Negotiations - frameworks, methods and tools (and other future interests)

It's hard to argue about the importance of negotiation in both personal and business contexts. Negotiations play an inescapable part in our lives - whether with customers, vendors, partners, friends, cab drivers, vegetable sellers. A lot of us suck at it big time - I'm one of them. It's an area one could and should learn a lot about.

At INSEAD there is an elective called - well - "negotiations". Taught by one of the star professors - Horacio Falcao (read his bio) (Harvard law + INSEAD MBA) this is one of the most desired and sought after courses with the highest elective bid this time. Following professor Pushan Dutt's (another star of P1) advice, I bid my valuation and got the elective which is all about frameworks, strategies and methods of negotiation - something I believe is invaluable in the business arena. I am really looking forward to this course, which is taught in Singapore in P3 this time. I've heard that it is pretty heavy as well in terms of course load - and when combined with the rigor of Finance star professor Pierre Hillion's course of Applied Corporate Finance, I think we have a busy P3 ahead of us. Of course one cannot forget the fact that P3 is the time to start informational interviewing and start revving up recruitment efforts. When I go home in this break, I am indeed meeting some fairly top level managers in some large interesting companies back home. How did I get the casual informational interviews? I asked :) (it's true what they say - you never know until you ask. True in life - personal, professional...)

Exams loom ahead.Tomorrow we have accounting and strategy. My strategy for accounting is to do the strategy exam well to compensate for the stratospheric failure in accounting.