Out from behind the Shadows

Contributed by Dr. Joshua Weiss

Author: The Book of Real-World Negotiations

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Place and Date of Publication: New Jersey, USA, 2020

The Conflict

Engineering Experts Inc. (EEI) is an engineering consulting firm that works all over the world on large projects, including water management, transportation, and energy and facilities. They have multiple divisions that address aspect of the engineering process from design to build and construction to program management. EEI works with many varied entities, including federal and state governments as well as industrial clients.

EEI was working with a city in the southwestern part of the United States called Amity County (AC). AC was desirous of designing and building a physical-chemical treatment plant for wastewater, and EEI was serving as a consultant in both the design and build phases of the project.

EEIs project manager on the job was Stan. Stan had been with EEI for over 15 years, with another 5 years in another firm. ACs project manager was Alphonso. Alphonso was relatively new to the business, just two years out of college with his engineering degree from a middle-tier university in the southeast part of the country.

The project began well, with both Stan and Alphonso on the same page. Things stayed that way for a while until they ran into a problem with a system that EEI had proposed to install because the wastewater was too strong at the site. This was a bit of a surprise to Stan based on the data that he had seen. That stated, Stan quickly realized what was happening and reassured Alphonso that he knew how to fix the issue. Stan laid out his plan to do just that, but Alphonso met his ideas at every turn with a series of nos, which he delivered with very little explanation as to why he was rejecting Stans new approach.

If there was going to be a negotiation, Stan thought to himself, he would need to figure out what was going on and why Alphonso not only kept saying no, but what logic underlay his perspective. Added to Stans dilemma was that he was not a good communicator, so he preferred to rely on email for most of his interactions. In fact, Stan and Alphonso had only met once in person since the project initiation meeting three months earlier.

If you were Stan, what would you do to reach out to Alphonso? How would you initiate communication considering that you lack communication skills? What conflict management approach(es) would you use?

write the introduction and problem discussed in the case? (350-400 words)