Management > Management > Negotiation and Conflict Management

Negotiation and Conflict Management posted by duggu on 1/2/2008

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Courseware/Lectures

Test/Tutorials

Course Highlights

15.667 includes a wealth of resources for anyone interested in teaching or learning about negotiation. The lecture notes section includes full instructions for role-play simulations, and class exercises with discussion questions or instructor's notes. The most essential handouts and ideas from the course have been assembled into a packet called Negotiation 101.

» Participate in the online discussion group for this course.

Course Description

Negotiation and Conflict Management presents negotiation theory – strategies and styles – within an employment context. 15.667 meets only eleven times, with a different topic each week, which is why students should commit to attending all classes. In addition to the theory and exercises presented in class, students practice negotiating with role-playing simulations that cover a range of topics. Students also learn how to negotiate in difficult situations, which include abrasiveness, racism, sexism, whistle-blowing, and emergencies. The course covers conflict management as a first party and as a third party: third-party skills include helping others deal directly with their conflicts, mediation, investigation, arbitration, and helping the system change as a result of a dispute.

Learning and grading in 15.667 is based on: readings, simulations and class discussions, four self-assessments, your analysis of the negotiations of others, writing each week in your journal, and writing three Little Papers.

Syllabus

To ease navigation through the 15.667 web site, the topics, readings, and assignments for each class have been split into separate pages. A version of the syllabus is also available below that lists all aspects of each class together.

Course syllabus and calendar, including assignments and readings (PDF)

Course Description

Negotiation and Conflict Management presents negotiation theory – strategies and styles – within an employment context. 15.667 meets only eleven times, with a different topic each week, which is why students should commit to attending all classes. In addition to the theory and exercises presented in class, students practice negotiating with role-playing simulations that cover a range of topics, including difficult situations such as cross-cultural mentoring and an emergency. Other special cases discussed include abrasiveness, dangerousness, racism, sexism, whistleblowing, and ethics. The course covers conflict management as a first party and as a third party: third-party skills include helping others deal directly with their conflicts, mediation, investigation, arbitration, and helping the system change as a result of a dispute.

Course Materials

Three books for the class are on reserve and at the campus bookstore – these textbooks are classics which may be useful for reference in the future. I assign all of Lewicki, and all of Ury. I assign brief sections of Moore. You can read Moore on reserve – or consider buying the book, if you will often be a "third party".

Lewicki, Roy J., David M. Saunders, and John W. Minton. Essentials of Negotiation. 2nd ed. Irwin, 2000. This is a new paperback – not the same text as last year.
Moore, Christopher W. The Mediation Process. 2nd ed. Jossey-Bass, 1996.
Ury, William. Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People. Bantam, 1992.
Other readings are on sale in the campus copy center, (15.667 Class Notes).

If you are interested in "speaking the same language" as others who have had negotiations courses around the world, buy and read all of Roger Fisher and William Ury's little paperback, Getting to Yes (Arrow, 1991). (Ury has also just published a controversial paperback, The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop. USA: Penguin, 2000.) If you are interested in the importance of social skills and negotiation skills to business success, buy or borrow Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence (Bantam, 1997) – and read all of it when you can.

Course Expectations

The course is based on: readings, simulations and class discussions, four self-assessments, your analysis of the negotiations of others (known as Separate Pages), writing each week in your journal, and writing three Little Papers. There is no exam. 15.667 meets only eleven times – with a different topic each week – which is why I ask for a commitment that students come to all classes, barring health or family emergencies. (Students basically cannot do a "make-up.") The course ends a week early. There is a double class for Session 11 with pizza and a guest speaker so the course can end early.

Ethical expectations: Students are encouraged to work together with a classmate on any assignment. However, in preparing for a role, they may only work together with someone else who has the same role.

Grading

Grades are based 50% on class work and 50% on writing: your Little Papers, the journal and Separate Pages. Students should write in their confidential journals and write evaluations of their colleagues every week. I will read the papers, keep them confidential, and return them at the next class – no one else sees them.

Calendar

To ease navigation through the 15.667 web site, the topics, readings, and assignments for each class have been split into separate pages. An overview of the calendar is presented in the table below. A version of the syllabus and calendar is also available that lists all aspects of each class together.

