Integrative and Distributive Negotiation Experiences
This week’s assignment aims to help you better understand your own orientations and inclinations in negotiation situations.
Combining this week’s material with last week’s discussion, we’ve seen several approaches to explaining negotiation behavior. Moore’s two-dimensional description of conflict strategies (Macfarlane text, 2-6) is often used to explain behavior in negotiation (with the ‘conflict strategies’ becoming ‘negotiation strategies’). We have learned about integrative and distributive approaches, and considered the value of competition and cooperation. In “Getting to Yes”, we have been exposed to two more categorizations of people’s behavior in negotiation: the ‘hard’/’soft’ divide and the approaches of interest-based negotiation as opposed to positional bargaining.
In order to best understand our own negotiating behavior, we need to explore these approaches to negotiation on two levels:
The first level is that of personal orientation. As you have probably sensed while reading, people differ in their intuitive approach to negotiation. Faced with a decision juncture in a negotiation process, some of us instinctively lean towards a next move that is cooperative in nature, and others lean towards a next move which is demanding or competitive. Some of us prefer to avoid negotiation altogether, when we can get away with it – and others are always on the lookout for an opportunity to interact and gain an edge. This orientation, or instinctive leaning, toward one type of negotiation behavior or another has little to do with our rational thinking process, and much more to do with the unspoken way that we approach and view the world.
The second level is that of strategic choice. Personal orientation notwithstanding, negotiation processes provide us, recurrently, with junctures at which we need to assess what is going on, our opposite party, and our needs, and make decisions. When we are aware of these junctures, we attempt to consciously choose a strategy that seems best suited to the situation – regardless of whether or not it is in line with our intuitive approach.
This assignment will enable us to address these two levels which affect our negotiation behavior.
Part I: Choose three negotiation situations you have participated in.
•The first should be a situation in which you consider you took an approach located on the competitive/distributive/positional side of the behavior spectrum:
In up to one page, touch on the following points:
•Describe the background of the situation.
•What actions did you take that you think demonstrate your competitive or distributive approach?
•Do you feel you chose this competitive course of behavior intentionally, or do you feel it was triggered by something other than rational choice? What might have this trigger been? The other’s actions/approach? External pressures?
•How would you describe the other’s approach? Cooperative or competitive? What actions did he or she take that you think exemplify this approach?
•How did you react to these actions?
•In retrospect, do you think you chose the best approach for handling the negotiation? Or might a more cooperative, integrative approach have yielded better results?
•The second should be a situation in which you consider you took an approach located on the cooperative/integrative/interest-based side of the behavior spectrum.
In up to one page, touch on the following points:
•Describe the background of the situation.
•What actions did you take that you think demonstrate your integrative or cooperative approach?
•Do you feel you chose this cooperative course of behavior intentionally, or do you feel it was triggered by something other than rational choice? What might have this trigger been? The other’s actions/approach? External pressures?
•How would you describe the other’s approach? Cooperative or competitive? What actions did he or she take that you think exemplify this approach?
•How did you react to these actions?
•In retrospect, do you think you chose the best approach for handling the negotiation? Or might a more competitive approach have yielded better results?
The third example should be a situation in which you chose to simply yield, accommodate the other, and give him or her, whatever it was they needed / requested / demanded.
In up to one page, touch on the following points:
•Describe the background of the situation, and the nature of your concession.
•Do you feel you chose this cooperative course of behavior intentionally, or do you feel it was triggered by something other than rational choice? What might have this trigger been? The other’s actions/approach? External pressures?
•How would you describe the other’s approach? Cooperative or competitive? What actions did he or she take that you think exemplify this approach?
•In retrospect, are you happy with the decision you made? Or are you feeling unsatisfied with yourself?
Part II: After describing and analyzing these experiences, reflect on them, touching at least on the following points:
In up to one page, touch on the following points:
•Do any of these situations leave you feeling particularly pleased with your decisions and your behavior? Why is this?
•Do any of these situations leave you feeling particularly dissatisfied with your decisions and your behavior? Why is this?
•Which of these three behaviors came more naturally or intuitively to you – and which do you feel required a special effort, or made you feel as if you were acting a role?
•Reflecting on these situations in light of the various concepts we’ve read about, discussed in the discussion forum and focused on in this paper: are you able to identify a mode of negotiation behavior that seems to come naturally to you, or suits your orientation? Do you feel that this is because it seems most rational or logical to you – or because it is more suitable to and in line with your intuitive orientation to life, interactions with other, etc. Do you think you will always act in line with this orientation? If not – what triggers or situations might encourage you to act otherwise?
•What other insights might you have gained from this assignment?
Ability to explain integrative and distributive dimensions of conflict.
