Course Goals and Organization

This course starts from the observation that the world of managers, lawyers, public officials, analysts, and other professionals is marked by interdependencies, fragmented sources of power, and an uncertain future. In this unruly world the sources of understanding and stability are often provisional and the ability to learn and to manage change is at a premium. The diversity of our society and work force contributes to conflicts over goals, interests, and frames of reference. These characteristics create an ongoing need for the ability to craft stable agreements that advance interests, build trust, and construct understanding in complex and unstable environments. They create a need for negotiation.

To help you develop the understanding and skills necessary to respond to this challenge, we will explore three insights that currently shape negotiation research, theory, and practice. The insights each describe negotiation as an interactive process. The first insight is that even simple interdependencies create a dynamic environment in which multiple outcomes are possible. The bare fact that a bargain requires the consent of both parties is sufficient to open a complex space for interaction between negotiators. The second insight is that negotiation is rarely a zero-sum process. Negotiators affect not only how value is distributed, but also how much value there is to distribute. The third insight is that negotiation is a social process. Through their interactions, negotiators shape the terms in which they understand problems, their sense of what kind of behavior is fair, appropriate, and desirable, and their ability to trust.

Our exploration of these insights is organized around three questions. We will begin the course by exploring situations in which interests are potentially in conflict. We examine how negotiators manage their interactions in strategic bargaining and ask, "Why do we get one deal rather than another?" We move on to situations where negotiations offer (or demand) an exploration of additional degrees of freedom and ask, "Can we shape the game we play?" In this section we will consider how negotiators create opportunities for mutual gains, how they construct relationships in which trust is possible, and to how they build understanding in their interactions. We will conclude the term by examining the ways in which introducing history, adding parties, negotiating at multiple levels, and acting in an organizational context influence negotiation practice. We organize these considerations around the question, "How does complexity affect the game?"

By exploring these questions, we hope to accomplish two goals. First, we hope that you will develop skills that will make you a better negotiator. Second, we hope to help you connect your developing understanding of negotiation in terms connected to adjacent questions about learning, rationality, ethics, organizational behavior, and other fields. In more substantive terms, this course should help you to diagnose conflict, prepare to negotiate, negotiate purposefully and thoughtfully, and critically evaluate outcomes and experiences.

We will examine a variety of contexts and problems that create a need for negotiation, and raise questions about what it means to negotiate well. We will explore a systematic approach to negotiation that we think constitutes good advice about what to do when your interests or beliefs are in tension with others' and you cannot act unilaterally. We will also raise other issues that will situate this model in a broader field of intellectual inquiry.

You will have the opportunity to experiment with this approach and to try out alternative approaches in negotiation exercises and case analyses. These exercises form the core of the course. We will use them to examine concepts and analytic approaches. You will also find that the value of these negotiations sometimes exceeds our ability to provide an account. This means that the opportunity is always open to extend our understanding of negotiation. It challenges us individually, and as a group, to provide as clear an account as we can of our experience, to listen carefully, and to reflect critically on our experience. This suggests that you can think about the course as a research seminar, in which the common experience of negotiating with each other provides the substantive basis for our analysis. At the same time, you should expect to finish the course as a more effective negotiator.

At a general level, we will move from negotiations that involve fewer factors to ones that are more complex. By the end of the course, however, we hope that you will appreciate the layered complexity that was involved in what at first appeared to be simple negotiations.

Readings

Two books are required:

(1) Course Reader, Fall 2001 Seminar on Negotiation and Dispute Resolution. Available at Gnomon Copy, 1304 Mass. Ave, Cambridge (across Mass. Ave. from Harvard Yard). Telephone 617-491-1111. Estimated cost: $60-$65.

(2) Fisher, R., Ury, W., and Patton, B., Getting to Yes (2nd Ed.) (New York: Penguin, 1991). Widely available through the PON Clearinghouse (www.pon.org), Amazon.com, the Harvard Coop in Harvard Square, and numerous other bookstores. Estimated cost: $14.

Assignments and Evaluation of Learning

There will be three short written assignments during this course, each of which will relate to one of the three questions outlined above. These assignments, which will be distributed in class, are intended to promote learning and foster reflection. We view the kind of organized and disciplined reflection that writing demands as essential to learning about a practice like negotiation.

