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NP @ PON Hosts Negotiation Pedagogy Workshop |
By Melissa Manwaring
On Dec. 8, 2007, NP @ PON hosted its first public Negotiation Pedagogy Workshop on the Harvard Law School campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Designed primarily for those teaching negotiation in academic institutions, the workshop had a number of purposes: to provide a forum for PON faculty to share ideas about teaching within their areas of expertise; to expose participants to the range of teaching tools from the PON Clearinghouse; to open a dialogue between experts on negotiation and experts on education, and to provide a networking opportunity for negotiation teachers and trainers.
One hundred and fourteen people from fifteen countries attended the workshop, including university faculty, corporate/organizational trainers, other professionals, and graduate students. The workshop was offered at a substantially reduced fee compared with other public PON training programs, in order to make it accessible to academics.
The full-day workshop offered a series of concurrent sessions led by experienced PON faculty on various aspects of teaching negotiation, along with a plenary presentation on effective interdisciplinary work and informal networking receptions. The faculty presenters included Professor Robert Bordone (Harvard Law School), Dr. Brian Mandell (Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University), Bruce Patton (Harvard Negotiation Project and Vantage Partners; pictured above leading a session on teaching Difficult Conversations), Professor Jeswald Salacuse (The Fletcher School at Tufts University), Professor James Sebenius(Harvard Business School), Professor Lawrence Susskind (M.I.T.), Professor Michael Wheeler (Harvard Business School), and Dr. Veronica Boix-Mansilla (Harvard Graduate School of Education).
While each faculty-led session focused on a particular teaching challenge (such as teaching complexity in negotiation, teaching ethics in legal negotiation, and teaching multiparty negotiation strategies), the presenters approached the pedagogical piece in very different ways. Some faculty engaged the participants as they would their students, demonstrating how they might run and debrief a particular class session, and then discussing their pedagogical assumptions and rationales with the participants. In his session on teaching the mutual gains negotiation approach as a method of dealing with difficult negotiators, for instance, Professor Susskind ran and debriefed the two-party, intra-organizational Multimode exercise with the participants much as he would with his students, drawing out examples of how one of the Multimode parties might use the mutual gains approach to effectively respond to the other party's difficult tactics. Professor Susskind then invited the participants to step out of role as students, and to discuss with him as colleagues when, why, and how to use the Multimode exercise for this particular teaching purpose. Similarly, Professor James Sebenius ran a session on teaching "3-D negotiation" by briefly introducing the 3-D negotiation theory, showing excerpts of the "Great Negotiator 2002: Lakhdar Brahimi" DVD, discussing with participants (as he would with students) how the 3-D negotiation framework can be used as a lens for understanding Ambassador Brahimi's negotiation approach, and then addressing the pedagogical considerations in teaching 3-D negotiation.
Other faculty focused their sessions more broadly, examining the pedagogical considerations in teaching certain topics and using various teaching tools. Professor Bob Bordone, for instance, began his session on teaching legal negotiation ethics by offering a series of questions to consider in designing a negotiation course with an ethics component, and discussed these questions in detail with the participants. He then described a sample mini-module on legal negotiation ethics, addressing both the teaching goals and the logistical considerations. And Dr. Veronica Boix-Mansilla offered a different perspective entirely. Rather than focusing on approaches to teaching a particular negotiation skill or theory, she drew on her Interdisciplinary Studies Project with Professor Howard Gardner to address criteria for evaluating the quality of interdisciplinary work, such as that which negotiation students undertake.
Many participants commented that the workshop encouraged them to think about trying new teaching approaches and tools. As one said, "I am one of the people they are talking about who has taught the same stuff for 15 years and maybe it's gotten a little stale. This has been great, especially information about technology." This was a common theme: most of the top-selling PON negotiation exercises in 2007, such as Sally Soprano, Harborco, Oil Pricing, PowerScreen, and Parker-Gibson, have been among the top-sellers for decades.
