As Thammasat University students grow accustomed to online learning and distance education, some may wish to explore overseas opportunities after they have done their required coursework. Taking an extra class may be informative and help complement main areas of study, giving students new ideas and perspectives and help them to practice their English language usage.
One opportunity to consider may be free massive open online courses (MOOCs) from The University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the United States of America.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes several books published by the University of Michigan Press, an internationally recognized academic publisher.
The University of Michigan offers its business students a Global Semester Exchange at the Thammasat Business School:
This course reflects the full-semester exchange opportunity for undergraduate study at Thammasat Business School in Bangkok, Thailand. Students take university-level courses with locals or in programs structured specifically for a variety of American university students. To be considered for this opportunity, students should apply to the exchange program through Ross Global Initiatives. For more information, please contact Ross Global initiatives.
Among potential choices of courses being offered as MOOCs is Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills:
Build negotiation skills and learn how to use and apply negotiation strategies to your life with the University of Michigan.
About this course
We all negotiate on a daily basis. On a personal level, we negotiate with friends, family, landlords, car sellers and employers, among others. Negotiation is also the key to business success. No business can survive without profitable contracts. Within a company, negotiation skills can lead to your career advancement.
I hope that you will join the hundreds of thousands of learners who have made “Successful Negotiation” one of the most popular and highly-rated MOOCs worldwide. In the course, you’ll learn about and practice the four steps to a successful negotiation:
(1) Prepare: Plan Your Negotiation Strategy
(2) Negotiate: Use Key Tactics for Success
(3) Close: Create a Contract
(4) Perform and Evaluate: The End Game
To successfully complete this course and improve your ability to negotiate, you’ll need to do the following:
(1) Watch the short videos (ranging from 5 to 20 minutes). The videos are interactive and they include questions to test your understanding of negotiation strategy and skills. You can speed up or slow down videos to match your preferred pace for listening. Depending on your schedule, you can watch the videos over a few weeks or you can binge watch them. A learner who binge-watched the course concluded that “It’s as good as Breaking Bad.” Another learner compared the course to “House of Cards.” Both shows contain interesting examples of complex negotiations!
(2) Test your negotiation skills by completing the negotiation in Module 6. You can negotiate with a local friend or use Discussions to find a partner from another part of the world. Your negotiation partner will give you feedback on your negotiation skills. To assist you with your negotiations, I have developed several free negotiating planning tools that are related to the course. These tools and a free app are available at http://negotiationplanner.com/
(3) Take the final exam. To successfully complete the course, you must answer 80% of the questions correctly. The exam is a Mastery Exam, which means that you can take it as many times as you want until you master the material.
Subtitles for the videos are available in English.
Syllabus
Week 1 Welcome to Successful Negotiation!
Introduction and Overview
Week 2 Prepare: Plan Your Negotiation Strategy
Should I Negotiate?
Position Based and Interest Based Negotiation
A Dispute Resolution or Deal Making Negotiation?
Analyzing the Negotiation
Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement
Cross-Cultural Negotiations
Ethical Issues and Standards
Agents
Week 3 Negotiate: Use Key Tactics for Success
Getting to Know the Other Side and Using Power in Negotiations
Psychological Tools: Introduction and Mythical Fixed Pie Assumption
Anchoring, Overconfidence, and Framing
Availability, Escalation, Reciprocation, Contrast Principle, and Big Picture Perspective
Week 4 Close: Create a Contract
About Contract Law
Creating Contracts
Business vs. Legal Objectives in Contracting
Week 5 Perform and Evaluate: The End Game
Dispute Prevention
ADR Concepts and Tools
Arbitration
Mediation
Contract Performance Review and Evaluation
Week 6 Practice Your Negotiation Skills
Your Negotiation Exercise
Planning for Negotiation and Negotiation Tactics
Psychological Tools, Creating and Performing the Contract, and Building a Larger Pie
Week 7 Final Examination
The course will be taught by Professor George Siedel, Williamson Family Professor of Business Administration and Thurnau Professor of Business Law at the University of Michigan.
The Thammasat University Library owns two books co-authored by Professor Siedel.
They are shelved in the general stacks of the Sanya Dharmasakti Library, Faculty of Law, Tha Prachan campus.
Professor Siedel is especially known for his research on proactive law, negotiation, and alternative dispute resolution, and for his work in the development of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).
He has taught negotiation worldwide, including in Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, India, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Brazil, and he currently teaches annually in Croatia and Italy.
In 2014, he developed a MOOC on Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills. This course was followed in 2016 with a MOOC on The Three Pillar Model for Business Decisions: Strategy, Law & Ethics. The three pillar model for business decisions enables businesses to create value through a framework that combines strategy, law and ethics.[13]
Professor Siedel’s approach to negotiation strategy combines theory with practical advice.
The app which he created may be downloaded at the website, Negotiation Planner.com:
Simple and Effective Tools for Negotiation Success
Negotiation Planner is designed to dramatically improve your negotiation results through effective planning. Research shows that most negotiators do not plan properly to achieve negotiation success. The free, simple tools in Negotiation Planner enable you to gain advantage over unprepared negotiators. Example: a CEO saved $4 million when using the Negotiation Planning Checklist during a negotiation with a supplier. Other negotiators at all levels have reported millions of dollars in savings. The tools are described at Using the Tools.
Free Videos. Negotiation Planner includes links to free online videos that provide additional information about how to improve your negotiation skills. The videos are from an online course offered by the University of Michigan and Coursera, “Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills.”
George Siedel teaches the course. Hundreds of thousands of learners worldwide have enrolled in the course. They ranged from CEOs to inexperienced negotiators. The course includes a negotiation exercise that allows you to test your skills and obtain feedback. You can watch individual videos from the course (around 15 minutes each) or take the entire course for free. For additional information and comments from course participants, see Free Negotiation Course.
Negotiation Guidebook. For additional information about the tools in Negotiation Planner and how to develop your negotiation skills, see Negotiation Guidebook.
Free Company Training Program. A Free Company Training Program includes a Master Checklist that covers the entire negotiation process from planning through contract performance. The checklist is especially useful because each question in the list refers to videos and readings. The checklist can be used by individuals when taking the course . It also provides a framework for company negotiation training programs.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)