negotiation reflection

People want to adhere to a well-thought-out plan, a pre-conceived algorithm, before beginning negotiations. Without a question, having a clear strategy during the talks is preferable. Overall, in this situation, it would be impossible to reach an agreement and obtain a favorable outcome for everyone. There are several errors in agreements that should be avoided in order to establish a constructive and fruitful partnership with partners. Usually, the broker requires a pre-planned strategy for the discussion. Around the same time, you should be confident that the guy sitting across from you has his own plan, and they do not align. Iff both of them stubbornly cling to their own scenario, it will lead to skirmishes, unnecessary conflicts and clarification of relations.

Our company has conducted a negotiation with Beta Inc. on a possible robot manufacturing and marketing tie-up. The collaborative arrangement lasted for five month. Eventually the mutual understanding was reached; however, some details still had to be figured out. The main goal of our company is provision of innovative, modern and sufficient ideas, as well as their successful implementation to life. Decent profit was another goal in the list. The new equipment must be provided to our factories and several issues with customers must be solved. The best possible technology had to be licensed, and even robots would have to be supplied for the process of manufacturing. The agreements that we have come to are: first of all, receiving fully-assembled Beta Inc. robots under our own brand name. The second one implied us being responsible for producing of own robots in Alpha using Beta technology and key components. Additionally, the tie-up will be focused on what the Beta Inc.’s currently has on the market and the agreement is nonexclusive. The things that still have to be discussed and decided are the number of models involved, the quantity of Beta Inc.’s units to be imported by Alpha, the royalty rate and the access to vision technology.

The employees of Alpha usually consider the process of negotiation as “a battlefield”. A competitive environment encourages them to apply strict and even kind of aggressive tactics. First of all, they tend to get under control of their emotions. However, too much of emotions is the biggest problem of all negotiators. They are capable of destroying any possibility of a rational agreement. They can turn friendship into a prolonged enmity, from which both sides suffer. They kill the hope for a fair resolution of the conflict. Emotions are positive and negative. Experiencing the first, one feels a surge of energy. Positive emotions, such as pride, hope or relief, affect us very well. If during the negotiations we test them against the interlocutor, it helps to establish contact, mutual understanding and the feeling that we are “on the same wavelength”. Anger, irritation and other negative emotions make it difficult to build productive relationships.

Aggressive and intense strategies, in turn, were chosen by the representatives of Alpha, when there is an obvious advantage over the opposite side. And it is this strategy that is the most vivid example of tough negotiations. As a rule, the advancing party provokes during the negotiations the emergence of conflict situations, because by doing this, they can achieve that the opponent will lose self-control, so that he can make a lot of mistakes or say something that should not be said. Among other things, there are psychological methods of influence that use insufficient competence of the opposite side, and the opponent himself is discouraged by a huge number of all kinds of terms, names, official data, etc.

In a multi-party situation, these orientations are not so straightforward, as one must distinguish the attitudes about the negotiated items, the individual participants, the whole group, and subgroups (Traum et al., 2008). The managers of Alpha train their employees the way that they can negotiate both in team and solo, in order to obtain the necessary result in any case. It is useful, on the one hand; however, on the other hand, an intense solo negotiating implies an aggressive approach. Thus, Alpha’s way of conducting negotiations should become slower and not so intense.

Entering into negotiations, a person tries to think out for his counterpart. The psychological approach focuses on analyzing negotiators’ personalities, perceptions, expectations and their persuasive techniques. The learning approach views negotiation as a learning process in which each party is largely dependent on its experience of the results of past actions by the two parties (Zhu and Zhu, 2004). The thoughts of an employee are focused on his or her opponent’s wish to reject the proposed conditions and insist on their options. In most cases, these thoughts are not justified, and people agree with great pleasure or it turns out that the client was looking for exactly what you are offering him. However, in this case, there is no way for Beta Inc.’s employer to achieve the compromise. It is understandable; everyone has a different vision of the situation: someone needs it, but some do not, someone is expensive, and someone quite can afford it. Starting to think for other people, one “mows” them under one comb, appropriating to them their personal experience, opinion, life situation. Such a position generates other mistakes in the conduct of negotiations: insecurity in oneself and its purpose, stamping and inappropriate shyness, acceptance of unprofitable conditions imposed by the opponent. The interlocutor can have a completely different point of view. A professional is one who, in the course of negotiations, knows how to understand the position of a counterpart, learn his opinion and then make suggestions.

