Personal Negotiation Experience: a Reflection

Introduction

Negotiations are inevitable, especially in the contemporary dynamic corporate world. Individuals participate in negotiation in a bid to improve their working environment, salary, as well as business transactions. As an employee of Avo Photonics, I have personally experienced numerous negotiation situations. However, there is one outstanding personal negotiation experience that I truly believed shaped my life. The negotiation involved my intention to leave the company and proceed to pursue my M.B.A. in Scotland. However, as a critical employee in the role of a product manager, leaving the organization would place it at risk of dwindling revenue and production. This instigated a thorough negotiation with the management, as they were not willing to allow such a resourceful person to leave. During the negotiation period, I pleaded for various things.

Negotiation Experience and Issues Raised 

Firstly, I agitated for a salary increment. The salary increment was solely meant to help me amass wealth as well as improve my living standards. Secondly, to continue working for the organization, I implored the management to provide me with the right working conditions. The other issue I raised to be implemented so that I continue working for the organization is that I should be given a title. After a thorough negotiation process, the management agreed to raise my salary, improve my working conditions, and gave me the title of product manager. The executive even considered me as the preferred employee to monitor the implementation of system applications and products in data processing (SAP) in the organization as it requires critical and sophisticated skills. Also, since I told the management that my intention to leave the company is to further my studies, they did not kill my ambitions but provided me the necessary support including financial assistance. From the negotiation experience, the management had negotiation power as it offered well-thought-out arguments that influenced me to continue working for the organization. On my side, on the other hand, I can say that I had some negotiation powers as well since most of my bargaining issues were implemented. Overall our negotiation reached an integrative position since I remained working for the company; my salary was increased, was promoted to high rank, and given working conditions that allowed me to further my education.

Personal Mistakes and Lessons Learned

Considering the results of my negotiation with the Avo Photonics’ management, it is clear that both the parties involved were good negotiators. On my part, despite my intention to leave the company to further my studies, I brought in other issues in the negotiation process such as salary increment, improvement of the working conditions as well as the need to be given a tittle. According to Thompson (2014), bringing in other matters in a negotiation is substantial in attaining a win-win result, as evidenced by his assertion that “In short, the more moving parts, the better the potential deal” (p. 76). This is because raising a single issue in a negotiation would mean that one party will gain, and the other will lose. For instance, in my negotiation with company, raising more the issue of salary increment and being given a tittle was fundamental since the title would mean that more complex roles will be assigned to me, something that will justify the salary increment and the improved working conditions. Correspondingly, I did not have a single pie perception in the negotiation. I had a strong belief that the management would also want me to further my studies so that my competency and productivity can increase. According to Thompson (2014) and Lee, Adair, and Seo (2011), desisting from a fixed pie perception is significant in helping the negotiation reach the win-win situation as it allows negotiators to realize that the negotiation is not a competitive situation and, therefore, they should embrace it acutely.

Seemingly, there also several mistakes I made in our negotiation with the management. One of the errors was revealing my reservations. I stated exactly the amount of salary increment that I would need and the tittle I considered appropriate to be given. Saying my reservations made the management not to increase my salary more than what I stated. According to Thompson (2014), stating your reservations in a negotiation is detrimental since it makes the other party not to offer more incentives. As such, if I did not say my reservation points, it could have played a significant role in appropriately slicing the pie. Often, according to Thompson (2014), revealing once reservation in a negotiation is worthwhile under two circumstances. One of the events is when a negotiation has taken a prolonged duration, and it is almost ending without any deal made. However, in my case, the deal had not yet exhausted my time and so stating the reservations was a mistake. The other situation where a revealing one’s reservation is justifiable is when one has excellent BATNA (Thompson, 2014).

However, in my case, I had less BATNA. Hence, I could justify revealing my reservations. Instead, I could have waited for the CEO to first state their offer on salary increment and the position they would place me into. This would have played an essential role in helping to slice the pie since I could have responded to the offer accordingly since I had an anchor point. Thompson (2014) argues that allowing the counterparty in a negotiation to give their first offer and responding to it timely by offering a counteroffer is significant for two reasons. One of the reasons is that it lessens the eminence of the counterparty’s initial offer as the anchor point in the negotiation. As such, if I could have allowed Avo Photonics management to give their proposal first, and denied it by offering a counteroffer supported with facts, I could have been earning more as well as occupying one of the highest ranks in the company. Additionally, allowing the other party to give the first offer is significant in circumventing ones’ offer from being anchored by the counterparty, something that could have played a vital role in helping me gain more from the negotiation process.

