In 2022, Mariam Braimah, a digital designer working at Netflix, is considering the next move in her career. She has spent several years at Netflix, and in her spare time, using her savings, has founded a design-focused fellowship program and a consumer insights company based in Nigeria. Is now the time to leave Netflix and start working full time for her African ventures?
This briefing sheet reviews a four-step "Be SURE" negotiation preparation framework. It was developed to complement educational and resource materials accessible through the HKS SLATE Negotiate WELL (Work, Education, Life, and Leadership) Case Collection, including the Strategic Preparation Workbook and related cases. It is adapted from the Harvard Business Review article, "Negotiating Your Next Job: Focus on Your Role, Responsibilities, and Career Trajectory, Not Your Salary," by Hannah Riley Bowles and Bobbi Thomason, and a related HKS Case, "Self-Advocating in Early Career", by Hannah Riley Bowles and Zoe Williams.
The Strategic Preparation Workbook guides students in preparing for a work or life negotiation so that they are more likely to succeed in negotiations. The Workbook outlines a four-part process in preparing for a negotiation and finishes with action planning. The instructor can either teach the Workbook using a case example or by having students fill out the Workbook with their own negotiation examples. Brief videos (- 3 minutes) linked throughout the Workbook provide detailed descriptions of each step in the process and examples of real-life negotiations. Case Number 2230.0
Priya, a graduate student of public policy, was offered internships from two units within the International Development Fund. One offered a good salary, took advantage of her past work experience but was longer than she wanted; the other, offered no pay but would give her the work experience she wanted and was the perfect length. The case details the offers and asks students to consider whether Priya has room to negotiate aspects of either offer.
Maryam and Sameer, brother and sister, were searching for an apartment in Hitech City, Hyderabad. Recent college graduates who were now starting jobs with high-profile technology firms, they wanted to lease an apartment together. The case details their challenge in negotiating with a potential landlord amid cultural and religious concerns. Maryam must address the landlord's biases and concerns through a careful negotiation involving compromise, building personal relationships and re-setting expectations.
Many people early in their careers find self-advocacy awkward or may even perceive it as impossible. They don't know what is reasonable for them to request or propose, they are unsure how to go about it, who their negotiating counterparts should be, or what they care about. Often for good reason, they hold back out of fear that speaking up will undermine important relationships. However, there are meaningful downsides to letting opportunities to self-advocate pass, even if only to learn more about what is possible. Negotiation attempts can backfire, but there are ways to prepare strategically to reduce that risk. This note was crafted to help people in early career or junior positions to analyze potential negotiation opportunities and to prepare for those opportunities in ways that make a clear case that what they are proposing makes good sense for others, as well as for themselves.
Angel Torres is a college sophomore placed in their first summer internship. While Angel hoped the Internship might lead to a full-time job after graduation, the work, so far, was basic and did not provide Angel an opportunity to show their full abilities. Angel had an idea of how to improve the user interface of the company's primary app but found it difficult to propose the idea. Angel had other concerns-around pay, specifically-but was concerned about raising them at home. Angel's Mom wanted Angel to help with a family chore but doing so might jeopardize the internship. What could Angel do? In the sequel, Angel reaches out to a number of colleagues and friends to collect additional information to help inform their negotiation choices.
Angel Torres is a college sophomore placed in their first summer internship. While Angel hoped the Internship might lead to a full-time job after graduation, the work, so far, was basic and did not provide Angel an opportunity to show their full abilities. Angel had an idea of how to improve the user interface of the company's primary app but found it difficult to propose the idea. Angel had other concerns-around pay, specifically-but was concerned about raising them at home. Angel's Mom wanted Angel to help with a family chore but doing so might jeopardize the internship. What could Angel do? In the sequel, Angel reaches out to a number of colleagues and friends to collect additional information to help inform their negotiation choices.
When you're seeking to advance your career--by joining a different company or moving into a new role with your current employer--it's important to think strategically about not just what you want but how to get it. In this article the authors draw on their work coaching executives and their cross-cultural research to propose four steps that can help you prepare to negotiate. First, think broadly about your long-term career goals instead of focusing narrowly on the offer at hand or the question of pay and benefits. Second, be mindful of what type of opportunity you're asking for--something standard, an unusual arrangement for yourself, or a chance to take your organization in a new direction--and tailor your arguments accordingly. Third, arm yourself with the necessary information to reduce ambiguity about what's possible and with whom to negotiate. Fourth, connect with people who can be helpful in making your case, and approach negotiations as an opportunity to enhance your working relationships. If you follow these steps and set career targets that are specific and realistic, you're more likely to chart a path to success.
In 2019, Nadine Vogel, founder and CEO of Springboard Consulting, a firm that worked with Fortune 500 companies on issues related to disability and their workforce, faced the decision of the best path forward to grow her small company. Should she build more and better expertise to expand the topics she worked on with her current clientele? Or should she explore the possibility of moving into the new market of smaller businesses?
Democratic institutions and other important decision-making processes in society have long been designed around the assumption that groups are better at making important decisions than are individuals. But, there is extensive research indicating that group decision making often falls short of its ideal-even when the stakes are high and consequences of the group's actions are substantial. This briefing note introduces three key biases that impede effective decision making in groups, and seven research-based strategies for mitigating biases in group decision making. Strategies discussed have been demonstrated to enhance the quality of decision making and avoid common pitfalls when making decisions in groups.
