Who are we?

We are a negotiation and conflict management consulting firm headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. With global reach and a global client list, we specialize in providing advice, coaching, training, and support across the full spectrum of negotiation-related challenges for a select group of clients in the corporate, governmental, and public sectors.

We bring to our clients pragmatic methods, tools and skill sets developed at the Harvard Negotiation Project, our affiliated organizations, and in our many decades of combined experience.

Learn more about us or read about our client solutions.

Who are you?

Private Sector: Corporations
Your company is likely a Fortune 500 firm. It may even be #1 in its industry - or in the top five with a strong commitment to become #1. Your company is seeking to maintain or develop its competitive advantage through innovative and forward-thinking leadership. It is also committed to organizational advancement and recognizes that in today's interdependent global economy, its people must be able to efficiently and effectively influence others, both within and outside the organization, in order to achieve the company's vision and goals.

You might sit in a Human Resources, Training, or Learning Department and think a lot about how to develop management and senior executive teams. You might be part of Supply Chain, Procurement, or Sales functions and spend a lot of time managing external relationships. You might work in a business line, trying to innovate more with fewer resources. You might sit in a function like IT, Audit, R&D, or Legal, and juggle competing priorities and needs amongst internal clients. You might be involved in collective bargaining processes or be responsible for creating alliances or joint ventures.

See a representative list of our private sector clients.

Public Sector: Governments and International Organizations
Your organization may be trying to: meet the basic human needs of your constituency; raise living standards; deliver on campaign promises; bring attention or resources to a particular region or to a particular issue; form a workable coalition government; overcome a legacy of violence and discrimination; foster co-existence and peaceful dispute resolution. No matter what its mandate may be, your organization recognizes that its organizational capacity to negotiate effectively and address conflict has a direct bearing on how effectively and efficiently its mandate is achieved.

You might serve in a Ministry of Finance, Health, or Education. You might be a member of Parliament or a ranking colonel in the army. You could be a country representative for an international agency, or sit within a headquarters-based support function. You might be a technical advisor trying to persuade stakeholders to adopt a data-driven policy or initiative, or you may be trying to set budget priorities amongst several deserving development projects. You might sit on one side of a protracted intra- or international conflict, seeking creative ways to engage the other side or create progress in stalemated negotiations.

See a representative list of our public sector clients.

How can we help?

Clients ask us to help them engage their most important negotiations and critical conflicts, and to teach our approach throughout their organization. We have assisted executives and leaders from some of the world's largest companies and organizations with challenges such as:

1. Negotiating terms & conditions with global suppliers, collaborating organizations, clients, customers
2. Forming or managing strategic alliances, partnerships and joint ventures
3. Breaking impasse in key negotiations
4. Maintaining a value proposition when customers or competitors treat the product as a commodity
5. Improving and standardizing a negotiation strategy and approach across the organization
6. Growing sales or protecting profit margins with significant customers
7. Negotiating with single and sole source suppliers
8. Maintaining critical relationships during the contentious unwinding of a deal
9. Negotiating internally ("across the matrix") without line authority
10. Improving performance management and feedback conversations
11. Mentoring and coaching executives
12. Communicating effectively across cultures
13. Engaging in collective bargaining processes, or managing other union-management conflicts
14. Influencing government ministries and officials when they seem to have unilateral decision-making authority
15. Negotiating with armed groups and other constituencies that perceive themselves to have a very strong "walk-away"
16. Building consensus around key government policies