Relationships

Chapter 9

Key Elements in Managing Negotiations within Relationships

• Reputation

• Trust

• Justice

Key Elements in Managing Negotiations within Relationships

• Trust– “An individual’s belief in and willingness to

act on the words, actions and decisions of another”

– Three things that contribute to trust1. Individual’s chronic disposition toward trust2. Situation factors 3. History of the relationship between the parties

According to Asherman, the following items are the most critical in creating trust

• Meeting commitments

• No surprises

• Being consistent

• Giving people proper credit

• Admitting mistakes

• Admitting when they do not know something

(Continued)

• Taking responsibility for their actions

• Not making threats

Types of Trust in Relationships

• Deterrence-based trust• Knowledge-based trust• Identification-based trust

Trust/Relationship Grid

Deterrence-based

Knowledge-based

Identification-based

Personal Business Embedded

Relationship

• Lack of trust

• Prenuptial agreements

• Surveillance

Trust

• Theory X management

• Use of threats, punishments, sanctions

• Surveillance

• Use of threats, punishments, sanctions

• Sympathy for the other

• True empathy for other

• Investment in other’s welfare

• Customer-driven focus

• Assessment of clients’ needs

• Theory Y management

• Selection of employees who fit corporate culture and its values

• Restructuring to serve customer

• Understand and appreciate partners

• Empathy

• Development of social identity

Building Trust: Rational and Deliberate Mechanisms

• Transform personal conflict into task conflict• Agree on a common goal or shared vision• Capitalize on network connections• Find a shared problem or shared enemy• Focus on the future

Building Trust: Psychological Strategies

• Similarity-attraction effect• Mere exposure• Good mood• Physical presence• Reciprocity principle• Don’t gloat• Schmoozing• Flattery• Self-disclosure

What Leads to Mistrust?

• Breaches or defections• Miscommunication• Poor pie expansion• Dispositional attributions• Focusing on the “bad apple”• Social comparison

Process for Repairing Broken Trust

• Suggest a personal meeting• Put the focus on the relationship• Apologize • Let them vent• Do not get defensive• Ask for clarifying information• Test your understanding• Formulate a plan• Think about ways to prevent a future problem• Do relationship check-up at a scheduled date

Reputation

• Protecting your reputation• Impressions of others

• Halo effect• Forked-tail effect

• Repairing your reputation

Key Elements in Managing Negotiations within Relationships

• Reputation– Perceptual and highly subjective in nature– An individual can have a number of different,

even conflicting, reputations– Influenced by an individual’s personal

characteristics and accomplishments.– Develops over time; once developed, is hard to

change. – Negative reputations are difficult to “repair”

Key Elements in Managing Negotiations within Relationships• Justice

Can take several forms:– Distributive justice

• The distribution of outcomes

– Procedural justice • The process of determining outcomes

– Interactional justice • How parties treat each other in one-to-one relationships

– Systemic justice • How organizations appear to treat groups of individuals

Understanding Negotiation within Relationships: Remember

• Negotiating within relationships may never end– Parties may defer negotiations over tough issues

in order to start on the right foot– Attempting to anticipate the future and negotiate

everything up front is often impossible– Issues on which parties truly disagree may never

go away

Understanding Negotiation within Relationships: Remember

• In many negotiations, the other person is the focal problem.

• In some negotiations, relationship preservation is the overarching negotiation goal, and parties may make concessions on substantive issues to preserve or enhance the relationship