Post Negotiation - the Great Dog Frisbee Controversy

Caterina Sinico

10/08/2015

NEGOTIATION THEORY & SKILL COURSE, MID-TERM PAPER

The negotiation I will be analyzing is “The great dog frisbee controversy” in-class exercise. The reason why I chose this particular one is that, regardless of the fact that I did cut a deal and satisfied my ultimate interest, from an execution point of view it was (almost) a complete failure; which turned out to be extremely helpful, somehow, because it allowed me to pinpoint the aspects I needed (and still need) to work on the most.

On to the details, the very first I did when planning was identifying my main interest, which I found it to be restoring my reputation and therefore protecting my business. In order to do so, I knew I needed Jess Jocker to publicly correct her remark, so that was my first aim.

Second step was taking into consideration all my character’s emotions and feelings that could potentially interfere with this negotiation, such as anger, shock, frustration, fear, shame and regret. Moving from these and from the factual background, I then tried to asses my strengths and weaknesses and soon realized that the latter were more than the former. In fact, knowing that I actually had breached the contract, that my reputation was at stake and could be irreversibly harmed, impairing my future business prospects, gave me the feeling of being “behind the eight ball”; moreover, I sensed that my $ 4.000 counterclaim against Dog Pound and my $ 300.000 libel claim against Jocker were based on shaky grounds, with the latter being excessive and not backed up by solid proof. All of  this undoubtedly affected my execution and the development of the negotiation. That said, my plan was to start off explaining my reasons and how family ties pushed me into such a poor business decision. I also had in mind to highlight my long-time experience and the fact that I had tried to partially execute my end of the contract but was not allowed to. Finally, I wanted to top it off with an apology: I thought that this way it would have been easier to find common grounds and possibly a solution involving future business partnerships.

However, when it came to execute the exercise I had to team up with another classmate, turning it into a three-party negotiation: this was an unexpected twist I obviously hadn’t considered when planning and that took me off guard. Moreover, what happened was what I feared the most: our counterpart came up “aggressively” and blamed us, probably relying on the fact that she seemed to have the winning cards in her hands. I cannot talk for my partner, but, personally, I felt my character was much more desperate for a deal than his counterpart and I let this have the hold on me.

Adjusting to this situation was not easy at all and adaptability is probably what my “performance” lacked the most. The interplay with my partner wasn’t smooth and we often found ourselves interrupting or giving each other puzzled looks, trying to guess the other one’s thoughts: this resulted in Jocker being even more self-confident and leading the negotiation, hammering us on our breach of contract and the subsequent sponsorship loss her company incurred.

So, after expressing our shock and anger for the remarks, we quickly realized it was a losing strategy and switched from offense to defense, trying to loosen our counterpart’s stranglehold by apologizing and focusing on the “emotional” factor, stressing that our hand had been “forced” and that we regretted letting family ties get in the way of our business. Our counterpart seemed   unresponsive to such personal reasons and justifications, but apologies did facilitate the transition from the “past” to the “future” phase.

We all knew that both our characters would have been better off with a deal because a trial would have hurt both our business. Thus, the very first step to take towards that object had to be dropping all litigations and damage claims: this was an easy goal to achieve and we agreed on it straight away.

Our next move was an attempt to making future prospects together: we pinpointed the fact that Dog Pound wanted a promotion at a major league park and that we were looking for more promotional deals with sporting events. Proposing a new partnership was (unsurprisingly) more challenging, since we had to overcome our counterpart’s doubts and hesitation; besides, rejecting our offer wouldn’t have hurt her too much and such a deal was clearly more vital to us than her. We highlighted how we could work together and help each other out, reassuring her on our ability to perform the contract and letting her decide most of the terms.

Once we got that on the table, my partner and I sought to “secure” our position and demanded for a public apology and retraction of all the comments and a joint statement that we would have engaged future business together. This task wasn’t particularly hard to accomplish at this point, though: it almost seemed the natural conclusion of the course the negotiation had taken.

Lastly, before the exercise was over, my partner and I took one last dare and tried to obtain at least a partial payment for the services rendered, but our attempt miserably failed and we ended up settling the dispute on the previously-agreed terms.

Taking a look back, the overall strategy my partner and I employed fits somewhere between a compromising and an accommodating approach: on one hand, we knew that finding a solution, even one less than the best, was better than a stalemate for both parties; on the other hand, nonetheless, my partner and I realized that, having failed to perform the contract, we were “wrong” and had much less leverage than our counterpart. We were also aware that we had to deal with strong emotions and expected Jocker to be angry as a consequence of our breach of contract and losing a big sponsor.

Since restoring our reputation was absolutely essential to us, we easily gave up our compensation claims and tried to develop a solution by bridging that included some form of shared value and profit, such as a new business deal that could ideally leave the door open for more collaborations. To achieve all of this, we understood that two things had to be done: apologize and repair Jocker’s trust in us. Apology certainly helped defusing our counterpart’s anger, clearing the way towards an agreement. In addition to that, we tried to explain our behavior and make Jess understand our point of view: we consciously and strategically decided to disclose some personal information and background to make Jess sympathize with our character; however, this move didn’t really deliver the hoped results.  Justifications were also aimed to redeem ourselves in Jocker’s eyes and regain her trust, a goal we managed to reach also by playing up our long-term experience and by letting her define the details and the guarantees of our new contract: in other words, we wanted to make it hard for her to refuse our proposal.