Make Up Post - Negotiating with Emotion

Reading 2.4 references negotiating with emotion.  As a relatively shy person, every negotiation no matter how prepared I am always exudes feelings of anxiety.  No matter how much experience I may have on the topic or service being negotiated there is always the feeling of unpredictability and facing the unknowns.   No amount of preparation can lessen the stress of a negotiation, the opposing party can act in a cooperative manor of can act competitively.  Outside distractions may veer the discussion off course, and can cause one to lose their train of thought, showing weakness.  I also have a tell take sign of stress, being partially Irish periodically causes my cheeks to flush when I feel very stressed, angry or uncomfortable, and it’s not easy to hide.  That feeling creates a lack of control over my own self.  At times a negotiation will end and it’s left at a point where the other party may be negotiating with other parties for a service and it could be days until you really know the result.  That time between the initial interactions can bring up lots of feelings of how the actual negotiation went, and how you preformed.  I still feel surprised at times after writing business after a few days without communication with the other party.  Thoughts on how it went tend to turn negative with passing time even though that may not be the reality.  It’s not common to provide feedback to the other party as to your feelings after a conversation, and the unknown of what they are really thinking can lead to self-doubt.  Generally lack of feedback is positive because the other party does not want to appear overly enthusiastic.  From experience the parties that appear as though they are very interested are the ones that typical go in another direction. 

Multicultural Negotiation

Negotiating with cultures other than your own have to be entered with a background knowledge of the other culture.  Behaviors are often obvious, and can be respectfully mimicked with practice, or could also be a means for disaster if the other party feels as though a failed attempt is considered mockery.  The knowledge structures, values, beliefs, and norms are culturally shared, but it is important to avoid pinning each individual into a cultural stereotype.  My job often places me in direct negotiations with the Indian culture, there is a strong market for rentals owned by Indians.  As a property manager and Real Estate Agent, I often find myself visiting the homes of people that either wish to rent their home or sell it.  Respect is of high importance in the Indian culture, subtle offers such as taking your shoes off at their door prior to being asked sends a signal that you respect their home as much as they do.  Relationship is also of high importance.  Prior to a deep discussion they prefer to get to know your personality, chit chat, perhaps have a snack or offer some sort of beverage that you are unfamiliar with.  As uncomfortable as it may be to accept something edible from a stranger, turning down food or drink that is offered to you is a sign of disrespect and will derail a negotiation before it even begins.  It’s often difficult to keep the norms of another culture in mind, when you have to pull yourself out of your own comfort zone to conform to theirs.  During my initial interactions with the culture, I understood the basics and practiced respect in the ways I knew how.  Initially my impression was that the male was the head of a negotiation and a scenario that involved his wife, I should focus most of the interaction on the male.  For the most part, this assumption was correct, the wife would sit idly by while the husband and I negotiated a deal.  Often times, once the discussion began, the opposing party would leave, either to take a phone call or for some other reason.  The first time I encountered this I found it rather rude, and not realizing continued the conversation with the wife, but ended up having to repeat myself, because the male needed to be in control.  I attributed the rude behavior of taking a call to my being female in the eyes of a male dominated culture.  However, this may be the majority norm, but I have experienced the opposite, where the Indian wife dominates the conversation and the husband is quiet in the background.  I have had to learn to quickly adjust my perception and pick up on the household structure rather quickly to figure out who I should be negotiating with and the faster this happens the less respect I loose and the smoother the negotiation goes.  

The Indian culture enjoys the process of negotiation, some clients are not Americanized and I have to be careful not to be offended.  They will often try to bargain something for nothing and not show much wiliness to meet in the middle or take advice.   This is where some of the American strengths come into play.  I am always overly educated on my research, I know their home, the dynamics of a neighborhood, pricing, and demand for a product prior to meeting to discuss a sale or a rental.   Knowing that in the business I am in there is always room to negotiate I never enter with a zero-sum attitude, there is always room to give and take and to make concession so both parties get what they want.   Both American’s and Indians are very straight forward which makes for a concise conversation once the relationship has been established.  The most important part to a multicultural negotiation is to get to know your partner before entering the discussion, any information that can be gathered on the culture will be helpful, and the main focus is on respect.  Both parties know the other is entering unfamiliar territory and respect and sometimes an apology if you don’t act parallel to their norm goes a long way.