Course syllabus and calendar, including assignments and readings (PDF)

SES #	TOPICS
1	Introduction and Course Overview
2	What Kind of Negotiator am I?
3	Distributive and Mixed Motive Bargaining
4	Integrative and Mixed Motive Bargaining
5	Competitive and Cooperative Styles and Do Gender or Culture Make a Difference?
6	Negotiating in Context
7	Origins of Conflict – Dispute Prevention – Delegating Conflict Management to the Disputant
8	Your Employer's Dispute Resolution and Complaint Handling System
9	Conciliation and Mediation
10	Investigation, Arbitration and Exceptionally Difficult People (Double class, 6 hours)
11	More Negotiating with Difficult People

Readings

Some of the readings are drawn from these textbooks, which may also be useful for reference in the future. I assign all of Lewicki, and all of Ury. I assign brief sections of Moore. You might consider buying it if you will often be a "third party".

Lewicki, Roy J., David M. Saunders, and John W. Minton. Essentials of Negotiation. 2nd ed. Irwin, 2000.
Moore, Christopher W. The Mediation Process. 2nd ed. Jossey-Bass, 1996.
Ury, William. Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People. Bantam, 1992.
Fisher, Roger, and William Ury. Getting to Yes. Arrow, 1991.

The cases mentioned below often have documents and instructions available on the lecture notes page. Other suggested books about negotiation can be found in the related resources section.

