Executive Education at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business | Negotiation and Decision Making Strategies

Program Objectives
Who Should Attend
Program Outline
Faculty

During this seminar, you will learn to:

Develop a systematic framework for improving negotiation outcomes
Identify the key characteristics of a good agreement
Identify common psychological pitfalls that obstruct optimal agreements
Anticipate and defend against common influence tactics
Identify personal tendencies to be overly cooperative or competitive in conflict
Broaden the repertoire of negotiation approaches through practices
Increase creativity and flexibility in solving problems
Increase the ability to meet interests when faced with a competitive opponent
Defend interests in confrontational negotiations
Use alternative, creative approaches to reaching negotiated agreements
Learn specific techniques for simultaneously achieving personal interests and the interests of the negotiation partner
Measure interests, find beneficial trades, and maximize the outcome in a multiple-issue negotiation
Recognize and overcome flaws in the decision making process
Develop frameworks for making sounder decisions
Learn the right lessons from experience
Develop plans to monitor, improve, and practice decision making skills at the job

Who Should Attend

This program is designed to benefit middle, upper middle, and senior level managers, who would like to enhance their influence, both internally in their organizations and externally with other organizations and vendors, by improving their negotiation and decision making skills. Managers in every functional area of responsibility, in all industry types, will benefit by attending this program. In particular, executives in areas such as marketing, sales, manufacturing, engineering, mergers and acquisitions, purchasing, human resources, strategy, and finance, as well as general managers who have been promoted through these routes, will find this program highly beneficial.

Negotiation and Decision Making Strategies Topic Outline

The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making Processes

Framing decisions -- structuring problems to reach appropriate solutions
Assessing uncertainty --recognizing and avoiding common pitfalls in decision making
Seeking information -- asking the most informative questions
Learning from experience --distinguishing what can or cannot be learned from experiences

Beginning with the Toughest: Price Negotiation

Negotiating hard with integrity
Untangling relationship building and price negotiations
Balancing assertiveness and empathy in negotiations

Coalitions, Power, and Fairness

Influencing outcomes when lacking might
Forming and using coalitions strategically to build power
Dealing with divergent fairness concerns within groups and coalitions

Organizational Decision Making

Preparing for complex negotiations
Managing joint decision making among 20 or more people
Getting buy-in from a large group

Influence Techniques and Problem Solving

Common influence tactics and defenses
Creative problem solving as a negotiation technique
Fundamental goals of negotiation

Techniques for Creating Value

Multiple-issue contract negotiation
Goal of creating value
Quantitative tools for improving joint outcomes
Tools for uncovering the interests of the negotiation partner

Achieving Goals in a Multiple-issue Negotiation

Quantitative preparation technique for measuring interests and tradeoffs
Construction of a comprehensive negotiation plan

Action Planning: Putting It All into Practice

Developing action plans -- assessing individual negotiating and decision making skills and developing plans to improve job performance

Benefits
At the end of this session, participants will:

Understand basic influence techniques used by professional negotiators, including commitment, reciprocity, framing, and anchoring.
Develop an ability to recognize and thwart common influence techniques.
Understand alternative approaches to negotiation that focus on reconciling underlying interests.
Identify the characteristics of an optimal negotiation agreement.
Develop a general understanding of how to improve joint outcomes.
Form a checklist of beneficial trades to look for in any future negotiations, including trading on differences in priorities, risk preference, time preference, and forecasts.
Learn how to measure their interests and evaluate the value of potential agreements.
Understand how different negotiation tactics improve or impede beneficial agreements.
Develop a comprehensive plan for coordinating the tactic learned.
Gain insights into how intuitive decisions are made, how to educate intuitions, and how to improve reactions during decision making.
Formulate concrete action plans for improving decision making skills.
Improve the decision making process.

Negotiation and Decision Making Strategies Program Faculty

Ayelet Fishbach

Ayelet Fishbach has been a member of the University of Chicago's faculty since 2002. Professor Fishbach teaches MBA and Executive MBA classes in negotiation. Her class helps students develop a systematic approach to negotiation, enabling them to analyze and prepare for upcoming negotiation situations and interpret past negotiating encounters. Professor Fishbach’s research is in social psychology, with specific emphasis on motivation and decision making.
Complete biography

Christopher K. Hsee

Christopher Hsee joined The University of Chicago faculty in 1993, teaching MBA and Executive MBA classes in managerial decision making strategies. His research and teaching are focused on behavioral decision theories, including preference construction, consumer decision making, and cross-cultural comparisons in risk preferences.
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George Wu

George Wu has been a member of the University of Chicago faculty since 1997, where he teaches MBA classes in negotiation and decision making. Professor Wu’s research is centered on decision making under risk and uncertainty. His teaching utilizes a framework to enable managers to make better decisions.
Complete biography