Negotiation

Session 1 and 2 (Synopsis and Learning)

Negotiation is one of the most important tools of reconciling conflicts of diverse nature and virtually all of us have played the role of a negotiator at some point in our life. Perhaps this highlights the pervasive nature of negotiation in virtually all aspects of life and it’s indispensability across personal, professional and societal domains. The need for negotiation arises in situations where we need to solve a conflict arising out of different ideologies, different stakes and different stances on a particular issue. As future managers, conflicts will be an inseparable part of our work life so understanding negotiations goes a long way in reconciling diverse interests to a common point so that we can at least avoid a lose-lose outcome even though we might not secure a win-win position always . The course began with an interesting exercise on conflicts in which a group of four people enacted a situation of conflict in which only one would secure a seat in the helicopter to visit a disaster affected site and represent his organization. The conflict further accentuated as the reputation and future funding of organizations were at stake so all participants were hard selling their claims of being the most deserving party to visit the site. This exercise taught me how to hard sell your point on the negotiation table especially when you have very limited time at your disposal (20 minutes in this case) and to play your cards smartly by not jumping in the negotiation at the onset (As done by Sandeep Chehel) but rather first listening to other’s claims and then putting forward your point in a way that accommodates (or at least it should look like that) other’s concerns.

There was a presentation on intractable conflict between Kerala and Tamil Nadu over Mulliperiyar Dam in which both the states were represented by one spokesperson who was putting across their share of concerns and logic over the future of the dam .Conflicts of...