Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement

“Successful negotiation is not about getting to ‘yes’; it’s about mastering ‘no’ and understanding the path to an agreement is” (Christopher Voss). During the negotiation process, there are a lot of moving parts and personalities. In addition, hurt feelings can all too often get in the way. The bottom line of any negotiation is to reach a settlement that will mutually benefit both parties. It’s a challenging situation by which compromise or agreement is reached while attempting to avoid arguments and disputes.

Negotiation is one important part of both the professional and personal life in our everyday situations. It is critical for people to resolve disputes, distribute limited resources, and/or create something new that neither party could achieve on his or her own. Negotiations can range from coordinating project timelines with clients to asking for a raise to discussing holiday plans with family members.

The TexasAgs oil company case study gave us insights on different aspects of a negotiation that can happen in real world scenarios. It elegantly portrayed the importance of having a BATNA, setting target and restriction points, impact of the fluctuating markets on the ongoing negotiations, downside of the emotional behavior, importance of having a third party member or mediator in the negotiation. The case illustrates that the negotiations should be based assumptions as they may or may not be right. Having facts and understanding the other parties true objectives and goals are truly essential in negotiation. It is a typical example of how the current power on one side can dominate and take complete advantage of their position.

It occurs in profit or non profit organizations, government sectors, dealing among nations and also in our personal situations such as salary package, house purchase, marriage, divorce and etc. The strategy to use can either be distributive or integrative depending on the situations and the outcomes that the party want out from the negotiation.

While in the process of acquiring a product or service I always try and ensure that I have at least two alternative sources for services and products that my company frequently uses. In the case of a new product or service I always tried to ensure that I have three independent quotes. Although I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to label this as a BATNA(best alternative to a negotiated agreement) I believe it did allow me to have an alternative in most cases. I am aware that this is an extremely limited view of term BATNA and I certainly don’t mean to suggest that this is a sufficient approach to this strategy, it is never the less an alternative.

Gina Blair and Daniel Trent cooperate and collaborate to achieve a common objective throughout their negotiation. A cooperative negotiation style is demonstrated as they combine their points of view regarding their clients concerns with outcomes to effectively solve the issues raised. The main focus of the negotiation is to reach an agreement rather than a continuous dispute. Accordingly, the conflicting objectives were resolved by compromises and solutions but forward by both Gina and Daniel. The negotiation style used between Gina and Daniel is described as principled negotiation where both parties jointly attack the problems arising to achieve a compromise.

This introduction talks about Negotiation concepts. BATNA (Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement) is the last proposal that a person can do before exiting the negotiation. You have to prepare your BATNA before the negotiation to keep in mind what is your alternative solution if the agreement cannot be reach.

Having analyzed the scoring scheme and weights given to each outcome, I realized that the most important outcome was obtaining a large federal loan from the government. In fact, obtaining a $2 billion loan outcome alone would satisfy the governor’s scoring scheme to support the project. Therefore, before going into the negotiation I realized that this issue would be a pivotal outcome in the negotiation for me. If I succeed in negotiating the right federal loan amount I could be flexible with the other issues in the negotiation but keeping in mind that the higher the score the better the result for the governor. My BATNA was to walk away from the deal where I would still maintain the 30 points in that situation which meant that if the result of the outcome was less than 30 points, I would vote against the deal.

Whether it is at work, church or in our private relationships, negotiations are a necessary tool for reaching an agreement. They are made by discussing each parties point of view with the aim being to reach an agreement that is mutually beneficial. For the most part, negotiation is the process by which those people involved successfully adopt or abandon their respective position through the use of positional bargaining. There are different types of approaches for the negotiation process - some hard and others soft in their manner of approach. The desired outcome of

However, if one side is far more powerful than another, they are likely to simply impose their solution on the other side, who will be forced to accept it, because they have no other choice. Using Fisher and Ury's term, they have no 'BATNA' (Best alternative to a negotiated agreement). (Gillian, (2005) Negotiation, lecture notes)

Negotiation is a fundamental form of dispute resolution involving two or more parties (Michelle, M.2003). Negotiations can also take place in order to avoid any future disputes. It can be either an interpersonal or inter-group process. Negotiations can occur at international or corporate level and also at a personal level. Negotiations often involve give and take acknowledging that there is interdependence between the disputants to some extent to achieve the goal. This means that negotiations only arise when the goals cannot be achieved independently (Lewicki and Saunders et al., 1997). Interdependence means the both parties can influence the outcome for the other party and vice versa. The negotiations can be win-lose or win-win in nature.

The negotiations class was an insightful experience. It helped me attain a better understanding of my strengths and weaknesses both personally and professionally. It helped put into perspective a lot of my theoretical analysis conducted on group dynamics and, most importantly, has helped me become a more effective negotiator. My goal with this paper is to communicate the evolution of my negotiation skills during the progression of the course.

Negotiating is something that has been around since the beginning of mankind. We all start off negotiating as little kids, even for little things such as candy and toys. When we grow up, negotiating becomes sort of the norm. We negotiate consciously and subconsciously every single day. When you think about it, negotiation takes up most of our lives. We are always trying to see what we can get as a benefit without giving up much. It always comes down to the pie, how big is the pie and who can get the biggest slice. As we become adults with careers, there are ever some that become flat our ‘Negotiators’. This means that all they do for a living is negotiate. They are master negotiators and are praised for being so. When it comes to negotiation, persuasion is also within that talent. You have to be able to get what you want from people without them feeling like they are being taken advantage of and that they are also getting just as big a piece of the pie as you are getting, although in reality they are not.

Negotiation is the process of two individuals or groups reaching joint agreement about differing needs or ideas. Oliver (1996) described negotiation as "negotiators jointly searching a multidimensional space and then agreeing to a single point in the space." Negotiation is a form of conflict resolution. When we negotiate, the first thing that needs to be established is whether we have two or more parties that have a common objective, but also differ in ideas when it comes to how they achieve the objective. The principle behind negotiating is to finding the middle ground that is suitable for both parties involved. Not all negotiation ends in satisfactory compromise, sometimes negotiations can take a long time to conclude

An effective negotiator is a strategic negotiator, who is able to switch back and forth between different phases of a negotiation without losing the goal in mind. An effective negotiator takes time to process what is happening during the negotiation and ensures that the right problem is being resolved while taking into consideration other party’s intrests to finding a common ground. Concequently those type of actions facilitate in the process of a negotiation by creating a cooperative environment and enhance the furture relationship between the parties (Fells 2012; Sebenius 2001). An effective negotiator aknowledges that no party is the same and as every negotiation, every negotiator is different from one another. These variations explain the DNA of negotiation that requires an effective negotiator to take into considerations the strands of the DNA, such as “reciprocity, trust, power, information exchange, ethics, and outcome” that vary from person to person (Fells 2012, pg 8).