Managing the Negotiation Process: BMGT43930
Facilitator: Mr. Stephen Boyle
“Reflective Journals”
Submitted by: Shivangi Bhartiya
Student Number: 17202150
MSc Strategic Management Accounting 2017/18
Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business
August 2018
Table of Contents
Journal 1: Personal Reflection 4
Journal 2: Reflections on “Salary Negotiation” role-play 7
Journal 3: Reflections on “BioPharm-Seltek” role-play 7
Journal 4: Reflections on “The Player” role-play 8
Journal 5: Reflections on “Viking Investments” role-play 12
Journal 6: Reflections on “Bullard Houses” role-play 13
Journal 7: Reflections on “Computron Pharmaceuticals” role-play 14
Journal 8: Reflections on “Alpha Beta” role-play 15
Journal 9: Reflections on “Research Consortium: role-play 16
Journal 10: Personal review 16
Bibliography 17
Methodological note:
The following journals are based on the framework and concepts provided by Thompson (2015) book and class presentations. Accordingly, an explicit source citation is only made in case a specific and unique thought was taken from the given source.
Journal 1: Personal Reflection
• When do you negotiate and what do you negotiate about?
Whereas most of us are not involved in billion-dollar deals every day, one thing that business scholars and businesspeople are in complete agreement on is that everyone negotiates nearly every day (Thompson, 2015). Negotiations are part of our daily life, as a child, friend, student or employee I have negotiated values, skills, decisions or actions consciously or unconsciously with the externals. Herb Cohen, author of You Can Negotiate Anything, dramatically suggests that “your world is a giant negotiation table.” I agree with the aforesaid, we negotiate and learn from experiences throughout our lives. We build upon those experiences in order to achieve better deals in our lives. It won’t be wrong to say that we require skills, good negotiation skills to tackle the deals whatsoever. Some people are good at convincing, for instance, sales people, they know how to manipulate poor ideas into exciting ones. Another example could be politicians who juggle the world on a daily basis. We tend to like Trump’s style over Putin’s style or maybe Obama’s style over any other politician. Certainly, it depends on who has the skills to drive your expectations. Having said that, I believe that the world is running on negotiations in context to any system, from oil industry to political systems, education system to administrative forces and on a personal level from rent negotiations to buying articles.
I have negotiated a lot over my preferences with my parents and vice versa. In my higher secondary, I got into an unconscious agreement with my parents that if I achieve first class division then there is a cost to them. I was promised a smartphone in return, which I did enjoy later. Also, in friendship or relationships compromise is a common say. The compromises can be either a win-win or win-lose but never a lose-lose situation I believe. The dilemmas of trust and honesty in relationships can force us into unwanted negotiations which can lead to good or bad situations. Also, I was in a recent negotiation with my parents when I chose to study abroad i.e. coming to Ireland for my masters. I had to convince the lords! to make them believe that I can manage myself solely and be self-sufficient. It was a tough negotiation personally, but in return my parents just wanted me to be happy so I still hold myself together all the time.
I believe with time, the context and complexity of negotiations have evolved testing capabilities directly or indirectly. During my professional experience at a financial services firm, the negotiations were more dynamic. Negotiating with the manager for salary, job responsibilities, breaks from work, or even as small as work from home requests was a challenge and learning. Negotiation has become a core management competency at all levels of business (Thompson, 2015). With globalisation, digitisation and dynamics in technology, and several other externals, the need for negotiation skills has become increasingly important for managers. The effective management of cross-cultural boundaries has become imperative. It is a challenge to develop negotiation skills generalised enough for use across different cultural groups. My personal experience throughout the masters until today has been a cross-cultural challenge. Negotiating deadlines, project structures, contributions, meeting schedules etc., has been difficult to manage at some stages. For instance, working with a German who is very particular about time or working with an Irish who is bossy at times. I think with the learnings from the negotiation module I will be able to specialise the meaningful behavioural strategies to tackle situation so on and so forth.
• What do you view as your strengths and weaknesses as a negotiator?
Thompson (2015) gave an interesting insight into myths that hamper people’s ability to learn effective negotiation skills and, in some cases, reinforce poor negotiation skills. He has emphasised the fact that everybody can become a successful negotiator by application of theory into practice. He mentioned that most excellent negotiators are self-made and that naturally gifted negotiators are rare. This fact supports the expectation that during the course I will be learning and honing my negotiation skills to an advantage. The learnings from the books prescribed and the interactive lectures coming the following weeks should be a learning curve for life. Past experience(s) may have given a clue of how negotiation works in a non-structured manner but the real tactics can only be learned from books. The effective negotiation requires practice and feedback (Thompson, 2015). The main argument supporting my weaknesses is the absence of opportunity to develop effective negotiation skills in a disciplined fashion (Fisher, 2003); rather, most of us learn by doing. The whole experience drive has been helpful for me to understand the significance of negotiation but not sufficient. In fact, experience with the absence of feedback is largely ineffective in civilising negotiation skills.
