My name is George Siedel.

I'm a professor at the Ross School of

Business at the University of Michigan. Welcome to our course on

successful negotiation. This session and

way to provide a course overview. So let's start with

the goal of the course. We all negotiate on a daily basis. We negotiate with our friends,

our spouses, our parents, our children. We negotiate when we rent an apartment,

when we buy a car, when we buy a house, or when we apply for a job. Negotiation is also the key

to business success. No business can survive

without profitable contracts. And negotiation skills are important

to your career advancement. My goal in this course is simple. I wanna help you become a successful

negotiator in your personal life. And also in your business transactions. Little bit about my background. I
live and

work in a state called Michigan. For those of you are from outside

of the United States, and perhaps unfamiliar with the geography,

you might know where Chicago is located. Right in the center of America. And Michigan is due east from
Chicago. However, I was not born in Michigan. I was born south of the border

in a state called Ohio. I spent the first 18 years of

my life on a farm in Ohio. I finally escaped from the farm and went to a small college down the road

called the College of Wooster. I didn't even have to turn to get

from the farm to the college. I'd drove out the driveway,

turned right on FDR 6, drove for 30 miles, and there was the College of Wooster. After graduating from
college, I attended

law school at the University of Michigan. And then I received a scholarship to

do research at Cambridge University. After completing my research I returned

to the states, I practiced law for a couple of years, and

then began my teaching career. And I spent most of my

career in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the University of Michigan

although I have been a visiting professor at Harvard University,

Stanford University, and I've gone back to Cambridge three

times as a visiting fellow. During my career I've been fortunate

to have two unusual opportunities. First, I've had the opportunity to teach

and lecture on negotiation in Europe, Asia, North America, South America,

Australia, and Africa. For example, I currently teach annual

courses in Italy and Eastern Europe. And for many years I taught

an annual seminar in Hong Kong. I've also had the opportunity to

teach negotiation to undergraduates, MBA students, business leaders,

lawyers, athletic directors, physicians, judges and entrepreneurs. And I mentioned this because this
course

draws on my experience in two ways. First, the concepts are useful

in all countries and cultures, whether you're in Beijing, Seoul,

Venice, Sidney, Mumbai, Sao Paulo, etc. And second, the strategies and

skills apply to all types of negotiators, whether you're buying your first car, or

you're negotiating a major business deal. Now I should mention one other

aspect of my background, it's a little bit embarrassing and

I have never disclosed this publicly. So you are the first to know. My daughter recently

purchased a DNA kit for me that enabled me to trace my ancestry. And what I discovered is that part of
my

ancestry is based in the British Isles. That's my mother's side. Part of my ancestry is

based in Central Europe. The name Siedel comes from Alsace,

which is a part of France and it's been kicked back and forth between

France and Germany over the years. I knew that. But what I didn't discover, and

I didn't know until this DNA test, is that I am also 3.1% Neanderthal. Now my friends and relatives
probably

realized that all along from my behaviors, but this was the first time that I

learned about this type of my background. The bad news is, that you are also

probably partly Neanderthal. And so as former Neanderthals, we have

to address our Neanderthal heritage, which is based on the flight or

fight response. When we are suddenly confronted

with a saber tooth Tiger. We either fight the tiger or we flee. Today, when we are confronted

with a difficult negotiation, when we're confronted with a car salesman,

we have the same tendency. We're fearful, we wanna flee,

or we fight, and one of the goals in this course

is to give you the skills and strategies that us fellow Neanderthals

need to overcome our common heritage. Let's now take a look at

the course game plan. And this is the big picture,

what we'll be covering in the course. First we start with this course overview. And then I'm going to give
you

an introduction to the University of Michigan. Now you can either watch this or skip it. If you're from
outside the United States,

this segment might be of interest because it will also give you an insider's view

of what a major university looks like. But if you're not

interested in that segment, you can jump right to the course material. And the heart of the course
focuses on

the four stage negotiation process. In other words we deal sequentially

with the issues that you face in a real negotiation. So Unit 1 will focus on preparing for

a negotiation. How do you conduct a negotiation analysis? How do you incorporate into