Some participants found specific sessions to be particularly helpful for dealing with targeted challenges. According to one, "I am teaching a course on negotiation ethics, and came here for ideas on how to do this. Bob Bordone's presentation was just that." Others enjoyed noticing connections and contradictions across sessions. Said one, "I really liked that not all of the presenters agreed on everything. I went to one talk that mentioned claiming and then another in which the presenter contradicted that idea, and I really liked that. I liked being able to hear something new." Still others sought more general inspiration: "I'm here to recharge my batteries. This is the first time PON has done this and they should have done it sooner and they should do it more often." As another stated, "It has been great to be with so many who share the same passion for teaching negotiation."
As one might expect, the workshop raised as many questions about teaching as it answered. One participant noted that he was still struggling with the question of "what do you throw away from a course? Not how to enrich, but how to simplify?" Others highlighted the difficult of teaching students who already know each other and who have a strong social pressure to conform to group norms and be "nice" to each other - which makes it difficult to give students practice in working with spoilers and hard bargainers. Still others noted that many of the sessions - particularly Dr. Boix-Mansilla's presentation on assessing interdisciplinary work - led them to question the epistemological assumptions they had been making about negotiation and negotiation pedagogy, and to consider examining more critically how we think we know what we know in this field. Such questions remind us that pedagogy is at least as much about questioning and learning as about answering and teaching, and encourage us to think about ways to explore these and other fruitful questions.
Melissa Manwaring, J.D., M.Ed. is the Director of Curriculum Development at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and on the faculty of Harvard Extension School and Babson College. She can be reached at mmanwar@law.harvard.edu.
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| Teaching Negotiation as Cross-Cultural Work: An Anthropological View |
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By Alexandra Crampton
Introduction
Questions about culture frequently arise in negotiation courses, both in academic and in organizational training contexts. Often, these questions center around the extent to which particular negotiation prescriptions apply to negotiations with people from different professional, ethnic, national, or other cultures, and when and how these prescriptions should be adapted. These might trigger additional questions about the culturally-based assumptions that underlie various negotiation theories. While these are valid questions worth exploring, they do not always take into account the dynamic, changing nature of culture - and they may overlook an important form of cross-cultural work that may be occurring right in the classroom. In some ways, the process of learning about negotiation - which can involve anything from acquiring new behavioral skills to changing one's fundamental assumptions about what negotiation is - can be a cross-cultural process, with many of the same joys and frustrations that attend physical immersion in a new culture.
What is "culture" in negotiation?
First, what do we mean by "culture" in the context of negotiation? Anthropologist Bruce Knauft refers to culture as "high modernist anthropology" -- that is, a set of values, norms, behaviors, and world-views shared by an identified group. While everyone has culture in the broadest sense, we are socialized through particular cultures distinguished by national identity, geographical region, organization, or profession, which foster shared understanding among group members. Often, those who teach cultural aspects of negotiation teach general sets of traits: for example, that people from certain cultures value the relationship in negotiating, while people from other cultures prioritize efficiency and signing a contract. The upshot of these lessons seems to be that cross-cultural negotiators can minimize conflict and misunderstanding by learning as much as possible about the cultural norms of their negotiating counterparts. By avoiding unintentional offense and demonstrating willingness to accommodate cultural differences, negotiators can build trust and rapport.
But as anyone who travels frequently across borders and works in multicultural contexts can tell you, this approach to cross-cultural negotiation can feel overwhelming. Trying to keep track of ten (or more) basic trait variations while interacting in social situations can be difficult. Another problem, widely recognized, is that this approach used too strictly can amount to stereotyping, leading negotiators to make accommodations that are not necessary or are even wrong. I was reminded of this during anthropological field research in Ghana. After reading a list of "do's and don'ts" for visiting village chiefs in Ghana, I was careful in my first visit not to look the chief in the eye, as a sign of respect. A few minutes into our exchange, the translator asked why I would not look at the chief. My information was outdated, at least in that village. In a fast-paced global negotiating environment, not only are there longer and longer lists of distinguishing traits, but they keep changing.
What's more, people across the globe have become increasingly multicultural: as technology facilitates cross-cultural communication and travel, people develop new ways of communicating, interpreting, and understanding. So, even while you may be carefully trying to follow the rules according to others' nationalities (or professions or genders), they may be simultaneously adjusting themselves to you. Imagine if the Ghanaian chief had simply concluded that Americans avoid eye contact and therefore assumed from my mistake that averting one's eyes was a distinguishing American practice. As another example, what if you try very hard to speak a local language with someone who feels insulted that you do not realize she understands English well? When is it more respectful to do what, exactly?