Negotiation skills are increasingly important for everybody operating in any sort of monetary or non-monetary deals. There are ample of factors that help to create an effective negotiator. A refined understanding of what do I want and why do I want it, can help in reaching more desirable solutions. The better we understand our interests and the other parties interest, higher is the chance of a collaborative win. A negotiator's relative strength depends on how satisfied the other party feels after a negotiation. If the others leave a negotiation with you thinking they never want to see you again, then there is a major issue with your style/ character. I think that the whole activity is attributed to people skills, time management and prioritising of wants. Having said that, I have certain strengths and weaknesses based on the reading of chapter 1 of the book.
STRENGTHS:
1. I’m an emotionally stable person which makes me sceptical of aggressive fights over getting the desires.
2. I have the full ability to hold on my words (communication skills) I say to get the work done from the other person.
3. I’m not egoistic about my experiences and learnings may be because I’m young enough to feel over-confidence about my knowledge base which leaves the egocentrism factor off the list.
4. I’m a good listener which gives me a good understanding of what the other person is expecting out of me.
5. I have a defined thinking which gives various perspectives to a given situation.
WEAKNESSES:
1. Though I have a defined thinking, the fundamental bias: confirmation bias generally stands in my negotiations. I generally prefer to see what I want to see and understand out of what others put on the tables.
2. I find it difficult to negotiate with strong women because they are too harsh on words or facts which pressurises my stability. I feel uncomfortable and intimidated by such kinds.
3. The satisficing behaviour, the tendency to settle for less at times during negotiations which involve emotions or family/friends. Sometimes I lose out on decisions in order to save my relationships.
4. I’m a good communicator and could get the work done by the other side but I may leave them unsatisfied unknowingly because of confirmation bias.
In whole, I feel there is a need for me develop competency into the self-reinforcement through this module to translate my weaknesses into strengths.
Journal 2: Reflections on “Salary Negotiation” role-play
• Was your preparation sufficient? Explain why or why not.
This is the first negotiation of the module and we were excited as a team. As we are management students, so preparation was likely to be done beforehand. We read the chapters prescribed for the negotiation to be undertaken in order to prepare for the negotiation. Individually, we assessed our priorities (self-assessment: What do I want and What are my alternatives), best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA) which was there in the case, determined the reservation point and the target point to further formulate a ZOPA. We also worked individually to find out issues if any in the negotiation as unbundling of issues is crucial to reaching a satisfied and integrative agreement. This is a salary negotiation and dismantling relationship with a potential employee may carry reputation damage, higher attrition and poor performance of the employee.
• Which of your negotiation tactics and strategies worked well, which did not work, and why?
• What are the key learning points of this exercise?
Journal 3: Reflections on “BioPharm-Seltek” role-play
• Which of your negotiation tactics and strategies worked well, which did not work, and why?
• What was the impact of your target, your BATNA, and each side’s first offer on the negotiation?
• What was the pattern of concessions in the negotiation? Did it favour either side more than the other, and if so, why?
• What are the key learning points of this exercise?
The twin dilemmas played a key role in barring the negotiation.
Journal 4: Reflections on “The Player” role-play
• What strategies and tactics did you use to maximise your points? Were they effective, and why (or why not)?
We followed the strategy to prioritise the facts and create the packages which helped us to deal with the effectiveness of our negotiation. Below is a sample of the priorities:
As learned from lecture 3, the targets were ambitiously set to reasonable subjectivity which bring
The methods from our side damaged relationships with the other team members but I think that one of the member of the other team was very comprisable which led to generate a imbalanced trade-off later.
Stayed, firm and but imbalanced later.
Aggressive
Strategies :
I. BATNA
II.
• How well did you manage the process of information sharing, and how would you improve that process if you were to undertake a similar negotiation again?
Shared information when required to negotiate on the royalty and also agreed on some facts without any doubts based on the rights of the director.
We did a more compromised rather than a collaborative arrangement at the later stage when few facts moved in our favour. I think the other team was more open to negotiations rather than ours – but we turned out to
I would like to improve the combative process we followed in similar negotiations. It was surprising to know that we could make 20K points but we reached to —-% due to the process we followed and leaving the other party unsatisfied too ! I think as a future negotiator my expectation and process will be more positive and collaborative to get the work done! And never say no until there is a need to do so. The positive attitude in consensus can help to buy in better deals based on emotional intelligence and co-operative behaviour. The deal should sound more of a YES rather than a NO for everything.
