Smart Avoidance during Negotiation
Author: XIONG SIYU (Bell)
Student no.: 52752938
The law of
win-win says “Let’s not do it your way or my way; let’s do it the best way.”
Greg
Anderson
The
22 Non-negotiable
Ways
of Wellness
As I
said in the questionnaire at the beginning of this class, I am totally a green
hand in business area. Even though I have some collaboration experience during
my college time, the ultimate results appear unsatisfied to my expectation. Since
I haven’t taken any business course before, I have a strong willing to learn
something useful from this class, ranging from the theoretical knowledge, to
the technique, or the experience on collaboration. To be frank, I think I have
got more than what I want at the end of the course. And here, I’d like to talk
about the most interesting part from my perspective ---- SMART AVOIDANCE DURING
NEGOTIATION.
What
is collaboration?
Before
the class, I hold the view that collaboration is equal to making friends
to some extent. It is the processes that working with some old or
new friends, aiming to seek for a right way to get closer to the right result. I
even tent to believe that the more intimate we are, the better results will be
came out, and a better collaboration relationship we will have. Because friends
know well about each other and will understand that the arguing on some
different points doesn’t represent friendship broken.
Under
this situation, my former collaboration experiences are almost in the ‘Hard
Bargaining’ mode. The collaborators and I are all trying our best to find the
so-called right way to solve every problem and complete the project. As a
result, we spend so much time on persuading each other because most of us are
stick to our own colors, and even have the stupid thought that who wins more on
those small arguments who will win at last. However, even everyone think he/she
is doing the best to help completing the project, the truth is the process was
so inefficient and the outcome seems didn’t meet the satisfaction
of anyone. Sometimes, the outcome is even worse than that doing by an
individual.
It’s
interesting to look back and find out that I was wrong from the beginning. The
relationship of collaboration is very different from friendship. Collaborate is
one of the negotiation styles. It’s a kind of style with high concern for
relationship and goals as well. It’s not like solving a mathematic problem.
During the negotiation, there is never a right way since right or wrong
isn’t absolute, and instead, there is only better way.
Therefore,
arguing on every point is unnecessary. Although you may think you have found
the right way, it’s not the best way. The most interesting thing
is, sometimes it is the wrong way which would come out to be the best way at
last.
During
the whole class, our group INFINITE chooses the ‘Integrative Bargaining’ mode when doing negotiations both within
group and with the morning group. In this process, I realize that smart avoidance,
which I will never choose before, helps a lot during negotiation, especially
for possible conflicts.
Avoid
is regarded as a negotiation style with low concern for goals and low concern
for relationship. It always be considered as a nonconfrontational way mostly used
by Asians to avoid the subject of unhappiness altogether than jeopardize the
current relationship. From my perspective, avoidance is not like compromise, it
is avoiding conflicts that may harm to the relationship and give way for more
essential points that ensure the well operation of the whole collaboration.
Intra-group
Collaboration
In
the group INFINITE, we have to collaborate with each other every week. Small
presentations are required nearly every week in the class. So it’s long term
collaboration with frequently face-to-face meeting. And there exist small
conflicts unavoidably. From my own perspective, smart avoidance is usually
used.
Since
we three are major in the same subject, we are already friends before this
class. So maintaining the relationship and guarantee the operating of all kinds
of processes are the highest concern.
When
faced with small conflicts like time-conflict, we just ignore it for the first
time and never set deadlines between each other afterwards. For an assignment,
we just do it in a relatively free way. We use ‘WECHAT’, which is a piece of instant
chat software, to communicate and share thoughts with each other anytime and
anywhere. In this way, a good idea that happen to appear in anyone’s mind can
be spread out immediately. We seldom set rules because we are all such kind of
people that feel more comfortable under relaxed atmosphere. If it changes to a
more pushy way, I think we cannot do it well.
However,
it also has some problems. Since we are a little over freely, we even don’t
have a team leader for a long time. It appears that any of us can happen to be
the team leader, but no one is willing to do the final decision. The situation
turns better when we set a team leader later on.
