Program Experience

Highlights and Key Outcomes

In the Executive Negotiation Workshop, you will:

  • Improve your skills regardless of your level of experience
  • Explore how gender and culture affect the negotiation process
  • Fully integrate negotiation skills into your most effective professional self
  • Train with a select group of top professionals from diverse industries, backgrounds, and cultures
  • Gain both the emotional intelligence and situation awareness that make it possible to adjust your strategy in real time

Experience & Impact

You will not find simplistic methods in this workshop. Top negotiators know there is no single framework, whether “win-win” or “win-lose,” that works every time. Instead, over five intense days you will sharpen your skills as you learn new best practices, investigate the latest research, and personalize techniques that can work in your next negotiation. This personality-based approach will build greater credibility and give you the edge to be effective under any circumstances.

This is not a lecture course. Instead, you will be put to the test. You will negotiate with different partners in a wide variety of situations. By identifying your own and your partner’s negotiation styles and then working with them, you will forge better deals. Feedback, including videotaping and real-time peer feedback, will help you hone your edge.

The program features two of Wharton’s most dynamic faculty: G. Richard Shell, author of the award-winning book Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People and one of the world’s foremost authorities on negotiations, and Cade Massey, leader of the Wharton School’s People Analytics Initiative and specialist in data-driven decision-making. Between them, Professors Shell and Massey have won every teaching award the Wharton School offers.

The workshop teaches participants a systematic process for approaching any kind of negotiation. Session topics include: Foundations of Bargaining: Styles, Goals, and Relationships; Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People; Foundations of Negotiation: Standards, Interest, and Leverage; Advanced Bargaining Theory and Exercises; Creating Value Through Differences; and Multi-Party Negotiation. Each working session focuses on deciding when to negotiate, framing the negotiation, and conducting face-to-face discussions.

Participants who have attended other negotiation workshops invariably say this one sets the standard for excellence. Our faculty bring decades of practical experience in a wide range of negotiation scenarios (mergers and acquisitions, coalitions, turnarounds, inside-the-organization problems) to each session. This transformational program will forever change the way you think about negotiations.


Convince Your Supervisor

Here’s a justification letter you can edit and send to your supervisor to help you make the case for attending this Wharton program.


Due to our application review period, applications submitted after 12:00 p.m. ET on Friday for programs beginning the following Monday may not be processed in time to grant admission. Applicants will be contacted by a member of our Client Relations Team to discuss options for future programs and dates.

Who Should Attend

Executives, entrepreneurs, government officials, and those in the military or medical professions who currently conduct negotiations will benefit from this workshop. Because the focus is on identifying your own negotiating strategies, strengths, and weaknesses, those who are transitioning into a role in which they will have to conduct negotiations and those with extensive negotiating experience are encouraged to attend.

All candidates must be able to understand written and spoken English, and to participate actively in intensive discussions and negotiations in the English language.


Participant Profile

Participants by Industry

Executive Negotiation Workshop participants by industry

Participants by Job Function

Executive Negotiation Workshop participants by job function

Participants by Region

Executive Negotiation Workshop participants by region


Plan your stay in Philadelphia

Plan Your Stay

This program is held at the Steinberg Conference Center located on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia. Meals and accommodations are included in the program fees. Learn more about planning your stay at Wharton’s Philadelphia campus.


Group Enrollment

To further leverage the value and impact of this program, we encourage companies to send cross-functional teams of executives to Wharton. We offer group-enrollment benefits to companies sending four or more participants.

Faculty


Richard G. Shell

G. Richard Shell, JDSee Faculty Bio

Academic Director

Thomas Gerrity Professor; Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics; Professor of Management, The Wharton School


Cade Massey

Cade Massey, PhDSee Faculty Bio

Practice Professor, Operations, Information and Decisions, The Wharton School

Research Interests: People analytics, judgment under uncertainty, organizational behavior

Testimonials


Amelia Christopherson Managing Director, RGN Property


Giovanni Nardi Business Development, Ardent Mills


Terrence R. Head President and Founder, Outlier Global Solutions


This workshop was a mind-changing experience: it was not just something I learned — I really experienced it. When you are at the negotiating table, you always assume something, and most of the time you are wrong. The key is removing the emotion from the negotiation and focusing on what people want. For example, I might think the negotiation is about money, but I discover that the real goal is to preserve my relationship with the customer; money is not the priority.

I highly recommend the course — in fact, my boss is going to take it next March, and I’m convincing two colleagues in another company to take the workshop next November. As for me, I am looking to take another course from Wharton next July, and plan to earn my Certificate of Professional Development."

Felipe Colomo Estimate and Design Director, Copachisa Constructora, Mexico


I attended the Wharton Executive Negotiation Workshop in 1996, in the early part of my career as a professional in managed health care strategy development and negotiation. I am retired now, but I wanted to thank you for the help and preparation your workshop provided. I credit your program with much of the professional success I enjoyed in my position, and I am strongly urging that the person who follows me in my job take your training.”

Marvin Fairbank Director of Contractor Care, Stormont-Vail Healthcare, Inc.


Thank you for a highly instructive, extremely inspiring, and completely unforgettable experience at the Executive Negotiation Workshop at Wharton last week!”

Jens Schmidt Director, General Manager, Nokia Corporation


Had I known what lay ahead, I would sell my car to take this course!”

Strategic Alliances Partner, Pharmaceuticals Manufacturer


Negotiation skills are a key way to differentiate our company for potential customers and to help us create stronger relationships with our existing customers. The methods Professor Shell uses in both teaching and conducting negotiations are an excellent foundation for our staff to build this competency.”

Managing Director, Family-Owned Business


It is totally applicable to my personal and professional life. Further, it has allowed me the opportunity to take formerly argumentative situations and move them into problem-solving, positive exercises.”

Vice President, Government Affairs


Quite simply, the most valuable course I have taken in my 15-year career. Very committed faculty — really interested in participant learning.”

Senior Vice President, Capital Funding Corporation


The program paid for itself in spades when, halfway through the course, I resolved a problem regarding a pending acquisition that I’d been working on for six months.”

H. L. Johnson Business Broker

Date, Location, & Fees

If you are unable to access the application form, please email Client Relations at execed@wharton.upenn.edu.

May 6 – 10, 2024Philadelphia, PA$12,500

December 9 – 13, 2024Philadelphia, PA$13,000


Download the program schedule, including session details and format.

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Hotel Information

Fees for on-campus programs include accommodations and meals. Prices are subject to change.

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Contact Us

Schedule a personalized consultation to discuss your professional goals:

 +1.215.898.1776

 execed@wharton.upenn.edu


Bargaining For AdvantageBargaining for Advantage by G. Richard ShellDownload the introduction and chapter one

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