This is a 10 question case study involving a negotiation to get increased
job responsibilities.
Prepared by Guy Christ, Chairman
I.C.M.(Europe), Inc.
98 rue Mignot Delstanche
B-1060
Brussels, Belgium.
Tel:(32)(2)343.06.15
This is a case study involving the efforts of an employee to gain increased job responsibility. Assume the following 10 questions were answered by the employee in preparing for the various negotiations with her company.
Interests of Employee:
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1. I am a 31 year old, university graduate with BA and MBA degrees from a good local public university and six years experience in the field with four years at this company.
2. I am currently working in the administration side of the sales department and I have responsibility as a sales analyst. I want to get additional responsibilities and move into customer relations for national accounts. I studied quality management in an evening course certificate program at the local university and believe this is one of the most important functions within the company.
3. My MBA and certificate in quality management from the local public university gives me some respect, but are not overly valued by the company management who thinks one must have an MBA from an Ivy League school.
4. My interests are to achieve greater personal and job recognition with commensurate increase in salary after proving the worth of my ideas. I also want to make use of my leadership skills and interpersonal abilities. Ultimately, I hope there is a chance of getting a position as a quality manager and proving to the company that it should adopt Total Quality Management (TQM).
5. I've gotten good annual reviews which stress my long range potential role in the company.
________________________
The interests of the company:
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1. To make profits.
2. To attract and keep the best possible employees.
3. The employees should gain a sustainable competitive advantage. The president says he wants a balance between the company's competitive strategy and its internal culture.
4. The company has a fairly rigid promotion policy to keep employees in the same general area for at least 5 years to prevent people from "jumping around." This is supposed to make for general stability. (Fortunately there have been one or two exceptions to this general rule.)
5.The company has an annual review for each employee to give them feedback on their job performance. They see this helping to get all employees on the same wavelength. (My annual review is coming up in three months.)
+===+Your side
+===+Your side but not present
+===+Other side
+===+Parties on other side but not present
+===+Negotiator on other side
My direct supervisor is an analytic and an effective cooperative. He particularly appreciates my work and doesn't want to lose me from his staff (unfortunately!).
The personnel manager is an older effective competitive. She always "goes by the book."
The Vice-President for sales is young: 34 years old. She is open-minded, aware of the latest technology, and likes to use these approaches in sales and management generally.
+===+Background to negotiation
+===+Briefing book research
+===+Other research materials
+===+Needed research materials
+===+Involved parties' interests and proposals
Me
-----
Interests:
a.increase job challenges
b.use my leadership and quality skills
c.get larger sal.$
Proposals:
a.I get VP interested in quality customer position
b.have her get my supervisor & personnel to o.k.
c.have her consider me for the new position
Terms:
a.just mention idea at first
b.wait until new job is created to negotiate salary
BATNA:
a. wait to raise idea again;
b. go elsewhere to another company who likes this idea.
________________
Jackie (Supervisor)
--------------------------------
Interests:
a.keep me in her department
b.have a smooth running operation
c.best interests of the company
Proposals:
a.me stay
b.I'd work part-time for her
BATNA:
a. she can recommend against my continuing
with the company;
b. she can go along gracefully.
__________________
Mary Sylvia (VP Sales)
------------------------------------
Interests:
a.best interests of the company
b.high sales
c.satisfied customers
Proposals:
a.suggest personnel &supervisor go with the idea
Terms:
a.implement immediately
b.delay or phase in the idea
BATNA:
wait until the atmosphere is more positive and in meantime gather more info showing that this approach to quality is the coming new
management approach of choice.
___________________
Lee Berns (Pers. Man.)
--------------------------------------
Interests:
a.best interests of the company
b.keep the VP happy
c.preserve standardized personnel paths
Proposals:
a.say no
b.say no
c.do something if a VP makes me
Terms:
a.be empathetic
b.be firm
BATNA:
keep the status quo.
+===+Terms and Standards
Me
-------
Terms:
Ideal:Get the job as qual. assurance full- time right away.
Good:phase in
Acceptable:promise of getting it next year.
Standards:
a.idea is endorsed in Fortune, Business Week, Deming, Crosby, etc.
Accreditation:
a.exceptions have been made in past
b.endorsement of ideas by my prof. and leading bus. publications.
________________
Jackie (Supervisor)
--------------------------------
Terms:
Ideal:keep status quo
Good:I work for her part time.
Acceptable:I get fired (just kidding!)
Standards:
a.usually workers have to stay in their area 5 yrs.
b.employee handbook
c.changes are usually made at different time of the year
Accreditation:
a.history of dept.
b.she wasn't told.
