Core Workshops
CMPartners’ workshops are designed to develop individual and organizational competencies in negotiation, conflict management, communication, influencing and relationship management.
We classify these as “core” competencies because they are essential to the negotiated success of individuals and organizations.
We invite you to explore the descriptions of our core workshops:
Strategic Negotiation Fundamentals
Strategic Negotiation Fundamentals trains participants in the proven best practices of negotiation. Participants learn tools and terminology developed at The Harvard Negotiation Project and refined in practice across a range of communities and industries. This interactive course introduces participants to the “Seven Elements” interest-based negotiation model through exercises, case studies, role plays, discussions, and teaching pieces.
Through this workshop, participants develop the following tools and action skills:
The Seven Elements of negotiation
Strategic preparation and review
Creating and claiming value in negotiation
Understanding and managing partisan perceptions
Balancing advocacy and inquiry
Goal setting in negotiation
Through this workshop, participants learn the essentials of negotiation practice. As a result, they are able to strategically prepare for negotiations, apply new tools for effective engagement at the negotiation table, and create better deals and stronger relationships.
Advanced Strategic Negotiations
The Advanced Strategic Negotiations workshop builds upon the skills learned in the Fundamentals workshop. Participants acquire fluency using negotiation frameworks and tools with a specific focus on understanding and developing their personal style.
The Advanced workshop emphasizes the following skills:
Understanding conflict modes
“Setting” the table
Strategic communication and meeting design
Strategic relationship management
Changing adversaries to partners
Dealing with difficult tactics and personalities
Continuous learning and development
As a result of this course, participants are able to apply negotiation skills with comfort and fluency, even in high-pressure situations. This leads to robust strategy, better organizational outcomes, and more sustainable working relationships.
Communication and Influencing Skills
This workshop trains participants in concrete, highly transferable skills and tools to create more productive interpersonal interactions. Participants learn a framework for understanding effective communication and influencing and then apply these skills in the workshop setting.
With an emphasis on practice, participants in this workshop learn:
A framework to prepare for important interpersonal interactions
Self-awareness and control in communications
Analysis of typical behavioral and thought patterns in difficult conversations
New perspective and tools for engaging in difficult conversations
Effective listening and discovery skills to maximize use of time “at the negotiation table”
Tools to negotiate up, down, and across hierarchies
Tools for cross-cultural negotiation
Methods to engage in discovery conversations and manage the tension of wanting to “sell” despite the need to learn more
An integral component of the workshop is the application of the framework and tools to the participants’ upcoming difficult conversations. By understanding effective communication and influencing, participants are able to engage challenging issues within teams, across organizations, and with external parties. A workforce skilled in communications and influencing performs more effectively and efficiently in both internal and external business.
Negotiation Leadership
Negotiation Leadership builds on participants’ experiences in prior workshops and the working relationship they have developed with the CMPartners team. Negotiation Leadership participants identify and construct their own unique negotiation competency matrix. By applying new tools and abilities to real negotiations, participants provide a real-time ROI to organizations.
Negotiation Leadership uses real world experiences, simulations, individual video-taping and review, and other activities to further clarify, develop, and integrate the following competencies:
Managing multi-party negotiations over time
Maintaining strategic focus and tactical flexibility
Sequential influencing and consensus building
Negotiation teaming
Strategic brainstorming
Applied game theory
Post-program professional development
Graduates of the Negotiation Leadership program greatly enhance their ability to apply skills and tools of interest-based negotiations in any context to create value-maximizing outcomes. Competency mastery yields individual benefits and scales out across an organization, leading to better deals and stronger organizational alignment.