The fact that no "right" answer truly exists when it comes to cultural mores represents a teaching opportunity: to go beyond high modernist to postmodern concepts of culture. While the more conservative aspects of culture - stabilizing, normative, holistic - are important, anthropologists also study the ways in which culture is dynamic, unstable, and subject to change. Culture, in other words, is continually negotiated. To borrow a phrase from anthropologist Marilyn Strathern, the key is to understand "culture on the make."
Experiential negotiation education as cross-cultural work
In many ways, experiential learning in negotiation training can be viewed as a form of cultural work because participants are put in situations that might trigger a culturally-embedded response (for instance, a competitive response), when they might improve their chance for success by behaving in a way that is less culturally intuitive (for instance, behaving more cooperatively). As in total-immersion language learning, the goal is for participants to develop new intuitions as well as new cognitive understandings of what to say, how to interpret, and how to respond. In a sense, therefore, negotiation trainers may be asking their students to make not just cognitive or behavioral shifts, but cultural shifts.
At the same time, experiential learning exercises such as role simulations can feel frustrating for students accustomed to memorizing and producing "correct" answers, even as the trainer assures them there is no right answer (although there is much to be learned nevertheless). Participants may also complain that these approaches are incompatible with their typical work or other social environments, and may therefore resist change (we'll call these participants "skeptics"). Still others (the "converts") may seem almost euphoric in adopting new attitudes and intuitions through negotiation experience. And then there are those who already practice the target negotiation behaviors and may feel a bit smug or even bored as their personal cultural norms are affirmed (the "experts"). All of these common reactions to experiential negotiation training align with what anthropologists recognize as typical reactions to cross-cultural dynamics and culture shock, which include frustration, discomfort, anger, euphoria, complacency, and boredom.
Whatever their particular effect on students might be, negotiation trainings that use experiential learning exercises teach participants to engage with and reflect on the multiple meanings and interpretations each simulation elicits. Whether they complete training as a skeptic, a convert, or an expert on a particular negotiation theory or approach, participants are negotiating culture as they make sense of what they learn, how they learn from experience, and experiment with different negotiating styles.
Debriefing suggestions for instructors
When debriefing experiential negotiation exercises, instructors can bring out cultural lessons in at least three ways. First, they can invite students to consider their simulations as cross-cultural microcosms, bringing out the cultural norms that influence both individual and group behavior in those simulations. Instructors can call on student "skeptics" to compare training simulations to their work or home experience and what would need to change to foster culture change not just within themselves, but also within the social contexts in which they negotiate. Instructors can also call on student "converts" or "experts" to compare their experiences with those described by skeptics. Variation in response to the broad lessons of simulations as controversial, innovative, and affirming can be used to teach how meanings of culture and cultural differences themselves might not always be shared.
During this kind of debriefing, instructors can also encourage participants to reflect on specific ways in which they each negotiated culturally. For example, how did their interactions help shape shared meaning in negotiations, or disputes for that matter? Underneath practical moves over who gets what lies a negotiation over what really matters and to whom; anthropologists recognize this as the stuff of culture as experienced individually and collectively. Students can also explore how the protests from skeptics (and counter-examples from experts) on the benefits of integrative approaches can highlight the stabilizing dimensions of culture, while ideas for implementing change suggest ways in which culture can also be continually "on the make." This discussion would largely address cognitive lessons from cross-cultural immersion in which cooperative and integrative approaches would likely succeed in diverse situations.
The second cultural lesson students can draw from experiential negotiation exercises is that learning about culture goes beyond simply examining particular traits. While it can be useful to help students learn and memorize a list of common cross-cultural variations (such as which cultures tend to value establishing a personal relationship before getting down to business, and vice versa), this does not deal with the bulk of culture, which lies below the surface of cognitive awareness. In cross-cultural immersion, cognitive awareness comes out of much more vague and frustrating experiences of culture shock in which particular situations simply do not make sense. This second lesson, then, teaches participants how their feelings and thoughts during experiential learning exercises cross into the broader territory of culture shock and cross-cultural immersion. Those who learn the most from negotiation trainings are probably those most able to tolerate the frustration of "not knowing," which allows them to let go of current assumptions and open themselves to change. By the end of the training, the "gotcha" experiences during simulations become points of reference in distinguishing between cultural approaches and evaluating meanings that emerge through interaction.