___________________
Mary Sylvia (VP Sales)
--------------------------------------
Terms:
Ideal:get more sales with new approach
Good:get more sales with suggestion to
supervisor and personnel manager
Acceptable:Use power and order people to create new position
Standards:
a.new quality standards of US businesses
b.Acme has this.
c.Bristal has this.
Accreditation:
a.cite Harvard Bus. Rev. to CEO
b.cite lit from US Dept. of Commerce.
___________________
Lee Berns (Pers. Man.)
--------------------------------------
Terms:
Ideal:No one asks me for any favors
Good:If they ask, they don't question my decision when Isay no.
Acceptable:They present their idea, but they
assume I will say no.
Standards:
a.past practices
b.employee handbook
Accreditation:
a.cite US Personnel Soc.
b.cite US Army
c.cite Richard Nixon.
+===+Acceptable Outcomes
+===+Select strategies
Principled negotiation. (cooperative)
From what I've read in the definitions, principled negotiation" is like a seperset of cooperative negotiation. I want to be cooperative, but I don't want to be a wimp about something that I believe in (quality) or about my ability to really achieve something here for the company.
This approach from the Fisher, Ury, Patton book, "Getting to Yes," involves:
1. looking at the interests of the parties (not just their positions)
2. using objective standards to bolster my arguments
3. being hard on the problem not the people
4. understanding what alternatives each of the parties has if "the deal" doesn't go through
5. coming up with "yesable" propositions
+===+Tone of negotiation
+===+What might modify the intended tone
+===+Establishing a relationship
+===+Who is on your team
+===+Who is on other team
+===+Proposed groundrules
Try to have coffee with the Vice-president of sales about this new quality approach to sales and management. Sound him out to see if he is sympathetic to it. (I subsequently learn that he is sympathetic but he doesn't think it applied to our company).
At another time I might run into him and I would then let him know I wrote a paper at school on how to improve customer relations and overall quality by systematically handling customer complaints. I know from my work in sales analysis that there is a direct relationship between market share and poorly handled customer complaints. I'll stress that if we don't lose more than 5% of the customer base (annually) then we can count on doubling our profits over five years time. (This statistic was contained in a 1990 Harvard Business Review article). This ties my idea to the company's bottom-line.
I should also informally notify my direct supervisor, Jackie, that I told the VP of sales about my paper and interest in ways to improve profits through quality control and new ways to handle customer complaints. I shouldn't forget to also mention that the new (younger) sales analyst, B.C. Barker, is rapidly progressing in the job. (Thus, I'm replaceable!)
If the reaction of Jackie is somewhat positive and not hostile to these ideas, I would move in to set up an appointment with the personnel manager to seek her advice about career orientation, without talking about me idea. If my supervisor is negative I'll drop by to see the VP of sales, Mary Sylvia, and see what she thinks about my idea to get the company to create such a position. If she is positive ask her advice about how to handle my negative supervisor and enroll his support in bringing this about.
+===+Will you open the negotiation
There are three key negotiations:
1. With the VP of sales (Mary Sylvia) about the concept.
2. With my direct supervisor (Jackie) about my moving to this new position.
3. With the Personnel Manager, about this "premature" lateral move.
I'll reconcile the first two by showing how it is in the best interests of the company. Then I'll indicate that there is a good person to replace me (at a lower cost to the company because B.C.'s salary is less). This helps free up part of the cost of creating (my) new customer relations position.
Of course I'll start by doing my present job as well as possible and doing favors for some of these people I'm trying to influence.
+===+How make first offer
+===+How and when to communicate your interests
+===+How and when to communicate your BATNA
+===+Willingness to make new proposals
+===+How will you accredit your proposal
+===+Select tactics
Acknowledging concerns, sequencing, humor, telling a story, changing topic, acknowledhing person, points, and ploys, courting.
Use judo with the competitive Personnel Manager! (Lee Berns).
Acknowledge concerns of my direct supervisor (Jackie) by stressing the competence of our new staff associate (B.C. Barker).
Tell the story about writing my university paper on quality management, and how my professor wants to rewrite it somewhat for the Journal of Management and submit it as an article with my credit to me as co-author.
+===+Possible disagreement with client over tactics
+===+Tactics for impasse
+===+Other side's possible proposals
+===+Other side's concerns
+===+Your concerns
+===+Tie-down tactics
They write the memorandum/contract of agreement.
Let the VP write a memo to the Director of personnel and my direct supervisor to confirm company's need for this new approach with the implicit assumption that this is happening and I am going to be the new customer relations/quality assurance person.
+===+Insuring compliance
Check back with the VP to see if she sent the memo. If she did, what were the principals' reactions? Also, ask if I can try to draft up a job description for this new position. (Perhaps, I could also get feedback on this approach by the well-respected professor of management at my university, if she is comfortable with doing this. Possible trade secrets or confidentiality issues).
