This week in negotiation we worked on a different type of scenario where both parties can work together to maximize the value of the deal as a whole. Instead of there being a "winner" and "loser" in the negotiation, the purpose of this deal was for both parties in the BestBook/Paige Turner case to work together and try to maximize the value of each side. I played the part of the BestBook party and negotiated with the Paige Turner agent who was played by Isaac. We ended up working out a fair deal with few compromises by building a trusting relationship and figuring out what each others interests were. There were three categories in the deal that we both wanted to maximize such as number of countries that the books would be sold in. We both stated what we wanted for each of the categories and realized that we had common interests among a few of the categories. We also figured out how to log roll the two categories that we each had a different level of concern about. I realized that Isaac had less emphasis on the number of weeks promoted, and I think he realized that I was not too concerned about the number of books that we signed Paige for. I think that since we build a good relationship, we did not find the need to bluff and that is what helped us come to a good mutual agreement that benefited us both. Without there being much value left on the table, we were able to get close to the Pareto frontier. In fact, the results showed that we had come up with the best agreement in terms of maximizing value for both parties. Personally we did not come up with the highest numbers, but together we came up with the best value out of the class.

We also talked about the differences between the American culture and other cultures around the world when it comes to negotiation. The example we were told about the Chinese working on a deal with the Americans goes to show that the Americans like to get right down to business after breaking the ice and creating a small relationship. The Chinese (and probably other countries) would rather work on a relationship and build trust before working on a deal. This is definitely something that we all should realize, especially if we get into any type of international business in the future.

One more thing from this week is that we got back the results from the questionnaire. It was interesting to see how I negotiate and the different aspects of negotiation that were measured from the survey.