Course Outline

Course Objectives

This course explores the ways that people negotiate to create value and overcome common as well as complex negotiation obstacles such as the tension between substance and relationship, and value distribution. This course aims to enable you to become a more effective negotiator, which includes providing or helping you build:

	The ability to create value and execute deals that others might overlook;
	The strategic skill to garner your fair share of what is negotiated;
	The ability to avoid common mistakes made by negotiators;
	The perception to understand your own ethics and style, and that of others;
	The ability to work with people whose backgrounds, expectations, and values differ from your own;
	The ability to analyze negotiations at a more sophisticated level;
	The opportunity to practice your negotiation skills with the direct feedback from your peers and professor; and
	The capacity to reflect and learn from your experience and that of others.

Participants engage in a series of hands-on simulations set in domestic and international contexts, building from simple two-party encounters to complex multiparty scenarios. Some of the exercises emphasize psychological aspects of bargaining, value creation and distribution, coalition dynamics, and intra-team negotiation, with a special focus on organized preparation and process analysis. Participants should finish the course as more effective and reflective negotiators with the help of a conceptual framework to diagnose problems and promote agreement, both outside and inside your organization.

View of the Challenges

Managerial success requires agreement and collaboration with other people. Since other stakeholders do not have the same interests, perceptions, and values that you do, negotiation skill is needed, professionally and personally. Negotiations are all pervasive and yet they often do not go as well as we would like. What are some of the reasons for falling short of success—about which we can do something?

Limited awareness of negotiation methods. Many managers negotiate with little systematic strategy in mind. The basic method employed often is reminiscent of traditional haggling – where parties start with extreme offers, concede stubbornly, and try to demonstrate a greater willingness than the other party to walk from the table if things don't go their way.
Few strategies to maximize value for themselves. Even if negotiators are aware of effective negotiation methods, the negotiation process is rarely smooth sailing. Several kinds of obstacles challenge the success of the negotiation process, and the unpracticed negotiator often fails to maximize value.
Lack of adequate understanding and strategies to deal effectively with the complexities of negotiation relationships. Negotiations often become problematic because parties do not know how to deal well with their relationship with others. Negotiations can falter or fail because of interpersonal or intra-organizational problems (i.e., cultural differences), multi-party difficulties, or structural difficulties on the business incentive structures.

Course Content

The course is organized in 3 major sections in order to respond to the 3 common problems we perceive negotiators facing (see Chapter II above) plus some additional activities:

Basic negotiation theory and methods. (Day 1) This segment situates us as negotiators while checking our assumptions. It provides the basic negotiation framework (7 elements) within the different contexts of the negotiation process (defining success, preparation, negotiation and debrief), thus introducing the basics of interest-based or principled negotiation.
Managing relationships and difficult scenarios. (Day 2) Relationships and communication are often of central importance in negotiation and vice-versa. Here we'll cover ways to effectively communicate and to better manage relationship even with difficult negotiators.
Maximizing Negotiation Value. (Day 3) We will uncover practical strategies and tactics to maximize value creation and value claiming in every negotiation. This will include the element of negotiation power, which usually comes back in a negotiation at this stage.

Working Assumptions

As in everything else in life, our approach to any problem is influenced by our assumptions. We believe it is fair that we make ours explicit to the best of our knowledge so that you understand where we will be coming from when facilitating the Negotiation Analysis course.

