Part 1
1. Consider your personal views of negotiation. Can you think of any situation at home or at work where you were called upon to negotiate?
What strategies did you use? Were they successful? Why or why not?
Why do you think many people are not effective negotiators?
2. Have you ever called upon anyone to use a principle of fairness in a negotiation? What principle did you call upon?
Think about events in the news either locally, nationally or internationally. Are there any that involve negotiation and the win-win vs win-lose models?
Part 2
1. What are some of the things people might care about maximizing in a negotiation that are not necessarily monetary in nature? How do they impact negotiation?
2. What are some reasons that people are uncomfortable negotiating with friends, and what are some advantages to negotiating with friends? Have you ever negotiated with a friend?
Part 3
1. Why do you think that the BANTA is the most important source of power in a negotiation?
Husband and wife are negotiating a separation of their property during a divorce. Husband is an executive with a six-figure income. Wife has always stayed at home and raised the children. The children are now 7 and 13 years old. You are negotiating for wife in her request for spousal support, child support and visitation. Will status affect the negotiation? In what areas? What factors will you focus on as issues that will be influenced by power? What power does wife have? What power does husband have?
2. The wife (you are negotiating for her) in the Topic 1 hypothetical above, comes to you and says husband telephoned her the night before and told her that he will not give her spousal support unless she allows him visitation with both children every weekend. You are going into the negotiation session in an hour. How can you approach this situation creatively?
Part 4
1. You are negotiating with a client whose culture regards women as inferior. Your key associate is a woman. Will this affect your negotiations? Why? How will you handle this dilemma?
2. You are heading to China for a multiparty negotiation with corporate executives. There will be a cocktail party when you arrive followed by a trip to the theater and then the next day your will meet, discuss the contract you will enter into, then there will be a farewell dinner at a local restaurant. What cultural issues and customs should you explore before the negotiation begins?
3. You are about to enter into a negotiation with a company in Mexico involving your company buying cameras from them. You have been brushing up on Spanish and reading books about the culture in Mexico City, where the negotiation will take place. A day before you are going to leave the United States you receive a call from your counterpart in Mexico asking if they can set up a telephone conference rather than have everyone come down from San Diego, which is where you live and work. You have just finished a very long negotiation in San Francisco and you are exhausted. You have not had a chance to visit with your wife and two children (ages 5 and 7) for weeks. What is your first response to the suggestion that you use the phone conferencing? Does it make any difference after an in depth refection?
Let's role-play. Professor can pair the students and have them take the roles of the San Diego and Mexico negotiators. Have one-half of the teams "schmooz" with each other by having a strictly social five-minute, get acquainted conversation before negotiation. For the other half of the groups instruct them to keep the interaction "entirely businesslike" and formal. Compare and discuss the results.