Collaborative Hardball: Susan Coleman on Bringing Women’s Power into Negotiation

Two days after the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, with the country’s politics still deeply divided, the question of how people engage across difference felt especially pressing. That backdrop set the stage for the Nov. 5 Roundtable Breakfast, “Collaborative Hardball: Bringing Women’s Power and the Feminine into Negotiation,” co-sponsored by the Association for Conflict Resolution of Greater New York (ACR-GNY) and the CUNY Dispute Resolution Center at John Jay College. The online session drew an international audience of mediators, lawyers, and conflict resolution professionals.

Niki Borofsky, a convener of the Roundtable Breakfasts and founder of Nikisky Consulting in Paris and New York, opened the program. Borofsky, an international attorney who previously served as CPR’s vice president of membership and later as a senior global practice manager at JAMS, introduced the featured speaker, acknowledging divisions in the U.S. government and in politics generally, and expressed hope that the negotiating techniques to be discussed could open up powerful conversation, negotiation, and engagement.

* * *

The featured speaker, Susan Coleman, is a negotiator and mediator based in Garrison, New York, with more than 35 years of experience in settings ranging from war zones to boardrooms. She began her career as a New York City litigator before earning a master’s degree at Harvard Kennedy School. There she was introduced to Getting to Yes, the 1981 bestseller by Roger Fisher and William Ury that popularized interest-based negotiation, and the experience redirected her career. She has since worked with the United Nations, NASA, Columbia University, and senior women leaders in the government of Afghanistan. Her 2026 book, Collaborative Hardball: Using the Power of a New Negotiation as Women to Change the World, formed the basis for the session.

Coleman began from the premise that the negotiating table is rarely level. Negotiation, she said, happens not only between two intellects, but “between two nervous systems, two bodies, two histories, and often two very different experiences of power.” She argued that gender is the oldest of humanity’s hierarchies, the foundation on which many others are built, and that traditional negotiation models too often overlook it.

Because negotiation is where power plays out in everyday interactions, she framed it as one of the places where patriarchy can be dismantled, one conversation at a time.

* * *

At the heart of Coleman’s approach are three qualities: being firm, fierce, and fair. Firmness means standing on solid ground; fierceness means bringing real energy to what matters, which Coleman distinguished from aggression; and fairness means making room for the other person’s humanity without abandoning one’s own. As she put it, “Negotiation is your brand under pressure.”

Coleman treated these qualities as something felt in the body, not just understood in the mind, and she guided participants through short exercises to experience each one. She also asked the audience to reflect on how gendered expectations shape their instincts in conflict.

Women, she noted, are often expected to be warm and accommodating and may be penalized for asserting themselves, while men may have learned that vulnerability or backing down is unacceptable. Recognizing those patterns, she suggested, is the first step toward choosing a response rather than defaulting to one. A clear boundary, she added, need not end a negotiation; it can create the conditions for genuine collaboration.

* * *

Coleman then turned to the role of the mediator. She presented a case in which a woman and her senior male manager come to mediation after the employee reports being repeatedly interrupted and excluded from decisions.

Coleman asked participants whose discomfort they felt most motivated to relieve. Her point was that neutrality does not mean pretending the parties hold equal power. Giving each side equal airtime helps, she said, “but a fairer speaking process doesn’t by itself resolve unequal power.”

In her own practice, she often works as a coach within the mediation, helping the less powerful party find her voice while encouraging the more powerful party to see the situation from her side.

* * *

Looking at the bigger picture, Coleman emphasized that “every time we negotiate, it’s a cultural act.” She acknowledged that thousands of years of patriarchy have shaped how people engage, but she said she remained hopeful, noting that despite the divisions on display that week, “We have a lot more in common than we have difference.” Change, in her view, begins with how each of us shows up at the table.

* * *

Coleman’s message to the audience was ultimately simple: We do not have to choose between holding our power and keeping our connections, and the most effective negotiators, of any gender, refuse to make that trade.

* * *

The Roundtable Breakfasts take place on the first Thursday of each month, online via Zoom, and are free and open to anyone interested in conflict resolution. Sessions are listed on ACR-GNY’s website, and recordings of past programs are available on its Roundtable video page. A video of the full Nov. 5 program is posted on YouTube at https://bit.ly/4z6iwdH.

* * *

The author, a third-year law student at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, is a CPR Institute fall intern.

[END]