Simulations designed to test particular assumptions may be particularly helpful in highlighting and examining participants' implicit cultural beliefs. These might include the Tendley Contract exercise, which tests the assumption that compromise is the best approach for overcoming an impasse; the Bullard Houses exercise, which tests the assumption that agreement is the best outcome in negotiation; the HarborCo exercise, which tests the assumption that all parties in a negotiation have an interest in reaching agreement; the Casino exercise, which tests the assumption that one party's perspective is the "truth"; or the Teflex Products exercise, which tests the assumption that confidential negative information should not be disclosed.
Trainers can begin this second lesson by asking participants to talk not only about what they felt but also how their emotional and "gut" responses varied as they struggled to apply unfamiliar negotiating approaches and work with those of others. From these stories, trainers can help participants identify the skills they used in managing the stress of uncertainty and risk that is common in cross-cultural situations. These could include keeping an open mind, staying curious rather than trying to immediately assess, being willing to make mistakes, asking questions, and maintaining a sense of humor. Participants might also address their awareness of their own cultural socializations and how these socializations affect not only their own understanding but also contribute to shared meanings shaped through negotiation. In other words, this second lesson will bring up many negotiation skills already stressed in the literature.
The third way culture can be used to teach negotiation is in addressing participant concerns about long-term application. Even in simulations, participants experience how difficult it can be to change one's personal negotiating habits or gut responses - and recognize how much more daunting the cultural dynamics of a real negotiating situation could be. Framing negotiation in terms of culture can alleviate participant anxiety because few will expect to change their own culture or that of others very quickly. Instructors can reassure participants, in fact, that focus on change may not be as important as understanding and appreciating differences. They can also ask participants for examples from personal experience of how they have adapted to immersion in different cultures, and of how success emerges through time and awareness. Trainers can also point out that change is difficult because negotiation and culture tend to be practiced more as team sports than as individual or isolated habits. Such an analogy might help point out that while there will be some rules that remain fairly stable from game to game, the content of any particular game offers much room for negotiation. A cross-cultural expert is aware of basic rules (the traits) and yet is up for staying alert to surprising moves and unexpected opportunities.
Conclusion
When culture is defined as meaning-making, rather than as a set of isolated and even esoteric traits, the link between culture and negotiation becomes more clear. While culture can be a conservative force, ensuring that values and behaviors stay the same, culture also gets negotiated through social interaction. Similarly, negotiation training can be a form of cross-cultural work. When negotiation training is viewed in this light, something akin to "culture shock" and cross-cultural adaptation becomes an expected part of the learning process, and both instructors and students may become more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Alexandra Crampton holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and social work from the University of Michigan. She is currently a visiting postdoctoral researcher at PON. She can be reached at acrampton@law.harvard.edu.
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| Sowing the Seeds of Negotiation Theory with Podcasting |
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By Joshua Weiss
Just as the Internet and related technologies such as blogs, streaming audio, webinars, and virtual teamwork software already have enabled forms of negotiation education almost inconceivable a few decades ago, podcasting has emerged as an increasingly important teaching tool. Not only is it helping negotiation educators reach audiences who might not otherwise have the time, interest, or ability to take a traditional course, podcasting is also helping to keep people already in the field updated on the latest research-and stoke their imaginations.
A hybrid term derived from broadcasting and iPod (Apple Computer's portable audio and/or video player that is used to listen to the broadcast), podcasting is a method of publishing audio or video broadcasts via the Internet, allowing users to download broadcasts onto their computers or their portable audio/video players. Podcasting differs from other types of online media delivery because of its subscription model, which uses a feed system known as Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to deliver files. From the listener's end, podcasting couldn't be easier. Listeners simply subscribe to the RSS feeds using "podcatching" software, which periodically checks for and automatically downloads new content to a computer or portable audio/video player. Unlike streaming audio, which requires users to listen in real time, podcasting lets listeners control how and when they listen. This opens up a range of new possibilities for negotiation educators.
