Introduction to Negotiation Strategy
At Oak Spring University, we provide corporate level professional Negotiation Strategy and other business case study solution. How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization case study is a Harvard Business School (HBR) case study written by Rob Cross, Michael Arena, Jonathan Sims, Mary Uhl-Bien. The How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization (referred as “Adaptive Space” from here on) case study provides evaluation & decision scenario in field of Leadership & Managing People. It also touches upon business topics such as - negotiation strategy, negotiation framework, Labor, Networking.
Negotiation strategy solution for case study How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization ” provides a comprehensive framework to analyse all issues at hand and reach a unambiguous negotiated agreement. At Oak Spring University, we provide comprehensive negotiation strategies that have proven their worth both in the academic sphere and corporate world.
What’s my BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) – my walkaway option if the deal fails?
What are my most important interests, in ranked order?
What is the other side’s BATNA, and what are his interests?
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. While technology giants such as Alphabet Inc., Apple Inc., and Facebook Inc. are lionized for their innovative cultures, other industries struggle with hierarchal organizations that make consistent organic innovation very difficult. Companies try to address this by formalizing innovation processes. However, such programs, when they succeed, often produce only a portion of the growth that most large organizations require.The authors argue that executives need to better support emergent innovation to supplement planned new product or service development activities. Successful service, product, or process innovations within large, complex organizations are, the authors contend, very much a social phenomenon. This is why organizations that are routinely innovative are intentional about enabling individuals to engage and connect in ways that trigger and expand ideas. How can organizations best connect employees in ways that more systematically unleash emergent innovation? The authors'research suggests that part of the answer lies in the power of network structures and the ability of organizations to create what the authors call adaptive space. They define adaptive space as the network and organizational context that allows people, ideas, information, and resources to flow across the organization and spur successful emergent innovation. Adaptive space works by enabling ideas generated in entrepreneurial pockets of an organization to flow into the operational system to generate innovations that lead to growth. Adaptive space within organizations is fluid and can shift based on need. Companies create adaptive space through environments that open up information flows and enrich idea discovery, development, and amplification. That can be done in a number of ways. For example, the nonprofit research corporation Noblis created adaptive space through an internal crowdsourcing initiative, while General Motors has generated adaptive space through events that bring together people from different parts of the organization. Using network analysis and data collected from more than 400 interviews, the authors found that innovation leaders within an organization engaged with experts, influencers, and decision-makers through different phases of an innovation's journey, and in the process managed to substantially expand the impact of their innovation and streamline its acceptance as it moved from concept to implementation. The authors also describe three roles critical for emergent innovation: brokers (who create bridges between different groups), central connectors (who have extensive connections in one cohesive subgroup), and energizers (who generate enthusiasm for new ideas).
By interests, we do not mean the preconceived demands or positions that you or the other party may have, but rather the underlying needs, aims, fears, and concerns that shape what you want. Negotiation is more than getting what you want. It is not winning at all cost. Number of times Win-Win is better option that outright winning or getting what you want.
Options are the solutions you generate that could meet your and your counterpart’s interests . Often people come to negotiations with very fixed ideas and things they want to achieve. This strategy leaves unexplored options which might be even better than the one that one party wanted to achieve. So always try to provide as many options as possible during the negotiation process. The best outcome should be out of many options rather than few options.
When soft bargainers meet hard bargainers there is always the danger of soft bargainers ceding more than what is necessary. To avoid this scenario you should always focus on legitimate standards or expectations. Standards are often external and objective measures to assess the fairness such as rules and regulations, financial values & resources , market prices etc. If the negotiated agreement is going beyond the industry norms or established standards of fairness then it is prudent to get out of the negotiation.
Every negotiators going into the negotiations should always work out the “what if” scenario. The negotiating parties in the “How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization” has three to four plausible scenarios. The negotiating protagonist needs to have clear idea of – what will happen if the negotiations fail. To put it in the negotiating literature – BATNA - Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. If the negotiated agreement is not better than BATNA then there is no point in accepting the negotiated solution.
One of the biggest problems in implementing the negotiated agreements in corporate world is – the ambiguity in the negotiated agreement. Sometimes the negotiated agreements are not realistic or various parties interpret the outcomes based on their understanding of the situation. It is critical to do negotiations as water tight as possible so that there is less scope for ambiguity.
Many negotiators make the mistake of focusing only on the substance of the negotiation (interests, options, standards, and so on). How you communicate about that substance, however, can make all the difference. The language you use and the way that you build understanding, jointly solve problems, and together determine the process of the negotiation with your counterpart make your negotiation more efficient, yield clear agreements that each party understands, and help you build better relationships.
Another critical factor in the success of your negotiation is how you manage your relationship with your counterpart. According to “Rob Cross, Michael Arena, Jonathan Sims, Mary Uhl-Bien”, the protagonist may want to establish a new connection or repair a damaged one; in any case, you want to build a strong working relationship built on mutual respect, well-established trust, and a side-by-side problem- solving approach.
According to
Harvard Business Review
, there are three types of negotiators – Hard Bargainers, Soft Bargainers, and Principled Bargainers.
Hard Bargainers – These people see negotiations as an activity that they need to win. They are less focused less on the real objectives of the negotiations but more on winning. In the “How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization ”, do you think a hard bargaining strategy will deliver desired results? Hard bargainers are easy to negotiate with as they often have a very
predictable strategy
Soft Bargainers – These people are focused on relationship rather than hard outcomes of the negotiations. It doesn’t mean they are pushovers. These negotiators often scribe to long term relationship rather than immediate bargain.
Principled Bargainers – As explained in the seven elemental tools of negotiations above, these negotiators are more concern about the standards and norms of fairness. They often have inclusive approach to negotiations and like to work on numerous solutions that can improve the BATNA of both parties.
Open lines of communication between parties in the case study “How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization” can make for an effective negotiation strategy and will make it easier to negotiate with this party the next time as well.
Rob Cross, Michael Arena, Jonathan Sims, Mary Uhl-Bien (2018), "How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization Harvard Business Review Case Study. Published by HBR Publications.
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