Question 1
I played the role of Sally’s agent and recent partner at the firm that manages acts for celebrities. The other part of Lyric’s business manager during the negotiations was played by JInwook Bae, with whom we met and arrived at a possible deal to have Sally Soprano perform the role of Norma.
Question 2
Getting to Yes, advocates for the principled negotiation approach. In this case, I attempted to use the principled negotiation approach, by being soft on the individual stakeholders and hard on the merits. As such, I opted to avoid engaging in posturing and tricks, more so considering the advanced age of my client, as well as her growing desperation. I therefore opted to use my client’s strengths (separate the people from the problem) to obtain the best possible package for her. The negotiation was as follows:
Me: You are aware that my client is very experienced when it comes to opera performances, more so the title role in Norma.
Lyric’s Business Manager: Yes we are.
Me: You are also aware that my client’s age and repeated performance of the role put her in a position to understand the title role perfectly.
Lyric’s Business Manager: Perhaps (agrees, albeit grudgingly)
Me: My client is interested in the role, and in a pay package that considers what she will be bringing to the table and the normal range of remuneration for the role she will play.
Lyric’s Business Manager: We are willing to consider the factors you have proposed and offer her a package commensurate to the role she will play (the business manager seemed surprisingly cooperative).
I had managed to narrow the focus of the manager to the interests of my client, and at the same time separate the people and the problem at hand (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 13).
Question 3
My negotiating partner also used strategies from Getting to Yes, to advance the interests of Lyric, as he managed to tie the negotiations regarding payment to the attendance. In deed considering that attendances of 50 or 60% would be disastrous, linking remuneration to attendance was very shrewd, and a very inventive way of linking the interests of both parties.
Lyric Business Manager: While you do raise valid points regarding your client, and we are willing to compensate her accordingly, compensation will be linked to her ability to improve and maintain good attendances. This is not only in our best interests, but also meant to motivate your client.
Me: That sounds reasonable.
The business manager successfully managed to focus on the interests of both parties as well as invent an option beneficial to both parties (Fisher, Ury and Patton 31).
Question 4
Once we had arrived at a situation where we were both in agreement that remuneration would need to be dependent on attendance, I feel I should have negotiated a better settlement for my client. I at that point departed from the philosophy of separating the people from the problem. I essentially negotiated on the basis of discussions I had with my client, not realizing that there was the potential to negotiate on the basis of how much more money the opera would be able to raise from better attendances. My negotiating partner was actually quite relieved that I settled for $35,000 as my higher side.
Question 5
Using the new approach was a bit difficult for me, because my natural response to conflict, as evidenced by my responses in the Kraybill Conflict Style inventory is to reach an acceptable compromise. Due to this, I found it quite difficult to maintain hard line positions during negotiations, as well as to separate people from the problem.
Work Cited
Fisher, Roger, Ury, William, and Patton, Bruce. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. Penguin Books, 2011. Print