I had to imagine such possibilities a few years ago, when I had a brainstorming conversation with a consulting group (The Otter Group) around the idea of creating a simple 3-to-5 minute weekly podcast on the topic of negotiation. Our original intent was twofold: First, we wanted the podcasts to serve as reminders and refreshers for alumni of online executive negotiation programs that I taught in conjunction with The Otter Group. Second, we were trying to broaden our scope by reaching people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s that didn't necessarily see themselves as negotiators, and getting them interested in negotiation. We decided to make the podcasts publicly available, under the title "Negotiating Tip of the Week" (see www.negotiationtip.com). At first I had a healthy amount of skepticism about the usefulness of podcasting, but as I learned more about it, I realized that the technology was incredibly easy to use and that the results were rather amazing. After only three months of my weekly podcasts, the download rate was about 15,000 per month. People were regularly downloading my short and pithy recordings, and presumably listening to them on the subway, in the workout room, at the office, or for all I know, when walking in the woods. Listeners included alumni of my online negotiation courses - the initial target audience - but also included a host of others, from diplomats to college students, financial advisors to homemakers. Currently, the download rate is at approximately 60,000 per month. Moreover, the podcast has been in the Apple iTunes Top 50 Business podcasts for nine months now - reaching as high as number two.
In my "Negotiating Tip of the Week" podcasts, I have covered both broad topics, such as general approaches to negotiation, and very specific concepts, like the role of silence in negotiation. In some cases, the podcasts are interactive. For instance, I might pose an actual negotiation challenge one week, ask listeners to think about what they would do and to e-mail their responses to me, and in the subsequent week, include some of the listeners' thoughts and provided the listeners with a few of my own ideas to address the negotiation challenge in question. More recently, I have begun interviewing negotiation scholars and practitioners for my podcasts, to bring in new perspectives and voices.
The Program on Negotiation has recently begun offering podcasts as well, at www.poncast.com. These PON podcasts (or "PONcasts") include several different topics and formats, ranging from interviews with PON-affiliated faculty, broadcasts of PON events, and readings of articles from PON's Negotiation newsletter.
Although uses for podcasting will undoubtedly multiply as the technology develops and changes, the following are some of the best current practices I have seen when it comes to podcasting in the field of negotiation and mediation:
· As an easy-to-use and convenient refresher to negotiation or mediation trainings you or others have provided
· As a tool to advertise your skills and abilities as a teacher and trainer
· As a way to convey stories about the power and benefits of negotiation and mediation
· As a tool to pique the interest of people who already know a little about negotiation and mediation and to encourage them to learn more
· As a tool to raise awareness about negotiation and mediation and all the complex dynamics and issues that impact these processes
· As a way to reach far-flung listeners that might not otherwise appreciate the value of negotiation and mediation
Creating a podcast is fairly straightforward. First, you will need to create a topic and a title that best captures what you will do in your podcast. Note that if you are going to do a regularly scheduled podcast, you should have a lot of material in "mental storage." When you get people to tune in regularly, you create an expectation that something new will be coming each time.
Second, get a simple device to record your podcasts. If your computer doesn't have a built-in microphone, you can purchase one to plug into it. Or you can get a podcasting package that has all the materials you will need for professional sound quality.
Third, you need a place to record and save your podcasts. I use a website called hipcast.com, which lets you record and save files on the web for less than $5 per month. After you have recorded your podcast, download it to your computer and save it just like you would any other file. It is also helpful to have an editing program to delete pauses and other mistakes or glitches (I have used an editing program called Audacity; and you can also use Garageband if you have an Apple computer). Without such editing software you need to make a perfect recording, which can take extra time and get a bit frustrating.
Finally, register your podcast with a number of podcast aggregator sites, such as podcastalley.com or podcast.net. These are places where Podcatchers can go looking for podcasts on topics of interest. It is also helpful to register your podcast with iTunes from Apple, so that users browsing the iTunes site can find it. In addition, you might set up a webpage or blog that links to your podcasts so your listeners can tune in online.
Let me conclude by saying that while we live in a world rich in the tools of instant information, we also live in a world sorely in need of the tools that negotiation and mediation skills and processes offer. If my podcasts have been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times over the space of a few months, imagine what would happen if we had legions of podcasters spreading the message of negotiation and mediation. Podcasting enables practitioners and scholars to extend our reach and explain concepts simply, in an unfiltered manner, to people around the globe who can begin to put these ideas into practice.
