Negotiating in Teams

Well, as you probably know from previous blogs and role plays, I am a regular user of the "Good Cop, Bad Cop" technique in negotiation.  Therefore, I do see many pros to negotiating in teams.  When using a team approach, though, you have to make sure that both (or all) team members are on the same page.  This does take some preplanning. Without preplanning, your other team members could take the negotiation in a direction that you didn't want it to go.  That is why, as Reading 3.13 points out, it is important to discuss differences in advance and assign roles and responsibilities.




You should discuss differences in advance because typically, you do not want to be arguing with your fellow team member DURING the negotiation (even if you ARE using the "good cop, bad cop" strategy you are only giving the APPEARANCE of not being in agreement). If you don't discuss things ahead of time, you could accidently negotiate against yourself!




Another pro of teamwork that was mentioned in class is that if teams have disagreements on issues, that can actually spark better outcomes.  It was interesting that this was brought up in class because the exact the example you gave of one person giving an idea and the others latching on to that idea without any conflict happened with our group as we tried to come up with our topic for our group project.  I had suggested that each of us come up with a few topics, but that we should not comment on them until everyone had put forth their topics, via a reply-to-all email. I emailed out my suggestions and even stated on that email, "PLEASE ADD YOUR SUGGESTIONS".  However, because I was the first one to suggest anything, the rest of the group then seemed to just comment on those and decide on those, without putting through their own ideas.  I am going to mention this to see if we can get some more variety in the next couple of days.  I don't actually think that my suggestions are the best choices, but I wanted to get the ball rolling since we were a bit behind. 




Assigning roles and responsibilities is very important in a team negotiation.  If roles are clearly defined, then it is less likely that one member of the team will go rogue and put forth ideas and concessions that were not originally agreed upon. And there are some roles that suit certain people's personalities better than others.  Those strengths should be emphasized and utilized in the negotiation.