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Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills

Build practical negotiation skills and learn how to use and apply negotiation strategies to your life.

23,190 enrolled on this course

  • Duration

    7 weeks
  • Weekly study

    2 hours

Learn how to negotiate effectively in business and life

We all negotiate on a daily basis. On a personal level, we negotiate with friends, family, landlords, and even employers, but negotiation is also the key to business success.

On this seven-week course from the University of Michigan, you’ll discover and practice the four steps to successful negotiation, and learn strategies to do it better.

Discover how to plan and analyse negotiations

Within any company, successful negotiation skills can lead to your career advancement. But each negotiation needs a strategy to give you the best chance of a positive outcome.

You’ll start by learning how to plan your negotiation strategy. This course will guide you through identifying the four key stages of negotiations and completing a negotiation analysis that will set you up for success.

Through your analysis, you’ll uncover the different types of negotiation, from position-based and interest-based negotiations to disput resolution and deal-making negotiations.

Develop key negotiation tools and skills that lead to success

Once you’ve prepared for a negotiation, you’ll explore the use of power and psychological tools at your disposal, such as anchoring, overconfidence, and framing.

Then, you’ll explore the negotiation that takes place in a business deal and learn how to apply your new skills to create a binding contract.

Explore dispute resolution processes in the event an agreement falls through

Sometimes, despite having a contract in place, a party may fail to perform as expected, leading to a dispute.

You’ll develop techniques for dispute prevention, as well as tools for resolving disputes, including arbitration and mediation.

Once you’ve built up your toolkit of negotiation skills, you’ll spend the final weeks of this course putting them to the test in a number of scenarios.

What topics will you cover?

  • Prepare: Plan Your Negotiation Strategy
  • Negotiate: Use Key Tactics for Success
  • Close: Create a Contract
  • Perform and Evaluate: The End Game

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Learn and practice helpful strategies and skills to become a successful negotiator in personal life and business transactions
  • Identify four key stages of negotiation
  • Learn how to complete a negotiation analysis to set you up for success
  • Learn how to use power and psychological tools during negotiations
  • Apply negotiation strategies and skills to a business deal

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for anyone interested in developing practical negotiation skills, whether for improving business deals or helping career advancement.

It’s suitable for learners who want to improve their negotiation skills in personal contexts including communication with friends and family, or more formal contexts such as communicating with landlords or employers.

This course will equip you with skills that are vital for a wide range of careers, from sales to law. Whether you’re just starting out on your career, have recently joined a management pathway, or want to enhance the negotiation skills you currently possess, this course will give you the ability to negotiate in a broad range of contexts with confidence.

Who will you learn with?

Cambridge-educated professor at U of Michigan. In 2018, Executive Program Professor of the Year Award from an international group of business schools and ALSB Distinguished Career Achievement Award.

Who developed the course?

University of Michigan

As the #1 public research university in the United States, U-M has been a leader in research, learning, and teaching for more than 200 years, with 102 Grad programs in the top 10 — U.S. News & World Report (2019).

  • Established

    1817
  • Location

    Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
  • World ranking

    Top 30Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

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