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!