Background:
According to the paper given by professor, there is
a negotiation between an employee and an employer in Modern Tool Manufacturers.
The position of Mike is Assistant Junior Manager, Marketing Division. Mike is
an overseas student and had lived in the US over ten years, and during this
time he got a MBA degree. He did the job very well and had been improved as a
supervisor just in 3 years. However, the salary problem always bothered him. So
Mike decided to talk with his boss and look forward to persuade the general
manager to increase his wage significantly. However considering the emotion of the
older employees, the enterprise did not intend to increase so much for the
employee. Both of them want to persuade each other to get to their goals. All
of our teammates have joint an exercise to imitate the negotiation between boss
and employee. In order to find an effective way to make the bargain become a
win-win negation, we did the exercise 3 times. All of us played different roles
in these exercises. Even though all of the negotiations we acted were failed,
we still got a best outcome after analyzing.
Round 1.
Mike got MBA from an USA university, and he lived
in USA for more than 10 years. His personality seems like an American citizen.
His ways to deal with things is similar with American.
When his unit head left, he took over this position
and tackled substantial crises and emergencies, however, he always made a
decision by himself and don’t discuss with his subordinates. Although he made a
big contribution to help the enterprise to pull out the awkward situation, the
senior staff not quite appreciated his approach.
Individualism Versus Collectivism
When he asked for a raise to his employer, he paid much attention to
emphasis his own contribution rather than the team. He thought the decent
operation of his department owe to his hard working and ability. 
Nevertheless, his boss had diverse perspectives.
His boss is a traditional Chinese staffs who is more focus on collectivism and
team work. He was not satisfied Mike’s tone and regarded Mike’s behavior as heroism.
Furthermore, his boss considered other effects. Traditional Chinese citizen quite values the harmony and relationship. Other unit heads have been worked for this company for ages and have good relationship with Mike’s boss. If the boss decides to raise the monthly salary of Mike, other experienced unit heads may have disagreement. The reason is not very complicated, others would envy Mike, and they would think Mike is too young to get both the high position and salary. Mike’s boss won’t want to have the nerve relationship with other head units because of the reason of Mike. Consider all the reasons and facts, his boss refuse Mike’s requirement.
Present Culture
Another reason for the boss won’t raise the salary for Mike as he didn’t know the Chinese gift culture.
In China, if someone want to another people to help him to do something, giving a present is quite significant. Giving Chinese negotiations gifts is usually done at the start of the initial meeting. This shows courtesy and an understanding of the Chinese culture. This will help you create a friendship with the person that you are negotiating with, which means that the negotiation is likely to be successful.
However, Mike didn’t notice this traditional
Chinese culture and thought his boss would raise his salary just based on his
outstanding performance.
When Mike noticed this issue from his friend,
he prepared a classic tea which was quite costly but appreciated by his boss.
Furthermore, before the New Year’s Day, he gave a special gift to his boss
which is a set of stamp, in the back sides of the stamp; it represented the
typical flower, bird and the established date of each state. The boss liked the
two presents very much and realized his sincerity.
Authority and equality
In Western countries, they experienced the Bourgeois Revolution, whatever
the European renaissance or American declaration of independence, citizen focus
on individual liberation, individual emancipation and individual equality. Mike
also is influenced by this ideology, and he thought he had the authority to
acquire his deserved salary based on his performance and ability.
However, Chinese citizens are influenced by the Confucianism.
Chinese people pay more attention on the hierarchy. This high hierarchy system influenced
China more than thousands years of history. The most classical example is the
emperor.
Hence, in the
process on the negotiation, Mike thought the final resolution should be fair
and reasonable. He thought both sides should be profitable. Nevertheless, Mike’s
boss had distinctive opinions. He was influenced the Confucianism and
hierarchy, when the negotiation is associated with the finance issue, he always
considered his benefit in the first place due to his higher hierarchy. Mike
should follow the existing salary system. Mike thought they could get a
balanced point in the process of the negotiation; however, those two different
cultures inhibit the outcome that is not what Mike expected.
