One of the most exciting classes thus far has been my Negotiations class. I’ve always felt that my negotiation skills were very weak (strange, since my father’s been selling cars my whole life.)
Perhaps the most interesting conversation was on negotiation styles. If were were to draw and x-y graph, assign the y-axis to the “issue” being negotiated and the x-axis to the “relationship” between the negotiators:
“Avoiders” would be the group of people who exist near the interesection of the two axes. This is the group of people that’s hardest to negotiate with because they avoid it as much as possible.
“Accommodators” are the group of people who live on the x-axis - the “relationship” access. Due to the relationship between the negotiators, these people will more or less agree to anything for a while - but will resent it (perhaps explosively so.)
“Competitors” are people for whom the issue is more important than the relationship. This group of people generally have to “win” at whatever the negotiation is about (and, if they lose, they’ll usually keep a tally of that.
“Compromisers” would exist along a diagonal line drawn between the two axes. These people tend to want to find a resolution that makes all negotiating parties happy and give everyone something they want - however, they also tend to give up importatnt points pretty quickly to find a solution and can sometimes come up with an answer nobody’s happy with.
“Collaborators” are a mysterious group that would maximize both the issue and the relationship, finding a solution like the compromisers but without the drawbacks.
In the classroom categorization we did, I found myself to strongly tend towards compromise and avoidance. This isn’t necessarily bad, but it means the challenge for me will be understanding the other types of people that represent the negotiation style that I’m not. Hopefully I can get that out of the class - and practice it, too.
That sounds like a cool class. It will definitely be good practice for you and will undoubtedly come in handy.
Negotiation tactics and styles are very interesting to me. It’s clearly more art than science and a bit like playing poker. I’ve been working on my skills quite a bit in recent years. After I bought my car a few years back and was able to get an awesome deal after much negotiating, I found that I rather enjoyed it. Next thing I know I’m negotiating raises, hotel rates, work tasks, and on and on.
I think I fall somewhere in between a competitor and compromiser, I guess that would make me a Collaborator?
Best of luck man!