Analyzing Negative Negotiation Tactics And Developing Appropriate Countermeasures - Case Study

List and analyse the interests of the parties in the case above:b

(a) Daniel; and
(b) Joel

Demonstrate and discuss the negative negotiation tactics used by Daniel and Joel.

Develop and apply the appropriate countermeasure to each of the negative negotiation tactics identified in Question 2. (For example, for XXX tactic, the countermeasure is YYY etc.)

Interests of Parties Involved

Daniel and Joel are the two parties in this case; the interests of the two parties are having one thing common which is ‘a successful campaign of fitness trainer with the top advertising company ‘Famous’. Based on (Pizer, 2013), this deal of the two parties will bring different profits for the both involved parties and hence many personal as well as professional objectives of Daniel and Joel are attached to this deal. With the help of the deal Daniel and Joel both wants to save their career along with fulfilling some personal wishes from the profit generated by the business deal.

The interests of the two parties in the above case are as follows:

• Daniel:interests of Daniel in the above case are as listed below
• Daniel wants to cherish his friendship with Joel and re-flourish it from where they both had left off.
• Daniel came to meet Joel for the genesis of relationship.
• Daniel arrived at ‘Famous’ because he required help in developing business.
• Daniel was facing serious competition by Alex who is a new celebrity fitness trainer and hence needs Joel’s help for rebuilding image as well as reputation in front of his business clients so that Daniel can uphold them in future.
• Daniel was having his house’s instalments due to the bank hence business growth and profit was so much important for Daniel. To do so, Daniel wanted to create new clients along with keeping old ones with him.
• Daniel needs to pay bonuses to two of the administrative staff who has been working with the Daniel’s company since the beginning, hence a successful campaign with Joel’s company ‘Famous’ is very much beneficial as well as essential for Daniel.
• Joel:interests of Joel in the above case are as listed below
• Joel was also very much happy to see his old friend Daniel but at the same time he wanted to prove that he is more successful than Daniel and hence he ruined the reunion for the sake of competition between the two.
• Joel was really hopeful about rekindling his friendship with Daniel.
• Joel is aware of the fact that through working with the high-profile celebrity Daniel, ‘Famous’ will get huge benefits.
• Besides, Joel knows that his company ‘Famous’ is running under loss and hence ‘famous’ may have to closed soon hence Joel also wish to work with Daniel.
• Joel expects respect from the staff for his way of dealing hard times at ‘Famous’.
• Joel has bought a new brand car whose payment is still pending and Joel wants to earn money from a successful campaign with fitness celebrity Daniel.
• In whole, Joel intends to bring the much-required profits to his company ‘Famous’ in order to pay all due amounts as well as to make new clients for the ‘Famous’.

Based on (Pruitt, 2013), there are some negative negotiation tactics utilised by Joel and Daniel during the reunion, they are as follows:

According to (Rubin & Brown, 2013), it is a hard-bargaining tactic used by Joel in front of Daniel as he thought that he himself is a benefactor for Daniel and hence he will have to agree on Joel’s business conditions. Joel kept greater demands in front of Daniel through putting 5 times consultancy fee of ‘Famous’. Joel though that Daniel will reach at his breaking point and hence concede for the deal.

This kind of negative negotiation tactics are designed to make someone feel uncomfortable as well as to make him or her forget about their real negotiation purposes ( CURTIS, 2018). In this case, Daniel felt disrespected when Joel avoided his wishes as well as put a proposal of 5 times cost than the usual cost of consultancy fee. As a result, Daniel called Joel a ‘Prima Donna’ and as a reaction Joel also attacked personally through calling Daniel a ‘Brainless beefcake’. In this way, both of the parties attacked each other personally, through ignoring during the negotiation as well as by commenting negatively on their personalities, intelligence or integrity (American Management Association, 2015).

Joel exaggerated the meeting to show Daniel that he himself is a benefactor for Daniel. Joel misread the whole reunion meeting as well as its purpose and hence based on ( SHONK, 2018) bluffed and lied to Daniel to make him waiting for the reunion meeting.

During reunion business meeting, Joel called Daniel a “brainless beefcake.” Due to an aggressive reaction, Daniel clenched as well as raised his fist at Joel’s head. Hence, Joel yelled on Daniel that he will call the cop as well as lawyers on Daniel for his actions. This was a threat or warning tactics used by Joel.

In this negotiation tactic one tries to conduct business with an approach which blocks further negotiating (De Dreu, 2010). In this case, Joel created a situation where he generated a ‘Take it or leave it’ condition for Daniel. As Joel set 5 times fees cost for Daniel, if Daniel wanted to close the deal then he had to agree with each and every condition of Joel regarding the advertising campaign. Again, while Daniel reached to meet Joel at ‘Famous’s office then Joel made him waiting for about an hour unnecessarily in the battle of becoming better individual. Hence, he again utilised this negative tactic of negotiation for business with Daniel as he considered that Daniel will anyhow agree for doing business with Joel’s company ‘Famous’ which in turn did not work for both of them.

Negative Negotiation Tactics

In this case, first Daniel should have asked Joel to justify his extreme demands for the consultancy fee of the ‘Famous’. Moreover, Daniel should have told Joel that we are old friends and hold a great relationship bond, thus in spite of giving me additional benefit or concession you are putting this much high cost of consultancy fee which is unreasonable. In this way, based on (Imai & Gelfand, 2010) through negotiating over relationship concerns as well as mutual benefits of business Daniel could close the deal happily without the fight.    

The counter tactic of personal insults as well as attacks is that one should call the main perspective for the meeting was held in the event of any personal attack on them (Lewicki, Saunders, Minton, Roy, & Lewicki, 2011). The sufferer of the personal attacks during a negotiation deal should refocus the negotiation meeting on the main problem at hand.

In the case of bluffing and lying one should always be sceptical about the claims which seem suspicious to be true as well as investigate them closely (Swann Jr, Bosson., & K., 2008). Hence, Daniel should have investigated that why Joel is doing so and what can be done through positive negotiation tactics to make the deal work. As Daniel and Joel were childhood friends thus in this particular case Daniel could also avoid the bluff and lie of the Joel in order to make the business meeting successful for his own intentions.

In this case of threats or warnings party should make the threat prominent as well as discuss the consequences of the same (Pizer, 2013). Thus, after hearing the threat from Joel about calling the police as well as lawyers at the ‘Famous’ for Daniel’s actions, Daniel should have taken the threat seriously and asked about the consequences of the same for the Joel as well as his company’s reputation. In this way, when Joel would have analysed the consequences of his own threatening actions then he would also feared about threatening Daniel.

The counter tactic of this negative negotiation tactic is that one should call the opponent party’s bluff as well as ignore and keep on negotiating on what he or she wants from the other party ( CURTIS, 2018). When Joel was creating ‘take it or leave it’ situation for Daniel then Daniel could have handled the situations through negotiation and relationship management tactics include:

• Analyse as well as cultivate BATNA.
• Negotiate the procedure.
• Listen actively and then manipulate.
• Build good rapport.
• Identify smart trade-offs.
• Offer multi-equivalent offers concurrently (De Dreu, 2010).

In this way, negotiations as well as relationship management tactics have been explored as the countermeasures of the negative negotiation tactics used by Joel and Daniel in the given case. In whole, both of the parties wanted to close the business deal happily for their own personal as well as professional objectives. However, both of the parties named as Daniel and Joel could not applied their negotiation and relationship management skills to make the business deal successful due to some conflicts like fight of proving better individual, instant negative reaction of opponent’s actions and bad analysis of the situation. Therefore, the case study analysis is depicting that both parties should have used desirable negotiation management skills to make the campaign or business deal successful.

References

CURTIS, G. (2018). How to Master the Art of Negotiation. Retrieved December 18, 2018, from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/07/negotiation_tips.asp

SHONK, K. (2018). Emotion and the Art of Business Negotiations. Retrieved December 18, 2018, from https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/business-negotiations/emotion-and-the-art-of-business-negotiations/

Babcock, L., & Sara, L. (2009). Women don't ask: Negotiation and the gender divide (2nd ed.). New York: Princeton University Press.

De Dreu, C. (2010). Social conflict: The emergence and consequences of struggle and negotiation. (1st ed.). London: Handbook of social psychology.

Imai, L., & Gelfand, M. (2010). The culturally intelligent negotiator: The impact of cultural intelligence (CQ) on negotiation sequences and outcomes. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 112(2), 83-98.

Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D., Minton, J., Roy, J., & Lewicki, N. (2011). Essentials of negotiation. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Pizer, S. A. (2013). Building bridges: The negotiation of paradox in psychoanalysis. (6th ed.). London: Routledge.

Pruitt, D. (2013). Negotiation behavior. (2nd ed.). London: Academic Press.

Rubin, J. Z., & Brown, B. R. (2013). The social psychology of bargaining and negotiation (3rd ed.). London: Elsevier.

Swann Jr, W. B., Bosson., & K., J. (2008). "Identity negotiation: A theory of self and social interaction." (4th ed.). London: Pearson.