Negotiation and consensus building are fundamental skills that leaders and managers need to know.  This course teaches principles of conflict management, consensus building, and interest-based negotiation among individuals and groups.  Students practice applying the principles during role-plays, exercises, cases, and complex negotiations.  Through these activities, students build expertise in small group meeting management, persuasion and influence, consensus building, productive negotiation, and developing mutually acceptable solutions in difficult situations.  Scenarios relate to real-world organizational and military challenges.  We focus particularly on security-related situations, including cross-cultural interactions among multiple stakeholders, such as Security, Stability, Reconstruction and Transition (SSTR) environments that bring together representatives from different nations and organizations. In order to accomplish their unique and joint goals, these varying representatives must cultivate mutual appreciation and ability to collaborate with each other in the absence of hierarchical controls. Students in the Negotiation and Consensus Building course develop relevant capabilities that contribute importantly to success in organizational and security situations, including ways to interact successfully and gain cooperation from others, navigate cultural differences, and negotiate mutually beneficial solutions to complex problems.

Prerequisite: None.