Journal for 5 th and 6 th session

In this session we have understood various other aspects of both Distributive and Integrative bargaining. We have also performed an exercise involving three separate groups in a pair of two negotiator each. There we were given a situation of an emergency situation. One involving the serious outbreak of a disease in pregnant women and the other is a case of leakage of a serious nerve gas from the bomb container of the national defence. In both the cases it will claim lives of several thousand if not responded at the earliest. Two separate organizations are involved in the response process to restrict the damage to the minimum and for that they require the same mutually exclusive resource here in this case a type of Black Melon. But the twist is that the two parties require two different components of the same resource i.e., one require the outer skin of the fruit to prepare the nerve gas neutralizer and the other require the inner flesh to prepare the serum for treating the disease in pregnant women.

Now coming to the negotiation scenario we had witnessed two different types of negotiation happening over the same situation. The first one being an Integrative type and the latter two being Distributive type. The main funda as we observed that is needed for the negotiation to be an integrative one is the honesty and truthfulness in disclosing the party’s original situation to the other party and likewise formulating a BATNA for both of them. Failing to do so and paying attention to the minute case situation will led to a distributive negotiation rather than an integrative one.

Then we come across a presentation on emotional intelligence and also came to know that how the emotions of the individuals can affect the negotiation process. Emotional intelligence is nothing but the ability of an individual to recognize their own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour. There are three main models for measuring the EI of any individual and they are,

1) Trait Model2) Ability Model and3) Mixed Model

The ability model uses for types of abilities of an individual for mapping or measuring their EI viz. Perceiving emotions, Using emotions, Understanding emotions and Managing emotions. And the other discussions are to be carried forward in the next session.

Key Learning: The key learning from the session is that an integrative bargaining can anytime transformed into a distributive one and follows the path depending upon the nature of the individual negotiators involved in the negotiation. The second learning is that EI severely influences the negotiation process.

Reflective Note: We need to control our emotions and involve in any negotiation process so that the biasness of the outcome can be avoided.