Patton, Dr Bruce

Biography

"Bruce Patton is Co-Founder and Distinguished Fellow of the Harvard Negotiation Project, which he founded with Professor Roger Fisher and William Ury in 1979 to improve the theory and practice of negotiation and conflict management, and where he served as Deputy Director until 2012. He is also co-founder of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, an inter-university research consortium. With Fisher, Patton pioneered the teaching of negotiation at Harvard Law School, where he was Thaddeus R. Beal Lecturer on Law for fifteen years, teaching students, business executives, and diplomats from around the world. He continues to teach the Negotiation Workshop and Advanced Negotiation Workshop in the Harvard Negotiation Institute, the Program on Negotiation for Senior Executives, and occasional courses for law students. In 1984 Patton, Fisher, and three HNP alumni founded Conflict Management, Inc., a negotiation consulting and training firm, and Conflict Management Group (now part of Mercy Corps), a not-for-profit entity that works on conflicts of public concern. In 1997, Patton and four CMI/HNP colleagues founded Vantage Partners, llc, a global consulting firm that helps companies drive business results by improving how they negotiate and manage their most critical relationships. Vantage is a leader in helping organizations build cutting-edge capability in managing complex relationships, such as strategic alliances, sourcing and supplier relationships, and key customers. Patton’s corporate clients include many of the world’s best-known corporations, in industries ranging from high tech to energy, financial services, health care, and entertainment. His work today focuses on large-scale organizational transformation when there is a fundamental strategic need to work together differently and more collaboratively both internally and externally."   "Bruce Patton is Co-Founder and Distinguished Fellow of the Harvard Negotiation Project, which he founded with Professor Roger Fisher and William Ury in 1979 to improve the theory and practice of negotiation and conflict management, and where he served as Deputy Director until 2012. He is also co-founder of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, an inter-university research consortium. With Fisher, Patton pioneered the teaching of negotiation at Harvard Law School, where he was Thaddeus R. Beal Lecturer on Law for fifteen years, teaching students, business executives, and diplomats from around the world. He continues to teach the Negotiation Workshop and Advanced Negotiation Workshop in the Harvard Negotiation Institute, the Program on Negotiation for Senior Executives, and occasional courses for law students. In 1984 Patton, Fisher, and three HNP alumni founded Conflict Management, Inc., a negotiation consulting and training firm, and Conflict Management Group (now part of Mercy Corps), a not-for-profit entity that works on conflicts of public concern. In 1997, Patton and four CMI/HNP colleagues founded Vantage Partners, llc, a global consulting firm that helps companies drive business results by improving how they negotiate and manage their most critical relationships. Vantage is a leader in helping organizations build cutting-edge capability in managing complex relationships, such as strategic alliances, sourcing and supplier relationships, and key customers. Patton’s corporate clients include many of the world’s best-known corporations, in industries ranging from high tech to energy, financial services, health care, and entertainment. His work today focuses on large-scale organizational transformation when there is a fundamental strategic need to work together differently and more collaboratively both internally and externally."  

Research Interest

"Enabling the Boston Public Schools and the Boston Teachers Union to negotiate several precedent-setting educational reform contracts; In 1980, helping to mediate the U.S.-Iranian hostage conflict at the behest of both governments and creating the framework of principles that governed the ultimate resolution; In Central America, working with President Oscar Arias to shape the Esquipulas II self-implementing peace agreement (Arias Peace Plan) for which Arias won the Nobel Prize; In 1990-92, training the white Afrikaaner Cabinet, the African National Congress Negotiating Committee, and other political groups, as well as the mediation team drawn from the business community, and suggesting the multiparty process used in the constitutional talks that led to the end of apartheid in South Africa; Today helping bring together future Palestinian and Israeli leaders to build relationships and learn about effective negotiation process as part of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian Negotiating Partners initiative"