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction and Course Overview	If you have time, read as much of Essentials of Negotiation as you can – at least read Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 which introduce the book. If you have read the book before, this edition has been revised, so – please read it again. 15.667 will make more sense if you have read these chapters – and there is a lot of writing due the following week.
2	What Kind of Negotiator am I?	Read: Rowe, Mary. Options and Choice for Conflict Resolution in the Workplace. In Negotiation: Strategies for Mutual Gain. Edited by Lavinia Hall. Sage Publications, Inc., 1993, pp. 105-119. The Exercise self-assessment is at the end. Be sure you have read the first four chapters of Essentials of Negotiation. Case this week: Stratego Aero I.
3	Distributive and Mixed Motive Bargaining	Read: Chapter 7, Ethics in Negotiation, in Essentials of Negotiations. In today's class we are concerned with ethics, and with classic, zero-sum negotiating problems – the gain of one is the loss of the other. Chapter 3 – be sure you have read it – discussed the nature of distributive bargaining. Case: Prepare your role in the Terry and Josephine case. If you can, prepare together with anyone who is playing the same role as you. Passages from: Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Joel, Robert McKersie, and Richard Walton, Strategies for Negotiating Fundamental Change, August 1996 regarding forcing and fostering organizational change.
4	Integrative and Mixed Motive Bargaining	This week there is a lot of reading, writing and case preparation but nothing to hand in. Read: Essentials of Negotiations – you should have read through chapter 4 – read chapter 5 on communications, and chapter 6 on power and leverage; Fisher & Ury, Getting To Yes, pp. 5-14 and 101-111 in the Class Notes; and the short guidelines in the Class Notes on progressive discipline for unsatisfactory performance. These readings explore the possibilities of win-win and mixed motive solutions, give background on communications in negotiation and lay out a mixed motive protocol if you have to fire someone. (Letting someone go usually should not be "win-lose"). Optional Reading Assignment about Power: Read Orson Scott Card's, Enders Game, Tor, 1977, science fiction, Hugo & Nebula awards. If you are able to read Enders Game, please consider analyzing the story briefly in your journal in terms of negotiations theory. What sources of power are used by the major actors? In real life, what sources of power are available to someone who is young, and to someone who appears to be otherwise much under the control of senior people? Are these sources of power available to you? Attractive to you? Under the circumstances, was there any alternative strategy available? There are about three dozen very serious armed conflicts underway in the world today. Is the Enders Game strategy inevitable? Is the use of force ethical, according to the ethical standards you hold for yourself? Cases: Prepare your role in Barrister, Counselor, Solicitor and Avocat, and your role in The Yearly Review. Please prepare together with anyone who is playing the same role as you.
5	Competitive and Cooperative Styles and Do Gender or Culture Make a Difference?	This week there is yet more reading but at least it is about effectiveness. You might want to read the assignments in order, and read the cross-cultural articles next week if you get bogged down. Read: Williams, Gerald. Legal Negotiation and Settlement, West, 1983, pp. 1-69; and Menkel-Meadow, Carrie. Teaching about Gender and Negotiation: Sex, Truths, and Videotape, Negotiation Journal, October 2000. If you will be negotiating with people outside your own culture, please also read the two Sloan Management Review articles on Negotiating with 'Romans' by Stephen E. Weiss, Winter 1994, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 51-61; and Essentials of Negotiations, chapter 8 on global negotiation. If you are especially interested in gender questions, read Deborah Kolb's new book Shadow Negotiations: How Women Can Master the Hidden Agendas That Determine Bargaining Success, Simon & Schuster, 2000. Almost all students are interested in Gerald Williams' classic book on effectiveness in each strategy. Williams believes: "A negotiator's effectiveness is not determined by the pattern he or she follows, (i.e. cooperative vs. competitive) but rather by what he or she does with that pattern." – passage from Williams, Gerald. Legal Negotiation and Settlement, West, 1983. Case: Tax Books by Prof. Gerald Williams, Brigham Young University. (negotiated two on two)
6	Negotiating in Context	Read: If you did not get to the other chapters of Essentials of Negotiations in the last two weeks, try to read them now please. Also read Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, pp. 35-45 and pp. 148-163, found in the Class Notes. This book reviews a lot of evidence that managerial success depends primarily on social skills. Please be thinking in all your current negotiations, about the importance of your having a strategy, on the importance of preparing for current negotiations and on converting win-lose to win-win. Cases: Telemachus Technology and Coalition Game: Susskind, Lawrence. Three-Party Coalition Exercise. Available from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School Clearinghouse.
	Holiday Week	Optional Reading: Enders Game, as suggested earlier and/or Joan Slonczewski's A Door Into Ocean, Avon, 1986, science fiction, which presents a profoundly different view – from Enders Game – of sources of power in dealing with armed conflict. As with Enders Game, this book may interest you especially in the light of hostilities in many parts of the world. If you do read either or both books, please consider writing in your journal your responses to the questions I asked for Session 4, with respect to Enders Game.
7	Origins of Conflict – Dispute Prevention – Delegating Conflict Management to the Disputant	Read: Felstiner, William L. F., Richard L. Abel, and Austin Sarat. The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming.... Law and Society Review 15, no. 3-4, 1980-81, pp. 631-654; and Rowe, Mary. Helping People Help Themselves: An Option for Complaint Handlers. Negotiation Journal 6, no. 3, July 1990, pp. 239-248. These readings discuss how conflicts begin and develop and how they can be handled at the lowest possible level. The Rowe paper is essential for the second Perceived Injurious Experience (PIE) Little Paper. NB: usually half the class hates the Felstiner, Abel & Sarat article. If you are in that half, please skim it anyway? It is a well-known classic and the article may grow on you if you become interested in dispute prevention at home or at work or if you find yourself dealing with difficult conflicts. If as a manager you will be handling personnel complaints of any kind, skim the MIT Guide to Dealing with Harassment which describes a systems approach to complaint-handling with respect to one broad class of workplace issues. See especially the "Quick Guide," chapter 3.
8	Your Employer's Dispute Resolution and Complaint Handling System	Read: The excerpt from Cavanagh, Thomas D. Business Dispute Resolution: Best Practices in System Design and Case Management. South-Western College Pub, 1999; and Rowe, Mary, and Corinne Bendersky. Workplace Justice, Zero Tolerance and Zero Barriers: Getting People to Come Forward in Conflict Management Systems, in Negotiations and Change, from the Workplace to Society, edited by Thomas Kochan and Richard Locke, Cornell University Press, 2002. If you did not have a chance to read the MIT Guide to Dealing with Harassment, consider skimming at least chapter 3 for today. Contemporary best practice suggests that employers should not only offer conflict resolution options, but build integrated dispute resolution systems. (Was there an integrated system at the place you worked before?) If you will be working in an arena where there are "zero tolerance" policies for illegal behavior, the Rowe article discusses one reason why zero tolerance policies are problematic unless embedded in an integrated system.
	Holiday Week	Optional Assignment: Rent the video The Return of Martin Guerre. The question is, whom can you believe? Is it possible to tell if someone is lying? If so – how will you do it as a manager? If not – how will you manage?
9	Conciliation and Mediation	Read: Moore, How Mediation Works (Chapter 2), pp. 41-77, and Designing a Plan for Mediation (Chapter 6) and Building Trust and Cooperation (Chapter 7), pp. 141-192. If you did not buy this text, you may find copies on Reserve. These readings lay out elements of strategy, tactics, and process for non-adjudicatory, third party intervention. In your next job you will almost certainly have to function as a third party intermediary. You may also be helping colleagues and bosses, and you may be supervising subordinates, as they mediate informally or formally. You are also very likely to be engaged in mediation on behalf of your employer, since so many companies are now switching over to using internal and external mediation in at least some employment and contract disputes. So – read as much of this book as you can. If you are not interested, you may find the book dry and too thorough. In this case, skim whatever you can stand of it and remember this book next year as soon as you need to know the material, because you will find everything here. If you are too totally swamped to read anything, then study the Moore chart and then apply it to Stratego I and II to prepare for the mediation. The Moore chart is Figure 2.1 from: Moore, Christopher W, The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict, 2nd ed., Jossey-Bass, 1996. Case: Prepare Stratego Aero II. To do so, you should have re-read Stratego Aero I as well as your Stratego II Secret Instructions. Prepare together with someone who is playing the same role as you and please prepare carefully. Otherwise you will mess up your colleagues' role-playing, and they will write me fierce notes about requiring people to prepare better.
10	Investigation, Arbitration and Exceptionally Difficult People (Double Class, 6 hours)	Read: Lewicki, chapter 9, and the Halliburton Dispute Resolution Program. These readings illuminate dealing with difficult situations, and third party intervention. The Halliburton program is a benchmark example of an integrated system with the option of outside arbitration. It is now seen as best practice – with one big shortcoming in my view – namely, "imposed" arbitration. (Are you willing to sign away your ability to sue your employer as a condition of employment?) Read: Fein, Robert A., Bryan Vossekuil, and Gwen A. Holden, Threat Assessment: An Approach to Prevent Targeted Violence, National Institute of Justice: Research in Action, September 1995, pp. 1-7 (taking a systems approach to targeted violence) as preparation for the evening presentation. This article is also available at the U.S. Secret Service web site. Cases: Certified Public Accountants, Inc. (theft); Discussion of cases distributed in class (drugs, whistleblowers, and a convicted employee).
11	More Negotiating with Difficult People	Read: The third text for the course: Ury, Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People. My recommendation is that you read the whole book – it is short and easy to read, and arguably one of the two or three best books of its type in negotiations. Read also Levinson, Harry. The Abrasive Personality, Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review, 1978. These readings suggest ideas and modes that you may find helpful if you know anyone who is a difficult person. The Ury book can be remarkably helpful if you can get both parties to a dispute – two of your colleagues, for example – to read it. By the same token, if you know an abrasive person, the Levinson article may be useful – and usually not offensive – to such a person. (Abrasive personalities usually do not see themselves as abrasive and are therefore sometimes very interested, if puzzled, to see the main elements of what other people see as abrasiveness spelled out.) Optional – if you have time: Ekman, Paul, and Maureen O'Sullivan. Who Can Catch a Liar? American Psychologist 46, no. 9, September 1991, pp. 913-920 – this article got a lot of attention during the Clarence Thomas Hearings; and Smoller, Jordan W. The Etiology of Childhood. This last article illuminates the point that "things are not necessarily what they seem."