Round 2
In this round, Monkey plays the Mike, Ricky act as
the employer, and Jake is the observer. We discussed intensely focus on the
topic of how much money should be added in salary. In my opinion, even though the
Mike’s income has increased in the recent years, but it was not enough and
still much lower than the older in the similar supervisor positions. What’s
more, according to the new policy, Mike’s subordinates will have the bonus, however
the supervisors include him will not have. Thus he thought it was unfair for him.
So this man asked the general manager to solve his problem and rise his salary
to HK$35000. On the other hand, the top layer of the company does not intend to
do so. The boss told him that the several levels of salary in my company are
connected with the working age of employees in the firm. So he could not change
the enterprise rule just for one man. But the employer promised his salary
would keep rising up as long as he can keep the good performance. Finally in
round 1, the solution is adding HK$ 2000 to Mike’s monthly wages. Both sides
compromise to each other.Single-issue Problem
However according to the article of Win-Win
Negotiation: Expanding The Pie, this round we are not get to the win-win
situation. Because the article explains the compromise is not the win-win negotiation.
It says: “ Negotiators often mistake
win-win negotiations for equal-concession negotiations. Equal concessions or
“splitting the difference” does not really ensure that a win-win negotiation
has been reached. Compromise pertains to slicing the pie, not expanding the pie”.
Thus, my teammates and I think the root of the problem is that the employee and
the boss only talked about how much money should be increased. By definition,
single-issue negotiations are very hard to win-win, because whatever one party
gains the other party loses. Therefore, the situation in round 1, I guess, is
lose-lose negotiation. Both the employee and the employer did not achieve the
goals they had designed before. Even though the outcome has been accepted by both
of the negotiators, but it is about how the pie is divided rather than how the
pie is enlarged. So to my point of view, this time the negotiation is failed.
Besides, we can see that the employer took the
strategy of committing to reach a win-win situation. He gave the employee a
promise that his salary will increase significantly in the future, but it still
needs he to perform better. I don’t think this strategy is useful. Because this
promise doesn’t value too much and it is hard to forecast whether it will come
true. That is the reason why the company agreed to add HK$ 2000 to the wage of
the employee finally. So commitment cannot guarantee the negotiators will reach
a win-win agreement.
In the situation, how can we do to solve these
conflicts?
My teammates and I have some recommendations. First, we think, the top
layer of company should make multiple offers of equivalent value simultaneously
to the employee. Dietmeyer, Brian J and Bazerman, Max H in the article named
Value Negotiation have demonstrated that. They said: “ If we present several alternatives, we learn more about other party’s
interest and preference, and these will tell us what is most important to them.
Flexibility will help us identify new trades.” So we suggest the employer
to talk about something else to replace the salary raising. For example,
offering the vocation with salary, some chance of training, or different kinds
of rewards to the employee to meet his demands. What’s more, we advise the
company that giving up this kind of promise to its staff. It is useless. For
most of employees, the things can be achieved right now are much important
than those in the future.
Round 3
As we
know, Mike is a student graduated from a famous school with MBA, and he is
responsible for the department for more than 3 years and helped the department
deal with many crisis events, so he thinks he is a really important employee
and all his boss need him to make more profit, but the situation is that he did
not get enough money to face his desire, or to make him feel satisfy. After
years of asking for higher salary, his salary just changed a little, his salary
is still lower than other units’ heads, this year he cannot get the bonus for
lower level employees who do not have high salary, this situation makes he thinks
that his boss is against him. At first, he can talk to his boss with peaceful
voice, after showing what he wanted to his boss and did not get a good result
from the boss, he became angry, he spoke to his boss without a right emotion,
and finally he decide to threat to leave the company.
