3000 words
Essay (70%)
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How many words should my essay be?
The essay limit is 3,000 words. If you’re slightly under or over, it’s not a big deal. I care more about assessing the quality of your analysis than the number of words you used.
That being said, if you’re significantly under the word count and your analysis lacks detail, you will lose some marks.
2. How many references should I have?
Students have earned very high marks without referencing any outside material. The point of the essay is to show you’ve thought and reflected on your strengths and weaknesses and to analyse negotiations (in class or real life) using the concepts we learned in class.
If referencing some outside readings forces you to apply the concepts we learned, then this is great. However, I won’t be counting whether people have a certain number of references. Again, I’m more concerned with the quality of your analysis than how many citations you used.
3. Do I need to reference the slides from class?
No, you do not. However, if you are using a particular concept in your analysis (e.g., interests/rights/power), you could indicate in parentheses which workshop the concept was introduced (Workshop 3) just to show that you are referring a concept from class.
4. How should I organise my essay?
People have organised their essay in different ways. One way is to structure your essay by having strengths first, then weaknesses. Under each strength or weakness, you can analyse activities from class in order to explain the strengths or weakness.
Instead of structuring your essay by each strengths or weakness, you could also organise your essay by class activity. For each negotiation activity you include in your essay, you can analyse it using concepts/ideas from the module and explain your strengths or weaknesses that relate to the activity.
5. How many activities/negotiations should I include?
There’s no correct number. However, keep in mind that if you only talk about 1 or 2 negotiations from class, you will need to go into significant detail when analysing the examples and you’ll need to identify multiple strengths and weaknesses from just these 1 or 2 activities.
However, if you include 6 or more activities, you run the risk of not analysing any of the negotiations in enough detail.
6. What are the biggest mistakes people make?
The biggest mistake people make is just describing or summarising information rather than analysing. Don’t just describe what took place in a negotiation or give definitions of concepts that came straight from the slides.
Another mistake people make is to not reference any of the negotiations we did in class. It’s very important that I know with absolute certainty that YOU wrote your own essay. If I suspect you didn’t write your own essay, I will initiate the academic misconduct process.
Lastly, the essay is supposed to be about your personal strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, you should NOT write an essay that talks about how to be a good negotiator in general. Your essay should very much be unique to you.
Management of Negotiation
Self-Assessment
Table of Contents
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
Simulated Negotiation Overview ………………………………………………………………………. 4
Single Party Negotiations ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 5
Multiple Party Negotiations ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Interview Feedback …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 6
Strengths ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 6
Weaknesses ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7
Feedback Analysis ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Strengths ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Weaknesses ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9
Opportunities ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………10
Threats …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………10
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 12
Influence and Persuasion ………………………………………………………………………………………….12
Negotiation strategy and planning …………………………………………………………………………..14
Appendix …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 15
Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 17
Commented [BE1]: Table of contents isn’t necessary
Introduction
The remit of this report is to provide an assessment of my own negotiation skills.
This assessment will be based upon independent feedback from fellow students,
who participated in simulations with me, and the lecturer.
Using this feedback, I will attempt to analyse my strengths and weaknesses, and
then to identify opportunities and threats from this analysis. Finally using this
analysis, I will aim to identify areas for improvement and outline a strategy to
develop the gaps in my negotiation skill set. Commented [BE2]: This part isn’t necessary because I
already know the purpose of the assignment.
Simulated Negotiation Overview
Within the Management of Negotiation module we were introduced to various
single and multi-party negotiation simulations, each of which had unique
scenarios that were either solely based upon or a combination of any of the three
main types of negotiated issue types.
Distributive Issues
o Negotiated issues that result in a split in the outcome, typically an
uneven split, are referred to within negotiation theory as
“distributive issues”. Distributive issues centre on the concept that
there is a fixed pool of value and involved parties must split this
fixed pool of value to achieve an agreement1. (Bazerman & Neale
1992)
Congruent Issues
o Issues that both parties can agree on and have compatible
outcomes.
Integrative Issues
o Negotiated issues based on interests. Within a negotiation, whilst
the interests of each party can overlap, often they are separate and
unrelated. This leads to opportunities to create a negotiated
agreement that is “win-win”2.
