From Chapter 5 and the negotiation activity, please write a 2-page reflection from our perspective on what happened. What was your role? What power or voice did you contribute? Utilize appropriate terminology from Chapter 5 and concepts relating to networking, power, politics, and negotiating. Writing in first person is acceptable.

Negotiation Activity Example

For this activity I would like to use my experience of my internship at the local library during my school time. I would like to use critical thinking to couple the concepts I learned in chapter 5 with my experience of a conflict I had with the librarian during my internship. I believe that was a case of the position power because the librarian, who also acted as my supervisor during the internship was hesitant to accept my suggestion to use a computer to keep a record of the books going in and out. He knew that he has the powers delegated to him from the top management to make a decision about running the library in the way he wanted, so he used these powers to resist my attempts to use the computer. This situation had resulted in a conflict and I was the one who prepared a plan to negotiate with the librarian and convince him that using a computer is not a bad idea. In the following discussion I would like to tell the whole story. The purpose of this story is to elaborate on the power and politics that I had faced and how I engaged the other party in negotiation techniques in chapter 5 to overcome the conflicting situation.

I was in 9^th grade at that time. The educational department had instructed to send the students to organizations for a practical experience. I was assigned to go to the local library. The librarian was made my in charge. From the first day I had noticed that the librarian had a register to note down the books that went in and out. There was also a computer with the software installed for books records but the librarian preferred a register. Usually people would come and ask about the presence of certain books that actually used to be in the library inventory. But the librarian had a hard time to see if the books were not out with someone as he had to go through the pages of the register. I suggested to him one day that it would be a good idea to use the computer to keep the records of the books but he said that he did not trust technology. I had made the suggestion a few times but I noticed that this suggestion got him angry at me.

The librarian was also the head of the library. All the other staff were working under his power. After some time I noticed that the other staff members also started to distance themselves from me. I believe it is an example of the organizational politics as the librarian was able to use his power to influence the other staff. At first I was also in reactionary behavior but then I realized that my ultimate goal was to introduce the use of the computer at the library and I was there only for an internship and not to create conflicts with the staff members or the librarian himself. So I started to think of convincing the librarian to make a decision to use the computer instead of the register. The first task was to let him know that technology is not so bad and he can easily learn to operate the computer and the library related software. I planned and executed the negotiation process in the following steps as described in the text book (Lussier & Achua, 2012, p. 174).

1. Planning the negotiation: I know that I need to talk to the librarian and first get him to at least be ready to talk about the replacement of the register with the computer. So I requested him to grant me a permission to make a record of the books on the computer software. I told him that I don’t have a lot of work to do in the library so I will make an inventory of the books. It could be useful in maintaining a record of the books in case the register gets lost. He agreed and I used to look at the register and record the names of the books that went in and out. I also used the library records to note down the names of all other books that were there in the library.
2. Conducting the negotiation: After I had made a substantial record of the books, I would try to answer the queries of the visitors about the presence of certain books. I would use computer and it would give me the records of the books in seconds. This got the librarian interested and he started to talk to me about the use of the computer. I would politely talk to him about the benefits of computers and tried my best for him to try visitor’s queries with the computer instead of the register. He gradually started to use computer.
3. Result, Agreement: The librarian seemed interested and one day out of nowhere, he expressed his willingness to learn to operate the computer and the library software. I agreed instantly and I believe that this was an agreement of the whole negotiation process on my part.

I would like to conclude my discussion over here my stressing on the importance of thinking of win-win situations so that when the agreement is reached, both parties can be happy. In my case I felt relieved and as able to implement what I had planned for the library. The