Information and communication technology has a ubiquitous role; it is also increasingly active and even interventionist (Kersten ans Lai, 2007). The usage of the modern technologies is a positive implementation to the process of negotiation. Much of time can be saved due to it. Additionally, potential power is defined as the underlying capacity of negotiators to obtain benefits from their agreement (Kim et al., 2005). However, one should not put all efforts to suppress the resistance of the interlocutor. First, one needs to figure out why your opponent is initially negative. Mistrust and fear can easily be calculated by saying: I'm afraid you will fail, look, doubtful, dangerous, and risky. The comparison is based on the transferred negative experience, the vis-a-vis is afraid to step on the same rake: you all promise, we already went through this, we tried, negative feedback, we were let down, we were disappointed. The protest is expressed in a negative reaction to the statements about its attractiveness: we are the best in the market, we occupy leadership positions, one provides the most favorable conditions. Unwillingness to change the current state of affairs can be recognized by the phrases: we are satisfied with everything, leave us, everything is fine with us. All these objections give out motives, fears and desires of the client with a head, having opened them, you can operate correctly. Understand the reason for his resistance and use for yourself, and do not engage in battle with objections.

In my opinion, the strengths are that the representatives of Alpha know exactly what they want. They have all information about the company, with which it is necessary to sign a contract. They are personally acquainted with each of the Beta Inc.’ team and, importantly, any of our employees are able to negotiate solo. It will not happen, but if something immediate happens, they will be able to do it. This is just as important. As for week sides, it is impossible to convince people with an aggressive attitude. Alpha's employees are impatient: they cannot wait for some time, when they are asked for extra time. “Time is money” for them, even though the contract is serious and rushing can be worth big problems in the future. If the representatives of Beta Inc. feel any pressure, they will not want any contracting with Alpha. For the future some other methods will be used: our representatives will always listen to what they are told, they will not interrupt anymore, and they will not impose opinions anymore. Emotions play a big role in negotiations. Expression of emotions is good. However, it is beneficial not to show emotions, since they imply some kind of pressure.

The fact is that most of the talks are going on without seeing a clear picture of the ongoing negotiation processes. Intense and aggressive negotiations always lead to misunderstanding and further questions. Before the signing of the treaty, one will have to overcome several cordons that prevent the smooth flow of negotiations. In addition to the question of price or signature, there may be a number of intermediate goals, the achievement of which is critical for the success of all negotiations. When it comes to selling a little thing, everything happens instantly. However, when it comes to significant amounts of the contract, long before it is signed, it is necessary to identify a number of hidden objectives and tasks of the negotiation process.

The inflexible, static vision of the negotiating situation is also a drawback. In negotiations, you can take a tough stance: one won or lost everything or nothing, black or white. However, life is multicolored. Even in the toughest negotiations, new opportunities, prospects, alliances and goals open up. Negotiations are a living organism. The negotiation process includes a lot of important systems: money, supplies, relationships and much more. In many cultures, negotiations are handled through indirect methods (Hooper, 2005). However, Alpha's employees prefer direct negotiation with constant confrontation, in order to make the opponents agree and accept all rules of co-operation with no correction.

Summing up everything said above, it should be concluded that negotiation is always a talk between at least two people. Speaking for two in order to make the opponent accept one’s option is a bad approach, since an aggressive one always causes mistrust and doubts. The best way to make a deal is letting an opponent express his or her opinion, say what he or she thinks and is about to do, not impose anything and not act aggressively. One should always remember that an idea is not approved until one hears that his or her opponent agrees. All ways of negotiations are acceptable except those ones that give no choice to an opponent.

References

Hooper, Christopher. (2005). “Cross-Cultural Communication and Negotiation”, Retrieved from http://www.hooper.cc/pdfs/cross-culture_negotiation.pdf. 27 May, 2017.

Kersten, G. E., Lai, H. (2007). “Negotiation Support and E-negotiation Systems: An Overview”. Springer Science + Business Media B.V.

Kim, P H., Pinkley, R. I., Fragale, A. R. (2005). “Power Dynamics in Negotiation”. Academy of Management Review, 4(30).

Traum, D., Marsella, S., Gratch, J., Lee, J., Hartholt, A. (2008). “Multi-party, Multi-issue, Multi-strategy Negotiation for Multi-modal Virtual Agents”. Retrieved from http://ict.usc.edu/pubs/Multi-party,%20Multi-issue,%20Multi-strategy%20Negotiation.pdf. 27 May, 2017.

Zhu, Y., and Zhu, S. (2004). “Communication barriers to negotiation: Encountering Chinese in cross-cultural business meetings”. Retrieved from http://www.tst.diplomacy.edu/sites/default/files/IC%20and%20Diplomacy%20(FINAL)_Part13.pdf. 27 May, 2017.