Summer Fellows Lunch
PON Summer Fellows Lunch
Join the Program on Negotiation for a discussion with our 2010 Summer Fellows about their work over the summer. This is an excellent opportunity to learn about ongoing work in the negotiation and conflict resolution fields both domestically and abroad.
Information about our Summer Fellowship program will … Read Program on Negotiation Summer Fellows Lunch
PON Founders Video
The founders of the Program on Negotiation describe the early days of the field of negotiation and conflict resolution, when scholars in law, business, psychology, anthropology, economics, and public policy came together to share insights on how to help people deal with conflict, solve problems, make deals, and preserve relationships.
To see more PON videos, click … Read PON Founders Video
Former President Martti Ahtisaari honored with Great Negotiator Award!
The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School Will Honor Former President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari with the 2010 Great Negotiator Award
Co-sponsored with the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Great Negotiator Event Offers Real-World Negotiation Discussion to All Students
For Immediate Release
CAMBRIDGE, MA (September 21, 2010) The Program on Negotiation … 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
Reconciling differences for a joint venture
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-party, four-issue negotiation between representatives of two companies with different national and corporate cultures regarding a possible joint venture.
Scenario: MedDevice, a U.S.-based Fortune 500 company that manufactures high technology medical equipment, and Lee Medical … Read Reconciling differences for a joint venture
Occupational safety
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 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
Announcing the 2010-2011 PON Graduate Research Fellows
The Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellowships are designed to encourage young scholars from the social sciences and professional disciplines to pursue theoretical, empirical, and/or applied research in negotiation and dispute resolution. Consistent with the PON goal of fostering the development of the next generation of scholars, this program provides support for one year of … 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
Negotiate! Radio
Robert H. Mnookin, author of Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight, will be interviewed on March 17th, 2010 on Negotiate! Radio. Negotiate! Radio is a nonprofit community service initiative. Its objectives are to collect and diffuse information on negotiation, mediation, and alternative dispute resolution (ADR), both in theory and by analyzing … Read Negotiate! Radio
Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Federal Government: What’s up at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and elsewhere?
The PON Dispute Resolution Forum and the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program Present: Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Federal Government: What’s up at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and elsewhere? with Deborah Osborne, Group Manager, Dispute Resolution Service, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Thursday, March 4, 2010
8:00AM Breakfast
8:30AM Talk
Pound Hall, Room 335, Harvard Law School Campus
How are ADR principles applied … Read More
Peacebuilders in Action – Search for Common Ground
The PON Brown Bag Lunch Series Presents:
Peacebuilders in Action – Search for Common Ground
photo courtesy of www.sfcg.org with Susan Collin Marks Senior Vice President, Search for Common Ground Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:00-1:00 PM Hauser Hall, Room102, Harvard Law School Campus Bring your lunch. Drinks and dessert will be served.
Speaker Bio
Susan Collin Marks is senior vice president of … 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 Program on Negotiation Fall Open House
Interested in negotiation and conflict resolution? Come to the Program on Negotiation Open House!
The open house will begin at 6:30pm on Tuesday, September 29th in the PON Library, Pound 513, Harvard Law School.
Meet students and faculty interested in Alternative Dispute Resolution and learn how to get involved. Students from the Boston area and beyond are welcome … Read 2009 Program on Negotiation Fall Open House
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
The Post-Election Message to the World: What’s the New Agenda?
A discussion with:
Ambassador Nicholas Burns: Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He served in the United States Foreign Service for twenty seven years until his retirement in April 2008. He was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2005-2008, the nation’s highest ranking … Read More