Sally Soprano

General: What happened; what was the outcome; were you successful or not; why and why not;

· This case was a difficult one off the bat as it was our first case of team negotiation and there was also a gap in our walkaways. Sally claimed a walkaway of $40,000, but this was not realistic as it was clear that it was most important for Sally to get a role so that she can get back into her career. Lyric came out with an initial offer in the neighborhood of $15,000 and our counteroffer was $50,000. We were prepared to battle for our anchor as we believed that Lyric was desperate, however, we knew that we were desperate also. It soon became clear that Lyric really wanted Sally, but did not have the cash to pay her. Knowing this we immediately negotiated a future lead role for Sally. We continued to play with the numbers, but cash still was a problem. Therefore we offered to take on some of the risk and we agreed to split 50/50 all profits between 85-90% attendance. Lyric would have no risk before breaking even and Sally had the potential to get a nice payoff. This brought our number much closer together, but there was still a small gap. At this time we were able to get Sally a third lead role with the stipulation that her second lead role was profitable. Finally we agreed, on a sum of cash in the $30,000 range.

A test: was my negotiation effective? (some of these may not apply in a particular exercise)

Score yourself from 1=poor to 5=excellent

_5_ Planning and Strategy: did I have a strategy; was my walkaway right; did I estimate the other’s well?

_5__Did I establish my own priorities and potential trade-offs

_5__First approach: were we win-win, positive; try to establish rapport; did I deal with first offers effectively?

_5__How well did I develop a plan for managing the process of negotiation?

_4__Did I actively shape the agenda and manage the process to my advantage?

_5__How well did I try understand the other person:

_5__Exploring Interests: did I communicate my interests;

_5__Persuasion: How well did I persuade the other side about my legitimate needs and limits and the value of what I offered

_5_The Other's Interests did I find out the other side's real interests and constraints

_5__Creating Value (integrative or win-win) vs Claiming Value (distributive or win-lose)

_5__Options: Did we explore "expand the pie" options: did we try to find ways of meeting each party’s needs

_5__Inquiry vs. advocacy: did I ask (inquiry) a lot of questions, or just advocate my position

_4__Alternatives: Was I clear on my BATNA; was I clear about what happens if there is no agreement

_4__Legitimacy: was the agreement considered fair by some external benchmark

_5__Commitments: did the agreement avoid problems in the future; were any “strings left untied?”

_5__Communication: did we practice effective two way communication…did we listen…did we rephrase…

_5__Focus on the problem, not the person: did we avoid attacking or threatening the other person

_5__Relationship: did we deal well with differences; is our relationship better off now than before

_5__Psychological factors: did outside factors (eg. emotions) affect the outcome (their efforts or ours)

_4__Did we reach an outcome that maximized potential mutual gains; did we come close to the "Pareto Frontier?"

_2__Other factors: partner

General Conclusion:

This negotiation went about as well as we could have asked in terms of final agreement. Sally earned a decent salary, with potential for a lot more cash and up to two additional lead roles. Where this negotiation was lacking was in team chemistry. Although we came to this outcome, it was clear that my partner and I were not on the same page from the very beginning. We discussed our plan beforehand, but when it was time to execute things fell apart. My partner had difficulty with rapport and it soon felt like the other party was directing their negotiation to me, because my partner had difficulty expressing Sally’s desires. This became especially clear when we had to break our walkaway and come up with creative solutions. Even after meeting alone on two occasions to discuss strategy we still were not able to execute a team approach and it became a one person negotiation. Fortunately, there was plenty of creative value to be made and we did come to a good agreement.

Final Summary

Over the course of this class I feel I have become a fairly confident negotiator. From the first week on I achieved satisfactory results in my negotiation, not having to break my walkaway with the exception of the Soprano case and Wright plane. In both these cases the creative value that was not monetary was able to fill the gap. My past blogs and peer evaluations showed that I was able to create good rapport with my opponent and conveyed the image that I was negotiating for mutual benefit, which was true most of the time. The difficulty that I did have was in time control as my negotiations on a few occasions took longer than most of the class'. One reason for this is the lack of information in cases for creating value without having loose strings. Loose strings often caused good ideas to hit dead ends. Although, I ended up being successful I felt as though I had more difficulty in the later cases that were not monetary negotiations. I found it much easier to negotiate a dollar amount and support that amount with evidence or create value that would exceed the concessions given in breaking my walkaway. When there were multiple issues and multiple parties, as in the Mt. Sinai case, this was more difficult and we were forced to play the numbers game using a grid. Had this been a real negotiation without a point system, this would have been much more difficult. When negotiating with multiple parties I also felt that I was willing to give up more so that each party would have some gain, but this may have simply been a product of the situation in class. Lastly, in class we were always given fairly clear values for what our walkaways were. In any real negotiation I would have to come up with this myself and realize that this is not an easy task. I believe that valuing my target and walkaway will be one of the more difficult aspects of a negotiation and playing hardball given a circumstance with more on the line than pride and an opponent who is less willing to make a deal than my classmates will be difficult. In summary, although I feel like a strong negotiator in class, I am yet to see and slightly uncertain as to how a negotiation will go when there is something significant on the line and I am in an intimidating situation. Nevertheless, that day will come and I will draw upon the skills practiced in this class.

Halfway House

As this was a full class negotiation, with a number of parties and very little background information it went well. We were able to come to an agreement with which most parties were happy and most importantly, my party, the compliance team, got the results that we wanted, the halfway house was to house 60 residents. At first this seemed like an impossible task as the regulation calls for no more than 35 residents and the most vocal groups desired other uses of the school facility. With the support of the Directors the importance of housing the local mentally ill in the school became apparent to the property owners association, a particularly vocal group, and soon after the PTA. The most resistance was from the grey panthers who wanted their senior living center. As each group fought for their use of the school property it seemed like there was a way that everyone could get their piece of the pie. Unfortunately, the community had only agreed on 35 residents. The only leverage that the compliance team had to get the other 25 residents housed was that the facility was to be rebuilt by funds from the state department of rehabilitation. As the state department paid on a per patient basis, housing 60 patients would allow the highest payout and leave more funds to set up the other uses of the facility. Realizing how many uses this facility was to have there was agreement that 60 patients should be housed. At this point the compliance teams negotiation was finished and the remainder of the negotiation was ironing out details relating the division of hours between the senior/child activity center. Ultimately it was all resolved.