Module 8: Social Sensitivity At Work

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.

In this course, I have learned that it is possible to dramatically improve my ability to negotiate. I can improve my monetary returns and feel better about myself and the people with whom I deal. I also learned that there are several ways to test my intuition and approach. The course provided me with an opportunity to assess my “instinctive” bargaining style and provides suggestions for how to further develop my bargaining abilities. The negotiation exercises were a good way to cement several of the concepts from the book and lecture and gave me several opportunities to get to know my classmate more and test some new insights with them.

During my Module 8 assignment I briefly touched upon the importance of building a rapport. In a negotiation meeting, rapport is an effective determinant of the degree to which both parties build up the necessary trust to achieve integrative understandings. Between Sharon and Alice rapport will be linked each others readiness to collaborate and come to an agreement, to share pivotal data, to make a less negative environment, and to a lessening of the risk of a deadlock. Perpetually, the value behind listening for Sharon as a negotiator is to observe the relational abilities, both verbal and nonverbal, of Alice. It is important for Sharon not to come across as hostile or authoritative but rather understanding and reflecting that she is there for the best possible outcome for both the company and Alice. Actions speak louder than words and if Sharon’s body language is not matching her words to Alice trust will not be able to be built decreasing the chances of a win-win situation. Sharon should enter the

Throughout every career, military or civilian, is an inherent requirement to conduct effective negotiations. For example, as a civilian this is commonly how a career starts, with a negotiation over starting salary. However, in a military career, the opportunity to barter and negotiate is a privilege earned after proving that you have the ability to follow orders regardless of personal preference. The skill of highly effective negotiation could be described as an art, if that is so then there are variables that, to continue the metaphor, are the colors the artist would use to paint. The variables are trust, information, power, and options and are abbreviated as TIPO. I found the TIPO model the most important concept in module 8 because

Chapter 12 social psychology cover how we affect one another’s behaviors. Culture, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination attitude, and interpersonal attraction are all factors that contribute to behavior in a social setting. Understanding how we influence one another on a social level forces us to look at not only ourselves, but also look at how others affect the world we live in and why it is important to be able to identify these influences and the impact they have on our behaviors good or bad

Another interesting concept that I came across was that, I personally witnessed myself competing and avoiding to be less cooperative at times and was immediately pulled back to see this. However, I also believe that I brought a culture into the group, which fulfilled the role of a negotiator in order to avoid conflict and save time on decision making. This was to me a breakthrough in my learning experience only because I did not know I had them(skills). I understood the fact that many tradeoffs are made in a project, and a mediator was always in favor of the group. My intuition that our group had an integrative characteristic to its negotiation policies proved right. A lot of this was to make each other happy at the moment and also the fact that we were peers hoping to maintain long term relationship was also a reason. However, it was not possible for me to create a win win situation all the time. I believe that my reasoning and persuasion skills helped to some extent to avoid conflict. This was also a perfect opportunity for me to put a number of other alternatives on the table for discussion and thus exploring my creative side. Overall, I must say that looking back at our achievements, I think it was worth the time and effort and was not bad at

A better understanding of my own strengths and weaknesses will definitely be helpful for me to build on my strengths and apply the negotiation strategies learnt in the Managerial Negotiation course.

These include perception, emotion, and communication. Perception focuses on understanding the other side’s thought process and putting on their shoes to understand their point of view on the negotiation. This is often difficult as you are commonly defending your own standpoint but must be done in order to make sense of what is and is not an acceptable deal. The best way to do this is to step back and look at the issue objectively as if you were not involved. Emotion is also an important trait to be aware of as a healthy mindset promotes healthy negotiation. If both parties have a strong emotional attachment to the issue, the are more likely to battle one another than to work together to solve the problem. In order to support emotions, consider all of them as legitamate and try to be understanding of the other parties issues. Also, do not react to emotional outbursts as emotions on one side can often generate emotions on the other side and both parties may lose focus of the overall goal. Lastly, communication must be supported between both parties and should focus on talking to, hearing, and understanding the other party (Ury, 1981). It is important to speak to the other party in a way that is easy to understand and not send mixed messages. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Also, hear the other party’s concerns and actually focus on them without dismissing them to address your own needs. Also, be sure that all

The concept I found most valuable is the Trust, Information, Power, and Options (TIPO) Model. I specifically like how information and power can influence the level of trust in relationships and influence others to be more open to alternatives. I have always had a high amount of trust in people and equally I have a high amount of faith in the system that discovers the truth. Some would say I put too much trust in people and not enough in the other aspects of the TIPO model. Every day is a negotiation at BMT and I’m almost always the winner. As an MTI I have learned the value of gathering as much information as I can about any situation to better position myself in a negotiable situation. When an individual doesn’t believe the aspects of

By taking this course, we have learned the different types of negotiations and the strategies to be used in

My time in the negotiation skills workshop was very humbling. Before the workshop began my negotiation ability was one of the business skills I knew needed the most improvement. When going into negotiations at work, prior to the course, the only thing I knew was that I wanted a lower price then I was given. What actually surprised me most what that I did actually have some effective negotiating strategies but I was correct in my belief that I had a lot to learn. When you have a goal but lack a game plan on how to achieve it that makes negotiating very difficult and something that I approached with much reservation at work.

My strengths as a negotiator before Negotiation workshop: As briefly mentioned in the executive summary, my personal power is my main strength. Aspiration, confidence, skills, and knowledge are the basic components which shape my power of negotiation. Prior to negotiation, I always do my homework; I believe being well-prepared is the first step before any negotiation. I try to collect as much information as possible. Adequate information about the other parties at the negotiation table, their history, interests, aversions, and possible positions give me the power which comes with knowledge and confidence. With regards to my negotiation skills, I am always positive when entering a negotiation. I personally believe there is always some sort of solution out there for each and every problem we may

A ruthless, aggressive and cold blooded negotiation style is the framework approach most people have when it comes to negotiation,[6] a theoretical example of that is Adversarial Approach Style Negotiation.[6] But in reality, as mentioned by experts and researchers such as Fisher and Ury [3] it doesn’t have to be that way. As the world moves to more sophisticated platforms of communication, negotiation follows the trend and Problem-Solving Approach(citation) is in a way, the “antidote" of Adversarial Approach Style Negotiation. Getting to YES[3] suggest an Interest-Based Model for the use of Problem-Solving Approach. Interest-Based Model focus on separating the person (positional) from the problems (resolution) and then concentrate on the resolution. This way allowing for both parties in a distributive way to get the results they both want.

Many times during class I have taken notes and realized that the concepts we are learning can be applied to the relationships within the job I am in right now. When I learned about culture, I was learning how to best communicate and understand others as an individual or group. In learning about a conflict I was having problems with a few coworkers and not understanding why they don’t connect with the various cultures we serve. At times throughout the conference, I saw this class as my work relationship survival guide for this upcoming school year. It was great to be able to take what I already knew about interpersonal relationships and communication and assign vocabulary with actual theories to my previous knowledge. Throughout this course and conference, I have found many connections in the two most important relationships in my life.