1. Real World Negotiation

You have all been negotiating for years - perhaps without even thinking about various exchanges as negotiations. Likewise, in the past, you have probably overlooked opportunities for potential negotiations. To encourage you to think about the many, everyday opportunities to negotiate, and to improve your negotiating skills, you will GO OUT AND NEGOTIATE! You can negotiate for anything you like - a hotel bill, a signing bonus, a piece of jewelry, who will clean the bathroom or do the dishes, who gets the bigger room in the apartment, or basically anything. Please note that you do not have to buy anything to complete this assignment. On the contrary, you may be on the sell side in the negotiation, or your negotiation may not involve a purchase at all.

There are two rules for the real world negotiation assignment.

1. You may not tell the person you are negotiating with that this is for a class project until the negotiation is completed (and then you can decide whether or not you want to tell). You are not allowed to resort to a plea of "Please help me out for a class...".

2. You are not allowed to engage in a negotiation that you do not intend to follow through with if the outcome you desire is obtained. For example, you must be willing (at some price, under some conditions) to acquire the item for which you are negotiating. Do not start a negotiation in which you would never want to come to agreement.

After you finish negotiating, you will write an analysis of the negotiation. Your paper should contain a description of what happened and what the outcome was. However, exemplary papers will do more than simply recount the details of the interaction. They will also discuss preparation and strategy and will critically analyze what happened and why. You should try and include all relevant strategic elements of the negotiation (e.g., issues, interests, priorities, BATNAs, aspirations, outside parties, constraints, etc.) in your paper. You'll want to integrate concepts from the readings and class discussions, as well as offer your insights, lessons-learned, etc.

What if you try to negotiate and are not successful? Do not get discouraged! You will not be penalized for writing about a failed negotiation--often we learn as much from negotiations that fail as from those that succeed!

Your grade for the real world negotiation paper will be based on the following criteria:

1. Creativity. How unique was the context? How creative was your strategy? How did you meet expected and unexpected challenges?

2. The quality of the story. Have you included all the relevant details? Is it interesting? Is it well written?

3. The depth of your analysis. Have you correctly employed key concepts to assess the strategic landscape of the negotiation? How well have you applied your learning from the course to your analysis of this case?

4. Self reflection. Have you linked your experiences with your goals for the course, your strengths and weaknesses? What have you learned about your negotiating style and skills from this negotiation experience? What would you do differently in the future?