Keith Allred (standing) teaches an intensive workshop in negotiation along with Brian Mandell at the Kennedy School of Government.

Brian Mandell isn't one to shy away from conflict. But don't expect him to lose his cool and take a swing at his opponent. Mandell has far more effective methods of defending his position. And he's willing to teach others what he knows. In fact, promulgating the art of negotiation and conflict resolution is something of a mission for him.

"I'm worried about an America that's angry and doesn't know how to resolve its own problems," Mandell says. "You see examples of this every day in gang shootings, road rage, domestic violence. Conflict isn't necessarily bad, but the reason we hurt each other is that we don't know how to manage conflict. Between hugging you and hitting you with a baseball bat there have to be some other skills available."

This month, Mandell, a lecturer in public policy, co-taught an intensive workshop in negotiation at the Kennedy School. It was the first time such a course has been offered, but it will certainly not be the last. According to Mandell, the negotiation workshop will become a regular part of the curriculum, a "centerpiece" of the Kennedy School experience.

Teaching Patience to the "Clickerati"

Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation has long offered training in the subject, but Mandell and his co-instructor Keith Allred, assistant professor of public policy, felt that a workshop was needed that would focus on public management issues rather than law.

"We wanted to give our students a chance to work on complex, messy public sector disputes where it's often not clear who the stakeholders are and who speaks with authority," Mandell says.

Good listening skills are of prime importance in dealing with such disputes, Mandell says. Negotiators must have the patience to sift through the facts and hear all sides of an argument.

Mandell disparages the need for instant gratification that seems to motivate the "clickerati," those who have grown up with TV remotes in their hands and expect all problems to be solved with the same instantaneous ease. He contrasts their short attention spans with those of the 19th-century audiences who stood for hours intently listening to the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

"You need these skills to build a capacity for good public deliberation and good public problem-solving," he says.

During the workshop, 60 students spent two weeks hearing lectures, working through simulation exercises, and exhaustively evaluating their own performances and those of their classmates. The simulations ranged from labor disputes to environmental struggles to ending an international conflict with a negotiated cease-fire.

Role-Playing on the Home Court

One role-playing exercise involved an imaginative leap of more modest proportions ‹ a negotiation between an employer and a prospective employee. The exercise was designed by Benjamin Richardson and Deepa Purushothaman, second-year master of public policy (MPP) students who served as assistants in the workshop.

"The exercise is very practical because it gives you real-life experience with the most important negotiation any of us will have this year, but it also demonstrates the advantages of using a systematic approach," Richardson says.

Students were given seven job criteria, including such things as location, salary, and degree of interest. Their task was to prioritize these criteria according to their personal preferences and then use this quantified list as a basis for negotiating with an employer.

Experienced theorists and practitioners also made contributions to the workshop. Howard Raiffa, the Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Managerial Economics Emeritus, was on hand to lecture on rank order decision-making, a system he pioneered. Jay S. Siegel, an adjunct lecturer in public policy as well as a professional mediator and arbitrator, guided the students through a number of simulations.

When Negotiation Fails

Mediation and arbitration can help disputants reach a solution when negotiation fails, Siegel notes. He described mediation as a form of assisted negotiation where the mediator facilitates but doesn't control the outcome. An arbitrator, by contrast, is a decision-maker, and both parties agree to abide by his or her decision. Both methods are usually cheaper, quicker, and more private than litigation.

Three students who took part in an arbitration exercise found it a challenging and enlightening experience. Christian Mayer, a mid- career student who works in the German ministry of finance, represented a Japanese high-tech firm that had sold a graphics system to an American company, represented by second-year MPP student Andrew Higley. Higley's firm was disappointed in the system's performance and was withholding the final payment until Mayer's firm agreed to make an upgrade. Julie Kliger, a mid- career student in the health care industry, served as the arbitrator.

"I found it difficult," she says. "As a negotiator, you try to be tactical and strategic, and as a mediator you try to facilitate. But an arbitrator has to be impartial. You can't let yourself get sucked in by either side. I found it contrary to my nature. It was frustrating."

Breaking into Song

Throughout this exercise, as well as many others, a video camera was running, giving students an opportunity to observe their own performance. The workshop also featured an abundance of human feedback, contributed by instructors, coaches, and fellow students.

"We gave students a wealth of feedback, which is a unique aspect of the course," Allred says.

After each exercise, students filled out forms evaluating their own performance. They were also evaluated by fellow students who had had an opportunity to observe them closely. The results of these evaluations were tabulated to create a profile of the class as a whole.

"This allowed them to compare their self-perceptions with the perceptions of others, as well as with the class average," Allred says.

Mandell expects that in the end all this feedback will help students become more creative and innovative social entrepreneurs. A jazz fan who admires the ability of experienced musicians to improvise brilliantly even under adverse conditions, Mandell hopes that his students will learn to bring those qualities to the negotiation table.

"The idea is to think outside the box, to try and make the pie bigger for everyone, to take whatever conditions there are and turn them into a song."