Note of thanks: I would like to thank my friends and colleagues at The Otter Group - Kathleen Gilroy, Glen Mohr, and Aixa Almonte -- for their comments, suggestions and input into this article.
Joshua Weiss, Ph.D. is the Associate Director of the Global Negotiation Project at PON. He can be reached at jweiss@law.harvard.edu.
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| Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Sharing Teaching Ideas with Chinese Colleagues |
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By Lawrence Susskind and Andrew Wei-Min Lee
For one week in early December 2007, negotiation instructors from PON and Peking University Law School (yes, that is the official name, though the city is now formally known as Beijing) met to compare notes and share thoughts on negotiation pedagogy. The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, Harvard Law School's East Asia Legal Studies Program, Harvard's Yenching Institute and Leading Negotiation, a Beijing-based consulting firm, were sponsors of the event, along with valuable support provided by the Consensus Building Institute. We (Lawrence Susskind and Andrew Wei-Min Lee) served as co-chairs. The goals of the workshop were to expose the Chinese faculty to PON's latest theory and science in negotiation teaching, to share the wisdom of five thousand years of Chinese culture, and to generate a bridge between scholars in China and the United States.
Following this one-week workshop, Peking University will launch its Negotiation Program in March 2008. The Program will begin with a negotiations course offered at the Law School, followed by cross-institutional courses offered to students from the Business School and the Government & Public Policy School. The Program will also arrange clinical placements for students interested in negotiation and dispute resolution, particularly in the environmental management and urban development fields.
Before coming to America - preparing the Chinese faculty
Negotiation is a skill with which the Chinese, with their long history, are very familiar. The negotiation theories and teaching approaches developed at PON, however, are quite new to most Chinese scholars. Being exposed to a plethora of new ideas, in a foreign language and in an unfamiliar environment, can be daunting. Therefore, Andrew introduced the Chinese faculty to some of PON's basic ideas and terminology in advance, laying the ground-work for the coming week. The participants were also exposed to the concepts of Getting to Yes (Fisher, Ury and Patton), Beyond Winning (Mnookin and Peppert) and Breaking the Impasse (Susskind and Cruikshank) in advance.
Course Philosophy - universal principles with local specificity
One basic assumption underlying the workshop design was that negotiation skills are of universal applicability, but that 'localization' is required to adapt those skills and make those principles acceptable and relevant to a specific audience. Ideas like separating interests from positions and seeking mutual gains are just as meaningful in Beijing as they are in Boston. A key goal for the week was identifying these 'universal principles of negotiation' and then focusing on the most appropriate ways of delivering these principles to a Chinese audience.
Course Design and Outline
We thought long and hard about the best way to structure the week, and decided to focus each day on a particular theme. The faculty shared both current theories of negotiation (which of course constitutes much teaching content) and some pedagogical approaches (that is, the teaching process).
On Day 1, the faculty introduced some current theories of negotiation. Larry Susskind provided an overview of the mutual gains approach to negotiation and its relevance to the Chinese context, while Dan Shapiro of the Harvard Negotiation Project presented the key ideas in his book (coauthored with Roger Fisher) on emotions and negotiation, Beyond Reason.
Day 2 focused on teaching public dispute resolution, with an examination of some of PON's teaching simulations such as HarborCo and Rebuilding the World Trade Center Site. While the games focused on American events, the conversations that emerged showed that the underlying concepts appear to fit the emerging Chinese context and could be readily incorporated into a Chinese syllabus. In one highlight, David Fairman (Co-Managing Director of the Consensus Building Institute and Associate Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program) demonstrated how to run a simple negotiation game (Win As Much As You Can) - from the set-up, participant instructions and room lay-out all the way through to debrief. This was an extremely valuable demonstration of the practical dimension in teaching negotiation. The demonstration was made all the more special because of the involvement of fluent Mandarin speaking Harvard students. The students and the Peking Law School visitors very much enjoyed being able to play the game and discuss their reactions in Mandarin.