Compromise leads to some negative attitude and behavioural displacement in other parties attitude. It might be done under pressure due to the combative process followed by us – later flowing as a loss!
• What are the key learning points of this exercise?
Integrative bargaining requires both parties to share the pie is the key learning. We need to be less stubborn when we are running into an imbalance. I think we shook hand with risk to our business with our poor people management skill. I also believe that being unethical and unreasonable on targets can lead to major effects on repetitive negotiations. The producer and the director both are the market leaders, they might need to fall into the same frame in the future again. In context to that, it is imperative to create a trade-off in such deals to keep the relationship healthier in the longer run. I think we were too aggressive and were not fully moving on numbers.
The value creation was good from one-side and the process was amicable which led to number of compromises between the teams. The trade-off was created by the other team and we posed a lot of aggression.
20,000 = 10k+10k
The most optimal mix is where both the parties agree and appreciate in a collaborative process rather than compromised.
Separate the role of decision maker from the role of negotiator. The negotiators should take recesses in order to assess their decisions in breaks! That helps them to take better decisions with optimised targets being achieved.
A more competitive approach leads to lower value creation for parties involved. I think that is the main learning point from the setting offered today by us. We need to be more collaborative rather than not moving as this can leave us in jeopardy.
The potentials of trade-off can be highly lucrative!
Expand the pie and claim as much as you can. It is important to uncover the possibilities of potential of the deal in order to keep both the sides satisfied! It is risky to leave the party unsatisfied and fall into a blind spot. It is dangerous. The balance is to be struck to be an efficient negotiator!
Relevancy of a deal is important to take into consideration
The biggest reason of why you need to keep the other sides interest satisfied is that it will help you to satisfy your needs as well.
The issues should be managed in a priotised manner to make sure that value is not eroded!
Trust is the basis to build things upon at a later stage! Building trust gradually can help in getting a better deal for both the parties. We should have asked them their priorities and needs to give a more optimised solution. Try and build rapport, networking ! Adapt to cultural values!
Listening is the biggest tool to get an hint of who they are! Better to understand their character first and then react in the same tone.
Add value to create new ideas, options or issues to help us build upon them as well. This practice adds more subjectivity to the negotiation!
Uncover the priorities and then make linkages to create an ideal package. This creates a value for both the parties. Packages help in assessing our own values beforehand.
Tough negotiator – weakness is they love criticising and then listen to what they say ! You will know what they really want ! what are their biggest concerns, what can they buy in and what not.
It’s better to trade rather than imposing things on other parties!
Logrolling!
Collaborative approach !
Take recesses and review processes
Two-way information sharing is important
Flexibility is important !
Not able to create values through the combative process!
I would say I didn’t complied with the process followed by my team members. I have a more collaborative process in mind which aids the deals but doesn’t ethically suffice my character when the other members are just not ready to ADJUST !
Today’s case was a learning process for all of us I would say. We recovered from being too aggressive at a later stage which reflects our elasticity towards mutual adjustment.
IMPROVEMENT!!!!!!
Level 2 !!
Less haggling and more value creation
Resourceful optimisation of time is important
Amicable
Journal 5: Reflections on “Viking Investments” role-play
Sandy wood
• What were the key factors that made it difficult to reach an agreement?
Escalating the inte
Don’t reciprocate with power and don’t get personal !
No agreement or trust on the other team
The negotiation begun at a fair note with ample of information being shared in good faith but the emotional attachment to the house made us stubborn to sell the house for repayments.
The good faith turned out to be a backfire for us.
• Do you believe that the deal you reached (or the last proposals you exchanged, if a deal was not finalised) was an integrative one? Why?
No, it wasn’t an integrative deal.
• What are the key learning points of this exercise?
The learnings are quite interesting from the dispute resolution exercise. The team was again stubborn about the house to be sold which led to an uncollaborated process. We did not agree to any of the negotiations on the table which I felt is a wrong choice. I myself wanted to have a deal other way around.
Power – Go to Bankrupt may be
Rights – Verbal agreement is high, common law system.
Interests – Survive, our house, reputation, Avoid bankruptcy and keep crew together
Law – is a good point
Soft on the people and tough on the problem!
Alternative dispute resolution, mediation
Reveal your interests, level of information
Interest based negotiation should have been the ideal basis to reach a consensus.
