Introduction to Negotiation Strategy
At Oak Spring University, we provide corporate level professional Negotiation Strategy and other business case study solution. Revisiting Gang Violence in Boston case study is a Harvard Business School (HBR) case study written by Esther Scott, Peter Zimmerman. The Revisiting Gang Violence in Boston (referred as “Gang Brown” 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, Leadership, Negotiations, Policy, Public relations, Security & privacy.
Negotiation strategy solution for case study Revisiting Gang Violence in Boston ” 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?
On the night of November 28, 2006, Reverend Jeffrey Brown, a Baptist minister and co-founder of the Ten Point Coalition in Boston, Massachusetts, received bad news: 20-year-old Jahmol Norfleet, a leader in one of Boston's warring gangs, had been shot and killed near his home. Norfleet's death did not simply represent one more grim statistic in a year marred by gang violence in Boston: it threatened to undo a fragile truce between two gangs that had been locked in a deadly feud for years. Brown, along with a handful of police and other officials, had been instrumental in coaxing gang members, Norfleet among them, to the table and forging peace between the rival groups. Less than a decade earlier, the so-called "Boston miracle"-a dramatic decline in homicides, especially among the city's youth-was singled out by President Clinton as a model for the rest of the nation. Among the heroes of that miracle were Brown and his fellow co-founders of the Ten Point Coalition, a group of African American clergymen. In addition to walking the most dangerous streets in the city in an effort to reach out to gang members, Brown and other Coalition members had also become participants in a citywide initiative-Operation Ceasefire, a "partnership" of the Boston police, probation officers, court officials, youth workers, prosecutors, academics, and others-which was widely credited with the steep in gang-related killings. The success had brought national and international acclaim, but ultimately led to a fracturing of both the Coalition and the Operation Ceasefire alliance. Now, faced with a resurgence in gang shootings, Brown, along with others who had participated in Operation Ceasefire, sought not only to revive the strategies that had proved so successful in the past, but also to find new ways to halt the cycle of retaliatory killings that had brought Boston's homicide rate to a ten-year high. HKS Case Number 1887.0
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 “Revisiting Gang Violence in Boston” 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 “Esther Scott, Peter Zimmerman”, 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 “Revisiting Gang Violence in Boston ”, 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 “Revisiting Gang Violence in Boston” can make for an effective negotiation strategy and will make it easier to negotiate with this party the next time as well.
Esther Scott, Peter Zimmerman (2018), "Revisiting Gang Violence in Boston Harvard Business Review Case Study. Published by HBR Publications.
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