Throughout the course you will be asked to read selected excerpts from negotiation literature and to prepare for role-playing negotiation simulations (described in further detail below).

Upon completion of the three written assignments and participatory attendance at a minimum of 9 classes, you will receive a letter certifying that you have completed the course requirements. If you require a grade, please notify the faculty and make arrangements no later than October 4, 2001. Your grade will be based on attendance, the quality of your class participation, and the three written assignments.

Negotiation Exercises

Throughout the course you will participate in role-playing negotiation exercises. You will be assigned a role, partnered with one or more other students, given a case with instructions and confidential information, and asked to prepare and negotiate. When cases are handed out ahead of time, you should come to class prepared to negotiate. In general, we will have a greater range of experience to draw on and a richer discussion if you prepare individually, rather than with a partner or in a study group. Think of it as contributing to a bigger sample for our collective research project and controlling cross- case influences. As a group, you are dependent on each other to suspend disbelief and animate the exercises vividly and plausibly and provide a rich base of experience for us to draw on.

As a general rule, you should try to do as well for yourself as you can in these exercises. As you will see, what this means can be problematic. In many of the exercises you will receive confidential information. You may reveal as much or as little of this information (or any other information) as you wish in the negotiation. Under no circumstances should you show another party your confidential information during a negotiation. Other negotiators must believe you, not a piece of paper. This rule reflects that character of actual negotiation, since there is seldom an external authority that can exert the influence that your instructions do. It would be a rare case where you could convince someone about a preference or a constraint simply by showing them a piece of paper.

These games are designed to be self-explanatory. Please follow the instructions carefully. If the instructions for a multi-round game say that you and your partner must reveal offers simultaneously, without discussion, one round at a time, do not leave after abruptly presenting your counterpart with a signed list of offers for 20 rounds (as a student once did). Please observe schedules or time limits when they are provided. Beyond this, within the letter and the spirit of the exercises, it's up to you how you negotiate.

It's not hard to defeat the purpose of these exercises. You can consult others who have played an exercise, deviate from the rules, or collude with your counterpart against the game. You might be able to locate published accounts of some games. As a tactic, however, such practices are self-defeating. They undercut the richness of experience, deaden discussion, and distort outcomes. We trust that you will avoid them to the extent that you can.

Schedule of Classes

PART I: Why do we get one deal rather than another?

1 – September 20
An Introduction to Bargaining

• Introductions/Course Overview
• Exercise: Appleton v. Baker
• After-Class Reading:
• Course Notes on Negotiation Analysis [To be distributed in class]

2 – September 27
Strategies for Claiming Value

• Preparatory Readings:
  • Thomas Schelling, "An Essay on Bargaining," in The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960; 1980), pp. 21-52
  • W.Howard Wriggins, "Up for Auction: Malta Bargains with Great Britain, 1971," in W. Zartman (ed.), The Fifty Percent Solution (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 208-234
  • Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice," in Science 211, 1981, pp. 453-458
• Exercises: Elmtree House; Malta case
• After-Class Reading:
  • Howard Raiffa, "Elmtree House," The Art and Science of Negotiation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), Chapter 3, pp. 35-43

3 – October 4
The "Shadow Negotiation": Hidden attitudes and assumptions that drive negotiations

• Preparatory Readings:
  • Deborah Kolb and Judith Williams, The Shadow Negotiation: How Women Can Master the Hidden Agendas that Determine Bargaining Success (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2000), Introduction, pp. 15 – 38
  • Deborah Kolb and Judith Williams, "Breakthrough Bargaining," Harvard Business Review (Harvard Business School Publishing, February 2001), pp. 89-97
• Guest Speaker: Deborah M. Kolb, Ph.D., Professor of Management at Simmons Graduate School of Management; Co-Director of Simmons Center for Gender and Organizations; Steering Committee Member, Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School

4 – October 11
Bargaining for more value

• Preparatory Readings:
  • David Lax and James Sebenius, "Interests: The Measure of Negotiation," in J. William Breslin and Jeffrey Z. Rubin (eds.), Negotiation Theory and Practice (Cambridge, MA: PON Books, 1991), pp. 161-180
  • Herbert C. Kelman, "Negotiation as Interactive Problem Solving," International Negotiation, vol. 1 (Kluwer Law International, 1996), pp. 99-123
• Exercise: Sally Soprano

PART II: How can we shape the game we play?

