Private Equity

Introduction

This report’s main objective is to analyze a negotiation that I’ve experienced and to interpret it, using the concepts and theory presented in the book “Getting to Yes”. I’ve chosen a personal negotiation, in which I negotiated with two parts – my mother and my former manager – because I found very interesting that most of what I’ve learned in the book could be illustrated not only by major corporate negotiations but also by informal ones that are part of our daily routines and that we sometimes don’t even think of as important negotiations.

The report starts with My Negotiation, in this section I explain the whole situation in which the diverging interest object was the place where I would spend the Christmas and New Year’s week. In the following section, I make a conceptual review about the four chapters (“Separate the People from the Problem”, “Focus on Interests, Not Positions”, “Invent Options for Mutual Gain” and “Insist on Using Objective Criteria”) of “The Method” part from the book “Getting to Yes”. In the third section, I use my negotiation as example of the application of the theory that I learned from the book. And to finish the report, I present some comments about the applications and limitations of the analysis, considering what I’ve learned and how it related to my negotiation.

My Negotiation

I am from Campo Grande, MS and moved to São Paulo specifically to study at Insper and to follow a career in financial markets, working at an Investment Bank or Asset Management firm, since I wouldn’t have such opportunities living in my hometown.

My whole family still lives in Campo Grande and I’m very close to them, therefore in order to deal with homesickness, I always visit them during weekends and special holidays, so we can spend quality time together.

The main point of my negotiation emerged a couple of weeks after I started working at J.P. Morgan in November, 2014. My manager organized a meeting to define which team members would work on Christmas’ Eve and New Year’s Eve, because some of them would travel and we needed someone there to cover any issues that could arise. Since I was the newest team member and that my manager wanted me to learn the most I could, it was decided that I’d be the one working along with two of the analysts and one of the associates. I accepted it and didn’t even think of the holiday itself. It was my first internship and I really wanted to show my manager that I was compromised with my work and that I was willing to do anything that I could to help the team.

A few days later, I experienced the first phase of my “Holiday Negotiation”, my mother called me to ask when she should buy my plane ticket for, since she was sure that I was going home for the holidays. When I told her that I couldn’t go to my hometown