How we develop new material

Over decades, our consultants have developed training materials and concepts that are now in widespread use by other teachers and practitioners. We design tailored trainings which draw from the most comprehensive analysis of negotiation and related skills available, The Negotiator's Fieldbook, a reference work published in 2006 by the American Bar Association. We are also leaders in the next phase of redesign of training in our field.

Training in negotiation and dispute resolution has become widespread in recent years, but has been focused almost exclusively at the "basic" level. Very few trainers have made the investment necessary to understand, and prepare for offering, the more sophisticated view that has been developing in the research in more than a dozen fields. In fact, when Chris Honeyman and Andrea Schneider, two of CONVENOR's consultants, set out to compile what the American Bar Association is describing as "the foremost reference work in the field"* they found only six subjects that were recognized across various disciplines as essential aspects of learning to negotiate. Their investigation revealed 80 more topics, vital to sophisticated practice across a whole range of circumstances, which had not effectively spread beyond their field or specialty of origin.

Much of this knowledge is the product of established research, but some is brand-new, the result of the Honeyman & Schneider "canon of negotiation" inquiry itself. Even for the well-researched material, in order to learn much beyond the basics of negotiation, up to now you would have had to search out separate and poorly coordinated bits of training in many separate schools and other institutions—some of which are highly specialized environments, such as hostage negotiation teams, which are very hard to access for outsiders.

Only now is this extraordinary array of sophisticated knowledge being made widely available, and codified so as to make well-rounded, advanced training possible. Because we literally put together "the book" on sophisticated negotiation—and wrote much of it ourselves—CONVENOR's consultants are exceptionally well-placed to offer training that draws from these broad and deep sources. And we are now working on the latest phase: redesign of teaching of "basic" courses in negotiation across the field.
Honeyman article that helped get the new phase started
Where the new phase is going next

What can we design for your organization?

Related: consulting in anticipating conflict and in sophisticated negotiation, tailored and focused to your group's particular needs.

*quote from ABA flyer for The Negotiator's Fieldbook.

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