1 Also known as “fixed-pie” or “win-lose” negotiations
2 Due to the collaborative nature of integrative negotiations, integrative issues are given the term
“expanding the pie”
Commented [BE3]: This section just states and defines
some of the concepts we covered in class. It is purely
descriptive and doesn’t include any analysis or reflection.
Single Party Negotiations
The primary learning objective from the single party simulations was the
concept of creating value over claiming value. Moving away from distributive
“win-lose” outcomes to more productive integrative “win-win” outcomes. The
single party negotiations focused solely on either distributive issues or
integrative issues. Only one simulation included the full set of negotiation types.
Multiple Party Negotiations
Due to the varying complexity of the negotiations and varying interests and
rights of each party within the multi-party negotiations, meant that all of the
simulations had comprehensive coverage of the three negotiation types.
At least two of the multiparty negotiations required a minimum agreement
between five of the six parties involved, potentially resulting in one parties
interests not being met and subsequently shut out of the negotiated agreement.
Success in these multiparty negotiation simulations relied on the creation of
either offensive or defensive coalitions (Susskind & Crump 2009).
Interview Feedback
This section focuses on the individual feedback I was able to source from my
fellow students, based on their interactions with me in the various simulations
described in the previous section. I asked for general feedback within the
negotiations I participated in, but I specifically asked for constructive criticism of
my negotiation style and tactics.
The following sections summarise the qualitative feedback in terms of strengths
and weaknesses, across both single party and multiparty negotiation scenarios
performed within the module (See Appendix A for full abstracts).
Strengths
The positive feedback I received was different for each respondent.
Student A
o Calm and considerate negotiation style
o Considering relationships
o Seeking out other parties interests
Student B
o Calm negotiation style
o
Anchoring of facts
Student C
o Good at identifying allies (seeking out common interests)
o Clearly explained interests
o Calm, diplomatic manner
Student D
Lecturer
o Reaching consensus
o Identifying mutually beneficial outcomes
Weaknesses
Student A
Student A offered no feedback on weaknesses.
Student B
o Need to utilise the subordinate role to cultivate long term
relationships
o Susceptible to “snowballing” technique – people talking quickly to
draw focus away from the offer being made
Student C
o Did not consistently look for opportunities to “expand the pie”
o Pursuit of third party alliances detrimental to team performance
o Too open to making concessions
o Able to be exploited against a combination of high target price
setting and entrenched positions
Student D
Student D offered no feedback on weaknesses
Lecturer
o Tends not to counter assertive tactics
o Can give concessions too quickly against stubborn opponents
o Prefer not to argue, tend to give in too early Commented [BE4]: If you do get feedback from people,
you could include it as an Appendix. This student just
listed it as bullet points, which is a bit too informal.
Feedback Analysis
The feedback received seems fair and in line with my own self-assessment of my
strengths and weaknesses within negotiations. This section will analyse the
feedback using the SWOT3 framework. Based on the feedback provided I would
consolidate the findings into three strengths and three weaknesses:
Strengths
Calm Negotiation Style
Common Interests
I find negotiating upon positions frustrating and unproductive, as such my
preference is to find common interests to commence discussions and begin to
form a relationship based on trust. This is supported and recognised by the
feedback. Research shows that angry negotiators tend to misjudge the interests
of opponents and typically achieve lower integrative gains (Bazerman et al.
2000). My preference to remove negative emotions from my negotiation style in
an effort to maximise the chance of integrative gains is supported by research.
Anchoring of facts
Within the Power-Rights-Interests model, my immediate tactic is to establish the
rights of a situation. Rights in this context are defined as the “right according to
some independent standard of perceived legitimacy or fairness” (Brett et al.
1990). Establishing these rights is critical to my typical negotiation strategy, as
once agreement upon the facts is made, the transition to identify the other
parties interests is easier.
3 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Weaknesses
Commented [BE5]: At this point, the student has FINALLY
started to critically analyse and reflect on his/her
strengths and weaknesses. They should have focused on
this part much earlier and this part should form a much
larger portion of the paper.
Weaknesses
Concessions making
Within the weaknesses feedback there was focus on the fact that I can tend to
make concessions to quickly. Typically this occurs either as a result of trying to
establish a relationship through reciprocity or as a tactic to break down
stubborn opponents.
The direct feedback from fellow students and lecturer alike, indicated that over-
flexibility to demands and the openness to concessions left me vulnerable to
exploitation. This behaviour clearly weakened my own position due to the fact
that I typically was making concessions early in the process, in an effort to
manufacture fluidity in the negotiation process.
