Managing Negotiations

Catalog description

In this course you will practice and learn how to negotiate effectively, while being mindful of building meaningful human relationships. This is a key life skill for dealing with the relationships you will navigate everyday for the rest of your life, with potential employers, coworkers, roommates, landlords, parents, bosses, merchants, service providers, etc. Although negotiations are a ubiquitous part of our everyday lives, many of us know little about the strategy and psychology of effective negotiations. Why do we sometimes get our way, while at other times we walk away feeling frustrated by our inability to achieve the agreement we desire? This is an introductory course on negotiations, or on the art and science of securing agreements between two or more parties who are interdependent and who are seeking to maximize their outcomes. Understanding your own negotiation style and what drives others in negotiations is essential for success at negotiating. This kind of knowledge can only be gained through experience and this course provides a series of simulations and debriefings that address a variety of bargaining processes in the contexts of deal making and dispute resolution. A central thread across the negotiation simulation experience is the ethical character that you will exercise and develop over time; our planning and execution of negotiation strategy will take into account virtue ethics and character strengths. By the end of these experiences, students will be able to identify and evaluate moral and ethical aspects of the interpersonal bargaining and conflict management situations they will face. Counts as a Full-Semester Wellness/Non-movement course. Counts as a Moral & Ethical Reasoning course. Prereq: At least sophomore standing.