Rebuilding the World Trade Center Site

This video shows a group of legal, business, and dispute resolution professionals negotiating the six-person, facilitated role simulation entitled World Trade Center Redevelopment Negotiation (also available from the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center) regarding the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site in New York City, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Professor Lawrence Susskind of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) introduces and debriefs the exercise, and F. Peter Phillips of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) provides additional commentary. The setting is the January 2007 CPR Annual Meeting in New York City, attended by a number of experienced attorneys, mediators, and judges.

 

The video includes three primary sections:

(1) An introduction (Chapter 1: approximately 14 minutes), in which Professor Susskind discusses the purposes of the exercise (primarily, to highlight the challenges associated with multi-party, multi-issue negotiations in the public arena), provides summary background information about the terrorist attacks on the World trade Center on September 11, 2001, describes the six roles and four issues to be negotiated in the World Trade Center Redevelopment Negotiation exercise, offers some preliminary observations about the dynamics of complex multiparty negotiation, and provides instructions for participating in the exercise.

(2) A demonstration of one group of six CPR Annual Meeting attendees negotiating the World trade Center Redevelopment Negotiation exercise for the first time (Chapters 2 – 9; approximately 39 minutes). This negotiation is unscripted and unrehearsed. It has been edited for time, but every effort has been made to preserve the overall flow of the actual negotiation. This segment is particularly interesting because it frequently depicts simultaneous interactions, sometimes by using a split screen to show multiple participants in the same meeting, and sometimes by sequentially showing meetings of sub-groups of participants that actually occurred simultaneously.

A debriefing of the exercise, led by Professor Susskind, and a summary of the primary lessons (Chapters 10-11; approximately 14 minutes).

 

The video may be used for a number of purposes:

(1) For teachers or trainers interested in using the underlying role simulation exercise (World Trade Center Redevelopment Negotiation) in their classes, the entire video can be used for self-study, as it demonstrates an effective approach to running and debriefing the exercise. The World Trade Center Redevelopment Negotiation exercise is available from the Program on Negotiation's Teaching Negotiation Resource Center at www.pon.org.

(2) For teachers or trainers who use the World Trade Center Redevelopment Negotiation exercise in their classes, the portion of the video showing one group negotiating the exercise (Chapters 2-9; approximately 39 minutes) can be used for purposes of comparison with the students' own negotiation experiences.

(3) For teachers and trainers of mediation, facilitation, public disputes, and/or multiparty negotiation dynamics (such as process management, coalition building, and caucusing), either the entire video or the portion of the DVD showing one group negotiating the exercise (Chapters 2-9; approximately 39 minutes), can be used for demonstration and discussion purposes.

(4) For mediators, facilitators, urban planners, attorneys, executives who engage in complex negotiations, and/or anyone else interested in learning more about mediation, facilitation, public disputes, and/or multiparty negotiation dynamics (such as process management, coalition building, and caucusing), the entire DVD can be used for self-study purposes.

Rebuilding the World Trade Center Site Attributes

Time required:	Unspecified
Teaching notes available:	No
Produced by:
Run Time:	71 Minutes