I recently had a conversation with Anna Cajot, the N-Conference Director, about my upcoming keynote at the October conference. I shared my excitement about presenting the Negotiation Competency Model, a framework developed from extensive research that links observable behaviors to successful negotiation outcomes. In our discussion, I emphasized that great negotiators are distinguished by their ability to achieve substantive results while building strong relationships and by leveraging diverse team dynamics for superior performance.
I explained that measuring and improving negotiation skills is challenging but crucial. To address this, we need structured environments where negotiators can be evaluated and compared systematically. These controlled settings, such as internal or open competitions, allow for precise assessment and provide valuable feedback for continuous improvement. Drawing parallels to sports, I stressed that achieving negotiation mastery, much like excelling in soccer, requires ongoing practice, feedback, and refinement. Our goal is to create environments that support professionals in their journey towards becoming effective negotiators.
Somebody pinch me please! Two papers of the year in the same year? I must be dreaming…
We are delighted to share that we’ve just received an email from the Editor-in-Chief of the Negotiation and Conflict Management Research Journal Jimena Ramirez Marin that our literature review on the first offers and anchoring in negotiation has received the NCMR Article of the Year Award 2024!
Our paper reviews 119 journal articles published since 1967 and proposes a process model of first offers in negotiation that organizes our knowledge about this highly important element of the negotiation process.
While writting this paper with my partners in crime: Wolfram Lipp from Technical University of Munich and Peter Kesting from Aarhus University we also realized how much we still don’t know about first offers and anchoring in negotiation.
NCMR Article of the Year Award 2024 was handed over during the IACM annual conference, which took place on June 23-26 at INSEAD in Singapore.
The paper is available in open access and can be viewed and downloaded here. Please let us know what you think!
Thank you, dear committee members: Michael Gross, Nazlı Bhatia, PhD, Jingjing Yao, David Hunsaker, PhD, Teng Zhang for your kind recognition!
2023 is over now, but I would like to share the second powerful leadership lesson I’ve learned that year while working on The Negotiation Challenge for Students.
TNC 2023 took place Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome and it’s organization was coordinated by Angelo Monoriti, whom I’m priviledged to call a friend now. Organizing a 3-4 days event for over 100 participants is a complex task, which requires a significant effort and a strong team.
All throughout the preparations and the intensity of the finals in Rome, we’ve met many dedicated and highly successful professionals from various disciplines who offered their time and resources to support TNC 2023. Not because of TNC, which they had not known before, but because they were asked by their friend, Angelo! Their involvement exceeded mere attendance. They got involved in TNC as if it was their own project, offering their support, resources, and advice, whenever needed!
For many years, Angelo has been inspring students of Luiss Guido Carli University helping them to become better negotiators. His motivation is not rooted in the pursuit of wealth or fame but in the belief that these students need these skills to evolve into better versions of themselves and, ultimately, better leaders. When I spoke to some of them during the TNC finals in Rome, they emphasized that their relationship with Angelo has evolved from beining students of his class, through becoming Angelo’s mentees, and ending up as his friends. They learned together, grew together, celebrated together, and cried together. He was always there for them and I’m sure that they will be there for him, should he ever need their help.
On behalf of all your friends, thank you, Angelo, for helping us understand, the meaning of true leadership. Thank you for being there for us! Luiss Guido Carli University is lucky to have you on their faculty! I look forward to working with you!
As this year is slowly coming to an end, following the great example of Charles Dickens, I would like to share two leadership stories, which are inspired by true events I’ve witnessed this year.
One day, in the heart of the Animal Kingdom, two prominent figures caught the attention of the entire kingdom. Ryan, the diligent rabbit, worked tirelessly for the kingdom’s prosperity. Cedric, a proud and powerful lion, held a high position and was in charge of making important decisions.
Cedric, however, decided to let go of Ryan from his duties, citing reasons that seemed surprising and unjust to many in the Animal Kingdom. The news spread like wildfire, and whispers of discontent echoed through the trees and fields.
Months passed, and the kingdom observed with keen interest the decisions made by Cedric. To the surprise of many, Cedric’s actions were not well received by his fellow animals. His partners, a coalition of wise and experienced animals, decided that his leadership lacked the wisdom and fairness the kingdom deserved.
One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, the partners gathered in a secret meeting. The partners, tired of Cedric’s erratic decisions, concluded that it was time for a change. They believed that a leader should be fair, just, and considerate of the well-being of all animals in the kingdom. After a long deliberation, they made the difficult decision to relieve Cedric of his duties.
Word spread through the Animal Kingdom, and the creatures couldn’t help but draw parallels between the fate of Ryan and Cedric. The wise old owl, Oliver, took it upon himself to share the moral of the story with the kingdom.
“Dear friends,” Oliver, the Owl hooted from his perch, “let this tale be a lesson to us all. In the vast tapestry of the Animal Kingdom, fairness and wisdom are the pillars of good leadership. Treat others with kindness and consideration, for one’s actions have a way of coming full circle.”
