international negotiation plans

Running head: NEGOTIATION PLANNING 1

NEGOTIATION PLANNING 5

Negotiation Planning

Keisha McKinney

Columbia Southern University

01/07/2020

Negotiation Planning

Negotiation involves an interaction between entities intended in reaching a beneficial outcome in any organization. Companies create a guide used in each step which includes a series of strategies and planning to have a successful negotiation. Planning for negotiation is essential for various reasons. First, it enables companies to be proactive in foreseeing their future and prepare accordingly to keep up with the changing trends in the market. Secondly, Planning goals and strategies increases operational efficiency in providing a roadmap in the management in making decisions by determining the required resources used in accomplishing the set goals (Ong, 2015). Deliberate planning also important in increasing profitability and market share. Corporations get insights that are valuable on consumer segments and market demands on products and services, which is the best approach used in turning marketing and sales efforts into the best outcomes.

Organization negotiators should always have goals and strategies before negotiation commences. Having goals and strategies in any preparation for negotiation can portray negotiators as people with vision and objectives goals of what they need out of the deal. Lack of negotiation goals in mind by negotiators may affect the best outcome for the business. Therefore, getting into negotiation with specific goals and a clear understanding of business strategies helps to improve performance in operation. There are various issues discussed during the negotiation process such as distributive, congruent and integrative issues (Kesler, 2019). Integrative negotiation is a strategy involving the collaboration of parties to get a substantive solution to their disagreement. The tactic focuses on the development of mutual agreement that is beneficial to the disputants’ interests. The congruent issue is where the interest of parties are aligned positively in which both sides are not willing to state what they need in case of any project discussion. When negotiators have the same interest on which project to be given the priority is a congruent issue in negotiation. Distributive negotiation involves a single issue such as the cost of the project, and mostly it relates to the bargaining process.

Defining the relative importance and the bargaining mix of each issue is a critical step in negotiation. Negotiators from different parties assemble a list of issues presented and decide on the most and least important issue to enhance proper priorities. Bargaining mix entails both parties coming together and combining their lists of issues in a negotiation before implementation. Accordingly, large bargaining mixes may benefit a negotiation because a large list of components are put together and can easily benefit both parties. Notably, a large bargaining mix can make the negotiation take a long time to complete due to considerations of issues of different combinations (Page & Mukherjee, 2007). Therefore, it is necessary to set priorities following a long list of issues to come up with a system of deciding on tangible and intangible issues that can lead negotiators into the final agreement.

Defining the interest is the next step in planning for a negotiation. The step is extremely important that requires negotiators to decide their underlying needs and interest. Accordingly, a defined interest can be more important to integrative negotiation since it is process-based and may also base on other different negotiations. Knowing the interest of both negotiators and that of another party in a negotiation makes more sense on certain things, thus paving the way for easies implementation of mutually agreed on decisions. BATNA is another step-in planning for the negotiation, which involves the identifying alternatives that are best to a negotiated agreement (Spangler, 2012). A good BATNA improves negotiation power in deal-making and negotiation strategies. If one party is having the best alternative than the other side, it becomes easier to push the other side harder by increasing demands thus making negotiators from the other party to accept because they do not have a better option. Therefore, negotiators need to improve their BATNA by considering the alternatives available on the other side since it is worth revealing to their opponents during negotiation.

Defining limits is the next step in planning fora negotiation. Negotiators need to limit their options for more effective bargaining. More of the choices may not only affect the effectiveness of discussion but also reduces the quality of negotiators choices. Limiting the choices is essential for both parties in seeking out high-quality information that is much relevant to stand a better chance of winning the opponents in the negotiation. Understanding the resistance point involves having minimum terms that negotiators can accept willingly in a negotiation. Establishing a resistance point before negotiation includes seeking to understand oneself, the negotiation situation and the counterparty (Spangler, 2012). The party’s interest, resistance point and objectives help a negotiator in developing a strategy and choose tactics towards the best achievement. Having a reservation point in negotiation is the best understanding of the strength and nature of each party’s interests, their BATNA and the cost of delay by each party.

Setting targets leading to negotiation is a critical step of reaching the optimum agreements with the counterpart. The process of setting targets involves various actions such as focusing closely, taking many risks and ethical behaviors. Set goals focus on negotiator’s attention on a task. However, the too-close focus may make negotiators overlook other important tasks and issues. Setting challenging negotiation targets is also important in motivating negotiators to work hard towards the achievement (Staff, 2019). Accordingly, the targets should not be too difficult for workers to withstand better performance. Assessing the social context is the next plan for a negotiation. Understanding the social constraints on negotiation, especially social pressures, is essential in making negotiation more complex when there are many parties in the negotiation. Multiple parties can also help negotiators-collecting formation from each party that is relevant and leading to final decision making in improving the outcomes.

Presenting issues to the other party are the most critical step. Through experience, the quality of an individual’s preparation translates to the ultimate efficiency of the negotiation process. A better understanding of the counterpart helps in improving the quality of deals and reduces the amount of time in a negotiation. An accurate understanding of the interest of other party helps in achieving the negotiator's goals. Notably, unsatisfied interest on any of the proposed deals by the other party can lead to disagreement and ultimately hinders the outcomes in operation (Gasink and Weiss, 2004). Negotiators should also have an accurate walk away alternative of the other side to help in developing an understanding that is more precise of the different choices to satisfy their interests. Hence, it is important to have prior preparation of a detailed and specific understanding of the perspective of the other party to improve the negotiation results.

References

Gasink, J. and Weiss, J. (2004). THE “OTHER” PARTY: GETTING INTO THE MIND OF YOUR NEGOTIATING COUNTERPART •. [online] Iveybusinessjournal.com. Available at: https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/the-other-party-getting-into-the-mind-of-your-negotiating-counterpart/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].

Kesler, R. (2019). 3 Issues We Negotiate - Income School. [online] Income School. Available at: https://incomeschool.com/negotiated-issues/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].

Ong, C. (2015). 5 Benefits of Strategic Planning | Envision. [online] Envision. Available at: https://envisio.com/blog/benefits-of-strategic-planning/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].

Page, D., & Mukherjee, A. (2007). Promoting critical-thinking skills by using negotiation exercises. Journal of education for business, 82(5), 251-257.

Spangler, B. (2012). Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). [online] Beyond Intractability. Available at: https://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/batna [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].

Staff, P. (2019). How to Set Negotiation Goals. [online] PON - Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Available at: https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/business-negotiations/managers-think-twice-before-setting-negotiation-goals/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].