Introduction to Negotiation Strategy
At Oak Spring University, we provide corporate level professional Negotiation Strategy and other business case study solution. Risk at Freddie Mac case study is a Harvard Business School (HBR) case study written by Darrell Duffie, Erin Yurday. The Risk at Freddie Mac (referred as “Freddie Mac” 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, Forecasting, Government, Risk management.
Negotiation strategy solution for case study Risk at Freddie Mac ” 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?
At year-end 2003, Freddie Mac's total mortgage portfolio reached a total principal of $1.4 trillion. The U.S. government did not explicitly back Freddie Mac, a stockholder-owned organization, but investors were said to perceive some degree of implicit government backing. After its success in the 1990s, Freddie Mac made maintaining steady earnings growth in the mid-teens an explicit goal through interest rate risk management. To smooth earnings in a changing interest rate environment, Freddie Mac prided itself on modeling, measuring, and managing credit and interest rate risk. Significant resources were devoted to developing sophisticated, quantitative risk modeling and solutions. Interest rate risk was reduced largely through the use of interest rate swaps and swaptions. The motivation to smooth earnings was inherent in Freddie Mac's culture and caused business problems: The operations (e.g., accounting, audit, etc.) of the organization were not well supported, executive compensation was tied to meeting earnings estimates, and employees involved in developing creative accounting solutions to manage earnings were thought of as "first-class citizens." On January 22, 2003, Freddie Mac announced it would restate earnings for 2002, 2001, and possibly 2000. The following June, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), Freddie Mac's regulator, began an examination of Freddie Mac's culture and the events leading up to the restatement. OFHEO determined that Freddie Mac had neglected operations risk management when managing interest rate risk and earnings, leaving room for accounting and disclosure issues. How should investors view the events leading up to the $5 billion restatement and Freddie Mac's management of interest rate risk and operations risk?
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, clearly understanding the arbitrage . 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 “Risk at Freddie Mac” 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 (Negotiations options), 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 and other people doing the mediation. According to “Darrell Duffie, Erin Yurday”, 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 “Risk at Freddie Mac ”, 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 “Risk at Freddie Mac” can make for an effective negotiation strategy and will make it easier to negotiate with this party the next time as well.
Darrell Duffie, Erin Yurday (2018), "Risk at Freddie Mac Harvard Business Review Case Study. Published by HBR Publications.
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