Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most Essay

Explain and describe what parts of the interaction employed effective listening and speaking in the negotiation.

The negotiations class was an insightful experience. It helped me attain a better understanding of my strengths and weaknesses both personally and professionally. It helped put into perspective a lot of my theoretical analysis conducted on group dynamics and, most importantly, has helped me become a more effective negotiator. My goal with this paper is to communicate the evolution of my negotiation skills during the progression of the course.

Negotiation occurs on a regular basis in a daily life and individuals negotiate in business occasions or outside of the workplace. Having superior negotiation skills is conductive to the success in personal life and career development. This essay will indicate that my natural preferences for different influencing tactics, comparisons between theory and practice, and a personal action plan to improve negotiation skills based on the role-play activity in my class.

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High discusses how to handle disagreements and high-stakes communication. It is written on the premise that when you are stuck in any situation–whether it’s at home or work–there is a crucial conversation keeping you from accomplishing the desired results. If you can learn to speak up in these crucial moments effectively, then you can accomplish the results you are after. The authors support this idea by referring to people who are considered influential by their peers and managers in their work and relationships. They studied successful communicators over a period of 25 years and concluded that what typically set them

having difficult conversations, and why people often manage difficult conversations poorly. The author then provides information on how to handle these situations.

1. The past decade has witnessed a growing similarity in the attitudes and spending habits of youthful consumers around the world. As one journalist puts it, “ It may still be conventional wisdom to ‘ think globally and act locally ‘but in the youth market , it is increasingly a case of one size fits all.” Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?

The book includes some psychological research to explain how our minds prevent us from admitting our mistakes. The authors propose valuable solutions to promote insight, honesty, and personal awareness. Although self-justification seems to be challenging to understand, Tavris and Aronson give very helpful advice that can make relationships successful.

In Chapter 7 of the book Getting More, I have realized that all companies no matter how large will have disagreements. A young man named Eric realized what was going wrong inside his company was that of lack of communication. Understanding that clear communication is a valid and one of the most important tools to any negation. As Mr. Diamond says" The best negotiators are problem-solvers." The knowledge of what the issue is and keeping a physical list can help those accomplish their goals by following simple steps. I prefer to have organization and maintaining a step by step plan would assist in maintain the upper hand in negotiation and stay focus.

The first section of reading assigned for this reflection was from Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. The first chapter discussed blame and how to avoid it in difficult, or any, conversations. The authors made it very clear that one must be able to differentiate between blame and contribution. The main difference between the two is that blame is judging the other person and their actions and contribution in understanding the impact both parties had on the situation (Stone, Patton, Heen 2010). In a difficult conversation, both people involved have contributed, big or small, to the issue. Identifying your own role can be difficult because that means self-evaluation and accepting responsibility must occur. If the contribution conversation is not had, blame is the first place most go to. This can be very detrimental to a conversation because it does not allow the problem to be solved. One party will become defensive if they feel blamed and they will shut down. The outcome of one party shutting down

Many people feel that they have to blame others for everything that goes wrong in their lives. They choose not to take responsibility for their actions, citing others for their own lack of confidence. There may be times where the blame has been truly placed on someone else but the whole concept of the blame-game will never exonerate us. Blaming will never get to the bottom of the problem and it will never do us any good. Even when somebody does hurt us, we need to let things go. We need to change our thinking and move forward instead of being stuck in the same mire forever by clinging on to blame.

The article “Why It Pays to Get Inside the Head of Your Opponent” looks at the effects of two social competencies in negotiations. Perspective taking and empathy are the two different approaches that are studied in this article to determine the possible different effects they each have on the outcome of negotiations.

Communication styles in negotiation are probably one of the most important skills or characteristics one will develop over a lifetime. From the point a human being begins to develop cognitive skills, the process of learning and understanding situations become more apparent. One will learn from a very young age the dynamics and characteristics of communication and its role in negotiation. To better understand the communication process, one must be able to recognize how they communicate, whether it is on an assertive, aggressive, passive, or passive-aggressive level of communication. The manner in which one conveys his/her message is critical, and the many methods in which they do it is

Negotiation can take place anywhere and at anytime. Negotiations can take place at home, at work, with family members, with friends, and co-workers. “Negotiation is a process by which we attempt to influence others to help us achieve our needs while at the same time taking their needs into account”. (Lewicki, Barry, & Saunders, 2007, chap. 1). In many cases when people are negotiating they are unaware of the negotiating. Some people may believe that negotiating is hard and others may think it is an easy thing to

* Conferring with another so as to arrive at the settlement of some matter (dictionary)

From a prickly significant other, an overbearing supervisor, an inflexible sales person to a complex client and an awkward young adult, life is filled with situations that need tough negotiations. Getting Past No delivers an incredibly simple and timeless approach to dealing with difficult people and difficult situations. Over the years, negotiation has become a dominant practice of making decisions within family settings, work environments and political atmospheres. Even in diplomacy, negotiation is the ultimate and essential facet but the hardest to master. This book-Getting Past No- demonstrates to the reader exactly how to traverse the impediments that stand between them and Yes. The author lays out a five-step strategy of breakthrough negotiation to help the reader break through each of the five barriers to cooperation.