When preparing
for the first assignment, we had a brilliant brainstorming before the class. Whacky
ideas are encouraged during the discussion, which make results creatively. Of
course the process of amassing ideas is very pleasant. When it’s time to settle
down to a specific idea, problems came. After setting down the teaching principle,
we have different ideas on teaching method, classroom management and assessment
system. Especially for the assessment system, it took us a long time to
persuade each other but with no results. At last, we choose the smart avoidance;
we just get rid of the whole assessment system, and set up the innovation class
with a very simple evaluation system and we all agree with this. This successfully
avoids future conflicts and makes our process go well afterwards.
Therefore,
avoid the possible situation that may lead to argument between us can make us pay
more attention on other essential or important parts, and the feeling that we
have a common goal contributes to a more efficient work.
Inter-group
Collaboration
When
doing the final project, we have to collaborate with the morning group. This time,
we realize we have to use the ‘Interest-based’
style of negotiation and avoidance cannot be used too much because we have to
fight for our interest and too much avoidance seem to be passive in
negotiation.
The morning
group THE CASSIOPEAN seems so aggressive from the beginning. They sent a
timetable for us to decide on which day to meet, and they always play as the
pushy role, which give us a certain pressure. Since we two groups come from
different backgrounds, they appear to be more creative while we more logical
when coming up with new ideas. Obviously, we can surely learn from each other
during this collaboration.
For communication
method, we tried ‘SKYPE’ at first. It’s a piece of instant chat software but
didn’t seem work well for us. The situation is like they propose a question
which we don’t pay attention to, so no response since we can hardly decide to
agree or disagree at such short time. When we come up with different opinions
for them, they are not that easily to be persuaded. As far as I am concerned,
when chatting on Skype, the collaborators in the same group are not in the same
place so that sometimes the chatting is operating within the group instead of
between the two groups. In a word, we both don’t accommodate to this type of
communication and we change to a more efficient way – Email. This is a smart
avoidance as well. We avoid directly arguing between our two groups and reserve
more time for each of us to discuss within each group in order to unify the
opinion. Email goes well indeed. The stress is reduced significantly, and we
both have more time to absorb each other’s ideas. At the same time, we have
sufficient room to explain ourselves in case of misunderstanding. We both can
see the progress of the project clearly and logically. Therefore, email is the
main negotiation way between us later on.
For the
virtual system we built, the negotiation process is interesting. At the beginning,
we don’t think their idea is realistic although it’s full of creativity. As we
lead them to think in some logical ways, the virtual system becomes more and
more reasonable and ideal with the leveled system and some simple protocol. Then,
we both figure out that we have to set some rules for the fantastic virtual
system. Follow the ‘Interest-based’ principle, we have set our basic demands
and prepared for a hard negotiation. After we receive the first edition of the
protocol from them, we found that the Cassiopean seems so aggressive and
consider the whole virtual system as part of their possessions. We are shocked
indeed at first, but choose not to directly fight against their rules. We choose
to have a smart avoidance at this time. We avoid striving for the possess of
the system cause it definitely will result in a long-period time of negotiation
and can hardly reach a win-win situation. Instead, we ‘give’ the whole system
to them together with more responsibilities. We pretend that we neglect our own
interests, but we have expanded the pie in fact. We fight for our interests in
other aspects and have the agreement from the Cassiopean easily. Finally, we
two groups reach a win-win situation.
Conclusion
From this
course, I think I have got more than what I expected.
I’ve
got new ideas on the way to work with people and how to have high performance
collaboration.
Thanks
to INFINITE, and thanks to my two perfect group members.
References
[1].
Osman‐Gani
A A M, Tan J S. Influence of culture on negotiation styles of Asian managers:
An empirical study of major cultural/ethnic groups in Singapore[J]. Thunderbird
International Business Review, 2002, 44(6): 819-839.
[2].
Sebenius J K. The hidden challenge of cross-border negotiations[J]. Harvard
Business Review, 2002, 80(3): 76-85.
[3].
Drake L E. Negotiation styles in intercultural communication[J]. International
Journal of Conflict Management, 1995, 6(1): 72-90.