Discussion Group

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Webliography:

Related Resources

A list of useful books on negotiations and conflict management is included for those who would like to learn more about some of the topics in this class.

Blake, Robert R., and Jane Srygley Moulton. Solving Costly Organizational Conflicts. Jossey Bass, 1984.

Brams, Steven J., and Alan D. Taylor. The Win-Win Solution. Norton, 1999.

Bramson, Robert. Coping with Difficult People. Anchor, Doubleday, 1981.

———. Coping with Difficult Bosses. Simon & Schuster, 1992.

Brinkman, Rick, and Rick Kirschner. Dealing with People You Can't Stand. McGraw Hill, 1994.

Cavenagh, Thomas D. Business Dispute Resolution. West Legal Studies in Business, Thomson, 2000.

Costantino, Cathy, and Christina Sickles Merchant. Designing Conflict Management Systems. Jossey Bass, 1996.

Ewing, David W. Justice in the Work Place. Harvard Business School Press, 1990.

Fisher, Roger, and William Ury. Getting To Yes. Penguin, 1981.

Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence. Bantam, 1995.

Kolb, Deborah, and Judith Williams. The Shadow Negotiation. Simon and Schuster, 2000.

Lax, David A., and James Sebenius. The Manager as Negotiator. Free Press, 1986.

Moore, Christopher. The Mediation Process. Jossey Bass, 1996.

Raiffa, Howard. The Art and Science of Negotiation. Harvard University Press, 1982.

Slaikeu, Karl. When Push Comes to Shove, A Practical Guide to Mediating Disputes. Jossey Bass, 1996.

Slaikeu, Karl and Ralph Hasson. Controlling the Costs of Conflict. Jossey Bass, 1998.

Solomon, Muriel. Working with Difficult People. Prentice Hall, 1990.

Stone, Douglas, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. Difficult Conversations, How to Discuss What Matters Most. Viking, 1999.

Tannen, Deborah. You Just Don't Understand. William Morrow and Company, 1990.

Ury, William L., Jeanne M. Brett, and Stephen B. Goldberg. Getting Disputes Resolved. Jossey Bass, 1988.

Ury, William L. Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People. Bantam, 1991.

———. The Third Side. Penguin, 2000.

Walton, R. E., Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, and Robert McKersie. Strategic Negotiations. Harvard Business School Press, 1994.

Williams, Gerald. Legal Negotiation and Settlement. West, 1982.