Personal Negotiation

My Personal Negotiation Style

Chapter one of the text, Your Bargaining Style, and supporting documents discuss individual negotiation styles. There are five types of negotiating styles: accommodating, avoiding, collaborating, competing, and compromising. The accommodator will try to relieve conflict by resolving the other party’s problems. Avoiders typically attempt to sidestep the negotiation process and not get involved in conflict. The collaborator tries to find a solution in the best interests of both parties. The competitor likes to win and likes negotiating. Compromisers tend to be fair.

The text poses a scenario, “The $1000 Game”. Before I finished reading the scenario, I knew which approach I’d take. I would have immediately engaged the person across from me, telling him or her that if they hurried and stood behind my chair, we’d split the winnings. My negotiation style is classified as the competitor. As I continued reading, I realized that in my haste to “win”, I never considered going to stand behind the other party’s chair as well so that we could BOTH win the $1000. So much for me being a collaborator. That was an interesting exercise. When I posed the same scenario to friends and family, I found that we all had different strategies and I even predicted a few of the results. It seems that negotiation styles are similar to the person’s personality.

I also completed the exercise in appendix A which revealed a more in-depth reading of my personal negotiation style. As a competitor, I have strong instincts regarding deadlines, final offers and ultimate. Because of my dominating style, I can be hard on relationships. I find this to be true- even in personal relationships. I’ve found that a lot of the qualities of my negotiating style coincide with characteristics of my astrological sign, I am an Aries. I’d be very interested in knowing if there’s a connection there.