It’s the most wonderful time of the year, or so they say. As we look ahead to winter vacation and seemingly endless days of family celebrations, many feel a sense of dread, anticipating tensions and conflict as drearily predictable as overcooked turkey and practical gifts. Even those who look forward to family get-togethers often end … Read More 
Discover how to collaborate, negotiate, and bargain with even the most combative opponents with, Dealing with Difficult People, a FREE special report from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
difficult conversations
"Difficult conversations" is a framework for describing how to use interest-based negotiation techniques in difficult conversations that occur due to problems that arise in daily life. According to this framework, underlying all difficult conversations are actually three deeper conversations. (Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen, Difficult Conversations [Viking/Penguin, 1999], 7). These three conversations are 1) The "What Happened?" Conversation, 2) the Feelings Conversation, 3) and the Identity Conversation. The first conversation deals with the actual events that led to the situation being discussed, while the second and third conversations explore the impact these events have had.
The following items are tagged difficult conversations:
Change Management: Negotiating Organizational Change in the 21st Century
Change is vital to organizational growth, health, and survival. It is also incredibly difficult to execute well—often resulting in diminished morale and feelings of anxiety and mistrust. In fact, researchers estimate that less than half of major corporate change projects at Fortune 1000 firms have been successful.
… Read More
Dealing with Difficult People
At the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School (PON), we are dedicated to helping professionals deal with hard bargainers and resolve even the most challenging disputes. To help you understand the principles of negotiation and conflict resolution, we put together a special report: Dealing With Difficult People.
Discover how to collaborate, negotiate, and bargain … Read More
Four Conflict Negotiation Strategies for Resolving Value-Based Disputes
In many negotiations, both parties are aware of what their interests are, and are willing to engage in a give-and-take process with the other party to come to agreement.
… Read More
Negotiation Workshop: Improving Your Negotiating Effectiveness
Course Dates: June 1-5, 2020
Too many negotiators leave value on the table. They painfully divide a small pie after a costly battle while failing to capture offsetting opportunities for joint gain, or win the battle, but at the cost to relationships and reputation that limit long-term value. Reliably negotiating optimal outcomes requires a keen appreciation … Read More
Dispute Resolution: Working Together Toward Conflict Resolution on the Job and at Home
The experts and editors from Harvard’s Program on Negotiation offer a sampling of advice from past issues of Negotiation 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
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
Negotiating Difficult Conversations: Dealing with Tough Topics Productively
Course Dates: June 8-12, 2020
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 help … Read More
Conflict Resolution in the Family
In Lessons in Domestic Diplomacy, the New York Times’ Bruce Feiler, drawing on family conflict resolution negotiation examples in his past, offers a case study of conflict management by focusing on disputes in the home, asking, “how do we break out of negative patterns of conduct and proactively approach problems encountered in our everyday lives?”
… Read More
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems BR
Negotiation and Leadership Dealing With Difficult People and Problems Spring sessions: April 16–18 | May 14–16 | June 18–20 2018 Fall sessions: September 24–26 | October 15–17 | December 3–5 2018 Focused one-day sessions Spring sessions: April 19, 2018 | May 17, 2018 | June 21, 2018 Fall sessions: September 27, | October 18, | December 6, 2018
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Power Asymmetry and the Principal Agent Problem
Downloadable Video Simulation from the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center
This video simulation on power asymmetry and principal agent dynamics by Professor Lawrence Susskind and Robert Wilkinson was designed to give students insights into the challenges surrounding difficult conversations, both with people across the table, as well as with people on their own side.
The Power Asymmetry and … Read More
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems AQ
Negotiation and Leadership Dealing With Difficult People and Problems Spring sessions: April 16–18 | May 14–16 | June 18–20 2018 Fall sessions: September 24–26 | October 15–17 | December 3–5 2018 Focused one-day sessions Spring sessions: April 19, 2018 | May 17, 2018 | June 21, 2018 Fall sessions: September 27, | October 18, | December 6, 2018
.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; … Read More
The Ladder of Inference: A Resource List
The ladder of inference is a model of decision making behavior originally developed by Chris Argyris and Donald Schoen and elaborated upon in the context of negotiation by Program on Negotiation co-founder Bruce Patton in his book Difficult Conversations, co-authored with fellow Program on Negotiation faculty members Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen. The model describes … Read More
Negotiation and Leadership NL P
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. Designed to accelerate your negotiation capabilities, Negotiation and Leadership examines core decision-making challenges, analyzes complex negotiation scenarios, … Read More
Negotiation Strategies: Bernie Sanders’ Pragmatic Approach to Negotiating in the Senate
When dealing with difficult people, we tend to expect them to be rigid negotiators who will walk away if they don’t get everything they want. But a gruff demeanor may not necessarily translate into a hard-nosed negotiating style.