Journal 6: Reflections on “Bullard Houses” role-play
• What do you believe would have constituted unethical behaviour for the party you played in the exercise? Did you or the other party overstep any ethical boundaries?
Yes, unethical
The deal was not the last resort
Strong BATNA
Reputation
Decisive
I didn’t say that I’m sure what they are going to do rather said this is what they may do!
Offered legacy to be firm
Offered a fair price
• If you played the Absentia role: What approach did you take to dealing with questions, and how effective was that approach?
• What are the key learning points of this exercise?
Don’t lie!!
Unethical
Ethical dilemma
You should really plan in advance what you should say for distinctive questions. You should plan ahead to be sure what you say and what not.
Journal 7: Reflections on “Computron Pharmaceuticals” role-play
• How effective were you at creating value and at claiming value? Why?
We confidently approached the situation with clarity over our expectations
• What effect did the parties’ perceptions of their relative power have on the outcome of your negotiation?
The other party stressed on the fact that we did not have professional work experience and have no hands on experience on Simulink.
Professional approach
• What are the key learning points of this exercise?
Tapering your concessions can help to create a situation where the other party might think that we are reaching our limits. This tactic was very well followed by the partner team, who agreed on an odd number finally post all other priorities in consideration. The employee needs to be efficient enough to negotiate both the monetary and non-monetary terms of the contract. This learning will help me to negotiate effectively in the next few months for getting the right value for work I’m good at.
The game is repetitive, therefore it is important to maintain the relationship on the negotiation table as you will need to negotiate in the future (promotions).
Focus on what you deserve
Don’t be overly ambitious because that will be risky as that will effect on you future promotions. You might not have that experience.
Have objective reasons for your increments
Journal 8: Reflections on “Alpha Beta” role-play
• What did the other team do that frustrated the negotiation?
Lack of interest
The behaviour of the other side was not very motivational.
Silence
Whispering
Calm and Cool
Indirect
Doesn’t share much information
• What did your team do that frustrated the negotiation?
Rushing the conversation
Impatient
Aggressive
Informally
Individualistic
• Did you correctly interpret the behaviour of the other side in the negotiation?
We were able to recognise the fact that the other team had a more naïve style of dealing with the negotiation but we weren’t able to see why they behaved such as.
• What are the key learning points of this exercise?
The cultural differences can make negotiations very difficult to handle.
Being direct and clear can anchor the negotiation. We shaped the negotiation efficiently.
Simultaneously putting offers on the table to gaze their reaction on the situation. That helps in reaping their expectations and priorities.
The iceberg model of culture
29 states, 22 languages (India)
Layers of the onion
Journal 9: Reflections on “Research Consortium: role-play
• What did the exercise teach you about the role of coalitions in multi-party negotiations?
• How did you use the time available to parties to meet each other? Was your use of this time effective, and why?
• How can one party influence the outcome of a multi-party negotiation?
• What are the key learning points of this exercise?
Journal 10: Personal review
• Reflecting on your first journal entry, what have you learned about your strengths and weaknesses as a negotiator?
To achieve and maintain effectiveness in the business world, people must have insight into their limitations (Thompson, 2015). Throughout the module, I have been enforced to reflect on my learnings, perspectives, negotiation styles, contributions, thinking etc., which has given me a defined understanding of my own character. I wanted to be a strong, effective and take on a win/win approach sort of negotiator who manages information, acts ethically and expands the pie. The incompetence in the self-reinforcement of character has been highly overcome by the application of theory to practice using role-plays. Especially the debriefing gave extra insights into the same negotiation from multiple perspectives. Everybody in the classroom has expanded my knowledge and learning horizon to overcome disparities.
In terms of strengths and weaknesses, I believe they have been highly-nurtured and explored. I have learned from the Bullard Houses role play how ethical information sharing can save reputation damages and once own character. From Biopharm-Seltek, I learned how healthy conflicts of interests and discussing one issue on the table can help in slicing the pie and reaching competitive bargaining. Making the first offer and having ambitious-realistic offers can give upper-hand in a negotiation process. In whole, it is optimal to have a defined-structure to follow and immense preparation required before any negotiation. The strengths and weakness such as below have been transformed and developed:
1. I’m a calm and composite personality which keeps me off any aggressive fights over getting the desires. This is, in turn, had made me an ideal person to talk to while negotiating within teams.
2. The strong communication skills with lower confirmation bias made me realise that I’m a good cop during negotiations.
3. Low at egocentrism makes the other party inclusive at all times. Supporting other parties’ weaknesses gave me the advantage to negotiate effectively.
