Personal Negotiation Report

This paper aims to identify the issues of negotiation, skills, and strategies adopted for negotiation for conflict management to achieve the desired result.

This is a personal experience of negotiation. A negotiation is an effective tool for the reaching to consensus. But my experience is something different because of the poor strategies that have been adopted by me to obtain my desired results. This is related with purchasing an apartment and my parents and I have met many issues to negotiate with a builder selling home. Three years ago in China, my family moved to a new city Wuhan and we needed an apartment to purchase over there after spending some time. we met many brokers and builders regarding the purchase of an apartment.

The research done by my father and I have shown the prices of property in different areas of the city. I compared the prices of properties in different areas of the city and finalized a meeting with a builder. The builder was a person from Japan. He was worked in China for two years but I myself am a Chinese and the cultural issues and perceptions of people can have endangered the negotiation process that I did not understand before.

For negotiation over price, my father and I called him for a meeting. The meeting was scheduled and we reached there at the time. We saw that he was not there. We waited one hour for him. After one hour passed, he arrived and offered his apology first for coming late. We did not mind but when we seated for further discussion, the meeting took the undesired turn. We started chatting. My father and I came to the point straight that what he would think of the price that we quote for the apartment. He was not in a hurry and asked that what I would like to eat. Certainly I was not able to understand that Japanese builder was interested in forming a business relationship with us. I denied his offer first but he insisted that I should have taken something. I ordered something to eat. Then my father again asked that what did he think about my price quote? He replied something that was not clear to me but he asked more about our background. I was surprised and depressed that what kind of questions he was asking. But this was his tactics to create a good relationship with us. Offering refreshments and asking questions is a gesture of Japanese people to create a relationship.

The negotiation strategy should be here to avoid but I had adopted a strategy of competing. The avoidance strategy is adopted when the issues are not important and do not act as barriers to achieving personal objectives but I had chosen the strategy of competing. Competing the strategy refers to strategy that is used for unpopular decisions that are needed to be implemented and for viral issues that are important for a person.

I was not able to recognize the fact that I should have the understanding of cultural differences that played an important role in the negotiation process. My father and I were getting upset and Japanese person clearly understood this. Japanese people are apt to read the nonverbal gesture. They like to have the infrequent eye contact in a professional relationship. But now we were now almost staring him to look for my answer. He ignored and offered a pleasing smile to me. We repeated our question and this time he closed his eyes for a moment. We thought he was ignoring our question. It is a general tendency of Japanese people to close their eyes when they meditate. But I was unaware of this tendency.

At this time, my father and I should have adopted compromise strategy. Compromise strategy in negotiation is practiced when the opposition has equal power and goals are more important. Our goal was to purchase an apartment at the lower rate but we should not have practiced the competing strategy of negotiation.

When he closed his eyes for meditating, I thought he was ignoring and it enraged me. I asked him curtly that why did he fix a meeting when he was not interested to answer our question. He was surprised but he inquired why I thought so. I reminded him his nonverbal gesture and he laughed and said that he was thinking about my price.

I was ashamed a bit but again I repeated my question. I said him that as my plan for this meeting was to come to the conclusion about the price what he thought about it as I could not spend much time in this discussion. He smiled patiently and replied that he would definitely consider my proposal and would reply back.

At this point, it is imperative to mention the negotiation steps that should have taken for business meetings. A local person should be appointed to conduct the business meeting of two persons coming from different cultures and backgrounds. By doing this, each party can clearly understand the information and perception of each other. It should have understood that negotiation was a team work efforts and joint problem-solving process. We should have evaluated the alternatives to bargain with the builder. We should have understood the interest of another party. Tradeoffs are necessary for negotiation for joint gains.

As far as the Japanese builder is concerned, he certainly shows a lack of professionalism but his business ideology is different as he wants to create a relationship. Chinese people do not believe in forming the business relationship with others and do not delay in decision making. They are prompt and assertive. But the Japanese people are not assertive and they do not tell any negative thing generally to other party in the negotiation.

These factors should have been considered by me that I did not. The resultant effect of the meeting was that we never received a call from Japanese builder after the meeting was over.

This made me learn that there are different negotiation styles that are suited for different situations. These are competing, compromise, avoidance, accommodating and collaboration. The best strategy for negotiation is a collaboration that is the best situation for every party.