Planning in Negotiation
Negotiation is an evolving process where two or more parties, individuals or organizations are dependent on each other’s conditions to reach and achieve their independent goals and desired outcomes. (Lewicki, Saunders & Barry 2015; Thompson, Wang & Gunia 2010) Since negotiation is indeed an evolving process and a strategy and choice in itself, planning in a negotiation is most crucial due to the outlining and insight of issues, constraints and needs and priorities of your party, and identification of interests and your party’s ultimate goals is made clear. (Lewicki, Saunders & Barry 2015; Smelzter, Manship & Rossetti 2003) All these conditions and points need to be considered before you start negotiating so you know the direction you are headed for and for what you are aiming for. Planning is the linkage between stating your needs, desires and priorities before the execution of your negotiation. (Lewicki, Saunders & Barry 2015) Planning for negotiation can be attained by following the 12-point checklist, which reflect that goals need to be discussed and prioritised to produce particular, palpable and assessable objectives. (Lewicki, Saunders & Barry 2015; Cox 2012) In planning we choose a type of strategy in which we approach the negotiation, which becomes reflective of the direction reflecting our constraints of our particular desired outcomes. ( Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015) In negotiation planning, the dual concerns model identifies for us four different approaches through which we can achieve our desired outcomes, which is determined by the importance each party places on two defining aspects; one being the importance the party places on the relational aspect of the negotiation and two, the importance the party places on the outcome and desired goal in the negation process. (Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015; Ury 2012) The four different approaches the model identifies and explains is the collaborative strategy; which takes an integrative approach to the overall negation and places an overlapping importance over the desired outcome than the relationship with fellow negotiators, while the competitive approach takes a distributive approach. (Ury 2013) The accommodating approach places more value into its desired outcome also however, it accommodates its outcome in the need to prioritise the relational component of the negotiation. Lastly the avoidance strategy is simply a pathway where negotiation is almost non-existent and is not required to achieve the outcome in your goals. (Savage, Blair & Sorenson 1989; Ury 2013) An alternative to this model to planning is the five P- words of negotiation preparation, (Ury 2013) which reiterate the important concepts in construction for negotiations. (Ury 2013) Negotiators must have clear goals, and perceptions of their party’s needs, desires and constraints and identify and implement a suitable strategy to greater the chances to achieve your goals with less to lose or least difficulty because of the clarity you have going into the ground of negotiating. (Ury 2013) Without clear direction in negotiation, you are self-setting up for lack of targets, intention and knowledge of your own party’s capabilities. (Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015) The risk of unsuccessful negotiation or over commitment in some cases, is bigger when you enter negotiation grounds without proper recognition of priorities and constraints. (Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015)
Needs, Priorities, Concerns and Constraints
The parties involved in this negotiation include me, as the personal secretary of Mrs Amelia Austin and the Sales agent acting on behalf of the owner of the Bentley, Mr Soles. Both I and the sales agent have our independent needs, priorities, resources and constraints through which we must consider each move of our negotiation upon to ensure we meet our objectives in the best possible way. My needs are inclusive of the Bentley purchase at the lowest price possible as this is the main interest of Mrs Austin being the buyer in this case scenario. Mr Soles being the Seller, would want value for his long-term owned Bentley and that is his main motive and desired outcome. The research which I and Mrs Amelia conducted resulted in the following:
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- A competition car style, the Rolls Royce series currently standing between $ 8000 - $150000
- A new Rolls Royce can be purchased between $ 45000 and $ 50000
- There is a transportation fee of getting the car shipped from Britain to Texas, USA which would cost between 2000 – 3000 dollars on top of car purchase price.
Mrs Amelia’s priorities and constraints include acquiring the car for as little as possible and no more than $ 23000 for purchasing the car. A constraint to consider from the Seller’s perspective is that this car is a 50-year-old owned luxury car, and it could have sentimental value that could be the seller’s priority over other factors. Another constraint could be the price conflict, Ms Austin and Mr Soles could be pushing from two opposite ends in terms of the cost of the purchase product and this is where strong bargaining skills would be required on my part to stand a chance with the agent. In a field analysis of this negotiation and planning, the actors regarding the cost and conflicting priority regarding the cost is definitely a constraint that could change the entire situation and result in no successful negotiation.
Integrative VS Distributive
Integrative bargaining involves a situation where the negotiation is ‘not mutually exclusive’, meaning that no party loses, it’s a win-win situation. In this approach to negotiating, players or parties are subject to freedom and openness and no vulnerability due to the relational motive present. (Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015) This negotiation type on the dual concerns model reflects a collaborative strategy to negotiation which places an emphasis on the long-term relationship between the parties and their dependence on each other above the current present desires at hand. (Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015) This approach is one that looks at a broader perspective and the utility maximisation of the integrative relationship. (Tanner & Stokli 2014) The distributive approach is quite the opposite, the distributive approach to negotiation blocks out all external factors influencing decision or agreement and focuses on the pressing issue at hand, treating it as a singular opportunity. (Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015) This strategy requires a lot of the negotiator’s characteristics in order to effectively and most successfully bargain for self-contentment and reach the goal you are after; hence this approach is completely competitive in nature. (Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015) Distributive negotiating prides itself as a process which strives to accomplish the maximum benefit of the situation. (Tanner & Stokli 2014) It is however researched that due to this model’s narrower path, users of this approach are prone to change their approach mid-way, into a collaborative or even an accommodating agreement. (Tanner and Stokli 2014)
In this scenario, I was given constraints under which I could only see that displaying and going into the negotiation completely focused was the beneficial way to achieve my goal of acquiring a purchase agreement for the Bentley for less than 23000 dollars I had chosen to come into the negotiation grounds with a distributive and competitive approach strategy. I kept asking to the point questions to avoid straying away from the major details and focused very little on the external and relational factors that were influencing the desired outcome of Mr soles’ salesperson. (Kimmel, Pruitt, Magenau, Konar-Goldband & Carnevale 1980; Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015) After knowledge of the high expectation of $50 000 for the Bentley, I switched to an accommodating and collaborative strategy with my bargaining, and communicated taking into account Mr Soles’ sentimental value he has for this car alongside the research I did in my planning of the asking prices for brand new Rolls Royce series. I made it a point that if Mr Soles wants to get rid of this car, $27 000- inclusive shipping delivery charges - was the best price he was going to get due to competing prices for brand new rolls Royce’s, of which some are less than the asking price of Mr Soles’. Although my collaborative approach seemed genuine, with genuine facts and points put forward I individually was still goal driven. Hence, I believe that in buying a car that a distributive strategy and approach, by possessing and displaying characteristics such as resistance to high quantity conversation and using only close-ended questions would be most effective to get what you want. (Kimmel, Pruitt, Magenau, Konar-Goldband & Carnevale 1980; Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015)
Reflection
Yes, overall in the negotiation I was happy with the traits and tactics I used to help achieve my final goal, which included self-conscious, competitive and impartial motivation. (Kimmel, Pruitt, Magenau, Konar-Goldband & Carnevale 1980) I would have liked to have incorporated a less intensified distributive approach overall and accounted for the relational importance for general future possibilities, however that was not in my control, as my constraints were those set by Mrs Austin. (Kimmel, Pruitt, Magenau, Konar-Goldband & Carnevale 1980; Lewicki, Saunders & Berry 2015)
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