Negotiations

Catalog description

We negotiate every day with prospective employers, teammates, roommates, landlords, service providers, and many others. What prices we want to pay, how much we want to be paid, how assignments will be divided and credit allocated? all of these are negotiations. Yet while we negotiate routinely, many of us know very little about the strategy and psychology of effective negotiations. Why do we sometimes get our way while other times we walk away feeling frustrated by our inability to achieve the agreement we desire? Negotiation is the art and science of securing an agreement between two or more interdependent parties. A person without a developed understanding of the social psychology and economics of effective negotiations cannot be an effective leader. We will discuss theories and principles to guide our negotiations (the science), and students will develop and sharpen their bargaining skills by actually negotiating with other students in experiential exercises (the art). Further, given that negotiations occur in so many aspects of life, your experience in this course should not only develop your professional skills but also facilitate your effectiveness in other life domains. The learning method is experiential. The course introduces a real-world toolkit for a strategic approach from pre-negotiation planning to post-negotiation evaluation. In this course, you have the opportunity to develop your negotiating skills experientially and to gain insight into what works, what does not, and why.