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Women, Negotiation and Power:

Dismantling Patriarchy One Negotiation at a Time

The Course

Welcome to

WOMEN, NEGOTIATION & POWER — THE COURSE

Never before has it been so imperative for the health of our human community and planet that women find our voices and step into our leadership.

We are the key – both to climate change, to a world beyond armed conflict, and to our own pleasure and happiness.

We need gender balance in all systems.

For us, for our kids, for the more-than-human world.

Imagine a world where women all over the planet really have our sh*t together when it comes to negotiation.

Where “we got this” -- in our mode, not in man-mode.

Where we know how to be firm, fair, strong, confident, and free of past conditioning of who negotiates and who leads.

 How we negotiate and resolve differences at home, at work and in the world goes right to the heart of creating gender balance and encompasses many things…

How we say no.

How we claim value.

How we communicate and resolve conflict.

How we work across culture and difference.

How we manage our team.

How we deal with anger.

How we recognize, harness and use our tremendous power.

How we create a global sisterhood.

How we get armed combatants to lay down their weapons.

How we change authoritarian regimes that are anti-women and make our ability to negotiate impossible.

How we deepen democracy and build a more collaborative world.

 I am so excited to offer
Women, Negotiation and Power - The Course.

When you sign up, here’s what you will receive:

 • 5 PRE-RECORDED PRESENTATIONS BY SUSAN, EACH 60-90 MINUTES OF RICH, INSIGHTFUL CONTENT

1.      Power, Patriarchy and Negotiation

We start this journey with considering the context in which all negotiations occur and an exploration of some key defining concepts.

All negotiations take place in an ancestral and present-day context. Negotiation power is determined by our “BATNA”, or walk-away alternatives, whether the issue is personal, work-related or global.

Whatever your individual circumstances, it is most likely that you have each been raised under a social system known as “patriarchy”, essentially a system where males hold primary power in most social, family, religious and economic roles and retain control over the majority of money, property and resources.” Most contemporary societies on earth today are patriarchal even if not explicitly defined as such by their own constitutions and laws.

Patriarchy has existed for about 6000 years and has influenced women’s walk away alternatives in negotiation. This reveals itself both inside of us, and in the world around us. Awareness helps us navigate this reality more effectively, with eyes wide open. One of the key impacts of patriarchy on women has been to silence us, and take away our power. It is time to change that.

So, what is power? What is patriarchy? What is negotiation? What gives you power in negotiation? How is negotiation connected to democracy? Authoritarianism? And why does this matter to women?

2.      Collaboration, Competition and Conflict Basics

Competition, collaboration; win-lose, win-win; power-over, power-with. These are simple ideas with big consequences for our individual lives, and for the world.

Competition and collaboration are the two main strategies in negotiation. To negotiate well, we need to have a clear model in our head of which strategy we are pursuing. This keeps us on track and shapes our choice of tactics. As the Buddhist saying goes – if you know the direction you’re are going, all you have to do is keep walking.

Raised in competition, it has been a super exciting challenge for me to learn and walk the talk of collaboration. It’s also important, especially for women, to understand that collaboration is NOT accommodation, or lose-win, women’s global Achilles heal.

Similarly, we need to surface our beliefs about conflict and not just “lump it” or avoid it, a byproduct of what feminist icon Carol Gilligan calls the “tyranny of the kind and nice”. Without conflict, there would be no need to negotiate. And without negotiation, we are just sticking with the status quo. But we need to understand what conflict is, what causes it and why negotiation is most often the ideal and most powerful way to resolve it in just about every circumstance.

 Collaborative negotiation is not easy. It needs to be firm and fair. Sometimes it needs to take the form of collaborative hardball, especially when dealing with bullies.  Collaboration is a breakthrough for women (as it is for all disenfranchised groups.) Research and my experience suggest that it is women’s more intuitive strategy and the one we need to fully master to bring our collaborative presence and leadership to a world that so desperately needs it.

3.      The Core Elements of Collaborative Negotiation: Positions, Needs/Interests, Reframing, Alternatives

Our attention is the most powerful resource we have.

And becoming needs literate and placing our attention on our own needs fulfillment and those we care about is power.

Frustrated needs and interests is what drives conflict, and needs satisfaction is what supports creativity, harmony, and peace.

These are simple concepts, yet sometimes hard to execute.

Conflict is framed by positions and often polarizes from there into competitive escalation. What is needed is the ability to identify the needs and interests beneath the positions, create distance from them, and reframe the conflict into a joint problem to be solved. It also requires creativity and managing ones own trauma triggers and reactivity.

Becoming needs literate is transformational, both for ourselves individually and for what we can achieve for the world around us through negotiation. For women, allowing ourselves to have needs, see and identify them clearly, is often the first step. As the “second sex”, we have been deeply trained to satisfy the needs of others, especially men or our children, so this can take some practice and adjustment.

This module explores needs literacy, connecting to what you want and need, being able to receive, to have and to believe that our needs are worthy of fulfillment, claiming value, connecting to our NO, being able to firmly and fairly state our position.

