Yale University

Introduction to Negotiation: A Strategic Playbook for Becoming a Principled and Persuasive Negotiator

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This course will help you be a better negotiator. Unlike many negotiation courses, we develop a framework for analyzing and shaping negotiations. This framework will allow you to make principled arguments that persuade others. It will allow you to see beneath the surface of apparent conflicts to uncover the underlying interests. You will leave the course better able to predict, interpret, and shape the behavior of those you face in competitive situations. In this course, you will have several opportunities to negotiate with other students using case studies based on common situations in business and in life. You can get feedback on your performance and compare what you did to how others approached the same scenario. The cases also provide a setting to discuss a wide-ranging set of topics including preparing for a negotiation, making ultimatums, avoiding regret, expanding the pie, and dealing with someone who has a very different perspective on the world. Advanced topics include negotiating when you have no power, negotiating over email, and the role of gender differences in negotiation. To close out the course, we will hear insights from three negotiation experts: Linda Babcock, Herb Cohen, and John McCall MacBain. Enjoy.

From the lesson

Linda Babcock: Ask for It

In this module, we are joined by Professor Linda Babcock, the James M. Walton Professor of Economics at Carnegie-Mellon University and a world-renowned expert on negotiation. Her specialty is the role of gender differences in negotiation. She is the coauthor of many well-cited journal articles and two award-winning books: Women Don’t Ask and Ask for It. In a series of presentations, Linda puts some dollars and cents on the value of asking, shows you how to prepare and then how to ask. The value of this material isn’t just for women. We can all learn how to better prepare for a negotiation, be soft in style and hard in substance, and aim high without crashing. As a bonus section, Ayana Ledford, the Founding Executive Director of PROGRESS at Carnegie-Mellon University, explains how they are teaching negotiation to teens as a life skill.

The Value of Negotiating4:15

Men Negotiate More1:50

Listen to Noise5:48

When Women Negotiate2:28

How Women Can Become Better Negotiators1:34

Change Your Thinking0:58

Negotiation Gym1:51

Meet the Instructors

Barry Nalebuff
Milton Steinbach Professor
Yale School of Management

It seems that women don't negotiate as often as men.

I get that.

But, is that because they're not as good at it when they do negotiate?

What happens when women do negotiate?

>> There are often gender differences in how effective men and

women are when they negotiate.

>> Okay.

>> And, it's greatest when there is a lot of uncertainty about the size of the pie.

About what could be negotiated.

So for example, if you think about negotiating about salary versus bonus.

There's more information about what salaries might be

versus what bonuses might be.

And so the gender difference favoring men would be larger about bonuses

than about salaries.

>> > So salaries are common knowledge or a little bit, you can do some exploration.

You can ask people what they're making.

Possibly your network can help you, but bonuses, it's often hidden,

people don't talk about it and it's much more subjective.

So therefore, you don't really quite know did you get a high bonus, or

what bonus to ask for.

>> Exactly, again more uncertainty about what the pie is.

The more the gender difference will be favoring men.

>> Okay. And if we're just talking about salary.

There's actually gender differences depending

upon the standardization of the salary within the industry.

So for example, there are some industries in which there's are a lot of variation in

what people earn.

In those industries gender differences favoring men will be biggest.

Compared to an industry where it's very standardized.

Were people will make about the same thing and

there gender differences won't be so large.

>> Does it depend upon the topic?

>> Now that's a great question.

Yes, in fact it does,

when the topic is more masculine the gender differences do favor men.

For example, for my research, when people negotiating over the price of motorcycle

headlights, women only got about 37% of the pie in that case.

But when they were negotiating over a fancy lamp or bead which

tend to be thought of as more feminine, actually women got 48% of the pie.

The gender difference will also depend on who the negotiation is for.

So we had executive MBA students negotiate over salaries, either for

themselves, or on behalf of another person.

And what we found is that when men and women were negotiating for

their own salary, men did slightly better.

They got about 3% higher salaries than did women.

But when men and women were negotiating salaries on behalf of somebody else.

Women have really outperformed men.

They got 14% more than the men.

So put it another way.

It actually doesn't matter if men are negotiating for

themselves versus another person, they do about the same.

But women do much better negotiating for someone else versus for themselves.