your analysis your BATNA? Your reservation price? Your stretch goal? Your zone of potential agreement?
Then we move onto the second

unit on negotiating and the tactics that you can use for success. In this unit we'll look at the source

of power in a negotiation and how you can increase your power. We'll also look at psychological tools

that are very effective in negotiation. These tools also represent traps

when used by the other side. So you have to be prepared

to avoid the traps. Then we'll look at closing the deal and

creating a contract. Basically we'll look at the legal

framework for negotiation. For example you should be able to address

this question; if a company makes a job offer to you what are the legal

dangers in making a counter offer? And then finally we'll look at

performance, and we'll look at especially some processes that you can use when

you face difficulties with performance. So after covering that process,

you'll then have a chance to practice your negotiation skills with a negotiation
called The House on Elm Street. And with this negotiation

you will find a partner and you'll negotiate The House on

Elm Street one-on-one with this person. This will be a test of

your negotiation skills, it'll be a review of the course material. And then at the conclusion

of the negotiation, you'll receive feedback

from the other side. What do you do well as a negotiator? How can you improve as a negotiator? Where
should you focus your future

efforts in trying to improve? This feedback from the other

side is one of the unique features of this course that

you never obtain in real life. In real life, when you finish a negotiation, the other

side never sits down with you and says to you, well, you know you did

a pretty good job in this negotiation, but if you had done this, this, and

this you could have done a lot better. So please take advantage of this ability

to test your negotiation skills and obtain feedback. My former students

frequently send me emails telling me about the value

of this feedback. Let me give you a couple of examples. Here's one. The email says, negotiation is a
fundamental skill

we need to learn how to use. I was a bit hesitant to join

the class as I thought I had excellent negotiation skills. However, I soon realized

there was a lot to learn. The key difference is that

in class I got feedback and know what I did right and wrong. While in real life, I really don't

know if I could have done better. Further, the class gave me

a scientific/conceptual framework, which provided a significant

level of discipline into what is stereotyped

as an artistic skill. And there's just one other E-mail. What a great learning experience! The course gave
me the chance to test and evaluate myself outside

the work environment. I find myself in business negotiations and

discussions on a daily basis. Yet the ability to get feedback and actually debrief a negotiation

is really powerful. I considered myself rather

self actualized, but some interesting things came to light. I've received of course
a lot of other feedback. One piece that comes to mind was a student in a class who was

actually in one of my executive classes. Who headed labor relations for

one of the largest companies in the world. And he liked this approach so

much that when he prepared for his labor negotiations,

he created what he called a huddle. Which is where his negotiating

team got together. They did simulations such as

the one you're going to do, and then they use the same

feedback mechanism. And he said they had their

best negotiations ever as a result of this huddle process. Let's take a look at the course format. So,
here's the basic format. You're going to be watching a series

of videos that last 5 to 20 minutes. These are short segments. I know you're very busy people,

and you can't sit down and watch, let's say a two and

a half video in one chunk. So you can watch these short segments. You can do exercises while

you watch the segments. You can do Tai Chi, yoga. But they're short and focused. They are also very
interactive. I will frequently ask you questions

as I do in class, and what you might want to do when I ask you a question, hit

pause, write down your answer, think about it of course, write down your answer,

and then we'll discuss the solution. You can watch these segments weekly,

which I recommend, but if necessary you can also binge watch. In the way you watch Breaking Bad or

House of Cards or Game of Thrones. There are suggested readings for

the course. However, the primary learning mechanism

in the course will be the videos. And actually what I suggest is doing

the readings after the videos. The readings are gonna summarize

what is covered in the course. So you don't have to take a lot of notes

in the course, but recommend that you save the readings and that you also use

the readings for future negotiations. These readings will be structured

as a game plan that should be very useful to you in

your future negotiations. Of course we'll have the final

negotiation as part of the course format, we've already talked about that. Because this is a short course,
because you have a chance to participate in this final negotiation I hope that each

and every one of you complete the course. And at the end of the course if you're

interested you can take an exam that we'll test your negotiation literacy. So that's our course overview.
And I, again, look forward to

working with you in this course.