5 – October 18
An Analytical Framework for Negotiation

First written assignment (5 pp.) due

• Preparatory Readings:
  • Roger Fisher, "Negotiating Power: Getting and Using Influence," in American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 27, no. 2 (Sage Publications, December 1983), pp. 149-166
  • I. William Zartman, "Common Elements in the Analysis of the Negotiation Process," Negotiation Journal, vol. 4, no. 1 (Plenum Publishing, January 1988), pp. 31-43
  • [Optional review] Fisher, R., Ury, W., and Patton, B., Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (2nd Ed.) (New York: Penguin, 1991), Part II, pp. 17-94
• Exercise: The PowerScreen Problem

6 – October 25 Integrative Bargaining

• Preparatory Readings:
  • Albie M. Davis, "An Interview with Mary Parker Follett," Negotiation Journal, vol. 5, no. 3 (Plenum Publishing, July 1989), pp. 223-235
  • Roy J. Lewicki, Joseph A. Litterer, John W. Minton, and David M. Saunders, "Strategy and Tactics of Integrative Negotiation," Negotiation (2nd Ed.) (Homewood, IL: R.D. Irwin, 1985), pp. 80-108
  • Howard Raiffa, "Post-Settlement Settlements," Negotiation Journal, vol. 1, no. 1 (Plenum Publishing, January 1985), pp. 9-12; reprinted in J. William Breslin and Jeffrey Z. Rubin (eds.), Negotiation Theory and Practice (Cambridge, MA: PON Books, 1991), pp. 323-326
• Exercise: Redstone

7 – November 1
Constructing Trust

• Preparatory Readings:
  • Charles Sabel, "Studied Trust: Building new forms of cooperation in a volatile economy," in F. Pyke and W. Sengenberger (eds.), Industrial Districts and Local Economic Generation (Geneva, Switzerland: Institute for Labour Studies), pp. 215-250
• Exercise: Re-engineering Game (Parts 1 and 2)

8 – November 8
Communication/Assumptions about the Other

• Preparatory Readings:
  • Luk van Langenhove and Rom Harrι, "Positioning as the Production and Use of Stereotypes," in R. Harrι and L. van Langenhove (eds.), Positioning Theory (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 126-137
  • Paul Watzlawick, "Some Tentative Axioms of Communication," Pragmatics of Human Communication (New York, NY: Norton, 1967), Chapter 2, pp. 48-71
• Exercises: Zabian; Luna Pen

PART III: How does complexity affect the game?

9 – November 15
Perspective Taking/Preparation

Second written assignment (5 pp.) due

• Preparatory Readings:
  • David Laws, Memo on Perspective-Taking [To be distributed in class]
  • Susan Podziba, Memo on Preparing for a Negotiation [To be distributed in class]
• Exercises: Weathers & Evans; Harborco (preparation)
• After-class Reading:

10 – November 29
Coalitions in Multi-Party Negotiation

• Preparatory Readings:
  • James Sebenius, "Sequencing to Build Coalitions: With whom should I talk first?" in R. Zeckerhauser, R. Keeney, and J. Sebenius (eds.), Wise Choices: Decisions, Games, and Negotiations (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1994), pp. 324-328
  • Laws, David, "Representation of Stakeholder Interests", in L. Susskind, S. McKearnan, and J. Thomas-Larmer (eds.), The Consensus Building Handbook (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999), Chapter 6, pp. 241-285
• Exercise: Harborco

11 – December 6
Negotiating Complex Deals

• Preparatory Readings: To be announced
• Guest Speaker: Michael A. Wheeler, Professor of Management at Harvard Business School; Editor, Negotiation Journal; Steering Committee Member, Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School

12 – December 13
Negotiating in an Organizational Context

• Preparatory Readings:
  • Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schon, "What is an Organization That It May Learn?", Organizational Learning II: Theory, Method, and Practice (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1996), Chapter 1, pp. 3-29
  • Christopher W. Moore and Peter J. Woodrow, "Collaborative Problem Solving Within Organizations," in L. Susskind, S. McKearnan, and J. Thomas-Larmer(eds.) The Consensus Building Handbook (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999), pp. 591-630
• Video: Negotiating Corporate Change

Final written assignment (5 – 10 pp.) due December 20