Negotiation Skills for Natural Resource Professionals: Building a Foundation - Online

Target Audience:  

Conservation professionals engaged in natural resource negotiations including landscape conservation, cooperatives, biologists, planners, and project leaders.  

Summary and Objectives:  

This online course will be presented to help build knowledge and skills required to engage in negotiation processes with a diverse set of stakeholders and it is crucial that these skills are developed.  

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:  

• Identify and characterize a natural resource negotiation and compare natural resource negotiation with other types of negotiation. 
• Identify and characterize the different mechanisms available for dispute resolution. 
• Understand the difference between position-based and interest-based negotiation and recognize the need to balance between the two approaches. 
• Recognize strategies and tactics in negotiation. 
• Describe the characteristics of the BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) and identify challenges with determining and using the BATNA. 
• Recognize communication skills that are critical for successful negotiation. 
• Understand the types of individual traits and skills that make a negotiator more effective. 
• Understand and practice the skill of reframing issues in negotiation in order to move a discussion toward resolution. 
• Understand the difference between creating and capturing value in negotiation and how to apply the balance between the two in negotiation. 
• Understand how to create and use a Negotiation Scorecard to measure the success of negotiation. Demonstrate ability to use such a scorecard in a class exercise. 
• Participate in an exercise to practice the skill of recognizing the negotiation strategies in use by others and develop techniques to move toward the process of integrative negotiation. 
• Recognize and respond to sources and tactics of power in negotiation. 
• Understand basic concepts of stakeholder assessment and understand how to use assessment results to design a negotiation strategy. 
• Recognize the primary actions needed to build a strategic perspective in negotiation. 
• Integrate course material to diagnose a negotiation in which they have been involved. 

Competency Addressed:

Influencing/Negotiating - Intermediate, Conflict Management - Basic, Negotiation - Intermediate, Interpersonal Skills - Basic, Listening - Basic, Strategic Thinking - Basic