A632.4.5.RB - Deception in Negotiations

Being deceived and lied to in negotiating is more common than we may think. I’m certain that there are thousands of negotiations that take place on a daily basis that involve complete strangers who have one thing in common: to get the best deal possible. There are several ways in which to help from becoming a victim of deception while negotiating. They include setting goals carefully, assessing underlying uncertainty, paying attention to norms, and preparing carefully.

                                           

Research shows that difficult yet realistic goals trigger aggressive and sometimes unethical behavior while negotiating. It’s better to enter the process with goals that are reasonable and attainable without being too demanding as this could facilitate a more ethical negotiation process. Uncertainty leads to communicating information in a self-serving way. When negotiating, use facts and real information, ask direct questions, and ask specifics. This eliminates ambiguity and forces the negotiation process to be less deceptive.

Norms and self-perceptions lead to a dishonest and unfair negotiation process. Create an atmosphere that eliminates any cultural uncertainties and one that will spur ethical behavior. Lastly, prepare carefully by asking open-ended and specific questions, preparing responses to questions, asking unexpected questions, and following-up with questions that can help weed-out the lies.

A few months back when my wife and I were purchasing a used car, the salesman had explained that the batter had been replaced the previous year. It was February when we were car shopping, but I never thought anything of it. He had used the same response when being asked about other items on the car, and I questioned him by wanting to see the maintenance records. The services were completed last year, but it was in March the previous year, so nearly a year before this. He was right in stating it was done last year, but failed to elaborate that the car had either been sitting in their lot that long or that the service was done almost a year ago.

My son wanted me to take him to the to store last week, so I made an agreement with him and told him that as long as he helped clean the garage with me I would take him. He happily accepted because normally the garage is an easy clean-up job. This time, the garage was tore apart from various projects, but I did not disclose this to him. He was disappointed when he found out about the state the garage was in and that he already agreed to help. Being that this was my son, I wouldn’t have went much farther than hiding a few facts from him. I don’t do it very often, but I do it from time to time. I would say that overall I am an honest person, but depending on how serious the negotiation process is and who the other party is, I may hide more than I think. Just as the text states, aggressive goals can lead to this, and I think it has in the past for me.

A632.3.4.RB - Reflections on Decision-Making

The three ways to avoid frame blindness are conducting a frame audit, identifying and changing inadequate frames, and mastering techniques for re-framing. Conducting a frame audit revolves around viewing the frames of others and understanding what’s important to them. Once this is determined, it will be easier to understand how and why they make the decisions that they do. Our organization had a mandatory exercise for each operational department called Connections. Managers from the same department got together and shared personal stories, values, and life experiences with one another. This exercise was meant to help these departments connect on a different level and help understand what drives the decision-making process of each person, based on their values, past experience, etc. It not only helped build relationships but opened the eyes of each individual participating. This helped me understand my own framing process and the process of others.

Identifying inadequate frames in my organization and personal life meant that I had to evaluate myself and seek feedback from others. One of exercises I did at work, with the help of my manager, was to seek feedback from my co-workers about my strengths, opportunities, decision-making process, and personality and use it to become a better leader. When getting this feedback, it’s hard to come to the realization that some of the frames were not needed, some were unbalanced, and some needed adjusting. I had assumptions about processes and other co-workers that were preventing me from establishing better relationships. The way I was measuring success and productivity in departments was different than what the organization was looking for.

Mastering techniques for re-framing is enjoyable. Last year when I started with Target I had been placed in a role to manage 30 team members in an environment that was foreign to me. I had good relationships but felt that I should know their jobs and what they deal with on a daily basis to better understand their decision-making process, essentially, using multiple frames. I chose to job shadow each and every one of them in different functions to learn their job, identify obstacles, and help them through them productively. At the end of the 4-week process, I even challenged some of them to a productivity race to see who could earn the highest productivity in a set amount of time. This helped tremendously with viewing other people’s frames and walking through the decision-making process with them.

One of the biggest benefits of this exercise was being able to see how deep decision-making processes go in organizations. Values, experiences, and personality all contribute to the decision-making process, and if you are disconnected from others than it’s hard to view their frames and understand them. I think that the biggest factor that has helped me is establishing relationships with those who I work with and interact with often. These relationships help understand the thought process of one another, and allow some understanding of values and experiences that contribute to decisions-making. This exercise has helped me realize that I fall into frame blindness more than I think, mainly due to the assumptions that I have. It’s so easy to make assumptions about other people and processes at work, based on what you may or may not know. I feel that it will help me with asking more open-ended questions to individuals to reduce assumptions and allow a better understanding of their thought processes.

A632.2.3.RB - How to Make Choosing Easier

I was very surprised to hear from Sheena that not only do we have so many choices for almost every product, food, and service imaginable, but we have a harder time making decisions when faced with all of these choices. She describes in detail that buyers feel more confident and feel comfortable when given fewer choices. Cutting and concretization resonate the most with me and seem to be more apparent in my personal and professional lives.

I am the type of leader that needs to see results, feel results, and put my hands on decisions that I make. I also agree with the less is more mentality that so many consumers prove to be real and alive. If I were to cut more in my own decision-making in my personal life, it would require some discipline, only because my body is conditioned to having so many choices. This would entail grocery shopping at smaller stores with less variety, shopping for clothes and other amenities at smaller, less famous retailers who do offer so many options. I think in general this goes for everything in our lives because this is what our country is known for. The same goes for work, only at work I am given a few select choices for decisions, but they have huge implications depending on if I were right or wrong. This goes back to the expedient decision-makers that were described in the book. The smaller the choice pool, the faster it may be to make a decision, especially the right one. The larger the choice pool the harder the decision is, resulting in reflective decision-making.

