Negotiating the Non-Negotiable with Daniel Shapiro

November 30, 2018

Dan Shapiro, founder of the Harvard International Negotiation Program, introduced a framework for how emotions work in negotiation. With this framework, students learned how they can practically engage with these emotions during negotiations in government, business, international relations, and everyday life. In the afternoon, Dan led the group through a hypothetical multi-stakeholder negotiation, which included a simulation of tribal identity formation and its role in fueling conflict. Students emerged from this workshop with an appreciation for the role of emotion in negotiation, as well as the difficulty of navigating tribalism in a polarized world. Conflict Resolution Master’s student Jude Massaad, in her reflection, said that the clinic “renewed my motivation to bridge the divide between people of different backgrounds, especially after recognizing how hard it is to do so while being tested myself by this experience.”

About the Facilitator

Daniel Shapiro: Named one of the top 15 professors at Harvard University, Daniel Shapiro, Ph.D., is founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program, associate professor in psychology at Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital, and affiliate faculty at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. He consults regularly for government leaders and Fortune 500 companies, and has advised everyone from hostage negotiators to families in crisis, disputing CEOs to clashing heads of state.

He has launched successful conflict resolution initiatives in the Middle East, Europe, and East Asia, and for three years chaired the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Conflict Resolution. Through non-profit funding, he developed a conflict management program that now reaches one million youth across more than twenty countries. He has published extensively in the field of conflict resolution, and is author of Negotiating the Nonnegotiable and coauthor of the classic Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate. Dr. Shapiro also has contributed to The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and other popular publications, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Psychological Association’s Early Career Award and the Cloke-Millen Peacemaker of the Year award.