Negotiation Strategies of the Management

On the part of Avo Photonics’ management, they were good negotiators for various reasons. First of all, they had a great BATNA, support me financially in pursuing my master's degree as I continue working for the organization. Having a great BATNA played a significant role in ensuring that they can manipulate me to remain working for the organization (Thompson, 2014). Also, the management lured me to provide reservation points. Revealing my reservation points gave them an anchor point for the negotiation process (Thompson, 2014). According to Thompson (2014) and Sebenius (2017), a good negotiator would want to know the counterparty’s reservation points. Knowing the counterparty’s reservation points ensures that the other party capitalizes on them by only offering what the reservations entail (Sebenius, 2017; Thompson, 2014).

Secondly, it was clear that the management had a better knowledge of what I wanted from the negotiation. They seem to have done in-depth research of their counterparty, something that is significant in achieving a win-win result in a negotiation. According to Wertheim (2002) and Lee, Adair, and Seo (2011), researching the counterparty, especially their BATNA, influences the outcomes of a negotiation to be a win-win result. Furthermore, during the negotiation process, Avo Photonics made a counteroffer that included a packaged deal; they offered me a salary increment that came along with an equivalent management position. This is for the reason that a package deal gives negotiators a chance to capitalize on different strengths and preferences of issues and trade them off (Thompson, 2014; Lee, Adair, & Seo, 2011). Also, offering a package deal reduces the likelihood of an impasse to occur, especially when the negotiation has a narrow bargaining zone. As such, the role played by making package deals by Avo Photonics in helping the negotiation reach a win-win situation should not be underestimated. Likewise, Avo Photonics management used its power to develop a strong influence on their messages. This is because they used an appealing communication medium, face-to-face (Sebenius, 2017; Thompson, 2014). The choice of the communication medium in a negotiation influences the results significantly (Thompson, 2014; Dobrijevic, Stanisic, & Masic, 2011). In our case, face-to-face negotiation was essential since it made it easy to receive immediate feedback. Also, face-to-face negotiation helps the negotiating parties understand each other, especially through their tone and other nonverbal cues, which cannot be integrated into the different mediums of communication such as letters and emails. Often, some negotiations reach a stalemate state due to a lack of immediate feedback, which is determined by the medium of communication used.

Additionally, during our negotiation process, the management displayed perspective-taking. Perspective-taking involves seeing the world through the counterparty’s eye. This was evidenced by them demonstrating the liking of advancing my studies. According to Thompson (2014) and Lee, Adair,  and Seo, (2011), negotiators who reveal perspective taking are likely to take the view of the counterparty party and are overly successful in identifying and reaching integrate outcomes. As such, perspective-taking was significant in achieving a win-win situation in our negotiation (Lee, Adair, & Seo, 2011). Likewise, the management provided information about their interests and priorities during the negotiation process. According to organization, if I leave, it would suffer losses since I was managing a critical department that needs impeccable skills and experience to achieve massive success. According to Thompson (2014), a negotiation in which parties do not provide information to each other always ends up in a stalemate, as evidenced by the assertion that “Negotiations would not go anywhere if negotiators did not communicate their interest to the other party” (p. 82). As such, the communication of the interest and priorities by the management played a pivotal role in achieving a win-win result in our negotiation.

Conclusion

Conclusively, from the above explications, it is clear that although the negotiation ended up in an integrative form, revealing my reservations affected the amount of salary increment as well as my rank positions. Also, providing other issues during the negotiation process positively influenced the results of the negotiation. Additionally, the first offer also influences the results of a negotiation. Likewise, the lack of a fixed pie perception also positively influenced the outcome of the negation. It is also clear that perspective-taking is imperative helping negotiators realize a win-win result.

References

1. Dobrijevic, G., Stanisic, M., & Masic, B. (2011). Sources of negotiation power: An exploratory study. South African journal of business management, 42(2), 35-41.
2. Lee, S., Adair, W. L., & Seo, S. (2011). Cultural Perspective Taking in Cross-Cultural Negotiation. Group Decision and Negotiation, 22(3), 389-405. doi:10.1007/s10726-011-9272-4
3. Sebenius, J. K. (2017). BATNA s in Negotiation: Common Errors and Three Kinds of “No”. Negotiation Journal, 33(2), 89-99.
4. Thompson, L. L. (2014). The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
5. Wertheim, E. (2002). Negotiations and resolving conflicts: An overview. College of Business Administration, Northeastern University,[available https://www.europarc.org/communication-skills/pdf/Negotiation%20Skills.pdf