Unit 1: What Is Negotiation?
Negotiation (or bargaining) takes place in a variety of contexts. While the objectives of this course focuses on business negotiations, the principles of negotiation apply to a vast and diverse range of personal, business and public situations.
For example, at home you may be negotiating a curfew with your teenager or a new home purchase. At work you may negotiate a purchasing contract with a new vendor, a new project with employees, or a merger between two major corporations. In the public sector, you may negotiate anything from a new school board policy, language in a bill with your Congressional representative, or an international trade agreement with China.
Regardless of the context, the basic principles of negotiation are the same. Whether you are involved in a friendly exchange or a high-stakes conflict resolution, you are involved in a two-way communication with the purpose of reaching an agreement. The same skills diplomats use to negotiate international peace agreements will help you become a more effective business negotiator.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 7 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- identify and explain the theory, processes, and practices of negotiation, conflict resolution, and relationship management;
- identify the differences between the competitive and cooperative approaches;
- define the distinction between managing conflict and resolving conflict;
- identify various objectives of and obstacles to successful negotiation; and
- explain how we can optimize our decision making.
1.1: What is Negotiation?
In these lecture notes, Mary Rowe describes various opportunities for negotiation, specific strategies you can employ to create effective outcomes for you and others, and questions to consider when preparing for a negotiation. Before read, attempt the thought exercises on pages 2–6 and record your responses. Don't worry if some of the terms are unfamiliar; we will discuss them later in this course.
Study this section to learn about the factors that can negatively affect our decision-making. After decades of study, researchers Daniel Kahnemann and Amos Tversky found that in decision-making, individuals are influenced by overconfidence bias, hindsight bias, anchoring bias, framing bias, and escalation of commitment. Awareness of these decision-making traps can help us avoid them.
Read this section to learn the five phases of negotiations and strategic advice to plan for effective outcomes. This section describes how to avoid some common mistakes made during the negotiations.
1.2: Managing Conflict
- Watch this video.
Read this chapter, which defines conflict, describes various conflict styles, and offers effective conflict management strategies. Try to answer some of the exercise questions at the bottom of each section.
Watch this video.
- This section describes various potential causes of conflict, including organizational structure, limited resources, task interdependence, personality differences, communication problems, incompatible goals. Surprisingly, conflict can have both positive and negative outcomes.
Read this section to recognize tools and techniques for making better decisions.
This section will help you distinguish between decision-making and problem-solving. The author describes five methods for group decision-making and defines autocratic, democratic, and participative decision-making styles.
Read the section on workplace violence and bullying on pages 444–451. The United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) describes the types of workers at an increased risk of workplace violence. The Workplace Violence Research Institute cites indicators of pre-violence in the workplace.
Read this section to learn about two models for characterizing conflict and how healthy conflict can benefit a group.
Unit 1 Assessment
- Receive a grade
Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.
- This assessment does not count towards your grade. It is just for practice!
- You will see the correct answers when you submit your answers. Use this to help you study for the final exam!
- You can take this assessment as many times as you want, whenever you want.