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CANCELED - FTMBA 2021_II Workshop Communicating as a business woman: crafting deals, facilitating cooperation, resolving conflicts, and reaching your goals

This two day course identifies and explores key factors which are essential for corporates to innovate.
Course code
WS033
Course type
FT MBA Course
Weekly Hours
0,67
ECTS
0
Term
FS 2021
Language
Englisch
Lecturers
Anna Bernhardt
Please note that exchange students obtain a higher number of credits in the BSc-program at WHU than listed here. For further information please contact directly the International Relations Office.

This workshop is designed to train women to strategically and flexibly steer through the wavy waters of communication and negotiation to reach solid, successful deals. It combines theory and exercises to equip female leaders for creating AND claiming value in challenging conversations and interactions at work.

Negotiation is moving towards goals we can’t reach on our own. Whenever depending on somebody’s consent to reach desired results, we find ourselves in the middle of a negotiation. Communicating with clarity and fostering cooperation is essential in those situations. At work, we negotiate salary, business strategy, tasks and deadlines. We negotiate to shape contracts or to resolve conflicts. We negotiate our place at the table or to lead organizations towards ideas. At home, we strike deals around how to spend weekends, holidays, rooms, money, attention. If there are kids, we stumble over their natural talent to haggle. If we are parents, we negotiate roles, future, parental responsibilities. What to value and what direction to choose are negotiations we lead with ourselves.

How can we create lasting, beneficial and solid deals?

Negotiation is the constructive and creative search for interest-based solutions. It is about considering yourself and others deeply: what is important to you and to me and how could we shape an agreement from that?

Women – generally speaking – are well-equipped to explore interests and apply cooperative behaviors during challenging conversations and negotiations.

However, they experience common hurdles reducing their slice of the cake. Research indicates hindering female tendencies in negotiations such as increased fear, overaccommodating, less risk-taking, less self-confidence, challenges when facing male networks/competitiveness/rhetorics/body language/micropolitics…. Oftentimes women don’t ask for what they want, need, and deserve, thus missing unclaimed potential at the negotiation table.

Course Content:

o Fundamentals of effective communication (active listening, paraphrasing, …)

o Preparation of challenging conversations

o Structuring and conducting challenging conversations

o Power in organizations

o Harvard negotiation principles

o Classical pitfalls in negotiations for women

o Systematic analysis of personal negotiation tendencies

o Optimizing of personal negotiation tendencies

o Conflict management for business women

o Tools and strategies for critical, escalating situations

Participants will learn:

o to grow one’s own confindence during challenging conversations through systematic preparation (exploring interests at stake, clarifying own goals, drawing strengths from powerful alternatives,..)

o to understand and use power games that vivify organizations as a woman

o to cultivate self-reflection that promotes self-development (communication style, negotiation tendencies, habits, guiding thoughts, body language, …)

o to practice strategies for claiming value in negotiations

o to gain confidence, ideas and strategies for difficult conversational situations as a woman (e.g. when being insulted, threatened, …)

o to communicate with clarity, empathy and strength to reach goals while creating strong ties with business partners/colleagues

Optional reading: o Getting to Yes – Fisher, R. & Ury, W. (2012)o Why Women Don't Ask: The high cost of avoiding negotiation - and positive strategies for change – Babcock, L. & Laschever, S. (2008)o Six tools for clear communication – Schulz von Thun, F. (2018)
The workshop makes use of the following methods:

o Short impulses on different topics

o Discussion

o Group exercises

o Personal reflection

o Case studies

o Peer mentoring / Collegial consultation

Attendance
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