Negotiating against position based negotiators
Following on from the previous section, I value fluidity in the negotiation process
and find it easier to form an effective negotiation strategy when the negotiation
is moving. However, when faced with an opponent who is stubbornly or deeply
entrenched in a position, I find my instinctive response is to make a concession
to get the process moving. Throughout the simulated scenario’s I found
distributive issues that had obvious punitive costs associated with them if a
favourable outcome was not achieved challenging, and I suspect that my
opponents detected this and leveraged this against me in the form of aggressive
target price setting.
Opportunities
Considering both the strength and weakness feedback received, I believe my
existing negotiation skill set provides opportunities. The obvious example of this
would be multiparty negotiations where the formation of alliances and coalitions
is paramount to an outcome.
In multiparty negotiations, congruent issues and interests are manifested in
numerous party subsets. In this scenario the quantity of issues to be negotiated
increases the probability of congruent issues (Polzer, Mannix & Neale 1998).
Further to this the creation and cultivation of a coalition significantly improves
the outcome for those involved. Poltzer et al concluded, “that value was
increased not only by the way a party negotiated the issues within the
negotiation pool, but also by the way he or she attempted to claim value from the
coalition pool”.
My strength in building relationships and in seeking strategic and effective
coalitions is an advantage and opportunity for to maximise my outcome value in
multiparty negotiations.
Threats
The primary focus for this report was to identify the threats posed to the success
of future negotiations, caused by the identified weaknesses.
Commented [BE6]: You don’t need to do a SWOT analysis.
This student chose to organise his/her paper that way,
but it’s not necessary and may not be the best way to
organise your paper.
Based on the feedback and analysis in this report I believe the main threat to
future success comes from my tendency for overly conciliatory behaviour in
scenarios that require patience, assertiveness or different tactics.
Threats to my success, based on these weaknesses, are more apparent in
negotiating distributive issues, typically as part of single party negotiations.
Research shows that important tactics central to negotiating distributive issues
are appearing firm and using persuasive arguments. Both these tactics focus on
communicating the individuals desired outcomes, with the intention of forcing a
concession from the opponent (Weingart, Hyder & Prietula 1996). The
combination of the feedback and a self-assessment of my own negotiation style,
it is clear that the absence of firmness and to a lesser extent persuasive
arguments is contributing to my poor performance in distributive negotiations.
Another aspect I believe contributes a threat to success is negotiation strategy
and planning. Bazerman and Neale conclude, “It’s better to be rational. There are
times to be tough and there are times to be soft; the rational manager evaluates
each negotiation and creates a strategy that fits the particular context”. It is the
absence of a deeper planning strategy to identify the most appropriate
negotiation strategy and persuasion techniques that I believe is the root cause of
these weaknesses.
Conclusion
In conclusion this self-assessment has shown that my reliance on my preferred
strategy to form coalitions and cultivate relationships is not enough to maximise
successful negotiation outcomes. The strategies I employ lend themselves very
well to multiparty negotiations where long term relationships are required to
achieve success, however within single party negotiations or pure distributive
issues, my strategies must evolve and adapt to these scenarios to enable future
success.
The feedback and analysis on the weaknesses and subsequent threats that result
from these weaknesses, have helped to identify two main areas of improvement I
will proactively work on –
1. Influence and persuasion
2.
Negotiation strategy and planning
Influence and Persuasion
Cialdini posed six basic principles that govern how a person could influence
another –
Liking
o People are generally inclined to favour and comply with those they
like.
Reciprocity
o The inherent desire to repay back what you have received.
Consistency
o To appear consistent with respects to your own actions,
statements, and beliefs.
Scarcity
o Items in short supply or completely unavailable tend to be more
desirable that those that are more accessible.
Social validation
o Looking to others for cues as to how to act in a certain situation.
Authority
o Deferring to authority, even when unjustified.
(Cialdini 2007)
Cialdini also concludes that whilst these six principles are easily applied
individually to any given situation, the most potent persuasive effect comes
when these six principles are used in conjunction with each other (Cialdini &
Goldstein 2002).
