A number of top business schools have recently added negotiation skills to their curriculum. Schools like Michigan, Harvard and Stanford are even offering courses in negotiation not directly related to labor-management conflict. How effective are these programs?
According to a report by Dr. Israel Unterman of San Diego State University’s department of management, some are very effective. Continue reading
Believe it or not, even the academics are beginning to see that negotiation skills, processes and procedures have utility beyond conflict resolution, grievance arbitration and collective bargaining.
Two of them, Lane Tracy, college of business administration, Ohio State, and Richard B. Peterson, graduate school of business administration, University of Washington, recently con¬ducted an extensive survey study to determine 1) what conditions support the attempt to solve problems by means of negotiation and 2) what tactics and behaviors facilitate problem solving. Continue reading
According to lawyer-turned-negotiation-consultant Nierenberg, the first step in learning positive negotiation skills is the acceptance of a “win-win” philosophy of negotiating.
“My basic philosophy is that you leave the other fellow something of his own. If you don’t, you’ve planted dragon seeds for the future. What we’re trying to do is replace the out¬dated win/lose approach with a creative approach that will be in the best interests of both parties,” he emphasizes.
This approach to negotiation is often referred to as the need theory of negotiation; Abraham Mas-low refers to it as “….inclusive or synergic negotiating in which all people win.” Nierenberg and others have simply dubbed it the win-win approach. Continue reading
What do you think of when you hear the word NEGOTIATION? Ambassadors and generals seated around a mahogany table, wheeling and dealing nuclear weapons and the fate of nations?
OPEC oil ministers nose to nose with oil company executives? Labor and management locked in a 12th-hour contract struggle? Buyer and seller haggling over the price and terms of a cow or a car? According to Dr. Israel Unterman, most of us do think of negotiation in this limited, tough-guys-finish-first, win-lose sense. Continue reading
Dr. Bill Byham likes to point out that an “assessment center is a process, not a place.” And a lot of selection processes may look as though they’re based on an assessment-center approach but they’re not.
The problem of when an assessment center is an assessment center was addressed in a year-long effort by an all-star task force of 17 assessment-center specialists, chaired by AT&T’s Dr. Joel Moses. Their initial recommendations were published as “Standards and Ethical Considerations for Assessment Center Operations” and presented to the Seventh International Assessment Center Congress held last June in New Or-leans. Continue reading
In the midst of all the controversy over validity and standards, a simple fact gets overlooked. At least part of the popularity and impetus for the development of assessment centers has been their ability to bridge time.
Pre-World War II executives had time on their side in evaluating management potential. Promotions came slowly, and turnover was virtually a non-problem. Past behavior was an acceptable predictor of future behavior. The end of WW II heralded a new era. Executives were faced with the task of predicting the success of hundreds of people who had no directly relevant past behavior. Continue reading