When everything is
on the table, then nothing
is off the table.
The Haiku Pundit, <https://haikupundit.wordpress.com/tag/negotiation/>.
Looking back, I see that as the school’s representative, I was going was going in with a number of assumptions.
To begin with, I thought the consultant would be more willing to budge on his fee because of us being a public school. Underpinning that were values I have about the importance of education generally and public schools in particular as they educate the next generation, can be a powerful force for social advancement and give someone a start in life. I assumed he would hold those values as well and they would influence his position. It was clear from the discussion that while he may have shared those values, they did not necessarily inform his position. (Felstiner)
I also assumed that he would infer we were not flush with cash as a public school plus the benefit of getting the contract would potentially outweigh a fee reduction. This glosses over the fact that this not always the case, which may well have been what he would have had in his mind. I did end up communicating that to him which was a point he took into consideration but making constraining factors explicit to other party is definitely something I will do in future negotiations. (Brett & Gelfand)
Should price have been the starting point for the discussion? (Alavi et al.) Due to the information gap in our notes, I wanted to see if there was a possibility of him moving on price first. This was also what he did so we initially were haggling over price when we could have better spent that time looking at other options more fully. Partly there was a bit of ego there; if I had succeeded I would have delivered on my brief for the superintendent, which goes to reputation being a motivating factor. What I would now do is include that in part of my analysis of both sides’ interest prior to negotiating and try to have an interest-based negotiation when we sat down together.
Once we realised what a sticking factor price would be and how neither us had a lot of room negotiate it surprised me how quickly we started looking at alternative solutions in quite a positive way – this fed into the interest-based negotiation in the afternoon quite well. (Bazerman)
So practically, what I would do differently now?
To some extent the lack of preparation for both of us was a factor in how the discussion went. However, understanding that both parties will bring assumptions to the table, I would try to make mine explicit and try to understand what theirs might be. Knowing now that positions are signifiers of interests, I would also try to guess what theirs might be – are there any we have in common to build on? What ideas based off those could I put forward? This knowledge plus the tool for preparing for a constructive negotiation will inform my negotiation preparation and approach in future.
Felstiner, William L. F., The Emergence And Transformation Of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming... , Law and Society Review, 15:3/4 (1980/1981) p.631.
Brett, Jeanne & Gelfand, Michele. (2006). A Cultural Analysis of the Underlying Assumptions of Negotiation Theory. Frontiers of Negotiation Research.
Alavi, S., Habel, J., Schwenke, M. et al. Price negotiating for services: elucidating the ambivalent effects on customers’ negotiation aspirations. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 48, 165–185 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00676-4.
Bazerman, M. H. (1983) ‘Negotiator Judgment: A Critical Look at the Rationality Assumption’, American Behavioral Scientist, 27(2), pp. 211–228. doi: 10.1177/000276483027002007.
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