Bacchus Winery

This week we did the Bacchus Winery negotiation, talked about cross cultural negotiation and handed in our real life negotiation papers. All of these different activities helped structure negotiation skills and helped us understand how complicated negotiations can become, especially if there are several parties that we need to work with.

The video we watched about the Japanese and American men working on a deal just goes to show how differently our two cultures go about business. In America we get right to the point of business and we do not beat around the bush too much. It may be difficult for Americans to understand that other cultures, like the Japanese, would prefer to build a strong, trustworthy relationship before they agree on a contract that may have terms which they like. In order to complete deals with other cultures, it is important to understand their viewpoints and study up on what type of values they have before you begin a negotiation with them.

The Bacchus Winery negotiation took great effort to come to a compromise. Tuan and I played the Tokyo Saki role, and we felt as if we were almost pushed to the side for most of the negotiation. Although the other two sides did ask us about our interests, they were busy trying to work out a solution to the Niko problem. What caused problems is that the Serbian team had lied about the outcomes of losing Niko. This confused our team and the Bacchus team. The Serbian team made it seem as if they were giving us a better deal, but really they got the better of it as they revealed what they had done at the end of the negotiation. We still do feel good about the outcome of our negotiate, but we still have not figured out the status of experience for our score.

The real world negotiation was another great experience, because it helps you better realize what typed of information you are left out on, and also shows you that the other party may lie about several things. Mine was done at a car dealer, so I do not blame the guy for lying about the blue book value of my car because I'm sure some people fall for it and the dealers claim a higher profit from the traded vehicle. Overall it was a good experience to actually go out and try a real negotiation even though my tactics may have been a little off. It made me wonder if I had known some of the material from this class when I purchased my car, would I have gotten a better deal?

MCA case/ Connecticut Valley negotiation

This week we took part in a three party negotiation that dealt with seven competing projects. We were either a headmaster, faculty committee member or board of trustees member for the Connecticut Valley School. The point was to agree on the main improvements for the school while staying under budget for the year. As a headmaster, my three main concerns were the pool, hockey rink roof and busses. As soon as me and my partner got to the negotiation table, we we found that the faculty and trustees had already formed a coalition within minutes. They presented us with a plan that sounded suffice and included all possible upgrades except the pool and the heating system. The faculty convinced us that this was the best approach and the trustees had agreed. As soon as we began to make our argument we got word that a girl was assaulted walking from the library to her dormitory. The timing of this news harmed our argument because everyone immediately found the campus lighting as a necessary issue, including my partner and I. We decided that not getting the pool was acceptable because we still did get the hockey rink roof and busses. Improving our current assets and helping our students out with busses seemed to be a higher priority. We had access to a pool that we were able to rent, so we decided that we would have to wait another year to invest in our own pool. After all, we did invest a large sum of the budget into athletic activities last year as well, so it was only fair to allow some improvement of academic activities this year.


The MCA case was interesting because the flight attendants really wanted to be compensated in a similar way to the competing airline companies. They were proven to be underpaid, and did not have the same type of benefits as other companies. The flight attendants union was able to come up with a strong strategic plan to encourage MCA management to give them an upgraded contract. MCA did not come into the negotiation nearly as prepared as the flight attendants did, which is why they were forced to give up some more on the first interest by the flight attendants. Unfortunately, the case did not go through the whole negotiation, but it seemed as if the strategies that the union had designed were working in their favor.