Negotiating: art or science?

Blogs Maria Boicova - 11-30-09

For the whole previous week we have had a course on Negotiation skills, which started with a game around prisoner’s dilemma. The prisoner’s dilemma in simple words (I take an excerpt from Wikipedia here) is presented as follows:

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies (defects from the other) for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent (cooperates with the other), the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

In the game we played, we were separated into two teams, wherein the first team had to choose A or B, while the second had to choose X or Y. Depending on the combination (AX, AY, BX or BY), the outcome was different: either first team gained 6 points and the second team lose 6 points, or vice versa, or both teams loose 3 points, or… gained 3 points. Additional requirements were that either score below zero, or the equal score for both teams meant that we both loose. Interesting extra hint that added special flavor to the game was that on rounds 4, 9 and 10 both teams might negotiate through their chosen negotiators. Negotiation part turned out to be one of the most interesting features of the game, since for example negotiations on round 4 rendered controversial results: we agreed with the second team on AX (so that we give A, they give X), but the outcome was BY, because we decided that we don’t believe them and that we are afraid that they are going to choose Y and will gain 6 points making us loose 6 points. And we were right! Or perhaps they were right having the same reasoning. Arh! This must have sounded complicated, but I will leave it as is. The main thing is – trust! If there is no trust, negotiations will fail… Which is more, what we learned from that game was that in making decisions, one has to take into account decisions of other people, since we are all interconnected. The only solution to this game was to agree on who wins, which is a very difficult decision, you know…

Very engaging were also game negotiations we had to conduct on the other days – one related to selling a piece of land, another – on agreeing on deal to provide service, and the last one about settlement of a dispute in between two co-owners of the business with the aim to safe the company and to define a better structure thereof. At first I thought that having the same conditions for negotiations we all (by we I mean my classmates and I) will end up with more or less the same results. Nay! Some of us haven’t reached the deal at all, but some reached a deal on more favorable conditions than the others. Just for comparison on the deal for selling a piece of land we had a selling price of 16000 agreed by one team versus a selling price of 38000 agreed by the other! Why so? Technique? Personalities involved? Preparation? Understanding the underlying principles?

Reflecting on the course, I still wonder whether negotiation is an art which is more personality-based, or is it still a science, wherein the structured and analytical preparation is the essence? In my pre-MBA job I conducted a lot of different negotiations and as far as I remember, they all had more or less favorable outcome for my part, but I have never actually analyzed what I have been doing. Thus, maybe I was just lucky not to face the failure… Maybe with the knowledge that I have now, I will be even more “lucky” in negotiations in the future? We’ll see… I guess only practice will show that.

About the author: Maria Boicova

Maria Boicova is a Full-time MBA student at Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School (Leuven, Belgium). She is a Patent and Trademark Attorney from Latvia with a background in law and management.