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Self-Reflection on Negotiation and Application to Daily and Professional Life

Decent Essays

Negotiation is an important activity in our lives. Knowingly and unknowingly, we negotiate almost every day with our friends, colleagues, family members and sometimes, even with ourselves. Academically negotiation is defined as a formal discussion between people who are trying to reach an agreement. We use negotiations to achieve our goals, realize our expectations, work out a compromise or simply avoid trouble with others. It is a process by which we try to resolve differences of opinion or conflicting interests. The module conducted on negotiation explained negotiation as a decision making or problem solving process that involved two or more parties who are in a state of conflict with each other, because of opposing interests, concerns, …show more content…

It is essential to remember that the objective was simple and direct and had no clauses or assumptions attached, similar to the first part of the module. Reflecting back on the first part of the module, i.e. arm wrestling, being the stronger opponent I was able to attain higher points than my opponent demonstrating my power. Interestingly, even before the initiation of the exercise, my opponent was overwhelmed by a sense of domination. My assumption about my power was incorrectly perceived by my opponent as the objective of the exercise clearly stated that the most number of points had to be achieved without mentioning any confines of a competition. My opponent failed to understand and kept on resisting as a result, further force had to be applied in order for me to attain the desired objective. I was willing negotiate with my opponent, however, realized that the stereotype commonly attached to the word ‘arm wrestling’ such as strength and competition makes it a harder negotiating arena. What I learnt through the first part of the module was that even though I was willing and able to think out of the box, in order to attain the objective, other parties involved in the process needed to clarify their positions and assumptions prior to the negotiation process. The absence of verbal communication multiplied the issues and was one of the predominant factors or lack thereof in the failure of the objective. In

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