Negotiation, Mediation and Conflict Resolution Specialization

This course gives you access to negotiation practical tools and best practices gathered by Professor Aurélien Colson & his team from assignments in more than seventy countries and in a wide set of sectors, be they services, industry, high tech, or public organizations.

In an interactive manner, this course will help you, among other topics: get prepared for any negotiation; avoid traps; know how to prompt value-creating partnerships; structure an effective negotiation sequence; bargain in an efficient and respectful manner; overcome deadlocks; and much more! Indeed, negotiation is not simply about deciding who gets what now – it is first and foremost about creating productive, fair, and therefore long-term partnerships. This course guides you through innovative and proven approaches – “win-win…but not at any price”. Together with its specialization, this course will lead you towards high impact and sustainable negotiations at all levels, whether finding solutions to people management issues, sealing a deal on a sales package, or entering into high-level strategic or political negotiations involving multi-party stakeholders.

All of us are aware that cultural differences are significant and that they affect how we interact with others in business and in leisure activities. But what is culture exactly, and how does it impact on negotiation, in particular?

This course will help you to be more precise about different dimensions of culture, from one region or country to another, while helping you to avoid simplifications, clichés and stereotypes. It will also lead you to a better overall awareness of your own culture. In addition the course modules will guide you to a better understanding of when and how cultural differences are likely to influence the different dimensions of a negotiation - the people, problems and processes. Armed with that understanding, your awareness, preparation and strategy will be enhanced when you are faced with negotiators from cultures and regions different from your own. Your ability to anticipate and react, your negotiation flexibility, will be improved and refined. The course also gives you a concrete look at quite different national and regional negotiation styles (we look at the French, Chinese, North American and Middle Eastern). In addition, an examination of negotiation in two multicultural settings (European Union institutions, on the one hand, and the recent COP 21 climate conference in Paris, on the other) highlights the importance of well-designed negotiation processes for getting both efficiency and fairness.

Mediation is a crucial means to reaching peaceful and agreed solutions in today’s world – on an international, political, industrial, peace-keeping or social level.

With the course you will be able to choose and lead a mediation process. You will gain a deeper understanding of workplace and international conflict resolution. Fundamentals of Negotiation are required to complete this MOOC. You can acquire them through our MOOC "Negotiation Fundamentals". After this course, you will be able to: Define what a mediation is and choose when to use it; List different types of mediation; Identify typical challenges and difficulties that most mediators face; Choose the adequate strategies within a repertoire of options; Identify the do’s and don’ts in mediation. This MOOC offers video lectures from leading experts, interactive questions, case studies, practice and graded quizzes. Designed as a logical follow on from the suite of ESSEC IRENE online courses in negotiation, this course about mediation and conflict resolution teaches a whole set of additional skills and approaches. Developed by one of Europe’s leading institutes of research and education in negotiation and mediation, ESSEC IRENE, this course provides you with a meaningful and effective bouquet of practical cases, tools, approaches and skills to put your mediation into high-impact practice.