False Conflict
False Conflict
This round, they
cannot have a win-win outcome, Mike asked for a higher salary, his perspective
is very easy to catch, but there are some inhibitors that influenced the
situation. First one is false conflict. False
conflict, also known as illusory conflict, occurs when people believe that
their interests are incompatible with the other party's interests when, in
fact, they are not. Mike always thinks that his boss is against him so he
asked for higher salary with emotion factor, which is useless to get a win-win
outcome. In this round, his boss told me he wanted to give Mike more
opportunities and some training program to help him perform better in the
future, but Mike miss understood his idea, he thought his boss just do not want
to pay him more money and he was against him, after some meaningless words, Mike
could not control his emotion and became angry. He said some hard words and
threated his boss. The boss became angry too and did not want to endure Mike’s
bad activity. The meeting went to a wrong way without any good outcome. Mike
and his boss were both unhappy and the barrier of next effective negotiation
became higher than before.
Mike
and boss have to do something to control the situation. Some articles give some
solutions to deal with the false conflict.
First,
they should be aware of the fixed-pie perception and not automatically assume
that their interests are opposed by the other. In the role play, MIKE’s
interest is higher salary. The boss’s interest is to give Mike a salary matches
Mike’s performance. Mike did not get the point that his performance was not as
good as other units’ heads, and his boss offered the training opportunity to
him was a way to learn how to perform better and it was good for his future.
Unluckily, Mike did not realize this, in his mind, the training program was
only an excuse of his boss. This misunderstood led to Mike’s bad emotion, and
it influenced the negotiation period. If Mike had realized both of their
thoughts are good for him, this embarrassing situation could be avoided. Second,
negotiators should avoid making premature concessions to the other. Neither Mike
nor his boss were not good at this during this round, they did not comfort the
other, and the way they show their thoughts were too strait to make the other feel
well because of the emotion factor. If they communicated with each other in an
easy way, the win-win outcome could be made.
Illusion of transparency
Illusion of transparency
Also,
during the negotiation period, the boss did not show his idea clearly at first,
he thought he had put out his words in a right way but Mike did not get the
point. According to the article, Y had a problem called illusion of
transparency. The illusion of
transparency is a tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their
personal mental state is known by others. Another manifestation of the illusion
of transparency (sometimes called the observer's illusion of transparency) is a
tendency for people to overestimate how well they understand others' personal
mental states. This cognitive bias is similar to the illusion of asymmetric insight.
Mike showed his idea clearly, but Y considered too much at first, he use the
words which were not very clear, and he thought Mike could get his point, but
unluckily he did not. To avoid this, both of them have to present their points
clearly and make sure the other understand what he had said. Only if they do
this, the communication is effective.
Round 4 A win-win outcome
On
the last round, the two sides tackle all inhibits that we mention before. For
example, the employee sends a decent present to his employer. Employee realizes
both his boss and he want to have a win-win outcome, and he also realizes that
his employer didn’t raise his salary due to the immature time and his
experience.
And
they don’t just focus on the only one issue (salary), they bring other issues
on the table, for example, vacation and training.
At
last, the outcome is the company will grow his salary to 33000, and give him a
training chance to improve himself. What’s more this employee can have a 10
days vocation with salary in this year.
References
Dietmeyer,
Brian J.; Bazerman, Max H. Executive Excellence. Apr2001, Vol. 18 Issue 4, p7.
Value Negotiation.
Ivan
Chung, (2006, Dec 5), How to Invest in China, Wiley
Li Suzhen, （Dec,2008）Chinese and western cultural differences
on the influence of international business negotiation, China Electric Power Education
Parker,
A., Heys, A. (1999). False Conflict, Peak
Performance Development
Van Boven,
L., Gilovich, T., Medvec, V H. (2003, April) The Illusion of Transparency in Negotiations,
Negotiation Journal. Vol. 19 Issue 2, p117-131. 15p. 2 Charts, 1
Graph
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