Negotiation Reflection Report
Reflection Report 1:
In all my negotiations so far, I always focused on how I should be achieving my target and in that process I completely missed what the other party is trying to do or what their actual goal might be. It is so true in the Job search negotiation during which I just focused on scoring more than 35 points and prepared my arguments accordingly. When we started the negotiation, my partner took the lead and decided which issue needs to be negotiated first. He started with location and gave me an impression that his preference was to put me in Dallas although his actual preference was to settle for Chicago. His strategy was to show as if he is giving concession to me and negotiate on other issues. Although I understood his strategy quickly, I misjudged his preference and came to know about it only after we finished our negotiation. The learning here for me is to explicitly ask the other party what his or her preference would be and thereby force them to a point where they will find it difficult to hide their intention.
The other aspect that I’m not pleased with my negotiation style is I always wait for other party to make a first move so that I can get an idea of what their expectations are and change my strategy if necessary. Although this strategy helps me to negotiate effectively, I sometime miss out great opportunity by not starting aggressively. For instance, I allowed my partner to start the negotiation in this case and choose the issue to be negotiated first. In all three issues that we negotiated, he revealed his expectations first by starting very aggressively (80K, Dallas & June) and forced me to anchor my negotiation around these boundaries. Hence, I had to negotiate very hard to get my pie for both salary and start date. Although at the end I negotiated very effectively and scored better than my target, I lost my bargaining power to go beyond my expectations. Actually I should have taken the lead by bringing the issue that I felt
In all my negotiations so far, I always focused on how I should be achieving my target and in that process I completely missed what the other party is trying to do or what their actual goal might be. It is so true in the Job search negotiation during which I just focused on scoring more than 35 points and prepared my arguments accordingly. When we started the negotiation, my partner took the lead and decided which issue needs to be negotiated first. He started with location and gave me an impression that his preference was to put me in Dallas although his actual preference was to settle for Chicago. His strategy was to show as if he is giving concession to me and negotiate on other issues. Although I understood his strategy quickly, I misjudged his preference and came to know about it only after we finished our negotiation. The learning here for me is to explicitly ask the other party what his or her preference would be and thereby force them to a point where they will find it difficult to hide their intention.
The other aspect that I’m not pleased with my negotiation style is I always wait for other party to make a first move so that I can get an idea of what their expectations are and change my strategy if necessary. Although this strategy helps me to negotiate effectively, I sometime miss out great opportunity by not starting aggressively. For instance, I allowed my partner to start the negotiation in this case and choose the issue to be negotiated first. In all three issues that we negotiated, he revealed his expectations first by starting very aggressively (80K, Dallas & June) and forced me to anchor my negotiation around these boundaries. Hence, I had to negotiate very hard to get my pie for both salary and start date. Although at the end I negotiated very effectively and scored better than my target, I lost my bargaining power to go beyond my expectations. Actually I should have taken the lead by bringing the issue that I felt