Semester reflection (bonus blog)

The most valuable concept I've learned from this class was the Negotiation Fundamentals.  The three approaches to resolving disputes is something I will definitely take away with me and apply in my future endeavors.  Before any negotiation, I must stand back any recognize the interests of the other parties, be able to determine who is right, and know who is more powerful.  These are the three basic elements to any dispute.  For example, the story in our textbook about a miner that claims his work boots were stolen and he didn't feel that he should lose the cost of his boots and a day's pay because the company can't protect his boots for him.  The shift boss maybe should not have focused on who was right according to the regulations, but instead could have focused on both parties interests and realized that both sides wanted to work.  Realizing this would help with things not escalating and both parties being happy with the outcome.  When you fight with power, things can get ugly pretty quickly.  This should have been a joint problem that both sides could have helped solve.  Besides, being a shift boss or supervisor, your interests should also be accommodating your workers and making them happy and feeling good about working for you.  Focusing on interests rather than rights or power tends to have higher satisfaction with outcomes and better working relationships.  Also reconciling interest is less costly than determining who is right or who is more powerful.  After graduation, if I ever become a manager of people, because of this class I will always remember to take a step back and recognize all interests involved before making any hast decisions or showing power.  This also helps with being a more charismatic leader and building strong relationships with others.  I feel that this type of attitude creates a more positive work environment which is better for everyone involved. 

Two things I've learned about the negotiation process...

     Negotiation is a decision making process among interdependent parties who do not share identical preferences.  I have learned that the greatest opportunity to improve negotiator performance lies in the negotiator's ability to make effective use of the information available about the issues in dispute as well as the likely behavior of an opponent to reach more rational agreements and make more rational decision within the context of negotiation.  A negotiator must understand the framing of negotiations and the psychological forces that limit a negotiator's effectiveness.  Negotiation framing is an important negotiation technique.  The framer defines the issue at stake in a certain way to close a deal, reach consensus or win an argument.  A good opponent will reframe the issue and move the focus from the negotiator's main concern is to what the opponent's interest is.  This is where rational takes place.  Rationality refers to making the decision that maximizes the negotiator's interests.  The goal of negotiations is to reach a good agreement.  For example, we frame the options in terms of the percentage discount when the main focus is cost.  Negotiator's are willing to pay almost a dollar more because of the way in which they frame the purchase. 
     Secondly, I've learned that common biases in decision making involves framing.  When making business decisions, one needs to frame the outcomes of decisions differently relative to status quo.  When it comes to decision making, good decision are those which link decision makers' utilities with decision outcomes.  In the business world, managers make relatively minor decision that are primarily operational or tactical.  A decision implies that one has access to two or more alternatives.  There are two cognitive systems that influence decision making.  System 1 refers o a process that is described as fast, automatic effortless, and often emotional.  This system is more difficult to break and is less developed.  System 2 is slow, controlled, effortful, rule governed and flexible.  System 2 is a more rational decision making process and has evolved over time.  System 2 monitors system 1, therefore both systems are processes that are important to managerial decision making, and one is not inherently preferred over the other because they work together.   

Pros & Cons of negotiating in a team (reading 3.12)

Pros
Aligning the conflicting interests held by members of your own team.
Implementing a disciplined strategy at the bargaining table. 
Clarify team goals/ Plot out the conflicts.
Constituents willing to concede more ground if they see the big pictures. 
Form relationships across constituencies.
Bringing in outside consultant to analyze data can align team interests.
Discover one another's strengths and weaknesses.
Rehearsals/Team role-play ahead of time.
Team members with prior negotiation experience with the other party can be valuable.
Clarify who has authority to make concessions and decisions. 
Can play good cop-bad cop routine to whipsaw an opponent. 
Give specific roles to team members.
Make sure team's strategy has been vetted by higher-level management.
Teams achieve higher quality outcomes.
Teams can learn more about the other party's priorities.
Maximizes use of team resources.
Establish a plan for intrateam communication.
Discuss and decide in real time when making concessions.
Access to greater expertise.
Ability to assign members to specialized roles. 
Can implement more complex strategies.


Cons
Other team members could blurt out or say things that cause the team to lose ground.
Have different priorities.
Imagine different ideal outcomes. 
Sometimes does not go to table with a coherent negotiation strategy. 
What's good for one part of the team/company may be bad for another part of the team/company. 
May dig in on issues important to their constituents rather than what's best for the company. 
May not be able to reconcile differences. 
Team members don't have access to same data as leaders.
Members may distrust data that comes from different departments.
Undisciplined behavior.
Team members can get emotional or become irrational toward the other side. 
Team members sometimes reveal information that jeopardizes a position or expose weakness.
Team member may become overeager without reciprocal concession from the team.
Clashes about appropriate negotiation styles.
Some team members offer too much information or chime in at inopportune moments. 
Can run into trouble at the table when experts aren't available.
Lack of internal alignment increases the probability that team discipline will break down. 
Deficiency can push team into a spiral.

Labor Unions

Today, we live in a society that confirms daily that only people with money matter. Wealth segregation makes a common social experience nearly impossible. How much money you have determines what kind of health care you receive or which schools your children attend. Unionizing can close the gap between the rich and the poor by reducing recessions and reducing high levels unemployment. Unionizing could help with higher wages, job security, better health benefits, etc... Today, workers are missing the pull of collective action. Our young generation grew up not knowing of labor's early tenacity and vigor, but with the reality of unions under attack. Nurses and teachers interests are represented by unions. Walmart employees are not represented by unions. Walmart employees have struggled to join forces to advocate for better pay and more stable schedules so they aren't forced to rely on public assistance and food stamps to supplement their low wages. More and more of U.S. businesses provide a service rather than a product with a lot of our manufacturing leaving our country. This has also contributed to unions going down in our country. Unions have been on the decline since the 1960s.

