REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON NEGOTIATIONS
REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON NEGOTIATIONS
Negotiations form an important aspect of business as it defines the fruitful and failing businesses. It is possible to consider negotiations as a means of life and good negotiation skills are critical to the success of a business in any field. It is important to understand the dynamics of practically conducting negotiations for students like me to have a glimpse of how to conduct a negotiations game in real world. During the negotiations game that we conducted in class, I learnt several lessons about my abilities to be involved in a negotiation which makes me vigorous in trying to either horn the skills I already possess and work hard to acquire the skills that I found missing.
Despite the said improvements in communication, I still feel that I need to more extremely hard to improve some of my negotiation skills. Two of the areas which I personally feel I need to improve are communication and honing my abilities to perform as a team member and not an Individual. Communication is so essential to negotiations such that absence of good communication means no negotiations can take place. Understanding not only the basic terms of English but also phrases and other aspects of the language will place me in a stronger position to successfully be a part of negotiations.
Weaknesses
One of the principles challenges that I realized faces negotiators is the ability to work as a team. During the first negotiation round, my colleagues and I could not present a cohesive front to the two hospitals and our arguments lacked togetherness and harness. It became apparent to me that working in a group and working as a team is two different aspects, with working as a team requiring that all members of a group play a part role that directly impacts the intended outcome of the team. It is necessary for the team members involved in a discussion to understand the role of each member and do the nest to ensure that they do the best in performing the role assigned. The poor performance of one of the members of a group spells doom for the rest of the team, as despite them putting their best efforts, a dismal performance from one of the group members means that the aggregate effect is lowered by the mediocre job of one member. Another important factor that I learnt from the negotiations is the critical role of preparations for negotiations.
There is a cliché that goes; lack of planning is planning to fail, and the dismal performance of my team in the first round of negotiations was down to poor planning. One of the areas that a negotiating team needs to prepare before an actual negotiation is team building, where the members meet and examine their personal traits and how they can relate to each other; therefore, each member is assigned roles that best match their abilities. My group rarely met before the negotiations, meeting only once before the negotiations. This means that we did not have enough time to analyze the individual traits that define each of the members and considering we are not close friends, we could not be able to check our qualities against the task ahead on time.
Another factor that I learnt with preparations is the importance of studying the other groups involved in the negotiations; know their strengths, weaknesses and other information concerning them to avoid appearing clueless during the actual negotiation. Apparently the my fellow group members and I failed to carry out a thorough study of the strengths and weaknesses that the two hospitals’ negotiation teams have before the first meeting and the two studied us well to utilize the chance to expose our weaknesses and leave us with no defense. I and my colleagues were not only shallow but we were also lacking in confidence of how to handle the groups’ representing the two hospitals. The fact that their proposal looked ridiculous to us compared to our expectations shows that we stood no chance of getting a deal soon.
Processing information before responding is an important aspect of any negotiations and any team involved in negotiations need to synthesize information provided by other teams involved before making any decisions. During the discussion, it is important to synthesize the information availed from all angles and ensure that any deal that is reached has a positive impact on your side. You have to make sure that the course of the negotiations is pointing towards your main aim and goals. During the first round, the fact that we were making decisions based on information provided by other teams without adequately considering the impact that such decisions will have on the main goal means that something was wrong. Critically analyzing information is important to ensure that any deal that is made is either to the benefits of your team or at worst, a win-win situation for both parties.
Another thing that I noticed was lacking in the first negotiations round and hence the dismal performance of our group is team spirit. We as a team could not perform well considering that each member of the group seemed reserved in the decision-making process and defense of the decisions made during the negotiations by members of our team were not passionately defended. It is important to notice that passion in defense of a decision of the team goes a long way in convincing the other teams on the validity of the decision and the need for them to consider your decision as concrete and hence the need to seriously consider their position regarding the decision. It is important to understand that a portrayal of unity in decision-making and united spirit makes the team indomitable.
When we invited bids from the companies for the tender in the initial negotiations, we lacked the necessary flexibility to the terms and conditions that we had in place. Talks are meant to help come up with the best business terms that please all the participants and not just several of them. For the example of our negotiation game, playing the role of the CCG, therefore, requesting bids and presenting proposals, we had to have terms that were stonewall-rigid and others that are quite flexible such that they can be altered during the discussions. Items such as the cost of the contracts should be flexible as the rating has to depend on the premise of quality and reliability of the work delivered. It is more likely that negotiations' talk will fail if one of the sides comes to the negotiating table with fixed demands and they are unwilling to change them to accommodate the interests of the other participants.
Opportunity
Control of emotions is an important aspect of the negotiation process, with the participants required to exhibit their emotions to a certain level depending on the type negotiations. In critical decision-making processes such as in negotiations which I was involved in, it is crucial to making arguments and decisions based on facts, figures and minimally base decisions and discussions on emotions. The decisions made in negotiations should be minimally influenced by the emotions of the participants. My team and I failed to control our emotions in the course of the negotiations and apparently, the portrayal of emotions exposes the weakness of the team to the opponents. It is, however, important to exhibit a level of controlled emotions during the discussions and explanations in the negotiation process to ensure that other participants in the debate can read your interest and connection to the topic of negotiations. However, the most important term when emotions are mentioned is control.
Communication is an important aspect of the negotiation process as the various teams or participants need to concisely present ideas in a way that the other members of the team are able to understand clearly. The feedbacks of the different teams need to be understood by the other participants to ensure that the negotiations proceed well with an understanding of all the teams involved. I and the rest of my team had a communication problem as English is not our first language. Lack of the abilities to use the precise vocabularies to ensure that all participants in the negotiations understood the terms of the negotiations made it hard to discuss summarily any topic. The fact that some of the English words used by the native English speakers in the other teams were hard for us to understand made it extremely hard for us to understand their proposals hence even giving feedback was hard. Improving my command of the English language has therefore risen to the top of my priorities to ensure that in future, I can understand the terminologies and English terms whose use is probable in the negotiation process.
Threats
Understanding the weaknesses that are long-term and unlikely for one to improve instantly presents a threat that one need to learn how to cope with. Anger management and language are my treats to improving my negotiation skills. The feeling of inferiority to the native English students contributes to my emotional breakdown during the negotiation as I felt that they were making fun of my broken English. Changing my mentality to stop assuming that people are noticing my ascent and poor command of English.
In conclusion, my participation in the negotiation game as a part of a group provided me with the chance to experience the negotiation table feeling. The group and I grow immensely over the course of the two rounds in that we were challenged to put more efforts on our communication skills and also improve our control of emotions. The personal challenges that I set myself include improving my communication skills and learn to operate as a team.