… Read More
Negotiation and Leadership NL O
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. Designed to accelerate your negotiation capabilities, Negotiation and Leadership examines core decision-making challenges, analyzes complex negotiation scenarios, … 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
Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
Whether dealing with a challenging customer, a difficult supplier, an unhappy employee, an unreasonable official, or a demanding boss, we all have conversations we anticipate with dread. Gain the strategies, tools, and frameworks you need to manage difficult conversations effectively in this one-day program led by negotiation experts Bruce Patton and Douglas Stone.
… Read More
Salary Negotiation: How to Ask for a Higher Salary
For a new employee, salary negotiation skills can be the most important and the most intimidating, but the most important, of difficult conversations to have at the beginning of your career. A new employee, successfully negotiating a salary offer up by $5,000 could make a huge difference over the course of her career.
… Read More
Practical Lessons from the Great Negotiators
Since 2001, the Program on Negotiation has bestowed the “Great Negotiator Award” on individuals who have successfully negotiated against great odds to accomplish worthy goals. In this fascinating one-day session, you’ll have the rare opportunity to explore how these remarkable negotiators overcame their most formidable challenges—and how to apply these lessons in your own negotiations. … Read More
When Your Words Push Their Buttons
After 11 days of peace talks at a resort in Doha, Qatar, in March, U.S. and Taliban negotiators had reached significant breakthroughs, but a final agreement remained frustratingly distant, the New York Times reports.
The two sides had agreed in principle on a framework for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. In the 18 years since … Read More
The Art of Saying No: Save the Deal, Save the Relationship, and Still Say No
No is perhaps the most important and certainly the most powerful word in the language. For many people, it is
also the hardest to say. Yet every day we and ourselves in situations where we need to say no—to people at work, at home, and in our communities—because it is the word we must use to … Read More
When Dealing with Difficult People, Try a Complementary Approach
To hear President Donald Trump tell it, the United States under President Barack Obama had bungled one negotiation after another on the global stage due to an inability to stand firm and take tough stances on key issues when engaging in difficult conversations.
… Read More
Negotiation and Leadership: Dealing with Difficult People and Problems
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. Designed to accelerate your negotiation capabilities, Negotiation and Leadership examines core decision-making challenges, analyzes complex negotiation scenarios, … Read More
Negotiation Skills: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback
A negotiation Q&A with Sheila Heen, co-author (with Douglas Stone) of the book, Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well.
… Read More
The Value of Using Scorable Simulations in Negotiation Training
At a recent Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) faculty pedagogy seminar, members of the PON faculty and negotiation community gathered to hear Gordon Kaufman (MIT Morris A. Adelman Professor of Management, Emeritus) speak about how he uses quantifiable data to plot student-learning trajectories. The conversation focused on the ongoing debate within the negotiation pedagogy community regarding the … Read More
How to Remain Detached Yet Fully Engaged in Negotiations: Tips for Business Negotiators
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time,” F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, “and still retain the ability to function.”
… 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 Deal with Difficult People
We’ve all met them: people who prefer competition over collaboration, stonewalling over problem solving, tough talk over active listening. Think of the boss who refuses to allow you time off to help an ailing relative, or the potential customer armed with a “nonnegotiable” proposal.
When considering how to deal with difficult people, we tend to write … Read More
Elements of Conflict: Diagnose What’s Gone Wrong
In the heat of conflict, it can be difficult to think rationally about how you got where you are and how you might make things better. But by taking a break to consider the elements of conflict, you can move toward a more rational assessment of the dispute and come up with ways to address … Read More
Negotiating the Most Sensitive Topics of All
In negotiation, some topics seem off-limits: difficult to bring up and perhaps impossible to resolve. Consider the following anecdotes:
– In the process of negotiating an acquisition that would include key personnel, members of the buyer’s team are concerned about rumors that a top executive from the target firm has a serious drinking problem that is … Read More
Hong Kong Lawyer Benny Tai Inspired by Harvard Negotiation Project Authors
The Harvard Negotiation Project was recently mentioned in the Wall Street Journal by David Feith in his interview with Benny Tai, “China’s New Freedom Fighters.”