Live 8 Negotiation

My role assignment for, “Live 8” was the manager of internet development for L.C.A, Inc.  The purpose of the negotiation was to obtain a domain name to replace live8live.com which is being seized lawfully by a Detroit based band named Live8Live.  They sued L.C.A. Inc. for rightful ownership and ICANN found that the band was rightfully entitled to the domain, the process does not allow for an appeal.  As manager, my role was to locate a new domain and at a reasonable price.  The only available domain was live8.org, registered to someone in Turkey, the page is “under construction.”   I reached out to the owner, after confirmation that the individual did indeed own the page.  I provided a brief description as to who I was and what I wanted to purchase the domain for.  I was concise in the request and initially divulged my interest in the page and why, my initial offer to purchase the site was $500,000.  Based on the given budget of 1 million, I knew this was low, knowing there would be a counter, starting low would lead the counter to be closer to both parties resistance point.  The domain owner responded, stating that he would need a significantly higher amount, closer to $1,300,000.  This counter was over the budget I was given even with the possibility of receiving an additional $200,000 on top of the 1 million already allocated.  I attempted to extract the interest of my partner and what his purpose for the domain was.  I further explained that the concert being marketed was for the purpose of charity, that I could offer more but I didn’t want to spend too much and take away from the charity.  Since I was not sure what his plan was for the domain, I asked if he had a business or some sort of service he was selling, or planned to sell using the domain once the website was fully developed.  I offered to place a banner ad on the front page of the site for live8, and informed him that currently 60,000 hits were received daily and we expected that number to double within the next few.  The banner ad would link to the new domain the other party set up if they would agree to sell, driving initial traffic to their site.  I offered $650,000 along with the banner ad on the front page, and he agreed.  Turns out that he sold art and he was launching 3 new galleries.  Since I was unable to get a clear read on his interest, I assume that he accepted the offer since the galleries were startups and he would need to get his name branded.  The offer may seem low based on the budget I was given but once his new site is developed the value of the number of hits from an ad on www.live8.org would have more value, and allow his business to grow quicker. 

Negotiating through email is more difficult than anticipated.  You can see the other person face to face, you can hear their tone, and it’s next to impossible to guess what their reaction is.  If the response to the initial offer is not almost immediate then one wonders if it was too low and borderline offensive.  There is no level of interactivity, or a seamless flow of interactivity. The delay between responses referred to as asynchronous, allows for an undetermined length of time between responses.  Email negotiation also makes it extremely difficult to determine and interpret the other parties’ interests.   Since I was playing the role of someone that had a greater need, I laid out exactly what I wanted and why I wanted it, even asking what the other party’s interests were flat out to avoid confusion.  My partner never really answered my question about what their interests were which made it that much more difficult to read the situation, the negotiation exhibited diminished inter-party process cooperation.   The accuracy in trying to judge the other parties interest was non-existent, and we were unable to identify joint gains.  I feel as though if the other party indicated their interest and what their plans were for the domain in the first place then I may have offered more money along with the advertising to attempt to expand the pie.  It seemed that the offer was accepted just to end the negotiation more quickly.  I can’t really tell if my partner was uncomfortable with the negotiation since it was a different avenue that we have not used yet, or if there was just very little interest to engage.  There was certainly no advantage to exchange information in this negotiation, if my partner were shy or uncomfortable negotiating, one would think that email would have been a means to negotiate more comfortable, more time to formulate a response, digest information, and no fear of giving away their position through body language.  The negotiation was interesting, but I felt like I was constantly trying to extract information, not information he didn’t necessarily want me to have, but information needed to have a successful negotiation.