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Texoil Negotiation Exercise Essay

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Reflection Paper - Texoil

For the Texoil negotiation, I was in the role of the Service Station Owner. As such, my main objective was to sell the station and get the best possible agreement. My BATNA was $400,000, which represented an offer from British Petroleum and my resistance point was $413,000 after tax, which represented the cost of my trip. My target was $488,000, which included an additional $75,000 to help tie me over until I found a job upon my return. This resistance point represents a purely financial alternative. However, there were several other criteria or interests other than strictly financial which could have been satisfied through non-financial means. My underlying interest or reason for selling the station was …show more content…

It meant I could quickly make counter offers and explore areas that I knew I was prepared to be flexible on.

What surprised me the most about our behavior was how well we collaborated. At the beginning of the negotiation, I usually spend a bit of time trying to assess how the other party will negotiate (compete, collaborate, or subordinate). From the beginning of the negotiation, it was very clear that Texoil valued our relationship, was very interested in me coming back to work for them, was concerned about my wife, and was interested in my future plans. This created the right tone for collaborating. This created a basis of trust and openness, which led to creative options, which would not have been possible if one party decided to negotiate competitively. Both parties did a good job of asking questions to delve at the underlying interests, which allowed for give and take, and enabled each side to put forth proposals which could be openly considered. If the tone of the negotiation had been different, I think the Negotiator’s Dilemma might have prevented information from coming out and prevented interests to surface, and thus prevented creative solutions.

What I learned about myself was that I was effective at using nibbling as a tactic. I would keep going back to how I was dissatisfied with the amount of the loan outstanding and then try to leverage my dissatisfaction to gain a concession from the other party. I would complain and then remain quiet and see

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