We apply the concepts and skills to your “critical incidents”, situations in your personal or professional lives that are calling for negotiation. We practice with multiple scenarios, identifying positions, underlying needs and interests, the skill of reframing and thinking through creative alternatives, and supporting each other to think through when we should walk away.

 4.      Emotion, Culture, and Negotiation Climate

Behind the negotiation structure we explored in the last module is the “rumbling” of emotion and culture. That sounds disparaging but it is not. This is a world of richness.

Some negotiations or conflict situations can simply be challenging problems to solve, but what most often makes them truly difficult are the emotions involved and the identity group issues that trigger strong emotion.

Emotion and culture together create the negotiation climate, kind of the underlying software running behind the scenes.

So what are we talking about here?

First, being emotionally literate is integrally connected to needs literacy. Being able to feel what gets triggered when needs get blocked is crucial not only to our well-being but the strength of our influence and advocacy.

What are the main categories of emotion and how are they connected to needs and interests? How can we use emotions well to influence? In our minds and behavior, which emotions are acceptable for us as women? How can we use anger as fuel that is key to our power when harnessed well?

Feeling is what makes us alive. Expressing it well lands and influences.

And then culture – how does it show up in negotiation? There’s a lot of richness to learn about culture and negotiation. Negotiation itself is a culture-bound concept, especially for so many women around the world who can’t negotiate period because of cultural dictates. What we explore in this module are the predictable ways that identity and culture can show up in negotiation. Culture is essentially group personality if you will. Knowing ourselves and the human groups we identify as being part of is crucial to understanding what happens to us when things get hot, competitive, adversarial. We make so much of identity group differences – race, gender, age, tribe. It can seems they are the source of so much conflict when really it has much more to do with the “group-o-centrism” or identity-group polarization that comes from creating a competitive, adversarial climate.

Both emotion and identity/culture/worldview are big topics. In this course we will start the exploration of them both, our understanding of how emotion gives us critical information about unmet needs, and the predictable way that divided climates can unnecessarily polarize us around identity when what we really need to do is support each other across tribe as sisters.

5.      Communication with AEIOU

At the end of the day, negotiation is about communication. We bring all the pieces together we covered thus far in the course with our celebrated model that has been used around the world with many cultures, AEIOU, or Attack, Evade, Inform, Open and Unite.

These are essentially tactics in negotiation and are, as is everything, about meeting needs and interests. A model like this one helps us become super aware of whether the tactics we are using are ultimately supporting our strategy.

All participants will have access to the 360(degree) version of the AEIOU Assessment of Negotiation and Conflict Communication Behaviors, https://www.susancoleman.global/aeiou , a $75 value.

We will use this model to analyze negotiations and conflict, to get 360 feedback on our behavior and do some negotiation jujitsu skill-building practice. We will practice our own ability to assert, listen, disarm abusive behavior, build common ground and create collaborative outcomes on our own or other conflict negotiation scenarios.

6.      Dealing with a Competitive Negotiator and the Domination System

At the end of the day, negotiation is about communication. We bring all the pieces together we covered thus far in the course with our celebrated model that has been used around the world with many cultures, AEIOU, or Attack, Evade, Inform, Open and Unite.

These are essentially tactics in negotiation and are, as is everything, about meeting needs and interests. A model like this one helps us become super aware of whether the tactics we are using are ultimately supporting our strategy.

All participants will have access to the 360(degree) version of the AEIOU Assessment of Negotiation and Conflict Communication Behaviors, https://www.susancoleman.global/aeiou , a $75 value.

We will use this model to analyze negotiations and conflict, to get 360 feedback on our behavior and do some negotiation jujitsu skill-building practice. We will practice our own ability to assert, listen, disarm abusive behavior, build common ground and create collaborative outcomes on our own or other conflict negotiation scenarios.

7.      Bringing it all Together

At the end of the day, negotiation is about communication. We bring all the pieces together we covered thus far in the course with our celebrated model that has been used around the world with many cultures, AEIOU, or Attack, Evade, Inform, Open and Unite.

These are essentially tactics in negotiation and are, as is everything, about meeting needs and interests. A model like this one helps us become super aware of whether the tactics we are using are ultimately supporting our strategy.

All participants will have access to the 360(degree) version of the AEIOU Assessment of Negotiation and Conflict Communication Behaviors, https://www.susancoleman.global/aeiou , a $75 value.

We will use this model to analyze negotiations and conflict, to get 360 feedback on our behavior and do some negotiation jujitsu skill-building practice. We will practice our own ability to assert, listen, disarm abusive behavior, build common ground and create collaborative outcomes on our own or other conflict negotiation scenarios.

8.      Practice and Integration

At the end of the day, negotiation is about communication. We bring all the pieces together we covered thus far in the course with our celebrated model that has been used around the world with many cultures, AEIOU, or Attack, Evade, Inform, Open and Unite.

These are essentially tactics in negotiation and are, as is everything, about meeting needs and interests. A model like this one helps us become super aware of whether the tactics we are using are ultimately supporting our strategy.

