Ways to Manage Conflict
• Appreciate Conflict
– Positive and negative
• Use Correct Conflict
Management Styles
– Avoid, Accommodate,
Compete, Compromise,
Collaborate
• Improve Communication
– Listen Well
– Speak Clearly
• Understand Individual
Differences
– Men and Women, Ethnicity
– Personality
• Avoid Biases
– Cognitive biases, framing
• Use Negotiation
– Win-win (integrative)
– Win-lose (distributive)
• Use Mediation
– 3rd party, voluntary
compliance
Characteristics of a Negotiation or
Bargaining Situation
•
•
•
•
Two or more individuals, groups, organizations
Conflict of interest
Voluntary process using influence to get a better deal
Prefer to search for agreement than fight, capitulate,
break off contact, go to higher authority.
• Expect give and take, move positions toward one
another.
• Intangibles and tangibles
When You Shouldn’t Negotiate*
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
When you’d lose the farm
When you’re sold out (raise prices instead)
When the demands are unethical
When you don’t care
When you don’t have time
When they act in bad faith
When waiting would improve your position
When you’re not prepared
• *from Levinson, Smith, Wilson (1999). Guerrilla Negotiating.
1
Preparation
7
Implementing
the agreement
2
Relationship
building
Stages
and Phases of
Negotiation
6
Closing the
Deal
5
Bidding
3
Information
Gathering
4
Information
using
Importance of Planning
• Effective strategizing, planning, and
preparation are the most critical precursors
for achieving negotiation objectives
• Goals
• Strategy
• Plan
Negotiation Goals
• Determine goals: what you want to achieve
– Substantive: Goals, goal priorities, multi-goal packages,
possible trade-offs.
– Procedural: Agendas, bargaining histories
– Tangible (rate, price, terms, language) AND
– Intangible (precedent, defend principle, reputation, etc.)
• Effects of goals on choice of strategy
– Need “high but attainable,” concrete, specific, measurable
goals
– Our goals often linked to other’s goals (i.e., issues)
• Issues, Positions, Interests
– Boundaries/limits to what goals can be (attainable)
– Short term vs long term? Relationship-oriented goals
Strategy
• “The overall plan to accomplish one’s goals in a negotiation,
and the action sequences that will lead to the accomplishment
of those goals”
• Strategy, tactics, planning
– Strategy: long-term, overall approach
– Tactics: short-term, adaptive moves
– Planning: action component
• Strategic options:
Substantive Outcome Important?
Relational
Outcome
Important?
Yes
Yes Collaboration*
No
Accommodation
No Competition
Avoidance
*Integrative (win-win). The others are Distributive (win-lose).
Integrative vs. Distributive Negotiation
Flow of
information
Integrative
Create a free and open
flow; share information
openly
Distributive
Conceal info, or use it
selectively and strategically
Understanding the Attempt to understand
Make no effort to understand
other
what the other side really the other side, or use the
wants and needs
information to gain strategic
advantage
Attention to
Emphasized common
commonalities and goals, objectives, interests
differences
Search for solutions that
Focus on solutions meet the needs of both
(all) sides
Emphasize differences in goals,
objectives, interests
Search for solutions that meet
own needs or even block the
other from meeting their needs.
Getting Ready to Implement Negotiation
Strategy-- The Planning Process
• Defining the issues
• Assembling issues and
defining the bargaining mix
• Defining interests
• Defining limits
• Defining one’s own
objectives (targets) and
opening bids (where to start)
• Defining the constituents to
whom one is accountable
• Understanding the other
party and its interests and
objectives
• Selecting a strategy
• Planning the issue
presentation and defense
• Defining protocol—where
and when the negotiation
will occur, who will be
there, agenda, etc.
Brief Guide to Requests
• Requests are speech acts that call another person into
action: “I request that you __(intended result)__ by
__(deadline__.”
• Requests should be unequivocal.
• Unequivocal
– Increase sales by 25%
– Give me support at the
sales meeting
– By 3 pm this afternoon
– By the 15th of next
month
• Equivocal
– Increase sales
– Speak on behalf of and vote
for my new pricing policy at
the sales meeting
– ASAP
– Next month
Collecting No’s
• Formulate and make requests intended to produce
“No” as response
• “No” is a success
– Assertive , learn to ask for things directly, discover real
limits to a reasonable or unreasonable request.
• People generally say “yes” to requests
–
–
–
–
(6 to 1)
More and more unreasonable, short deadline
Decline requests: “maybe”, etc. Why?
What excuses are used? Accepted?
• How persistent must you be to get a yes?
• What would you have to do to get a “yes”?
Ugli Orange Role-Play
Use Negotiation to Manage Conflict
• Win-win
(integrative bargaining)
• Win-lose
(distributive bargaining)
• Mediation (3rd party,
voluntary compliance)
• Arbitration (3rd party,
mandatory compliance)
Pemberton Payoff Matrix
Country Market
Close Sunday
Open Sunday
Close
Sunday
Corner
Store
Open
Sunday
-40,000
Corner
+20,000
Corner
Country
+20,000
Country +40,000
Corner
+40,000
Corner
Country
-40,000
Country -20,000
-20,000
**THE GOAL IS TO MAXIMIZE PROFITS OVER THE
NEXT 12-WEEK PERIOD