4. Highly-developed the listening skills, which in turn lets me play with words during negotiations. Words are like the arrow out of the row!
5. The holistic thinking process by use of the concepts and theories from Thompson (2015), lectures, debriefs and peer interactions have widened my ability to think strategically.
6. The satisficing behaviour, the tendency to settle for less at times – has been overcome I believe. I believe it is important to keep your priorities over and above other human factors. As a leader in the future, settling for less would not be my thing.
7. Dealing with both women and men has been nurtured but somewhere or the other dealing with women is still a dilemma. I want to explore it even more in the near future during my professional life or personal.
8. During team-based negotiations, I tend to keep silent because of the tough negotiating style of the other two members. I think that was a learning too, I learned from those two women to capitalise on words to an extent. The tough-soft negotiation style always got us a good deal but few parties seemed to be left unsatisfied.
In terms of negotiation style, I identified that my negotiation style is a more cooperative approach along with a competitive style hidden in my profile. This has turned out to be an advantage wherein joint-welfare along with victory as a motive has leveraged team wins. Also, now I tend to follow an interests-based approach compared to an initial inclination to a rights-based approach when managing disputes. The interests-based approach has helped me expand the pie via addressing the parties’ underlying needs. This, in turn, has given me a greater understanding of issues, highly satisfied parties and also provided stability in agreement.
• What are the key behaviours that you personally need to implement to improve your negotiation skills?
Following the strengths and weaknesses, I personally will implement the negotiation preparation strategy(s), theories and negotiation foundations. I believe self-assessment, other parties assessment and situation assessment can be very helpful in understanding the priorities, cultural integrations, strategic fits, BATNA and other factors about all the parties involved in a negotiation. With the most important issues on the table and a strategic analysis of the situation, one can reach win-win solutions. Preparation and information sharing beforehand can attribute to a successful negotiation with utmost satisfaction. Leaders at all times make sure that sustainable long-term relationships are formed with strategic partners. In order to reach the leader’s mind set, it is imperative to implement the bits and bobs of integrative negotiation along with cross-cultural management. The understanding of different cultures, their expectations, codes of business ethics and other factors should be explored for MNE relationships globally.
Having said that, I believe the key behaviours of a cross-cultural negotiator with an integrative approach can be of distinct advantage in the long run. Also, the interests-based approach along with a more cooperative profile and less competitive will help to establish a leader who has a social identity and superordinate goals.
Bibliography
• Thompson, Leigh, The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, 6th edition, Prentice Hall, 2015.
• Raiffa, R., The Art and Science of Negotiation, Harvard University Press, 1982.
• Fisher, R., W Ury & B Patton, Getting to Yes, Business Books, 2003.
Tues 19 June
9.30 AM: Lecture 3: Competitive Bargaining
Reading: Thompson, Chapter 3
Role-Play Exercise 2: “BioPharm-Seltek”
PM Tasks: Prepare for “The Player” role-play;
Write up learning journal
Wed 20 June
9.30 AM: Lecture 4: Integrative Negotiation
Reading: Thompson, Chapter 4
Role-Play Exercise 3: “Atlas GlobalTel”
PM tasks: Prepare for “Viking Investments” role-play;
Write up learning journal
Thurs 21 June
9.30AM: Lecture 5: Dispute Resolution
Reading: Thompson, Chapter 5-6
Role-Play Exercise 4: “Viking Investments”
PM tasks: Prepare for “Bullard Houses” role-play;
Write up learning journal
Monday 25 June
9.30 AM: Lecture 6: Developing a Style and Building a Relationship
Reading: Thompson, Chapters 5-6
No role-play
2.00 PM: Lecture 7: Power, Persuasion and Ethics
Reading: Thompson, Chapter 7
Role-Play Exercise 5: “Bullard Houses”
PM Tasks: Prepare for “Computron Pharmaceuticals” role-play;
Tues 26 June
9.30 AM: Lecture 8: Negotiating Job Offers and Salary Reviews
Role-Play Exercise 6: “Computron Pharmaceuticals”
Reading: Thompson, Appendix 4
PM Tasks: Prepare for “Alpha Beta” role-play;
Write up learning journal
Wed 27 June
2.00 PM: Lecture 9: Cross-Cultural Negotiation
Reading: Thompson, Chapter 10
Role-Play Exercise 7: “Alpha Beta”
PM Tasks: Prepare for “Research Consortium” role-play;
Write up learning journal
Thurs 28 June
9.30 AM: Lecture 10: Multiparty, Multi-issue Negotiation
Reading: Thompson, Chapter 9
Role-Play Exercise 9: “The Research Consortium”.