Lawrence Susskind
Larry Susskind has been a Professor at MIT for more than 35 years. He works regularly with corporate clients to help them improve their negotiations by implementing the Mutual Gains Approach. He teaches negotiation as well as a number of other advanced subjects and runs a substantial research program as Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program. He has supervised more than 60 doctoral students who now work around the world in academia, government and the private sector. He is one of the founders and directors of the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School where he is Vice-Chair, Education. Professor Susskind created the Consensus Building Institute in 1993 and has been delivering tailored learning and organizational development solutions on a worldwide basis ever since. Through the executive training programs at PON he has offered specialized negotiation training (i.e., Technology Negotiation, Dealing with an Angry Public, Teaching Negotiation in the Corporation) to more than 40,000 people.
Recent clients include: Hewlett-Packard, Biogen-Idec, CSX Transportation, Procter & Gamble, Reed-Elsevier, Canadian Medical Association, National Association of Pediatric Hospitals, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Eastman-Kodak, University of Michigan Health System, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech, State Street Bank, Manitoba Hydro, J. W. Homes, Brown-Forman, NPD Group, Stop & Shop, Seimens, AstraZeneca and WPP. He has published more than 70 teaching simulations, a dozen teaching videos and DVDs and is a columnist for Negotiation Newsletter published at Harvard. He has been a visiting lecturer at more than 50 universities in 20 countries.
Professor Susskind is part of mediating teams operating in four countries. He has served as a mediator in more than 50 complex disputes as well as a Special Master appointed by the Superior Court of New Jersey. He is a member of the mediation panels of the National Association of Trial Court Mediators, The International Institute for Conflict Resolution and Prevention, and the American Arbitration Association (Commercial Section).
He is the author or co-author of 20 books including, Breaking Robert’s Rules: The New Way to Run Your Meeting, Build Consensus and Get Results (Oxford University Press) as well as Built to Win: Creating a World-Class Negotiating Organization (Harvard Business Press), and Multiparty Negotiation (Sage 2008). Professor Susskind has won a number of prizes and awards including a Pioneer Award from the Association for Conflict Resolution, the 2005 Distinguished Educator Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, the Global Environment Award given by the International Association for Impact Assessment, and, in 2011, the first ever Peacemaker Award from Mediators Beyond Borders. Two of his books, The Consensus Building Handbook (Sage) and Dealing with An Angry Public (Free Press), won best dispute resolution book of the year awards in 1995 and 1999.
He received a BA from Columbia University in English Literature in 1968, a Master of City Planning from MIT in 1970 and a Ph.D in Urban and Regional Planning from MIT in 1973.
Lawrence Susskind is Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has served on the faculty for 35 years and currently directs the Graduate Program in Environmental Policy and Planning. He is also Vice-Chair for Instruction at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, which he helped found in 1982, and where he heads the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, and teaches advanced negotiation courses. In 1993, Professor Susskind created the Consensus Building Institute.
Past work includes leading CBI’s efforts to mediate Bedouin land claims in the southern desert of Israel. He has been involved in a wide range of initiatives to address the land claims of First Nations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
In one of Professor Susskind’s most recent books, Breaking Robert’s Rules: The New Way to Run Your Meeting, Build Consensus and Get Results (Oxford University Press), synthesizes what he has learned about consensus building techniques and strategies that work most effectively in the public arena. He is author of 15 other books including Built to Win: Creating a World-Class Negotiating Organization (Harvard Business Press), Multiparty Negotiation (Sage 2008) Environmental Diplomacy (Oxford, 1995), Negotiating Environmental Agreements (Island Press, 1999), Dealing With An Angry Public (Free Press, 1994), and the award-winning Consensus Building Handbook (Sage, 1999).
Professor Susskind has mediated more than 50 disputes, including land use conflicts, facility siting controversies, public policy disagreements, and confrontations over water. He has served as a court-appointed special master and helped facilitate negotiations on arrangements of global environmental treaties. He offers a range of executive training programs each year and has served as guest lecturer at more than two-dozen universities around the world.
Related Links
MIT Environmental Policy and Planning
MIT-USGS Science Impact Collaborative
MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program