Playing with Icebergs: Negotiating Improvisationally Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

Purpose of the Study

The article presents an insight about the need of improvisation while dealing with business negotiations. The author highlighted some key factors that are important for successful negotiations that include the need of empathy along with systematic preparations. Furthermore, the author also highlighted the key problems that play a vital role in not understanding the interests of the person on the opposite end. These issues can be some hidden agendas and objectives or unclear interests of the negotiating partners.

Strengths of the Article

The authors highlighted the fact in the article that processing new information and managing to process this new information competently and swiftly is a challenging task for the people involved in the negotiation or to be precise negotiators.

To overcome this issue, the solution presented in the case emphasizes on developing the ability of listening and understanding the viewpoint of the other person instead of entrapping in their planning. This is the reason the authors emphasized on using an improvisation model going ahead in the negotiations. This model is based on the position, interests and perceptions of the negotiating parties involved in the negotiations.

This three-tiered model for improvisation presented in the article suggests the need of improvisation in negotiations and highlights the importance of collaboration in achieving success in negotiations. The authors, through this article, suggested that it is important for both the parties to work together in order to understand the point of view of each other. Understanding the point of view is vital which will lead towards successful negotiation quickly and effectively. The model suggested by the authors in this article lays the importance of considering the needs and values along with perceptions and emotions of the other person involved in the negotiation.

Negotiation has been viewed as Structured spontaneity by the authors in this article and as suggested above emphasize on empathy, which can prove to be a very critical factor towards the success of the negotiation. The emphasis laid by the authors on empathy is a highlighting factor of this article and a very important point in understanding negations. People can achieve success in negotiations if they focus on understanding the interests of others. The authors highlighted the key success factors as well as the issue that can put barriers towards achieving success in negotiations. These factors have been addressed very effectively and clearly by the authors in this article.

Although it is important to prepare systematically for negotiations and plays a vital role in the success of the negotiation, but mostly people emphasized more on their planning and remained in that boundary set by them.

Furthermore, as highlighted in the article this approach restrict negotiators to reveal their hidden agendas or interests and argue for least important things.  Therefore, the authors emphasized on viewing negotiations as a paradox referred as structured spontaneity. This view of the authors helped in understanding business negotiations more effectively.

As discussed above the need of empathy is important towards the success similarly hidden interests and objectives are described as the possible barriers that can damage the process of negotiations. Any hidden interests of the negotiating parties can lead towards the failure of the negotiations so therefore the parties should focus on making the interests clear to each other and found a common ground in order to make the process more effective. The parties are expected to think out of the box and to broaden their approach to see the bigger picture by finding common interests will be able to understand the needs and values of each other and will proceed smoothly in a negotiation process.

The process explained by the authors in the article has made the article effective for readers to understand the negation process and the need of understanding the interests, needs and values of the other party involved in the process to gain positive results from the negotiations. The model presented is an improvised version of the negotiation model presented by Harvard university. The model focuses more towards having a flexible approach towards negation rather than applying strategic methods every time.

It has been described in the model that every negation has three levels of awareness that includes position, interests and perceptions. Positions are the demands of the other party involved in the negotiation that can be in the shape of a simple demand..........................

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