From a personal perspective comprehensively training and applying Cialdini’s
principles of persuasion could significantly improve my negotiation skills,
especially within distributive issue negotiation where breaking down an
entrenched position or stubborn opponent is failing using other more direct
techniques. Commented [BE7]: I’m not sure why this section appears
after the conclusion. This section just summarizes the
Cialdini material. There’s no critical analysis.
Negotiation strategy and planning
Research undertaken by Rackham and Carlisle indicates that skilled negotiators
seek significantly more information during negotiation, than average negotiators
(Rackham & Carlisle 1978).
Information is the power within negotiations. The biggest impact to negotiation
strategy is uncovering information that improves the knowledge base you have
to form an opinion about your opponents BATNA4.
I have found this to be especially important within distributive issues, where
finding leverage to maximise gain is critical to success. However, consistently
forming a reliable view of my opponents BATNA; enough to clarify my own
BATNA is a clear weakness I have. Upon reflection I feel that there is an element
of planning I am not undertaking, that would improve this situation.
Undertaking a deeper diagnosis of the issues to be negotiated and also forming a
more comprehensive view on the inter-dependencies of each issue is a key point
I will be working on for future negotiations.
4 “The reason you negotiate is to produce something better than the results you can obtain
without negotiating. What are those results? What is that alternative? What is your BATNA—
your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement? That is the standard against which any
proposed agreement should be measured.” (Fisher & Ury 2012).
Appendix
Student A
Jamie was easy to negotiate with. I dealt with Jamie in both win/ win sharing of the pie
negotiation and multi party. In the first we came to an agreement very quickly as we both
considered the relationship aspect and wanted to achieve a mutually acceptable agreement.
His style of negotiation was calm, considerate and effective. In the multiple party
negotiations Jamie continued to maintain his fairness and consideration for relationship.
Compared to the other negotiators he was the one person from the group who throughout
the negotiations I could trust as saying what was the situation and not a fabrication. This I
think is Jamie strength considering relationships and the other parties interests x
Student B
Jamie came across as a solid negotiator, calmly anchoring the facts in the coalition type
negotiation when others were not so calm, and it was good to be in a coalition with Jamie.
He was easy to work with and offers tactical solutions for me, which was so helpful as I am
not used to coalition style negotiations.
I also negotiated with Jamie on a win loose negotiation and a maximising the pie
negotiation. Jamie was solid in these negotiations and was a little over strong at times,
which caught me on the back foot and made me question my style, which could be a useful
tactic. I appreciated his initial feedback to me that I was quite forceful at times, which I will
take back with me.
As a word of constructive feedback, during the classes I made that point that with feedback
to others, it is okay strategically to play the role of the subordinate when long term
relationships are involved with colleagues.
I enjoyed negotiating with Jamie.
The only point I would make below is that you may wish to be careful of people using the
snowballing technique on you. I did occasionally, especially in the first negation where I sold
you some other products that actually recouped the reduction I offered you for the main
product. A person talking quickly is a tactic and one to watch.
Student C
My interaction with you was somewhat limited as I missed the first round of lessons. So
unfortunately I don’t think we interacted on a single party negotiation. The interactions we
had were in multi party negotiations. i.e. the Harboco one where you played the role of the
environmentalist and the Multisumma negotiation where we were both the in the same
team.
Harboco
It struck me that you were good at identifying your allies. I think you homed in on the fact
that Sarah shared some of your interest and were quick to create an alliance with her. You
explained your interests clearly throughout the negotiation and you never gave away your
reservation price. In reality, due to the role that you played, it was obvious what your target
value was. You were able to capitalize on this by partnering with Sarah and for a moment
with Sam. We needed your vote to go ahead with the project so you held the balance of
power. Despite holding important power you took care to consider other people’s views,
which is important from a relationship perspective. But although you listened patiently to
other people’s views I don’t recall you looking for options to ‘expand the pie’ to achieve an
outcome beneficial to all parties. Although you were able to achieve a good result insofar to
your interests maybe you could have done more to suggest options to achieve mutually
beneficial outcomes.
