Reflecting on Negotiation

Tutor: Jasvir Kaur

Student Name: Shihao Li

Reflective Essay on Negotiation

Introduction

It’s been four weeks since I started to learn Critical Thinking and I found the unit very useful for self-improvement on many aspects. Combined with the lecture, the tutorial class is pretty much constructive as we all got the chances to practice the theories we have learnt from the lecture.

During the tutorial class on week 4, we undertook a fun role-play activity. I was in the role of Chris Johnson who had been working in a company for six years yet just recently switched to a new department. I as Chris Johnson was supposed to have a talk to the new manager named Dale Williams to express my eager to keep the job as a single parent.

What did I learn--Natural preferences for influencing tactics

Naturally, under the circumstance of my role in the activity, the first tactic I came up was impression management. According to my knowledge, it is always important to manage the impression properly especially to meet someone new and vital. Six-year working experience was “my” advantage which I can take fully use during the talk. And I also learned that to seize the first chance in the meeting or in a talking to someone important, I myself must be confident in dealing with the situation, friendliness or even ingratiation are necessary to draw other’s attention. Then the tactic that I was thinking of was emotional appeal. Under the special circumstance that “I” was a single parent, family responsibility can be more persuasive than some company polices. So in this activity, I got another better understanding on emotional appeal. It always occurs as there is an imbalance between emotion and rationalization among all us human beings. Using this tactic properly, sometime, may have a strong influence on one’s reasoning process. At the meantime, I learned another influence strategy which the manager used during the talking, that was, pressure. By using the tactic, he threatened me that I could be fired if not obeying the rules of the company. Though it would probably not happen, however it indeed had a powerful effect. Personally I think, this method can be used in some circumstances that the negotiator is not that rational or the ones who don’t have proper intentions.

What did I learn--About negotiation

The main ideas I extract from the activity are about negotiation skills and how to deal with conflict properly. According to Wikipedia, negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome. As we all know, negotiation mostly happened in business.