Nadie | Le Nguyen Quoc Vinh | 黎阮國榮 Student ID: 1117182

Reflective Journal of Negotiation Process

N EGOTIATING is a fairly common activity in our present life. In fact, it is a consequence of

a negative market where people become greedy and seek more profit for themselves. As
the representative of the Band, my objective was to deal with the contractor in order to balance
the job for both the local people and the subcontractor. The safe area was set outside the shaded
areas in the instruction I received and the more jobs for the local the more successful I get. Of
course it is not that easy when my partner, the contractor had the contrast target. Then this is how
I do.
The primary objective is taking the advantage for my organization, which means as many jobs
for the local as possible and the agreement needs to be made in any situation. For my concept,
doing business is maintain the satisfaction and connection between partners. So in any case, I
will not accept myself to bring negative feeling to my partners, that is why I would not take the
massive advantage for me and share it with them. I used the opposite approach to create an
"unacceptable zone" of my partner base on mine and found a small safe zone between the two
borderlines. To make the deal in that area, I need to face with one of the best enemy of all
negotiation – greed. I am sure that my partner will try their best to take as much advantage as
they can and often will not care about what I will receive. Simulations was done in my mind to
figure out the alternatives and possible outcomes from there. The most likely scenario is when
both are vying for advantages over themselves which will lead to conflict, disagreement or even
worse. The best outcome for me in that option is to use my strength to get the maximum
advantage and accept that there will be no more business with that partner after that, because
they already know that there is unfairness in cooperation with me. That is definitely against my
conscience. I myself can control my greed but not sure what will happen to the other person. So I
need to reduce their greed with the Strategy of Suffering ( 苦肉计) or playing victim. With this
strategy, I will make up the numbers by drastically increasing the requirements of the Band and
reducing the number of subcontractor jobs in another piece of paper. At that time, the
contractor's requirements will become harsher and vice versa. However, this strategy can give
me a lot of advantages if I use it correctly, but surely my partner can find the correct numbers
and detect my deception, which will greatly influence future collaborations. So this strategy
should be used with caution and with a clear understanding of where to stop.
At the negotiation, I choose to make the deal with Felycia, who is my former teammate and we
have a good relationship with her before. This is also a right choice for me to minimize my greed
because I will not be cruel to those I am close to, and yes I learned that she is a nice person and I
think I can control the situation if I work with her. After choosing the right strategy and the right
person, the last is doing the right thing. I decided to indirectly control the negotiation, for the
closer meaning, I would play the passive role. We choose to make it a friendly talk rather than a
tight parley, so we had a greeting before we started. The first person to mention about the
business must be Felycia to ensure everything was in my control and yes, she did claim the
number she wanted when I was saying unrelated issues. As expected, her target was far from my

Organizational Behavior Theory and Practice – CM720

Nadie | Le Nguyen Quoc Vinh | 黎阮國榮 Student ID: 1117182

acceptable zone and surely gain more advantage. I had not made any negotiation with her before
so that I had no idea about characteristic and logic – important necessary factors to make
flexible approriate strategies during the negotiation. For that time, her determination and level of
compromise would be those critical index. To know the above indicators, I need to use a trial
method, through questions related to adjusting her advantage and mine, her reactions will show
up in levels and I need to sum up to calculate the point she can accept. After learning her
psychological situation, I moved to the main point. I did mention that her request was too high
for me to accept, so I did show my faked figure and act as if I was the victim of my superior’s
greed. I succeeded in getting her confused and even had to show me numbers from her
documentation to indicate her acceptable threshold. That was risky for her to do so because her
partner can base on that information and manipulate her to take the advantage. But for me, that
was the leap when I could clearly determine our ZOPAs and alternative targets for both of us. It
was not a piece of cake, Felycia is a smart and consistent girl, she remained to keep her
beginning target. To make her softer in her decision, I moved to the Empathy Seeking Strategy.
In this case, I would make her become the victim also and the bad guys are our superiors. I said
that there will never be a point that we can both win, just one winner one loser or we both lose,
the origin of this activity was to make us conflict and I did not want it to happen in our
friendship. Somehow, it made her stop and rethink about what I said, that is when I realized I
won in gaining her trust. While she was confusing, I started mention about my target for the first
time, I wanted to make the deal about the subcontractor jobs number before the local one. By
doing this, she felt that she was given more respect and would be easier for me when I deal my
request. She has zoned the desired number of jobs to be at 26-30 which is quite high and
unfavorable for me but if she accepts the desired number based on my changed data table then
everything is still under control. What I should do was maintain the number as low as possible
against her determination, I expressed that she reached my limitation by the first time I said no to
all her request. From insisting, she moved to begging and finally accepting the number I
requested, 24. With that number on contractor jobs, she would fell safe when dealing the local
jobs number. I have built a firm stance on the credibility of my data sheet, so that she can see the
compromise I gave to her, from which she understands that in this regard, the compromise will
come from her. I offered the number 85, where was next to Felycia limitation borderline but still
higher advantage for me so that she would have some bargain before moving to my desired
target, 75. The best way to let her make a mistake is quick decision. The less she thinks, the more
inaccurate her decision is. The bargaining lasted longer than I expected then I used the time
pressure to have her make a quick decision, obviosly it fit right in my safe area and we had our
agreements. With 68 points for me and 45 for Felycia, I achieved my final goal – we were all
happy and satisfied with the result and willing to have another negotiation. For me, that activity
was another chance for me to practice my negotiation skill by combining almost all the
knowledge I have learned before. On my way to be a great negotiator, I hope I can always keep
my stance that if I have the ablility to win all the negotiation, I will try my best to minimize the
greed, control the situation, bring the equality for both sides and remain the cooperation, that is
how a negotiation should be done to me.

Organizational Behavior Theory and Practice – CM720