From 22th October, MPP students started Negotiation class with Prof. Christopher Balding, Lecturer at Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management.
Professor Balding’s teaching philosophy in Negotiation class is that good negotiators can only be trained through negotiating, i.e. practising negotiation skills in different contexts.
During class lectures, students approach negotiation skills through two different perspectives: strategic thinking and anthropologic psychology. Strategic thinking help students master tactics and techniques in game theory to attain desired outcome in a negotiation.
Psychology knowledge instructs students how to build trust and maintain positive relationships with counterparts while securing a victory in negotiations.
For educational purposes, many case studies are devised to immerse students in real-world negotiation scenarios. Topics of these case studies range from individual negotiation in job placement interview to group negotiations between representatives of multinationals in signing join venture agreements.
Prof. Balding encouraged students to overcome their fears of mistakes and assured that on becoming good negotiators, mistakes are unavoidable and should be made in class rather than in their work resulting in far-reaching consequences for their organizations.
In the first week of the course, students were required to take part in a simulation practice in which participants role played as applicants and recruiters discussing over details of an employment contract. Students enthusiastically took up their new roles and were amazed when their unconscious mistakes in negotiation were pointed out by Prof. Balding.
Christopher Balding was a professor at the HSBC Business School of Peking University Graduate School in China for 9 years. His research area covers a variety of topics from finance, economics and law to health.
With his profound expertise on international finance and negotiation, Professor Balding has appeared, written for, been cited, worked for or quoted on Bloomberg, the BBC, CNBC, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Wall Street Journal, and many others.