Benny Tai, a 49 year old lawyer who has been branded an “enemy of the state,” founded Occupy Central with Love and Peace, a group that promotes civil disobedience in order … Read More
Build strong relationships in business negotiations
While a student at Stanford University in the mid-2000s, Kevin Systrom met Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at gatherings on campus. Though Systrom declined Zuckerberg’s proposal that he drop out of school and take a job with Facebook, the two men kept in touch by phone in the years following. After Systrom launched photo-sharing … Read More
Think Like a Mediator
To set the stage for a productive discussion, open a difficult conversation with the Third Story, advise the authors of Difficult Conversations. The Third Story is one an impartial observer, such as a mediator, would tell; it’s a version of events both sides can agree on. “The key is learning to describe the gap – … Read More
Former Clearinghouse Customers Speak!
In an effort to understand more about how the former PON Clearinghouse does and doesn’t meet its customers’ needs, we interviewed a number of long-time Clearinghouse clients. We asked what teaching materials they found most valuable and for what reasons. We also asked how they found out about the former Clearinghouse and what additional teaching and … Read More
Opening students up to negotiation
Working It Out is a 27-page handbook designed to introduce high school students to problem-solving, interest-based negotiation. Written by Getting to YES co-author Roger Fisher and Difficult Conversations co-author Douglas Stone, Working It Out presents core concepts from both books in a clear, simple format with plenty of age-appropriate examples from family, school, workplace and … Read More
Harvard Negotiation Institute Begins!
On the morning of June 8, 2009, hundreds of participants from around the world began their week-long intensive Basic Negotiation Workshop and Mediation Workshop. Participants will engage with instructors Bruce Patton and Frank Sander for five days of interactive study. There are still seats available in our 2-Day Intensive Basic Negotiation course, which begins Thursday, … Read More
Spring 2020 HARVARD NEGOTIATION MASTER CLASS
2020 Programs
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Contact us: Call 1-800-391-8629 (outside the US: +1-301-528-2676) between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET any business day or email hni@law.harvard.edu
Articles & Insights
BATNA
- Business Negotiations
- Women and Negotiation: Narrowing the Gender Gap in Negotiation
- Solutions for Avoiding Intercultural Barriers at the Negotiation Table
- 4 Sales Negotiation Traps—and How to Overcome Them
- How Principal Agent Theory Works in Business Negotiations: Dealmaking Strategies for Bargaining with Agents
- Business Negotiation Skills: How to Deal with a Failing Business Partnership
- Conflict Resolution
- Crisis Negotiations
- Famous Negotiations Cases – NBA and the Power of Deadlines at the Bargaining Table
- Harvard Law Professor Guhan Subramanian Moderates Panel on Difficult Negotiation Scenarios
- Police Negotiation Techniques from the NYPD Crisis Negotiations Team
- Crisis Negotiation Skills: The Hostage Negotiator’s Drill
- Hostage Negotiation Techniques for Business Negotiators
- Dealing with Difficult People
- Dealmaking
- Dispute Resolution
- Difficult Situations at Work – Negotiation Skills for Dealing with Difficult People
- Dispute Resolution on Facebook: Using a Negotiation Approach to Resolve a Conflict
- Alternative Dispute Resolution In-House: Mediation, Arbitration, or Med-Arb?
- What Is an Umbrella Agreement?
- Dispute Resolution, NHL style
- International Negotiation
- The Negotiation Process in China
- Dispute Resolution for India and Bangladesh
- Cross Cultural Negotiations in International Business: Four Negotiation Tips for Bargaining in China
- Famous Negotiators: Tony Blair’s 10 Principles to Guide Diplomats in International Conflict Resolution
- How to Overcome Cultural Barriers in Communication – Cultural Approximations of Time and the Impact on Negotiations
- Leadership Skills
- Mediation
- Negotiation Skills
- Negotiation Training
- Salary Negotiations
- Teaching Negotiation
- Win-Win Negotiations