Location, location, location

Team negotiation was the topic of the day. After a short introduction we got to experience two different team negotiations. In the first one we were divided into three smaller groups, so that each group represented a branch of a technical consulting company. Our team was located in Tampere, while the two others were in Lappeenranta and Helsinki. The topic of the negotiation between the teams was to find a better solution for the current Company Day, a monthly meeting for all of the teams held at Helsinki.

We had 30 minutes to come up with our strategy. We focused almost completely on the location aspect of the given case. We thought that the best way to improve the Company Day was to have a certain amount of the meeting somewhere else than Helsinki. We did some extreme math (!) with the cost of the train tickets, the time it takes to get from one of the cities to another and the number of people working in a branch, to justify what percentage of the meetings should held at each place. After some number crunching we got to the conclusion that out of the 12 meetings in a year, six should be at Helsinki, four at Tampere and two at Lappeenranta. Then the tactic for the negotiation was devised in a way that each of us had a certain role. However, we got a surprise twist in the form of randomly distributed character roles. All the other group members had roles which didn't affect the strategy that much, but I got the role of an older consultant who didn't like change. This meant that I dropped myself out of the previously planned tactic to pursue my on hidden agenda.

The negotiation started off with the location as the hot topic, although the Helsinki group was quite eager to talk about the content of the Company Day instead of the location. Because there were almost 20 people negotiating, it was rather difficult to find the correct timing for a turn to speak. As to be expected, most of the time the conversation was between a couple of people (one or two) from each group. After some time I finally saw my chance in the negotiation and went for it. I only took two turns to speak, but both of them were stereotypical nonsense from a senior worker who thinks change is the devil itself and that the way things have been done in the past is the only correct way. Needless to say, my input didn't have a lot of weight in the outcome. It was still good fun to go (a bit) over the top with the role that I got. I also learnt that it is really easy to just sit silently in a team meeting and let the other members of the group to take care of the talking. This is especially true if you are a quiet person, such as myself.

The second team negotiation was about the assessment criteria for the second assessed negotiation. Since that was going to be done in teams, we had to think how the criteria should be changed to better fit the new situation. The actual negotiation was rather quick: first we decided that the existing criteria were still relevant and that if anyone had any new ideas we should vote for them one by one. I proposed that a criterion for assessing the co-operation in a team should be added and the others agreed. A few other suggestions were suggested, but in the end only the original criteria and the one I proposed made the final cut. All in all, the negotiation took probably 15 minutes.

Next time the final assessed simulation is on the menu. But for now, Happy Easter to everyone!

Smooth sailing

Today's main focus was on negotiating via Skype. The backstory for the negotiation was that four different companies were working on the same project in four different countries. The budget for the projects in each country was cut down by a quarter, and we had to get together with the other representatives working in the same country. I was a representative of the roading company working in Papua New Guinea. The aim was to get as much money as possible, while maintaining a good relationship with the other companies. Our negotiation was really pleasant and everyone was willing to co-operate. We started off by each saying how much our original cut from the budget was. From there we started to slightly adjust the numbers until everyone was happy. The schedule for the project was discussed briefly as the last part of the negotiation. Overall, I was quite happy with my result, as I got 28,8% of the total budget (originally 30%). I have to admit that I was surprised to see how well we got along and how easily the negotiation went.

After we had finished all of the negotiations, the final results were discussed in the class room. The smaller companies got the best deals, but our company got a decent result as well. There was also some discussion about the technical aspect of the negotiation. In my opinion there wasn't much of a difference in negotiating via Skype in comparison to negotiating face-to-face. The connection was (most of the time) good enough so that we could communicate well and we could still see each other. The background noise was a bit annoying at times, but not a major concern. Personally I like the fact that I can have my notes with me all the time, and that I can look up information if I have to. This would be a lot harder if the negotiation was done face-to-face.

Not a whole lot to say about this one. Maybe next time I'll have more to write about. Just have to wait and see.

An overwhelming sea of presentations

Today was an interesting day, full of presentations. We kicked off with a presentation about haggling in different cultures. The shopping scenarios were a nice addition to the presentation, as well as the story-like progression of the presentation. The conversation during the presentation was fruitful, and it got me thinking as well. For example, why don't we have a strong haggling culture here in Finland? Some really good thoughts were given in the class room. Overall, a very solid performance.

The next presentation was a one man show on the topic of multilingual workplace. The topic itself was really interesting and there was plenty of really good conversation during the presentation. I have experience from a multilingual workplace when I was working on my bachelor's thesis. At the time I was working for the department of signal processing, in the audio research group to be precise. There most of the members do not speak Finnish so the majority of the communication had to be done in English. This really didn't matter since the atmosphere in the group was extremely welcoming and everybody got along really well. Since my supervisor was Finnish, I still got to speak my native language to some degree as well. One thing that I noticed when I was writing my thesis was that some of the vocabulary was surprisingly difficult to translate. There was a lot of specialized terms which didn't have any established Finnish translations.

The third presentation was presented by our group. We discussed about individualism and collectivism in negotiations and business culture. The presentation went decently well and we got the main points across. Even though we presented some of the characteristics of individualism and collectivism, it should be noted that the personality also affects the way you consider other people, not just the degree of individualism in a particular culture. This was something we probably didn't emphasize enough. The conversations in the smaller groups went in my opinion really well. In the group I was in, there was some really good opinions about how one should prepare for a negotiation if you know which culture the opposing side represents. Thanks to everyone for the active and lively conversation!

After a short break we got an exciting presentation on game theory and negotiations. I believe that I speak for all of us, when I say that the game the group organized was the highlight of the day. It was extremely good fun. It was interesting to see what sort of tactics different people employed during the game. I didn't have any tactic since I really didn't want the chocolate, so I decided to split in each round. In the second round I actually told my partner that I'm going to split and that he can make any decision he wants. It was evident after the game that the best tactic would have been to discuss with everyone in the same table and choose one person who would always get the steal. That way one person from that table would get the maximum amount of points and therefore would be in the (most likely joint) first place.

Finally we concluded the day with a presentation about cultural differences in negotiation. The presentation was well organized and the conversation was interesting. There were a lot of points to think for future negotiations. Next time we're going to have negotiations via Skype. It's going to be interesting to see how the fact that the negotiators aren't in the same physical location will affect negotiation tactics and such.

Shameless product placement.

P.S. This is the first time I've written such a long blog post during this course. Now I think it's definitely time for a beer. Cheers!