Introduction
Hours after watching a vision of Saddam Hussain captured by the US forces, Moammar Gadhafi contacted the US government and pledged to cease its nuclear weapons development in exchange for immunity (USA Today 2011). Amidst the worsening economic turmoil in Europe, IMF chief Christine Lagarde travelled to Beijing to seek financial support from China (Barriaux 2011). Days after the Qantas negotiation dispute ended, Qantas management took out advertisements in newspapers across Australia persuading affected customers to fly with the airline company again (Barlass 2011). Whilst the contexts are different, the scenarios detailed above all had one thing in common – persuasion. The concept of persuasion is often associated to the skill reserved for selling and is commonly seen as a form of avoidable manipulation. Conger (1998) however suggests that constructive persuasion often supersedes selling and negotiators go through a learning process to develop effective persuasion skills. Business leaders can no longer rely on formal authorities to get this done due to globalisation and flatter organisational hierarchies. The use of successful persuasion is often required to gather support and change the attitudes of a leader’s subordinates (Watkins 2001). This paper outlines the different persuasion tactics used in negotiations and ways on how a negotiator can respond when the other party uses the same tactics. It then discusses the (un)ethical considerations and suggests that whilst persuasion tactics are avoided by some, the use of these tactics does not constitute unethical actions, particularly when good negotiators should expect and anticipate the use of these tactics in a negotiation.
Persuasion tactics used in negotiation...
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...ber, pp. 1124-1131.
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Lewicki, J. R., Barry, B., & Saunders, M. D. (2010). Negotiation: Readings, exercises and cases
Many situations present the important synchronization of internal versus external negotiations. Many individuals have studied how each side in the negotiation is able to manage the internal opposition to agreements being negotiated. This can also be known as “on the table”, or what exactly is on the line in a heated argument. Each individual involve in an argument has a particular position to be managed, and often times own personal interests are widely expressed. This paper will expand upon the case of Fischer collecting needed funds from Smith with proposals and ideas for a manageable negotiation.
Lewicki, J. R., Barry, B., & Saunders, M. D. (2011). Essentials of negotiation (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. ISBN-13: 9780073530369
Persuasion is a process by which the persuader, through communication, gains the approval or support for the topic (Let's Compare Motivate and Persuade, 2013). The arguments to motivate this change in thinking comes through careful use of rhetoric, but one must also be able to define the six principles of persuasion in social psychology: “Reciprocity, Scarcity, Authority, Commitment and Consistency, Consensus, and Liking” (McLean, 2010, p. 521) and be able to recognize them as they are taking place. Then, one must carefully apply these concepts in order to find the means to effectively facilitate persuasion (p. 518).
The first common theme is the importance of clear strategic intent and big picture thinking in negotiations. Before taking the Negotiation Behaviour unit, I always perceived negotiation as a fixed-pie, a zero-sum gain situation, where one party wins and the other party loses. This belief has often led me to a competitive behaviour in negotiation by trading the big picture thinking with the need to win, getting too detailed too quickly, leading to a positional approach instead of having a broad goal and explore for ways around problems to create value and get the best outcome.
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According to the text , Social Psychology, “social psychology is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another”(pg. 4) this is viewed in a variety of social topics incorporating group behaviors, attitudes, conformity, obedience to authority, stereotypes and peer pressure. Outside factors can have a positive or negative affect our view of ourselves and each other. These outside factors are used to persuade and influence group behavior. Persuasion is defined as “the process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors” (Myers, 2010, pg. 230). The principles of this process of persuasion according to researchers, Robert Cialdini and Thomas Davidson, are attractiveness and likeability, reciprocity, social proof, consistency, authority, and scarcity (Davidson, 2008)(Myers, 2010, pg. 237). These principles of persuasion impact our self-perception, our attitudes and behaviors, and our culture.
In closing, Persuasion is a powerful tool, both in trying to persuade others and being
Persuasion is an important aspect of communication, certainly a significant business activity. Regardless of whether this comes in the form of a sender influencing a party or the receiver itself is being influenced. Typically, this could come in the form of a salesman or, even a manager communicating with key stakeholders, such as potential investors.
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During this course, I have learned a lot about negotiating. We learned about almost every negotiating technique there is. We learned about cross-cultural negotiations, body language, Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA), variables in negotiating, and many more. Before this course, I did not know that much about negotiating. I thought that negotiating was just about trading or convincing someone to give you what you want and you did not care about the other side, resulting in a win-lose. I now know that negotiating is about getting what you want, but also giving the other side what they want as well to result in a win-win. This paper is about how I am going to improve my negotiating skills over the next six months. In order for me to improve my negotiating skills, I believe I need to improve the following skills- my body language, communication, planning, and my interpersonal communications. By improving those skills, I can become an effective negotiator.