Why You Need to Develop Negotiation Intelligence and Skills
Negotiation course part of HHL curriculum since 2000
This article was first published on August 27, 2020.
Being a good negotiator is not only important in your professional career but can also be of great advantage in dealing with interpersonal relationships. At HHL, we started incorporating the topic of negotiation into our curriculum as early as 2000, because we strongly believe that negotiation intelligence is important for students and professionals alike.
Prof. Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski, Innovation and Negotiation Professor, says: “The concept of negotiation intelligence is industry agnostic and can be applied also in law, diplomacy and politics. The starting point for building negotiation intelligence is knowledge acquisition.”
“(…) All my negotiation courses are based on the concept of experiential learning combining a healthy blend of theory and practice.”
Negotiations course open to all master students
The course “Negotiation” is offered to all master students at HHL and is taught by negotiation expert and honorary professor Remigiusz Smolinski. His wildly popular course teaches students to understand and apply the methods and techniques that can be effectively used in the process of distributive negotiations. Students are introduced to Principle based Negotiation and learn to deal with the complexity of multiparty negotiations.
As with many things, the year 2020 brought a few changes to the regular course format. What normally was taught as an interactive format including role plays, exercises and discussions now took place online. A good preparation for real-life negotiations happening around the world right now, says Prof. Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski, as most parties cannot meet in person due to the covid-19 crisis. The part-time MBA students were given a special challenge, when they were paired with MBA students from a university in Kyoto, teaching them how to negotiate with a party they had never met before.
Florian Flach, part-time MBA student, tells us how he thinks of the course: “The negotiations course was really very good and a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed the many examples and with the increasing complexity of each task I could see my progress.”
“Even if not all negotiations could be resolved successfully, it was possible to leave the discussion with new insights and to understand how to do it better next time.”
Read more about the topic of negotiation!
Innovation and negotiation professor Remigiusz Smolinski
Prof. Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski, Innovation and Negotiation Professor and Adviser has a longstanding connection with HHL. During his PhD studies at HHL, he started teaching students to become successful negotiators and has since become one of the leading experts in his field.“It’s been over 15 years since I’ve taught my first Negotiation course at HHL. It’s been a great privilege and honor to interact with so many smart and highly motivated students and observe the development of their further careers. I regularly keep in touch with many of them, offer negotiation seminars at their companies and sometimes we even end up negotiating together ;-).”
HHL students at The Warsaw Negotiation Round in 2019, hosted in Warsaw.
The Negotiation Challenge: an international competition
In 2007 Prof. Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski launched “The Negotiations Challenge (TNC)”, an international negotiation challenge for students. The challenge focuses on advancing the understanding of negotiations as a managerial skill and helps its clients improve their negotiation intelligence and develop negotiation skills. The challenge travels around the world, taking place in locations such as Kyoto and San Francisco, offering all participants an international learning experience.
“It has been a great honor to represent HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management at The Negotiation Challenge 2019 in Kyoto, Japan.”
The Negotiation Challenge for Professionals
Due to TNC’s great success among international universities and business schools, the competition is now being expanded to a second format “The Negotiation Challenge for Professionals”, officially launching in September 2020.
“To make our world better, we need more people, who can resolve or manage conflicts, who can engineer value and who can craft wise agreements. We do hope that TNC has become an inspiration for the participants to take on these challenging but essential roles in our modern world.” – Prof. Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski
Deciding on the right business degree can feel really overwhelming. You need to consider the curriculum, the location, the job opportunities and the much talked about work-life-study balance. Are you still wondering “What’s it really like to be a student at HHL?“ Request access to the lecture experience now to learn about the Negotiation Competency Model and take part in an authentic lecture experience with Professor Smolinski.
HHL Expert Talk and Interview with Negotiation Expert
The challenges of 2020 also brought us new learning opportunities that led to the HHL Expert Talk series. If you are interested in learning how you can become a better negotiator, we invite you to listen to the replay of the session with Prof. Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski. Dive into one hour of theory-based tactics alongside practical tips from real-life experience. “Online or blended courses are here to stay, even when the Corona related restrictions are over, and I am absolutely convinced that many educational institutions will permanently integrate them into their curricula.” – Prof. Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski
Most importantly, we encourage you to read the full interview with Prof. Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski. Here Prof. Dr. Remigiusz Smolinski talks about how an intimidating M&A negotiation got him interested in becoming a better negotiator and why the drive and energy of HHL students caused him to think big and found TNC.
Discover HHL’s part-time MBA program
Find out if the part-time MBA is the right program for you. We are happy to answer any questions you may have and support you with additional information. To connect with Petra Spanka, program manager for the part-time MBA, just click on the little envelope below the author’s name beneath this post.
Hello, I'm Stephanie. After spending several years in the hospitality industry in both the US and Germany, I joined HHL as a program consultant for the part-time MBA in October 2022. As a service mind at heart, I am happy to answer your questions. How can HHL help you to achieve your career goals through our Part-Time MBA program? I look forward to hearing from you—let's explore how we take your career to the next level!
