Executive Summary: Before coming to negotiation work shop I strongly believed that it is not easy to get achieve Wall-Wall or Win loss results at every negotiation. That’s made me more excited to attend this work shop. In my personal life, people around me believe me that I am a good negotiator/ buyer as “buying research ” Is my routine activity. I have been successful most of the time in negotiating good deal for the things I buy in my personal life. When it comes to professional life, I get nervous as I have never though about utilizing my inherent skill that helps me to successfully negotiate in my personal life.
I did acquire some more negotiation skill by experience and learning through co- workers but that was not enough get me high level of success. Work shop gave me an opportunity to look Into many of my Inherent skill and bring them out to be successful negotiator. Also learn lot of new things like acceptable power level aspiration and knowledge are key component to be a successful negotiator. Series of simulated negotiation with different scenario, gave me hands on experience in practice some of the things I learn in work shop and has increased my confident.
With this work shop definitely increase the probability of a successful negotiation for me as and individual. To move forward , to strengthen my negotiation skill, I have done self assessment that describe my strength and weakness before workshop and strength and weakness after work shop. After that I will try to identify steps to over come my weakness. My Strength before negotiation : My strength as a negotiator before workshop, which I think am able to Identify through this work shop is I think, acquiring information by research, under standing power level.
I think aspiration for some achievement, knowledge gained through search and communication skill are the source of my power. I do research, gather as much information I can regarding product / service , market, other parties strength and weakness , business practice prior to negotiation. I know there are solution to each problem come across during the negotiation, it all about how good you analyze your alternatives and move forward towards negotiation. Analyzing alternative help us to expand pie and when pie is big enough , need to focus on multi – point Instead of single point.
This helps me to divide pale with a bigger share In my favor. When It comes to deciding target point, I try to be logical and reasonable. This means, I try to set my target point which is not too low that other party accept it easily or not is always based on logics and facts, so when it comes to declare target to other party I can logically explain why I am expecting this target. My weakness before negotiation: When it’s come to weakness, it is difficult for me to identify my own weakness but when ever failure occurs, I do realize that , I need to improve somewhere.
There are always room for improvement , no matter how good you are at any thing. Prior to coming to this workshop, I was sure that I need some improvement be a successful negotiator. I was not sure about what area I need to improve or strengthen my skill ? One thing that I think was sure about my communication skill, being new immigrant to Canada from non-English speaking country , and having divers culture , I have issue with communication and pronunciation of some words which are difficult to understand others. I was able to Justify my desires with logical explanations and convince them to do so.
Negotiation is a conversation intended to resolve arguments, to reach to an agreement upon specific criteria, or to produce outcomes to meet different interests. Win-win strategy is what most professionals claim as their strategy when it comes to negotiation including myself. My purpose of doing this self-assessment is to come up with an action tartan to improve my negotiation skills. I believe my personal power is at an acceptable level. I have aspiration, confidence, skills, and knowledge which are the required components to be successful in a negotiation.
Although, I am not that strong in leading a negotiation towards it’s ultimate goal. In order to increase the arability of a successful negotiation, for me as an individual, first I should identify the required steps and the order they should be taken in the course of a negotiation and try not to skip any step. The second item in my action plan is to improve my ability to construct trust-based negotiation. If trust is the basis of a negotiation, then both involved parties can think of a long relationship rather than one time transaction and it is what matters.
My strengths as a negotiator before Negotiation workshop: As briefly mentioned in the executive summary, my personal power is my main strength. Aspiration, confidence, skills, and knowledge are the basic components which shape my power of negotiation. Prior to negotiation, I always do my homework; I believe being well- prepared is the first step before any negotiation. I try to collect as much information as possible. Adequate information about the other parties at the negotiation table, their history, interests, aversions, and possible positions give me the power which comes with knowledge and confidence.