Negotiating with Emotion (Reading 2.4)

      Negotiation is simply a matter of cool calculation.  It's important to be poised when warming up for a negotiation.  Having positive feelings can increase creativity and certainly help with being more prepared. 
      Recently, I was offered a job after graduation, and I intend on negotiating my salary before I accept the position.  Below are the six questions I plan on preparing for before my upcoming negotiation. 
1.)  How do you want to feel going into the negotiation?
2.)  Why?
I want to be optimistic and have positive emotions.  I want to be prepared, educated, confident, and strong.  I feel if I prepared with valid reasons as to why I deserve a higher salary, they would be more agreeable to my request.  I also want to be prepared with comebacks if they shoot down my request.  I don't want to go in and just say "ok" if they reject my request.  I want to comeback again with great reasons as to why I deserve it.  For example, not only do I have a degree, but I also have 21 years of work experience under my belt, then go on to explain or reiterate all the skills and knowledge I have gained over the years. 
3.)  What can you do beforehand to put yourself in an ideal emotional state?
Before a negotiation, for me, it's important to "clear my head" or meditate for a few minutes.  Sometimes just closing my eyes and taking some deep breaths helps me focus and get my thoughts on track and in order.  It also gives me a minute to remember key things and remind myself to stay calm and relaxed.  This helps me to get in that state of mind. 
4.)  What can throw you off balance during a negotiation?
I need to be prepared for possibly not getting the answer I want.  I want to be ready and know how to handle the situation if my request is turned down.  I don't want to give them a negative impression or say something that could change their impression of me if I don't handle the situation correctly or professionally.  Also, if they do give me what I want, I don't want to overreact.  My focus is to stay calm, professional, and respectful at all times. 
5.)  What can you do in the midst of a negotiation to regain your balance?
If I am thrown off balance, I would want to regain my balance by being prepared with another comeback.  I want to be firm in letting them know I deserve a higher salary and why.  I want to be prepared with several comebacks without being pushing or overbearing.  I want to be prepared at staying calm and respectful at all times. 
6.)  How do you want to feel when you're finished?
I want to feel accomplished and satisfied once the negotiation is over.  Even if I don't get what I want, I think just taking a stance and being prepared with good reasoning as to why I deserve a higher salary would make me feel that I at least tried.  At least I asked and let them know that I feel confident and worthy of the job I'm doing.  This alone would make me feel proud that I explained to them that I'm definitely worth it and I gave good answers as to why. 

Where does my real power come from? (Reading 2.8)

     Knowing where power comes from helps us to build our own power and increase our capacity to take action.  For some, power comes from personal attributes or traits, and for others power comes from structural sources or situational requirements.  Too many times we overemphasize the importance of people and their characteristics and underemphasize the importance of situational factors.  For example, even when we know that the behavior we observe is strongly affected by situational factors, we still make evaluations about others based on that behavior.  Certain personal characteristics of people are associated with being powerful, some of which result from the experience of being in power.  Ambition, self confidence, extroversion, socially adept, and articulation are just a few personal characteristics that give one power.  For me, self confidence is a personal trait that gives me power.  Self confidence is directly associated with and connected to an individual's social network, the activities they participate in, and what they hear about themselves from others.  Self confidence, ambition, and competence are all personal traits that helped me finish a marathon, helped me with public speaking, helped me to back to school for my degree.  These personal traits gave me the power to successful and thrive.  Without these traits, I would not have had the power to accomplish those things. 

Women Don't Ask (Reading 4.1)

     Even though I found this reading quite interesting and informative, I also felt insulted as a woman for the reason why women are generally paid lower salaries than men.  I do find it surprising that most women just do not ask for things or negotiated terms.  This is something I've never thought about or even considered in my everyday life.  Now that I've read about these studies and statistics, I am going to not just assume things in the future and try to apply my newly learned negotiation skills.  I am startled to know that on average men make 7.6% more money than women.  However it makes me very angry that they use the excuse for not paying women more because women simply didn't ask for it.  Although I do believe these findings, I feel there is no excuse for any employer to pay a man more than a women of equal quality of work just because he asked for it!  Most employers do evaluations annually and would be able to see who is getting paid more and why.  It seems only ethical to me for an employer to justify these findings at this time.  To just say, I'll give the men and women both a 3% raise still is not fair.  To turn it around to say that women get paid less is because they didn't ask for it is a slap in the face.  This is no different than you seeing someone unknowingly drop money on the ground.  An ethical person that witnessed it would pick up the money and give it to the person that dropped it.  To say, I kept the money because that person didn't ask for it is not moral and it's very selfish.  This reading and these findings are in some way blaming women like they did something wrong.  I also find it shocking that mostly women conducted these studies and experiments and just accepted the results that "oh women don't ask" and never even go on to write about how this is wrong on the employer's part. Again, this is women accept what has happened or what they're told... just like accepting a job no matter what the pay is.  Just because men use negotiation more does not make them smarter or more qualified.  In fact, not negotiating could possibly mean women are better at working with what they have and making it work.  I don't see how not asking for things is necessarily a problem...???  When I worked for the telephone company for 21 years, my pay was never up for negotiation.  They were quite strict about what we were paid, so I only assumed I could never negotiate it.  It never occurred to me to even ask.  I just accepted my 1.5% annual raise with a smile.  Now that I've read this article, it makes me wonder if my male peers were getting paid more than me.  It now makes me angry to think back knowing after 250 evaluations (because we were evaluated monthly and I worked there for 21 years (12 X 21 = 252)), I never once asked for an increase in pay.  This reading has opened my eyes to such things.  As a woman, maybe I need to be more assertive when it comes to my own professional rewards.  I will keep this in mind with my upcoming graduation and career search.