Negotiation is everywhere The most helpful definition of negotiation we know is very broad: “negotiation is any effort to influence or persuade someone else to a particular course of action”. We do not limit negotiation to the highly formalized or stylized business or political negotiations, but all interactions with friends, family, business partners or even yourself where you try to persuade.
Negotiation is a skill and can be improved. Some believe that there are "born negotiators," while others "don't have it." We believe that like with any athlete the right coaching can help them improve independently of their innate talent.
You can try to negotiate everything. We often give up golden opportunities to get better deals because we assume there is no opportunity for negotiation. We want to show you that you can at least try to negotiate everything and it will only depend on your abilities and willingness to transform a seemingly nonnegotiable situation into a constructive conversation to satisfy your needs.
Negotiation is not a magic wand. Despite the benefit in trying to create as many opportunities as possible to negotiate, a good negotiator needs to be aware that negotiation will not solve all problems. Some situations might require other means of getting what you want and further negotiation can be a waste of time. Knowing when to stop and pursue other courses of action is also extremely important.
There is no single, universal "best" way to negotiate. We believe in no single "right" answer for specific negotiation scenarios, as these are dynamic, context-sensitive enterprises. Universal rules ("always/never do this or that") ignore important differences in context, personal comfort, goals, and counterparts. We will focus on a rich set of guidelines–practices that tend to have a better return for a minimized risk, which you can vary if you perceive a strategic reason to do so.
Value on Process independent of Substance. Most failed negotiations ignore the process in detriment of its substance. We will focus on the vision of a negotiation process expert, since we can’t expect anyone to become an expert on all industries.
Learning By Doing. It is hard to improve as a negotiator only by talking about negotiation. The course will include a mix of methods and its value will depend largely on your participation. The simulations will be "generic" in their substance so as to provide useful opportunities for you to focus on the process and on your skills as well as to reflect on your own assumptions, strategies and actions.
From Strategy to Implementation – Effectiveness requires analytic vision and interpersonal understanding. The ability to identify key stakeholders, their interests, and leverage is essential, yet even the most ingenious strategy will fail if not artfully implemented. By the same token, being very persuasive does little good unless it is in service of a carefully conceived plan.

Method

There are 4 basic ways to learn negotiation: a) reading, b) lecturing, c) doing/observing and d) discussing/reflecting. Doing/observing and discussing/reflecting better develop abilities compared to reading, lecturing or experience alone. Hence, the heart of the course is a set of interactive exercises and simulations, though we will use all methods whenever appropriate to maximize the learning:

Reading. We recommend you skim 1 article per class to help you with different insights and questions for the exercises. However, we will not directly refer to them in class. We focused on selecting Business review articles, for their pragmatism and for you to get used to reading what can potentially become your main source of negotiation knowledge in the future.
Lecturing. A portion of this course will involve typical large-group presentations. There is information about negotiation that we think is best communicated and learned in this fashion.
Doing or observing. The course will include several full-length negotiation simulations and in-class exercises with a dual purpose: 1 - give you hands-on experience; and 2 – allow you to exchange feedback and reflect on your negotiations in a structured way.
Discussing or reflecting. Outside of class, you will write short debriefs to help you refine your understanding of negotiation and of yourself as a negotiator.

Policies, Procedures and Recommendations

	Privacy – Openness and trust among participants will increase our ability to share with and learn from one another, and create a safe place to try out new styles of negotiating and new ways of thinking. Therefore, we ask that you exercise higher than normal discretion in talking about the experiences, behavior, or comments of others. This is particularly important when speaking to those outside the course.
	Confidential instructions – You will be given confidential instructions. Please do NOT share them with participants with different roles. We will provide the opportunity after an exercise to orally share the instructions and to reflect on the experience together. Please refrain from commenting the exercises those outside the course to keep their learning opportunity open for the future.
	Extension of Deadlines & late submissions – If you require an extension for submission of any written requirement, you need my permission and your grade will drop by 1pt (out of 4). Papers cannot be submitted after 24hrs past the deadline. Emergency situations (health and deaths) will be dealt with on an individual basis.
	Absence from class or negotiation simulation – You will be teamed with one or more participants for your case negotiations. Any absence is likely to cause substantial inconvenience and loss of opportunity to others and thus will be penalized in terms of grading. If you must be absent or late due to sickness or a family emergency, it is important that you please inform the instructor. Note: job interviews are NOT an acceptable excuse for absence.
	Late – In this course, all classes will start exactly on time. Several classes start with either some exercise or small group debates in which participation is necessary for the enrichment and understanding of the rest of the class. Experience has also shown that timely presence of all participants minimizes interruption, repetition and disruption while it greatly increases the efficiency, focus and participation which together lead to a better quality class for all. With this in mind, a strict no-late rule will be applied, after which the participant will not be allowed to enter the class independently of the reason for the late arrival.
	Lying – In the simulations, if you say what you know not to be true, you are lying. Please note, we are not guaranteeing that the other side will not deceive you. Deception exists in the world, and it may exist in your simulation. We are clarifying that if you make up facts, you are not editing the case.
	When, where & how to negotiate the cases – With the exception of the in-class negotiation cases, you and your counterpart can decide when, where, and how to negotiate. In most instances, you will meet face-to-face, but you may want to experiment negotiating (at least partly) through telephone and e-mail to see their impact in the overall process.