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NEGOTIATION 3 - REFLECTION PAPER

PLANNING AND PREPARATION

I played role of captain of the ship. My objective was to achieve the best outcome for the company. My plan was to play on my strengths and exploit my competitors weaknesses. Island Maid is much smaller company with an older, less luxurious ship and clientele are mostly middleclass retirees on fixed incomes, who would typically generate less revenue per tourist for the island. I planned to highlight our high-end clients and value they can bring to the island. I also planned to bluff in negotiation about considering Desert Island for our second option. As part of my preparation I identify and prioritize the variables that I will be using during the negotiation process. This helped me to choose different techniques based on which I built my strategy.

Variables	Priority
Number of Visits	High
Length of Visit	Low
Number of Passengers	Medium
Safeguarding the Pristine Nature	High
Measures to build infrastructure (Community College, basic amenities.)	Medium

My strategy was to start the negotiation with the highly prioritized variables i.e. Number of Visits or apply bogey technique to the variable of low priority i.e. Length of visit and get something of more value to me. This helped me to draw my final expectations out of the negotiation, that is

Variables
Number of Visits	12 Visits (per year)
Number of Passengers	1200 passengers
Length of Visit	2 days

My BATNA which I will use in case of deadlock.

Variables
Number of Visits	6 Visits (per year)
Number of Passengers	600 passengers
Length of Visit	2 days

PROGRESSION

After greeting each other I decided to take control of negotiation by sharing highly prioritized variable for me: the number of visits to the island. I asked for 12 visits to the island While current demand may not warrant a trip every month, it is valuable to have this option in order to meet potential future demand.

As expected, my counterpart was not okay with it but want it for 5 visits. Since the number of visits is my priority, I utilized the technique of anchoring and tried to keep up the number. He said a greater number of visits will destruct the pristine nature of the bay area. I tried boogie tactic at this point and reminded mayor that we are also considering Desert Island as well. But I like to give this opportunity to Tropical Island. I reminded Mayor the clientele of Island queen had and what kind of opportunity they can bring to the Island. I boosted a little about our clients and how it can bring employment opportunities for the Island. I just wanted to wow the Mayor and made sure they understood what we can offer.

The next important variable was the number of passengers and I asked for a minimum of 700 passengers per day at onshore with a 4-day visit. I know that a 4-day visit is too long but I used this as my bogey technique. I am intended to get a greater number of visits by comprising on length of visit. I negotiated for 700 passengers for a 4-day visit and gave substantial explanations on why this will benefit economically. But my counterpart wanted for 300 passengers and 1-day visit stating that there is no proper infrastructure to provide basic amenities in the Island and having people more than 300 will certainly affect the existing set up of island and might create new diseases that are not native to the island. I Insisted on having 800 hundred passengers for 3 days. I used Tactic to bluff about Desert Island that Island Queen do really likes Desert Island. I want to give this opportunity to Tropical Island as I want to help them. Mayor hesitated and finally gave me the reason that the council members would not approve such huge numbers. Mayor also raised concern about the Trash and pollution. She also mentioned about having no Infrastructure. This gave me Mayors restriction and why she was reluctant to make deal. I saw this as an opportunity. I came up with the proposal where Island Queen will employee 100 people from the island and make sure we take care of the trash during the stay for the first 6 years. This will give employment to the locals. I also agreed to build basic infrastructure. for that to happen I insist on having at least 800 passengers for 3 days. My counterpart seems to be interested in the proposal and came 700 passengers for 2 days. At this point, I informed that I am fine with 700 passengers for 2 days but on two conditions. One have exclusivity to Tropical Island, ie Tropical island will be the only cruise ship allowed when staying at marina, also Island queen will charge other cruise ship companies for the maintenance fee using our infrastructure .Though my counterpart was reluctant initially she agreed on these terms and finally we agreed in having 700 passengers with a 2-day visit and having 7 visits per year.

Solution/Agreement

My main objective of this negotiation was to achieve exclusive rights to the island. Making sure we had upper hand with our competitors. I also wanted to have a long-term relationship with the mayor. I always wanted to have a better deal than BATNA. Thus, during the negotiation, I ensured to provide both quantitative and qualitative justifications that would be beneficial for the mayor and the island too. Finally, I ended with an agreement that is greater than BATNA for my highly prioritized variable with the possibility of increasing the quantity after six months.

Variables	Expected Agreement	BATNA	Final Agreement
Number of Visits	12 Visits (per year)	6 Visits (per year)	7 Visits (per year)
Number of Passengers	1200 passengers	600 passengers	700 passengers
Length of Visit	2 days	2 days	2 days

Criticism of Performance

I found this negotiation exercise very helpful as it pushed me to think out of the box and come up with creative solutions. Dr. Kohut debriefing really helped to understand the case. Tactics such as bridge solution, bogey technique, and anchoring helped my negotiation skills be creative and much stronger. Using these tactics, I played leadership role and dominated the negotiation. My primary interest was to increase the profitability of my company and maintain long term relationship with the island. The biggest achievement is to have exclusivity to Tropical Island, i.e. Island Queen will be the only cruise ship allowed when staying at the marina. I also got return on Investment in the form of the maintenance fees of public Bathroom from other cruise. This also give us monopoly on the island. I strongly believe to have exclusivity to Tropical island and have a control of infrastructure in form of maintenance fee will go a long way. My proposal for employing 100 islanders for trash pickup will address one of the key secondary interests of my counterpart whereby they can retain young natives moving out of their island. Overall, I am sure that my performance was good not only because I came up with creative strategies to convince the mayor but also ended up with an agreement that on most part acceptable and better than BATNA.

Lesson Learned

This exercise gave me an opportunity to develop my communication skill. We spend to much time in Icebreaking. I should research on some good icebreaker activities this can save lot of time going in future. If I had to do this negotiation exercise again. I would ensure to have certain financial values written on the final agreement that would precisely help decide the future agreements. I could have pushed the number of hours per person per day. This would enable me to increase the number of people on the island and gain more profit for the company. I also should not expect to win outright, even if I have a position of strength. It is important not to be greedy. I need to learn when to stop negotiating. In this case I pushed Mayer few times. I could have jeopardized our negotiation.