Negotiation Master Class

Mastering the art of complex negotiations

Negotiators know the high-stakes situations that shape organizations and define careers—mergers and acquisitions, hostage situations, ransomware, internal and external crises. Yet, even the best negotiators may not have the knowledge and tools they need to successfully deal with these complex and difficult situations.

The Negotiation Master Class, a new certificate program from Kellogg Executive Education, will take your negotiation skills from pro to master.

Learn how to navigate the most challenging negotiations through a highly interactive program where you’ll learn some of the best evidence-based practices and have the chance to apply your skills through simulations and role play. You’ll have the opportunity to assess your strengths and weaknesses, sharpen your skills and receive real-time feedback to improve your ability to negotiate in any situation.

Taught by Professor Leigh Thompson, author of Negotiating the Sweet Spot, and management professors specializing in negotiation and law, plus outside experts, including a former FBI agent, our expert instructors will walk you through some of the most difficult negotiation settings, including mergers and acquisitions and crisis negotiations. You’ll leave this experiential program with a playbook and the skills necessary to deal with the most demanding negotiations. Plus, you’ll earn a certificate that boosts your professional credibility—the next best thing to having a degree in negotiations.


Incentives available for groups and teams of four or more attending open enrollment programs. Learn more



 

VIDEO: Learn more from Academic Director Leigh Thompson

Who Should Attend

Executives who negotiate as a significant part of their job in both large and small organizations:

  • Leaders seeking to improve negotiation performance and outcomes
  • Professionals acting in an advisory negotiation role
  • Mergers and acquisitions professionals
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Sales and marketing managers
  • Human Resource professionals and trainers
  • Legal advisors
  • Finance professionals
  • Coaches
  • Crisis negotiators
  • C-Suite executives

Download Past Participant Profile

Key Benefits

  • Enhance negotiation skills and build confidence
  • Structure value-creating deals involving multiple, complex issues
  • Build a negotiation playbook based on research-based best practices
  • Realize improvement for economic outcomes
  • Build trust and mutual respect with peers and outside negotiators
  • Learn how to reset a negotiation that is not going well
  • Increase your team’s negotiation performance

Program Content

Negotiation Mastery: Contract negotiations in long-term, financially complex business relationships

  • Transactional vs. relational negotiation – what to reveal; what to conceal
  • First-offer strategy – when to launch and when to present

Multi-party, high-visibility negotiations

  • How to manage negotiations in the public arena
  • Negotiations with groups and collectives
  • Keeping people at the bargaining table when no-agreement costs are high

Lawyer up and lawyer down: working with attorneys and third parties

  • How to work productively with attorneys
  • The role of businesspeople when negotiations become “legal”
  • When to “lawyer up” and how to “lawyer down”

Crisis negotiations

  • Responding to threats, demands, time pressure, kidnapping, hostage negotiations, ransomware negotiations
  • Best things to say (and not to say)

Big deals

  • Mergers and acquisitions, hidden parties and the effect of public information on private negotiations
  • Taking a 30,000-foot view of complex negotiations
  • Identifying the key parties at the table
  • How to examine parties’ interest and check for alignment
  • Creating safety nets

Internal negotiations

  • When the stakes are high and the relational fall-out sizeable
  • Dealing with old conflicts and hitting the reset button
  • Thinking through economic and relational costs
  • Managing your team

Faculty

Leigh Thompson - J. Jay Gerber Professor of Dispute Resolution & Organizations; Professor of Management & Organizations

Alyson Carrel - Co-Director, Center on Negotiation, Mediation and Restorative Justice; Clinical Professor of Law

Steve Romano - Chief Negotiator, FBI

Victoria Husted Medvec - Adeline Barry Davee Professor of Management & Organizations; Executive Director of the Center for Executive Women

Personal Consultation

Please contact us to schedule an advising session

2025 Sessions

May 5-16, 2025

Start: May 5 at 8:00 AM

End: May 16 at 12:00 PM


Format: Live Virtual Program


All times are in CT. Live virtual consists of half-day morning sessions.


Accepting registrations through May 1

$6,900

December 1-12, 2025

Start: December 1 at 8:00 AM

End: December 12 at 12:00 PM


Format: Live Virtual Program


All times are in CT. Live virtual consists of half-day morning sessions.


Accepting registrations through November 27

$6,900

Kellogg School of Management

Kellogg Executive Education
2211 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208
Directions
847.467.6018