Introduction to Negotiation
Negotiation is one of the most powerful skills you can develop to become more productive and successful in your career. We use our negotiation skills every day, whatever our profession. This course will help you develop effective negotiating strategies by exploring topics such as hard-bargaining vs. problem-solving approaches, interests vs. positions, coercive leverage vs. normative leverage, short-term agreements vs. long-term relationships, as well as the many ways in which culture affects attitudes and behaviors, and the complexities of multi-party negotiation. What are the keys to obtaining successful outcomes in negotiations? Participants will learn how to plan and prepare for a negotiation as well as useful tactics they can employ now. This course is designed to be of value for professionals in situations ranging from policy coordination to crisis negotiations to high-level diplomatic encounters.
Course Overview
Negotiation is one of the most powerful skills you can develop to become more productive and successful in your career. We use our negotiation skills every day, whatever our profession. This course will help you develop effective negotiating strategies by exploring topics such as hard-bargaining vs. problem-solving approaches, interests vs. positions, coercive leverage vs. normative leverage, short-term agreements vs. long-term relationships, as well as the many ways in which culture affects attitudes and behaviors, and the complexities of multi-party negotiation.
Learning Objectives
- Gain a deeper understanding of what negotiation does for your professional and personal life
- Strengthen your knowledge of the emotional intelligence and skills that make you a better negotiator
- Get a sense of the tactical dimensions of negotiation; what to say, how to say it, and how to better arrange the landscape of elements in your negotiation world
- Understand the different skills and strategies required by more complex negotiations, such as those involving multiple parties
Agenda
Chapter 1
The first chapter provides an overview of negotiation, including its basic elements of substance and process and the barriers and biases that can cause negotiations to go wrong. You will be immersed in a scenario that touches on these issues as well as the power and value of persuasion, personal negotiation styles and preferences, and emotional intelligence (which includes self-awareness, empathy and assertiveness).
Chapter 2
Chapter two will explore the keys to obtaining successful outcomes in negotiation. Through a decision-making scenario you will learn how to plan and prepare for the negotiation. This involves investigating shared, compatible and conflicting interests, power asymmetry and leverage, as well as identifying the impact of timing in negotiation. These principles apply across a broad range of situations where negotiators seek to reduce or resolve differences in ways that benefit all parties involved.
Chapter 3
What you do at the negotiation table matters. In the third chapter you will learn tactical choices you can make regarding the parties, the issues, and the processes you use in negotiation. You will be immersed into a decision-making scenario to learn about negotiating alone versus in a team, how to hand off a negotiation, implementation and renegotiation, while understanding the impact of secrecy and publicity on your negotiations.
Chapter 4
There are many ways in which culture impacts negotiations. Culture influences attitudes and behaviors regarding who gets to the table, how much authority negotiators have and how willing they are to take risks. Some of our most important negotiations—whether it is countries negotiating a climate change treaty, warring factions trying to get a ceasefire or civil society groups working to change government policy—involve numerous parties. Large numbers of people at the negotiation make bargaining more complex, but also potentially more rewarding. In this fourth and final chapter, you will learn about the many ways culture plays a role in negotiation through participating in a decision-making scenario. Furthermore, you will learn about the complexities of multi-party negotiations including the roles of coalitions, facilitators and implementation.
Instructor
- Anthony Wanis-St. John, Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University
