Learn how to negotiate like a diplomat, think on your feet like an improv performer, and master job offer negotiation like a professional athlete when you download a copy of our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

negotiation games

What are Negotiation Games?

Highly effective and engaging, negotiation games are used to expose participants to a range of negotiation and dispute resolution tools, techniques, and strategies. 

To help teach key negotiation skills the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) has developed a wide range of negotiation games that reflect the full breadth and depth of business and commercial negotiations. Role-plays help facilitate dynamic learning, as participants explore issues from both sides of the table, experiment with different approaches to resolution, and have an opportunity to see the results.

Drawing on a wide range of disciplines including microeconomics, social psychology, behavioral economics, and management science, the TNRC offers a series of role-play negotiation games designed to help participants work through the complexities of personal, business, and international negotiations.

For example, the Negotiating About Pandas for San Diego Zoo case study centers on the most challenging task for a negotiator: to reach a satisfactory agreement with a tough counterpart from a position of low power—and to do so in an uncommon context. 

Through these negotiation games, students will learn skills such as:

  • Examine different ways to communicate BATNA to a negotiation counterpart
  • Frame different positions, options, and interests
  • Assess their ability to deal with difficult demands while maintaining a positive relationship
  • Examine their perceived relationship and situation
  • Explore the role of reciprocity
  • Discuss the integrative approach to negotiation
  • Gain a better understanding of the totality of a negotiator’s interests

Our special report – Teaching Negotiation: Understanding the Impact of Role-Play Simulations – assembles three key articles originally published in Negotiation Briefings, the newsletter of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Get your copy today.

We will send you a download link to your copy of the report and notify you by email when we post new advice and information on how to improve your business negotiation skills to our website.

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