Multisumma
As per the previous role-play, you were very articulate in explaining your interest. You came
across in a very diplomatic manner, which I guess was needed to try and achieve your
goal. From a relationship perspective this was very positive. However I thought you had an
opportunity in building alliances. The final outcome resulted in myself and Student B having
the worse results. Although you got agreement on the project, as we were working for the
same company, it was somewhat self-defeating. You seemed keener in making sure the
project went ahead by giving concessions to Sarah and Ben at the expense of the company’s
interest. We could have done more in forming an alliance to safeguard our interests and
tried to isolate Ben or Sarah to secure the additional vote we needed to go ahead with the
project. I guessed this could have been achieved from a better strategy from the offset but
we are all at fault on that. On this occasion you were more proactive in looking for options
to expand the pie, but this was again a key aspect of your role as the project manager.
As to ‘exploit’ you in future negotiations I would say that that you seem quite flexible and
open to making concessions. This is obviously good from a relationship perspective, but
perhaps is also an opportunity for the other party to take advantage. Based on this, if I was
to hold a single party negotiation with you, I would set myself a very aggressive target price
and be quite stubborn on making concessions, which could secure me a better outcome.
Student D
Lecturer
With respect to negotiations, I thought that your strengths lie in reaching consensus and
coming up with mutually beneficial outcomes. This approach will serve you well in many real
life negotiations in which the relationship is important and you need to find win-win
outcomes.
To improve don’t be afraid to push back when people try to use more assertive tactics. Make
sure not to give concessions simply because people are being stubborn. I think you would
prefer not to argue, so you’re more likely to give in rather than keep fighting.
Works Cited
Bazerman, MH, Curhan, JR, Moore, DA & Valley, KL 2000, ‘Negotiation’, Annual
Reviews Psychology, vol 2000, no. 51, pp. 279-314.
Bazerman, MH & Neale, MA 1992, Negotiating Rationally, 1993rd edn, The Free
Press, New York.
Brett, JM, Goldberg, SB, Ury, WL, Fowler, RD & Offermann, LR 1990,
‘Designing Systems for Resolving Disputes in Organizations ‘, American
Physchologist, vol 45, no. 2, pp. 162-170.
Cialdini, R 2007, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, 6th edn, Collins, New
York.
Cialdini, RB & Goldstein, NJ 2002, ‘The Science and Practice of Persuasion’,
Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 1 April 2002, pp. 40-50.
Fisher, R & Ury, W 2012, Getting to yes, 3rd edn, Random House, Boston.
Polzer, JT, Mannix, EA & Neale, MA 1998, ‘Interest Alignment and Coalitions in
Multiparty Negotiation’, The Academy of Management Journal, vol 41, no. 1, pp.
42-54.
Rackham, N & Carlisle, J 1978, ‘The Effective Negotiator – Part 1: The Behaviour
of Successful Negotiators’, Journal of European Industrial Training, vol 2, no. 6,
pp. 6-11.
Susskind, L & Crump, L 2009, Multiparty Negotiation, 1st edn, SAGE, Boston, MA.
Weingart, LR, Hyder, EB & Prietula, MJ 1996, ‘Knowledge Matters: The Effect of
Tactical Descriptions on Negotiation Behavior and Outcome’, Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, vol 70, no. 6, pp. 1205-1217.
The first negotiation activity
My role is parker, I need to sell this land more than $15000 to Gibson (as much as possible). In the end the negotiation price is 30,000 .
My negotiating partner is Gibson.
Some tips about the negotiation process
1, The first price I offered was 35,000,
2, pressure of the negotiation for me is:
1) The pressure on me from this negotiation is: The first offer gives the other party a rough idea of the price
2) Opportunity negotiation become necessary negotiation, adding to the pressure
3) cash transaction
4) my reservation price is 20000
The second activity
My role is Chris Dawson
My negotiating partner is JB Daniels (Colortek)
The result salary is 92000
The third activity
My role is Lyric Opera
My negotiating partner is Sally’s Agent
The result price is 21500
The fourth activity
There are 4 negotiators in this negotiation
Lois & me as Agent
Another two counterpart as publisher
The result price (Advance) is 2000
Pay more attention to following changes:
1, Please change the real life examples in the first article into the four negotiation activities of classes. Strengths and weaknesses refer to the summary of my negotiation behaviors in the four negotiations, so the strengths and weaknesses also need to be rewritten.
2, The analysis of the process is very important, can be considered from the following several aspects, first price offer, reservation value( is my bottom line), target value, Psychological Warfare, BATNA (for me): Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement, factors that escalate disputes, ect.
3, At least 5 references ( I think the first sentence of the article, the definition of negotiation, is a good opportunity to cite the literature)