Emotional Role in Negotiation

In this weeks blog, I'm discussing how emotions can play a role in negotiation and how to resolve disputes when emotions are highly involved. I believe the best way to describe emotional negotiation is relaying it through personal experiences. 

Referring back to my job, I work in a chain restaurant that has locations all around the world. This job comes with its pros and cons like any other job, however, one of the main cons is that you are working with peoples food and drinks. In this job you will get a lot of cases where people are displeased with the service, food or atmosphere and can get very emotionally involved in their complaints or negotiation with Management. Being a Manager, I have the role of trying to recognize these signs and try to deescalate these situations to the best of my ability. 

For example, the most common incident is a customer is displeased with the food and would like to talk to a Manager. I already know going into the negotiation that the other party is displeased and have at least a little bit of emotional discomfort where they had to ask their sever for a Manager to speak with. Once I approach the table, I try to pick out several factors dealing with emotions and see how I can resolve them. 

List of Emotional Factors

• Identify the emotions they and others are experiencing.
• Is it just one person at the table or is it multiple people at the table and why are they displeased with their visit?
• Understand how these emotions affect their thinking.
• Are they very upset because they believe something that was in the food that shouldn't be because they are allergic and could cause them to be physically ill? 
• Are they upset because this is a special occasion and it is being ruined do to a poor experience at our restaurant? 
• Or is it as simple as their meal not being prepared to their exact qualifications? 
• Use that knowledge to achieve better outcomes.
• If they are afraid that the food has nuts for example, make sure they didn't accidentally have any nuts in there dish through the kitchen staff or show the customer the ingredient list that provides information listed in the dish. Also ask if they are feeling any allergic symptoms and if you need to call an ambulance or if they have an "epipen" on them?
• If they are upset with something specific and it is effecting their special occasion how can you fix the problem and make it up to them?
• Was their food not prepared correctly? let them know you can fix the problem and have them a new meal and will not be charging them for that meal.   
• Productively manage emotions, tempering or intensifying them for whatever purpose.
• I always like to approach tables frequently to make sure everything is alright with their experience before a problem arises. This helps lower emotions in the long run.
• If a guest is utterly displeased with their experience and there is nothing you can do to accommodate them at that time, then maybe give them a free meal for their next visit. This can help by allowing time to elevate emotions so they do not intensify and at the same time trying to accommodate their needs of a good experience while eating at your restaurant. 

 

Real World Coalition Experience

In this week's blog I'll being discussing coalitions and how they apply to me in a real world context. Coalitions bring several benefits to weaker parties and can help strengthen your side of the negotiation by pulling resources from each other and avoiding destructive competition. 

In my real world experience with coalitions, I am going to refer to a work experience where myself and 3 other bartenders had to figure who was going to close the bar one particular night. At my job we tend to hold charity events and donate our time and money towards the event. While hosting the event, we also provide entertainment by flipping bottles and putting on a show while we work to help raise money. We all enjoy doing these events, however no one likes staying for the whole event due to how long and tiring they are, but someone has to close down the bar. This is when joining a coalition can help you significantly in the negotiation. If everyone argues for them-self it becomes a drawn out process and you don't get many results. However, if you get as many bartenders on your side and build a stronger argument you can pin the closing shift onto the lone bartender. 

Furthermore, in order to be successful you have to make sure your interest align and that you are choosing the right bartender to join your coalition. If you choose a bartender you wish to build a coalition against and you ask a bartender to join your team and they have close relations with the counter party, you could single yourself out and have them join the other party and put yourself in a bad situation. 

Next, this leads to the Pros and Cons of joining a Coalition and how to apply it to this situation.

• Is the coalition well organized to negotiate with the other side?
• I have to pick the correct bartenders that have similar interest that I do.
• How much will I have to pay, if anything, to join and remain a member of the coalition? What costs might we face down the road?
• I might have to provide a monetary payment in order for people to join my team, to gang up on the other bartenders and will I have to provide a cash payment every charity event in order to build a coalition. 
• Does the coalition have a good ethical reputation and a track record for success?
• Did I pick the right bartenders that will not turn on me next charity event and are they reliable co-workers that will always be at the charity events so I'm not left to negotiate by myself next time?
• What consequences might we face if a negotiation doesn't go well?
• If the negotiation doesn't go well then I can be closing the bar.
• Do the benefits of a successful deal outweigh these risks?
• If I'm successful in the negotiation I can go home early and not have to close the bar.
• If we succeed, how will the coalition allocate the value it creates? 
• If we succeed as a coalition then no of use have to close the bar down and we can continue and strengthen our party so we don't have to close future charity events. 

What type of Negotiator am I, Ethically?

According to our class chart, Chart A, measuring different levels of ethics referring to negotiations, I appear to be "shark bait". I laugh when writing this because I feel I am well rounded in negotiating at this point, but I lack the "killer" or demanding aspects of negotiating.

In Chart A, under Traditional Competitive Bargaining(TCB), I am ranked at a "5". When comparing my results to the male and female average in class, the male average is "6.03" and female "5.48", which is ranking me below in both categories. The TCB category refers to extreme opening demands and pressuring opponent to concede, thus saying that I am not a very aggressive negotiator. I agree with the TCB ranking because I tend to look more for the cooperative approach in negotiating and am not one to demand. I like my approach for being cooperative, however, this will hurt me in negotiations that call for defecting and needing more out of the negotiation.

I feel that there should be ethical approaches and treat a negotiation as you would a person in your family and not give false promises(FP) or Misrepresent Information(MIS). I also ranked below the average in both FP and MIS, but in these categories I am not upset with because I feel that you should be honest in negotiating. When misrepresenting information, you are not giving an honest side of the argument and can hinder the negotiation or future negotiations.

Furthermore, I ranked below all averages in every category of ethics in negotiating except, Positive Emotional Management(POS). This is when you lead your opponent to believe you are happy or pleased or care about him/her. I also agree with this ranking because I tend to do this in every aspect of my life and I think this could be very beneficial in negotiating. This is letting your opponent know that you care about the outcome of the negotiation, not for just your behalf, but for your opponents side as well. This can reassure your opponent that you are not trying to "rip" them off and short side them in the negotiation. However, again this is just proving more that I don't have the demanding aspects of a strong negotiator.

All in all, I agree with Chart A and how I scored. There are areas that I will need to focus on now after referring to the chart and try to be more demanding and assertive in my negotiation to ensure a more favorable outcome.

    Chart A.