With regards to my negotiation skills, I am always positive when entering a negotiation. I personally believe there is always mom sort of solution out there for each and every problem we may possibly face in as much as possible. When the pie is reasonably expanded, then I get the chance not to focus on a single issue. Multi-dimensional target point gives me the ability to trade off and get what I want and satisfy another’s interests at the same time. I also try to be logical and reasonable in determining my target point.
This is where my desire to make a deal possible comes to play. I try to set my target not too low and not too high. The goal setting process starts with defining the key points in my argument and my target point is where I realistically expect to come to an agreement. Setting reasonable target helps to keep the zone of possible alternatives (ZAP) wider and it increases the possibility for a deal to happen. Over-aspiring makes a deal impossible or if the deal has to happen it may end up with a single transaction rather than a long relationship.
My weaknesses as a negotiator before Negotiation workshop: It gets difficult whenever it comes to weaknesses. This was not easy for me to recognize the factors which make me fragile in a negotiation. Prior to the negotiation workshop, I knew for sure that there are some areas which I need to improve in, although, it was not clear to me which areas and obviously if you are not sure about the factors which make you weak in a negotiation you can not have any particular plan to improve it. This was the main factor that made me interested in the workshop at the first place.
I thought that the workshop will definitely help me to utilize other people’s experiences and tactics to identify my areas for improvement. My strengths as a negotiator after Negotiation workshop: The workshop showed me that I was right in identifying my strengths and also made me aware of the importance of each and every aspect of it. The first strength that I believe I have gained during the workshop is to take advantage of the power of giving another party credit for what they are good at.
With regards to negotiation, I used to think that you do not have to emphasize on other party’s strengths; I had the feeling that you should not show your interest in a deal. I have the ability to say good stuff about people or things but I had the wrong perception that if you show your interest r talk about the other party being great then you will be in the weak position. Now my approach has changed. I understand that this tool can help me as a negotiator to increase the trust on both sides.
The second gained strength which I consider it as the most important for me is the ability to recognize my weaknesses and therefore ability to come up with a plan to improve which I will explain comprehensively in the following sections. Improve it: During the negotiation workshop, I found out that my biggest weakness is not to follow a specific structure for my negotiations. Losing the track in the course of a negotiation has previously happened to me and according to my learning in the workshop I suppose the main cause was not to follow certain steps.
My action plan to solve this problem is to follow the following steps in my negotiations: I did some research and I found that the following procedure is a common practice to pursue when negotiating: 1. To identify why are each of us at the table 2. Group agenda structure which will help to sustain a relationship during the course of a negotiation 3. Sharing information on interests, facts, and alternatives 4. Finding common ground 5. Brainstorming (To find creative solutions without Judging) 6. Bargaining (To suggest the Best First Offer with something to satisfy everyone’s needs) 7.
Finalizing (To get the agreements down on paper) All negotiations cover these steps, whether explicitly or implicitly. If one or more steps are skipped it will come back to haunt the efforts to find an efficient, stable, and wise solution. The second area that I discovered my need to work to improve it is trust and trust- based negotiations. It is easy to claim that my negotiation strategy is WIN-WIN; although, when it comes to reality there are not many negotiators who have the ability to perform an actual trust-based negotiation.
My action plan to solve this problem is as follows: I should learn how to set wins conditions for the other party. I must put myself in their shoes and see what points are WIN conditions for them. Sometimes other party is more concerned about some less useful part of agreement in our side; we can take advantage of it by popping up that portion as core issue and make them feel that we care about what they want out of the negotiation.
Based on my research if I know owe to base my negotiation on the three following principals I will be able to make a trust-based negotiation: It’s about the relationship, not the transaction Seek all information from other party, and lead by sharing all your own Generalize this transaction multiple times into the future relationship instead of the one-time order, a wide range of options will be available to make a fair deal. This is clear that if someone knows that the other party is telling the truth, and is willing to be examined about any aspect of it, and then she/he has all the reasons to trust them.