Even as a teenager, Nadine Vogel knew she wanted to be an executive with a FORTUNE 500 company. This case chronicles her journey and her life and career choices, from college through her midlife decision to leave the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, where she had spearheaded the launch of a new division aimed at serving parents of children with disabilities. Vogel's leadership and career negotiating skills are exemplified, as she navigates through a myriad of personal and professional obstacles.
This 9-page version of Seizing the Moment primarily differs from the original in omitting a 4-page section that describes the early, confusing stages of Myanmar's democratization process. This leadership case is set in the spring of 2016 and gives students the chance to grapple with the difficult challenges confronting Myanmar's opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, after a rapid turn of fortune took her, over a period of six years, from longtime prisoner of conscience to civilian head of state in Myanmar. The case describes the nature of Suu KyI's political role in Myanmar during her many years of house arrest and then shows how that role shifted in the years following her release. With freedom and an increase in formal power came new dilemmas, for example, whether to take an oath to a problematic Constitution, how to manage her star power vis-Ã -vis Myanmar President Thein Sein, and how to address intercommunal violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, an unpopular ethnic minority in Rakhine state. (See HKS case Fallen Idol? Aung San Suu Kyi & the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis (2139.0) for a more detailed treatment of this last issue, which devolved into a desperate humanitarian catastrophe in August and September of 2017. Another two-part HKS case, Icon of Hope A/B (1685.0, 1686.0), focuses on Suu Kyi's early adult life and transformation from an expatriate living a quiet life in Oxford, England to an opposition leader and icon for democracy and human rights.)
This note provides an overview of the elements of marketing strategy, and explains how they can be applied in the public and not-for-profit sectors. Elements necessary for a successful marketing strategy (segmentation, pricing (including price discrimination), product design, place/distribution, and promotion) are examined, and then applied to public sector examples, such as: NYC's Municipal Identification Card program, a hypothetical needle exchange program, and mass transit systems. This note concludes with practical advice for implementing a marketing strategy.
In the American canon of anti-poverty programs, Moving to Opportunity (MTO)-a housing experiment conducted in the 1990s-stood out for its ambitious yet simple design. Under the experiment, more than 4,600 extremely poor families were randomly assigned to receive housing vouchers in five major American cities. Just like in clinical trials, MTO gave social scientists the opportunity to untangle the effect of place on poverty, and to learn if a better neighborhood could directly improve the lives of the poor. In 2003, a mid-term evaluation of MTO revealed a controversial and surprising outcome. After being placed in neighborhoods with low poverty, teen girls appeared to benefit far more from their new surroundings than teen boys. The rigorous empirical analysis of the MTO experiment had identified important differences by gender, but could not explain the social processes or experiences that led to those differences. A different research methodology would need to examine what the quantitative data could not. This case profiles the qualitative research conducted by Harvard sociologist Kathryn Edin and others on MTO teens. With the help in-depth interviews the researchers offer a deeper understanding of the daily experiences and behavioral patterns that shaped the divergent outcomes between MTO male and female adolescents. Case Number 2007.0
Set in the fall of 2012, this leadership case gives students the chance to grapple with the difficult challenges confronting Myanmar's opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, after a rapid turn of fortune that took her, over a period of 14 months, from longtime prisoner of conscience to opposition leader in Parliament, openly discussed as the possible future president of Myanmar. The case describes Suu Kyi's political role in Myanmar during her many years of house arrest and in the two years following her release.
This case (1834.0 and related epilogue 1834.1 and abridged case 1834.3) tells the story of Major General David Petraeus and the US Army's 101st Airborne Division in the months following the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the fall of Baghdad, and collapse of Saddam Hussein's government. Having completed their combat mission, and with just a few days notice, the 101st is ordered to Mosul, Iraq's third largest city and the capital of Nineveh province. Their orders were spare - get up to Mosul and Nineveh Province and get things under control. The case details the development and implementation of the 101st strategy to bring stability to Mosul and the surrounding area and provides insight into General David Petraeus and his approach to leadership. While set in a military organization in wartime, the case is not about military operations. Petraeus and his division, with little notice or preparation, undertake traditionally civilian tasks associated with reconstruction and governance. HKS Case Number 1834.3
This case (1834.0 and related epilogue 1834.1 and abridged case 1834.3) tells the story of Major General David Petraeus and the US Army's 101st Airborne Division in the months following the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the fall of Baghdad, and collapse of Saddam Hussein's government. Having completed their combat mission, and with just a few days notice, the 101st is ordered to Mosul, Iraq's third largest city and the capital of Nineveh province. Their orders were spare - get up to Mosul and Nineveh Province and get things under control. The case details the development and implementation of the 101st strategy to bring stability to Mosul and the surrounding area and provides insight into General David Petraeus and his approach to leadership. While set in a military organization in wartime, the case is not about military operations. Petraeus and his division, with little notice or preparation, undertake traditionally civilian tasks associated with reconstruction and governance. HKS Case Number 1834.0
Presents a three-way version of the RetailMax simulation requiring students to enact an internal salary negotiation, taking on the roles of Cam Archer, a star employee, and Regan Kessel, a VP trying to attract the MBA into his department. However, RetailSoft introduces a third party, Sydney Masser, to illustrate the effects of negotiating for self vs. others. A rewritten version of an earlier exercise.