Day 3 was devoted to teaching mediation. Mike Wheeler (Harvard business School) and Frank Sander (Harvard Law School) discussed the theory, practice and pedagogy of mediation in the United States. The fact that Professor Sander's text book, Dispute Resolution: Negotiation, Mediation and Other Processes is now available in Mandarin signifies the growing interest in mediation among the Chinese. Larry Susskind also presented on the latest consensus building theory featured in his new book, Breaking Robert's Rules, a revised Mandarin version of which will be published in early 2008.
Day 4 focused on introducing and implementing ADR into a university setting. Dwight Golann (Suffolk Law School) presented an overview on the teaching of ADR in America and Robert Bordone (Harvard Law School) discussed clinical education in negotiation and dispute resolution, highlighting the Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program he oversees at Harvard. PON's Director of Curriculum Development Melissa Manwaring introduced the range of teaching materials available through the PON Clearinghouse, as well as ideas about how to select, develop, and combine various teaching tools to maximize learning.
The final day of the workshop was specifically given to cross-cultural perspectives on negotiation pedagogy with a lively two-way exchange throughout the day. The general conclusion was that, while many negotiation principles are universally applicable, any teaching styles, strategies and materials imported from the United States must be modified by knowledgeable negotiation teachers in China to be of use. Conversely, Chinese students, eager to practice in an international context, would benefit from knowing both how negotiation is taught in the United States as well as from learning how to negotiate in a uniquely Chinese fashion.
Additional highlights
In addition to the presentations on negotiation theory and pedagogy, we were visited by some of Harvard's most pre-eminent scholars on China. Professor Tu Weiming, head of the Harvard Yenching Institute, gave a talk on Confucian perspectives on managing societal conflict, while Professor William Alford, Director of Harvard's East Asian Legal Studies program, helped us think about future collaborations.
Teaching style - exchanging with, not lecturing to
The Peking University faculty commented appreciatively that their American colleagues engaged in open dialogue and ideas exchange with the Chinese faculty, rather than a direct 'lecturing' style. It was important for them to have opportunities both to listen and to speak. This encouraged engagement by the Chinese faculty who felt ownership in a process rather than students being taken on a whirlwind tour of a foreign subject.
The American faculty made frequent comment about the need and opportunity to learn much from China's vast history. Concepts like mediation, relationship building, strategies behind planning for a negotiation and Confucian approaches towards long-term holistic strategizing are all embedded in thousands of years of Chinese history and culture - and offer many valuable lessons for the increasingly international and expanding field of negotiation theory and practice.
Perhaps the greatest testimony regarding the success of the exchange was that on the final day, the Chinese faculty discussed internally that they had spent a week learning about universal principles that could and should be applied to a Chinese context, not American ideas that could be imported into China.
Including the nuts and bolts
In addition to the valuable sharing of theory and skills, the Chinese faculty were very receptive to hearing about how a university-based negotiation research center might be administered. The input of Robert Mnookin (Chair of the PON Steering Committee), Susan Hackley (Managing Director of PON) and James Kerwin (Assistant Director of PON) was of critical importance in addressing questions such as: How can professors from different disciplines best work together toward a common goal of improving negotiation? What sorts of events, publications, and other activities might be most productive in disseminating and improving research in the field? What sorts of practical considerations (staffing, financing, etc.) are most relevant to consider in initiating an inter-disciplinary research program? From the Chinese point of view, being able to run a successful center will be a key factor in the success of developing the negotiation program at Peking University.
Lessons for the future
As NP@PON thinks about the best way of interacting with negotiation instructors in other countries and cultures, the PON-Peking Law School workshop suggests three important lessons. First, collaborative efforts aimed at exploring negotiation pedagogy require joint leadership. Preparation is key and only a team able to work together is likely to pull off such an event. Second, the number of participants should be kept to a minimum -- ideally, no more than a dozen in the visiting delegation so that there is really a chance for everyone to get to know each other. Finally, the exchange should definitely be two-way. The more the participants learn about each other, the more they can really help each other.
Lawrence Susskind is the Ford Professor of Urban Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and Vice-Chair of instruction at PON. Andrew Wei-Min Lee is an instructor at Peking University Law School and a former visiting scholar at PON. Professor Susskind can be reached at susskind@mit.edu and Mr. Lee can be reached at andrewlee008@gmail.com.
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