Negotiation is a vital skill for any executive, but it’s one that can always be refined. According to Prof. Mary-Hunter (Mae) McDonnell, who teaches Negotiations in Wharton’s MBA Program for Executives (EMBA), it’s never too late to learn negotiation skills and strategies.
“We all have experience coming to agreements, but sometimes we pick up bad habits when we negotiate without training,” McDonnell explains. “My course helps identify these habits, allowing students to break away from outdated assumptions and learn practical strategies that yield better outcomes.”
A unique aspect of her course is its experiential approach. Each class uses a scorable case study, allowing students to test their skills in real-time and analyze their performance.
“In the real world, you may never know if you’re negotiating well,” McDonnell notes. “But in the classroom, you get immediate feedback backed by data. Many students walk in thinking they’re poor negotiators, but they leave the class with newfound confidence—and often, a recognition of strengths they hadn’t realized.”
She notes that sometimes, as executives move up the leadership chain, they become worse negotiators. “They start expecting people to do what they say instead of working to find optimal solutions. This class is a great opportunity to ensure you are using strategies to maximize deal value for all parties.”
One of McDonnell’s favorite aspects of teaching the course is hearing about how students apply their lessons in real-world situations. “Each week, students bring ‘war stories’ from their jobs, discussing how their strategies worked or didn’t work. One student recently shared how he used learnings from class to negotiate a lateral move and doubled the value of the offer package.”
In addition to Negotiations and Corporate Governance electives, McDonnell leads a Global Business Week (GBW) course. The one-week immersive GBW courses are an opportunity for students to learn about business in another part of the world from both an academic perspective and from practitioners in the field. GBWs are also an excellent way for EMBA students to deepen networks, as students across the three cohorts spend the week together.
For the last few years, McDonnell has taught a GBW in Australia on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. The highlight of that course, she says, was visiting a major vineyard to learn about the impact of climate change on the wine industry.
This year, McDonnell’s GBW will take students to Milan, Italy, where they’ll delve into the luxury industry and explore how major fashion houses are integrating sustainability into their business models.
“In the GBWs, I try to give students a structure for how we think about the issues in academia and highlight the big questions we grapple with, and then we see how those questions square with perspectives of alumni working in the field in that area. It’s a wonderful learning opportunity,” she says.
While McDonnell has taught at Wharton for the past decade, she began her academic career as a law school professor at Northwestern University Law School. When she realized that the questions she was most interested in answering were business questions, she pivoted to teaching business at Georgetown University and then joined Wharton.
“I came to Wharton because it’s the best business school in the world with unmatched opportunities and amazing students,” she says.