… and Ryan? After a few weeks of disappointment, Ryan, the rabbit, found himself exploring new territories within the Animal Kingdom. In a distant meadow, he stumbled upon a diverse community of animals facing challenges and seeking a leader. With resilience and determination, Ryan stepped forward to offer his guidance. The animals quickly recognized his fairness, empathy, experience, and wisdom traits that had been overlooked by his previous employer. In this new stimulating environment, Ryan flourished as a leader, fostering a sense of unity and cooperation among the diverse group of animals. Together, they thrived in harmony, proving that sometimes, a setback can lead to an even brighter and more fulfilling chapter in one’s journey.
Stay tuned for the next leadership fable on the New Year’s Eve!
Happy Holidays, my friends! Thank you for being a part of my journey!
The concept of negotiation intelligence is industry agnostic and can be applied also in law, diplomacy and politics. The starting point for building negotiation intelligence is knowledge acquisition. First, we need to get to know the methods and techniques together with their suitability. Second, we need to learn to retrieve and apply them in the right moment. That’s why all my negotiation courses are based on the concept of experiential learning combining a healthy blend of theory and practice.
HHL negotiation course with expert Prof.Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski I The Negotiation Challenge for students and professionals
Who will become the smart financial assistant for their customers? Who will secure/gain access to them and capture their attention? Do banks stand a chance in this race? Answers to these and other questions in the recent interview with Hansjörg Leichsenring (in German).
Bank Blog TV: Gespräch mit Prof. Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski über die Chancen und Herausforderungen des Smart Financial Assistant der Zukunft.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Matthew. 5:9
Negotiation is our passion and we love sharing it with others. Through our research, we have spent decades trying to understand its complexity. We have used what we have learned in teaching generations of students and business executives across the world how to produce wise and sustainable agreements. As part of these efforts, we have also initiated an annual international negotiation competition for graduate students called The Negotiation Challenge. It offers participants a unique opportunity to compare their negotiation skills, live their passion and network with like-minded colleagues from around the world. The Negotiation Challenge has been an amazing opportunity for us to observe and interact with some of the best student negotiators in the world and analyze the secrets of their superior performance.
The Negotiation Challenge, the competition as well as this book, has its origins in our desire to help our students, the leaders of tomorrow, become better negotiators. Since conflicts are an inherent and inescapable part of our lives, we must learn howto manage and resolve them. Indeed, now more than ever, our world needs skilled negotiators who understand not only how to navigate difficult negotiation situations, but also how to engineer value and craft smart and sustainable agreements. However, teaching these skills is a great pedagogical challenge. For example, how do we optimize our classroom teaching to generate the best possible results or how can we help our students become the best negotiators they can be? In addition, although comparing students’ negotiation skills before and after a negotiation class delivers valuable insights concerning the efficiency of our teaching methods, this environment lacks the revealing dynamic that a real-world situation has. That is, have the skills they have learned also work outside of the classroom setting? Thus, letting students compete at The Negotiation Challenge puts their negotiation and our pedagogical skills to the ultimate test and helps us answer these questions by seeing how our best students perform when faced with world’s best student negotiators.
During the last decade of running our competition, the participating students, as well as their coaches and professors, have regularly asked us for our advice and guidance concerning the most effective preparation for The Negotiation Challenge. Although we have openly shared our observations with them, many have also encouraged us to publish the negotiation simulations we have written for The Negotiation Challenge to make them available for those considering participating in the competition. Thus, although this book has been long overdue, we are very happy to finally satisfy these requests.
The remainder of this book is structured as follows. Chapter 2 describes The Negotiation Challenge as a competition. It explains how and why it started. It also describes its structure and discusses the evaluation criteria that we use in an attempt to capture and measure what we term negotiation intelligence. In this part of the book, we also give details on the competition’s admissions criteria that applicants need to fulfill to compete in The Negotiation Challenge. We conclude this chapter with facts and figures from past competitions including the list of hosting institutions and the winning teams. Chapter 3 then addresses four key types of negotiation, each as an independent section. These include distributive negotiation with value claiming strategies and tactics, integrative negotiation with value creation strategies and tactics, complex multi-issue negotiations, and multi-party negotiations. Importantly, each of these sections includes four supporting roleplay simulations, which negotiators can use to develop and reinforce their skills in preparation for The Negotiation Challenge or other negotiation competitions. These 16 roleplays are carefully selected role simulations that were written for and used during previous Negotiation Challenge competitions. Chapter 4 concludes this book with our advice and recommendations for potential participants of negotiation competitions to consider. We do hope that our suggestions will both improve the chances of admission for applicants and enhance their performance during the competition.
We acknowledge that there are already many great negotiation textbooks available on the market that systematically reveal important research findings about negotiation and in turn help us understand its complex nature. Based on solid research foundations, these textbooks present well-structured empirical insights, derive useful theories, and present pragmatic tools and frameworks. However, what is missing in this collection of literature is a resource that helps one apply and practice these lessons. The goal of this book is to fill this gap. As firm believers in experiential learning, we wrote this book to offer students or anyone ready to be a better negotiator an immediate opportunity to apply and reinforce their negotiation knowledge through roleplay simulations. As such, we hope that this book with its carefully selected practical exercises offers readers an opportunity to improve their negotiations skills. In turn, we hope it helps them to negotiate smarter agreements and, even if a little at a time, make our world a better more peaceful place.
Or purchase a PDF copy of our book and receive it immediately delivered to your email address. A PDF copy is less expensive and preparing student copies is easier with a PDF version of our book.