Strengthening organizations’ ability to negotiate and collaborate
Building Collaboration Capability
In our increasingly interconnected world, organizational leaders and key staff must effectively collaborate and negotiate internally and externally to advance key priorities. CBI’s highly skilled and experienced staff helps organizations assess their current collaborative capabilities, design new approaches, train and coach staff, and create a culture of collaboration. Using the principles outlined in our award-winning book Built to Win: Creating a World-Class Negotiating Organization, CBI helps make collaboration and negotiation more effective drivers of organizational success.
Examples of CBI’s contributions include:
- Integrating negotiation and collaborative leadership into the core competencies for senior UN representatives in 130 countries, working with the United Nations Development Group and the UN System Staff College, using performance metrics and assessments as well as ongoing training and learning opportunities
- Transforming PJM Interconnection, the largest regional transmission organization in the U.S., governance and consensus-building approaches to decision-making, working with PJM leadership and its 700 member companies
- Co-creating and delivering with Shell Social Performance staff a global training program on effective community engagement, with a strong emphasis on collaboration and negotiation
- Designing a new system for Hewlett-Packard’s supplier negotiations, which resulted in $1.5 billion in savings across 55 major suppliers
Our Services
-
Collaboration Capability Assessment We conduct a comprehensive assessment of negotiation and collaboration capabilities, which includes interviewing staff and external counterparts. As part of this assessment, our staff analyze individual and team skills, along with organizational policies, procedures, and resources. We then custom-design a program to enhance collaboration. Our programs include: mentoring; shifting cultural norms; sharing knowledge and experiences; modifying policies, incentives, and structures; and monitoring and evaluating implementation.
-
Training Assessments identify staff most likely to add value with stronger collaboration and negotiation skills, and we give them customized, highly interactive training using case material that is relevant to their current challenges. Our staff translate the Mutual Gains Approach into knowledge and skills that participants can apply to their current work and continue to develop. Training can be in person, online, or blended. We link training to ongoing learning and capability building so experiences can be captured and shared to improve results.
-
Coaching Our senior staff, which includes certified coaches, has decades of experience supporting leaders and managers who have direct responsibility for key negotiations and collaborations. We provide them with in-depth coaching that combines direct observation, goal-setting, practice, and guided reflection. Time frames range from several days to longer-term, iterative engagements.
-
Advising Assessments may reveal barriers within organizations that limit collaboration. We advise on ways that organizations can institutionalize learning from collaboration and negotiation experience, and systematically improve individual, team, and operational performance. We also work with senior managers to balance important objectives that may be at odds (such as minimizing legal and financial risk while risk sharing with partners).
Distinctive
Clients and stakeholders consistently report that our staff is distinctive in its ability to: