Mouse Negotiation Strategy Outline

MOR 569 – Coombs – Mouse Negotiation Strategy

Subject:        Strategy Outline Guidelines for Mouse Negotiation

(To assist your preparation prior to the negotiation)

1. Negotiation Strategy

1. What outcomes do you really want?
2. I am the Mouse, so I want a press release, I want to pay as little as possible in direct payments or payroll taxes and I want there to be no protests in the area that can prevent us from successfully building the park.
3. What are your contingency plans?
4. Get the press release only. I am authorized to make payments, but prefer not to pay anything. My goal is to pay nothing.
5. What are your BATNAs?
6. Pay nothing, have some protests and have the mayor’s talk poorly without the issue of a press release.

1. Assumptions

1. What assumptions are you making that may not be accurate?

• The mayors all care about the same thing – money or respect or something else
• Each municipality is affected in the same way from Mouse
• The government doesn’t have deep pockets that they are willing to actively spend

1. What assumptions might your opponent be making that you may wish to change, or to use in your favor?

• We only care about profits and not about the local community
• We are able to proceed with the project despite  their opinions and attempts to stop us
• We may be better off walking away from the table than coming to an agreement that isn’t beneficial to us
• The government and I aren’t colluding

1. Negotiation Frame

1. What are your frames?  Which is your strongest frame?

• Aspirational. We want to paint a picture to make the mayor’s think that the Mouse project is going to have a significant future benefit to their municipalities. If we  paint this picture to them, they maybe won’t ask for a lot in the short team. Also, we feel that we want to frame the situation to say that we are looking for a mutual agreement, but in reality, all we care about is that we get a press release out and they don’t protest. T

1. What frames do you anticipate other persons will use?

• I believe that the Government Official will also use the Aspirational frame. He stands to benefit significantly from getting the mayors to see the future benefit that they seek to receive from the project.

1. Welcoming, Introductions and Setting the Agenda

1. What agenda(s) will you propose?

• I will allow the Government Official and the Mayors to run the conversation. I will simply disagree with any points that Mouse does not feel they can support and counter them with a different proposal

1. How will you publish it?

• I will do an introduction of myself, talk about how we are just seeking mutual benefit, then I will allow them to do the talking. I will  simply respond to their queries.

1. How will you set the stage for a mutually beneficial outcome from this meeting?

• I will mention this in the introduction. I will continuously talk about the future benefits that they will receive by Mouse building the park.

1. What alliances or coalitions you could form prior to the negotiation meeting to aid your cause?

1. With whom?

• I can form an alliance with the Government Official

1. On which issues?

• On all issues. We both stand to gain significantly from the building of the park. This is from a spending and a tax revenue standpoint. The local governments will also benefit, but they have slightly different items driving their interests than Mouse and The Government.

1. Interests and Problem Solving for Mutual Gain

1. How will you discover what is important to the other side?

• I will ask them. I will keep asking questions until I am sure as to what they are interested in. If they lie to me, I will continue asking questions until I get to the truth.

1. What options for mutual gain will you propose?

• I will talk about how we will hire the residents of their municipalities as our employees. They will have the first right to work at our park. They will also receive part of the payroll taxes to benefit even more. We will all gain from the increased tourism of the area.

1. Questions are written out in advance and organized for easy access (ask WHY more than WHAT)

1. What questions will you be asking?  

• Are all of you Mayor’s in agreeance as to what you want?
• Why are you fighting this?  It is good for the economy?
• What are you going to do with the money you receive?
• Who is the key decision maker on your side?
• How can we ensure we maintain the local culture and other needs?
• How can we keep your cities clean and keep your citizens happy?

1. How will you ask them?

• I will be very open and I will as all of my questions directly to the other parties. I will then expect them to be direct in answering them.

1. Active Listening and Responding to other parties at the table.

1. What linkages will you make to your opponent’s interests?

• The government and I agree on everything, so there are direct links to everything that we both want. We will discuss these prior to the negotiation to ensure we get them. The link I will make with the Mayor’s is that we will all benefit from future growth in the region.

1. How will you make appropriate use of the “Yes, And …” concept?

• When they say anything at all that I agree with, I will say “Yes and….” Then continue to mention something that benefits our side of the table. I will be sure to always say “Yes and…” when I agree with something that they talk about.

1. Prepared persuasive arguments in advance using the Toulmin Model

1. What claims will you make?  

• Simply put, I will talk about increased home prices, lowering of the unemployment rate and increased revenue from tourism. I will make claims, support them with facts ad draw conclusions.

1. What data will support these claims?  

• There is a lot of data in the case regarding this. For example, the 18-25 year-old unemployment rate is 26% in the area. I will show how this will fall from the significant creation of jobs. I will also talk about a P&L and how we cannot pay them direct payments until we are a profitable business

1. What warrants and backing do the claims have?  Place them in the Toulmin Model.

• The claims, unfortunately, are based on assumptions that I have. We are assuming that the market will continue going up and revenue will keep getting generated. This is an assumption and we cannot know that this will be the case.

10)        Endowment Effect

1. Will there be an endowment effect?  

• Yes, the mayor’s will talk about the historical value in the agricultural culture of their area. There is history and a culture here that they are partially giving up.

1. What will it be for you, and for each of your opponents?

• I do not see much of an endowment effect for Mouse, but I do see it for the Mayor’s, which is mentioned above.

1. How will you respond to it?

• I will ask them to denote a value to it, then (need be) try to pay that value back. I will also offer certain local and French cultural items to be offered in the park. For example, we will serve wine and offer a museum that tells visitors about the local agricultural region.

11)        Control / Management of the negotiation

1. How will you avoid claim clutter?

• I will ensure that all of the Mayor’s are on the same page as to what they want. I want to negotiate with all of them in unison instead of trying to figure out what each of them wants specifically and negotiating separately.
• I will also allow the Government Official to coordinate the managing of the meeting.

1. How will you assure that the negotiation progresses, without excessive digression, toward the goals you want to achieve?

• This will come down to the Government official properly running the meeting. If he does not do this, then I will assist.

12)        Cultural Frameworks (see websites for Hofstede Countries, Lonely Planet, or Global Road Warrior**)

        1.        What are the cultural norms and values of the other parties?

- They are French, so they have different standards than we do. They prefer to move a little slower than Americans. They like to catch up prior to getting straight into business. It takes more time to get information out of them than it does in the United States. Most of this comes from personal experience.