All participants will have access to the 360(degree) version of the AEIOU Assessment of Negotiation and Conflict Communication Behaviors, https://www.susancoleman.global/aeiou , a $75 value.

We will use this model to analyze negotiations and conflict, to get 360 feedback on our behavior and do some negotiation jujitsu skill-building practice. We will practice our own ability to assert, listen, disarm abusive behavior, build common ground and create collaborative outcomes on our own or other conflict negotiation scenarios.

Included with each module:

Doors Close APRIL 7 at midnight!

First Module will Drop April 8 and will continue for eight weeks as follows:

“Live” Zoom session will be have rotating schedule based on participant time zones and preferences on

APRIL 13
APRIL 20

APRIL 27

MAY 4

MAY 11

MAY 18

MAY 25

JUNE 1

SESSIONS WITH GUEST SPEAKERS TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON.

 You may have seen our survey monkey needs assessment for these workshops. Here’s a sample of what you said:

I think so many women want to rise and want to dismantle the systems that are currently at play but often feel powerless or don't feel they have the tools, myself included.

I want to improve my negotiation skills and end the patriarchy.

The world needs a different approach, a woman's brand of negotiation.

Fascinating and timely topic

I think it’s very important to understand that patriarchy is not a given, it’s not natural, it’s just the warped system we live in.

Testimonials

I thoroughly enjoyed this course! I loved the mixed media presentations and the lively conversation with students. Because of the diverse participants, I could see myself taking it again and again!! Brilliant!

Tamaron – Attorney, 2020

Susan is a fountain of knowledge and experience and has the amazing ability to create a safe space to help you reflect about habits of communication, conflict resolutions and negotiations in the bigger context, throughout history, in a patriarchal society as well as your own personal habits, to strengthen your negotiation skills.

Participant, 2020

The course overall left a very powerful and meaningful impression on me. I continue to mull over some of the ideas you shared with us and we further discussed. And it has certainly helped me to continue to place the pieces of my own personal and professional ‘puzzle’ to where they belong and carry on letting go of what is no longer serving me. Thank you so much, I am so glad that our paths have crossed.

Karina Sakhibgareeva, 2020

I just want to say thank you sister for the classes we had on women power and negotiation... recently I was harassed and arrested and I had to negotiate between me and those with guns that were sent to arrest me ... with different allegations like apparently am spoiling women! 

I told one of the men who was so harsh to me and pointing his gun at me: how do you come in such large numbers with guns to arrest only one woman with not even a stick, am I that powerful??? Or scary ??? The conversation changed and they became softer ... we later had a conversation and it turned out good!

Riya Yuyada, South Sudan, 2020

WHO IS WNP - THE COURSE FOR:

For women* who:

• want to build their negotiation and influencing skills (a life-long process)

• want to use the best tools, techniques and strategies in negotiation

• think systemically, and want to understand the link between the intimate and the global

• want to increase the power of the feminine and gender equality in all systems

• want to understand how traditional negotiation literature doesn’t really account for the problem of patriarchy

• are interested in creating a more pleasurable world for ourselves and our kids

• want to create a collaborative sisterhood across the global north and south, to learn from each other and to dismantle patriarchy one negotiation at a time

 * women identified

WHY IS THIS NEEDED?

We see signs around us everywhere that are all too familiar:

• a severe and frightening degradation of the planet

• women remaining second (or third or fourth) class citizens globally

• a rise in authoritarian and patriarchal leaders in charge of very large and important economies

• the doomsday clock, the best measure of our proximity to nuclear war, now only micro seconds away from midnight

• military spending completely out of control instead of spending our money addressing basic human needs (which creates peace!)

• hidden bias from women and men alike to support women stepping into our fullest talent and leadership

• our children facing a very uncertain future

• women making ourselves small so we don’t overshadow men

• women giving our power away in subtle and not so subtle ways. . .

• Covid 19 putting more pressure on women and setting us back. . .

Negotiation skills are an art, a science, they require emotional maturity, are behavioral, and intellectually strategic. They bring to light both the micro and the macro of power and influence. They expose the nitty-gritty of the problem, and they show the way forward.

Negotiation is an interdisciplinary skill and knowledge set. It includes an understanding of human needs, taking charge of money and claiming value, use of presence and the body, effective communication, appreciation of cultural differences, managing difficult conversations with high emotion, and understanding the overall context in which all of us negotiate. For women, this has been thousands of years of patriarchy which weaken our negotiation alternatives.

Perfecting the range of skills connected with collaborative negotiation allows one to proceed with confidence, integrity, fairness and firmness especially in the face of bullies. Being comfortable with a competitive strategy if needed as a backup avoids the lose-win trap that women often get into. And finally, knowing when the power holders are refusing to negotiate and being strategic about other possible avenues for influence avoids wasted energy.

Thank you for joining me on this voyage.

Your Investment:

$579 for the full package.

Can’t wait to see you there!

A FEW SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE - IF INTERESTED, EMAIL US TO APPLY.