For concretization, I feel that it would be easier for me to make a decision if I could visualize that decision and the repercussions of it before the decision was actually made. Just the other day I failed to make a decision at work because I felt like I did not have enough information to make a sound decision. I couldn't visualize the outcome, nor could I visualize the implications of this decision due to limited information. If there were more of the necessary information and less of the inferior information, it may be easier to make decisions. 

A632.1.4.RB - Multistage Decision-Making

I somewhat agree with the dynamic programming method explained in the book. There are some industries and fields where this type of decision making is commonplace, and there are some that feel lost just looking at the equations involved with it. My decision making style is different, and even though I enjoy using data and calculating risk, I like to have some variability and flexibility in my decisions when dealing with multistage decision-making. I feel that too many variables play a part in decisions and very few things stay constant. It appears that dynamic programming counts on the future to be constant predictable, when in my industry and workplace it’s ever-changing.

                                        

I think that this method forces people to look at the decision-making process differently and tap into other areas that may not get as much consideration when planning. I think there are a lot of managers out there that use a form of this equation, they may just call it something different or use it in another manner or application. I feel that it wouldn't quite help me in my decision-making process because of the emphasis that I place on flexibility and using experience and intuition as drivers.

Dynamic programming would have more of an impact on business decisions than personal decisions. The values we place on certain things and events cannot be taken into consideration when using this tool. I feel like the long-term effects on planning are good in a business sense, as they take probability and risk into account, and the answers to questions could be simplified as long as these numbers are accurate. Again, this process looks interesting but does not suit my personal style. I take decisions one step at a time in my personal life, and use other calculations and considerations when planning at work.

A631.9.2.RB - Video Debrief of Team MA

The environment that Steve Jobs created for the Next team to brainstorm was inviting and conducive to critical thinking. I thought that the open forum he encouraged among the team members was the type of environment that I enjoy working in, sharing thoughts and ideas with like-minded people. Steve clearly took over the meetings as the leader, steering the topics for discussion and doing the most amount of challenging. He directed the meeting, but encouraged others to join and provide appropriate challenges to the team regarding their plan. My leadership type is team-based, so allowing the team to collectively find answers to questions and determine priorities is something that I feel very comfortable with.

One thing that I really enjoyed about the Next start-up team is that they appeared to be getting away from everything to do these meetings, almost like a retreat where they can really focus on the topic at hand and get away from disturbances. I am a big proprietor of creating environments where team members feel comfortable and close, where thoughts, feelings, and ideas are shared openly and without judgment or criticism. This to me is a true team. The Next team knew what they had to do and how to do it, with leadership from Steve, and they planned together on how to accomplish it in the timeframe they established earlier. I also enjoy working out the details and planning to be perfect, which is something the Next team appeared to do quite often. They gave themselves tight deadlines and strict goals with little room for error, making it more important for them to rely on data.

Steve Jobs may not have made the best decisions with his new company, but from a teamwork standpoint I think he nailed it. He allowed the team to work together to determine what they needed to do, how it needed to happen, and with what. The team seemed more efficient and functional before running into financial problems, because they were able to focus on more of the project and end goal. I enjoyed watching the Next team operate and collaborate on building the next big thing. 

A631.8.4.RB - Reflective Analysis

In my opinion, the results of the Myers-Briggs personality test were quite accurate. My MBTI was ENFJ, meaning I am an extrovert, I am intuitive, I make decisions over feeling rather than thinking, and I prefer judging over perceiving. Right now in my career, all of these leadership traits that I possess fit nicely with my organization and the people I work with. My role with Target is very technical, but I utilize my strong skills with people to buy them into my ideas and plans so it doesn’t appear as if I am telling them what to do, it’s more like persuasion through relationships. My role also requires that use of critical thinking skills, along with quick decision making. I feel that it is somewhat easy for me to make decisions, especially important ones, mainly because I draw on my past experiences and feeling about making decisions, which I trust and have had success with.

Some of the areas that I feel I need to improve on, that the test pointed out were not some of my strengths, are using data and facts for decision making, developing other’s before myself, and expressing my ideas and opinions in front of others all the time. I feel that these three areas are keeping me from becoming a truly excellent leader, so I am focused on improving them in both my personal and professional lives. My current role forces me to make decisions based on factual evidence, which sometimes puts me in uncomfortable situations, but it also produces very good results and forces me to dig deeper into problems. I also tend to put people before myself, which cause me to neglect my own development and spend less time on personal projects, and sometimes even family when work becomes a priority. I have focused more on creating plans that are strictly followed with timelines, and not deviate from them. These timelines involve self-development activities and personal time for me to catch up and reflect. I still have ample time to mentor others, help them with their development, and build relationships. I also feel a bit uncomfortable showing my ideas and opinions due to them being different and unconventional, but I have been working on this by soliciting feedback from others on the results of these ideas to see if they actually work. I also use my people and communication skills to present them in different manners to allow people to understand them better.

                                                                                                                                         

Overall, I am pleased with the type of leader I am and how I fit into my organization. I think I am aware of what I am good at, what I am not, and how I can leverage my strengths in leadership to compensate for some of my weaknesses. Not every leader is perfect, but some are better than others, especially in certain capacities. I am in a role where energy, influence, and relationships are needed, and I am excelling at it because I possess all of these qualities. I think that as time passes, I will gravitate toward a more creative, energetic, and autonomous role where interaction with people takes up the majority of my time in the workplace. 

A631.7.4.RB - Future of OD

The future of OD is promising and bright. The claim that OD is simply a fad and will fade away after a short period of time is ridiculous, in my opinion. The development of organizations is as dynamic as every organization in existence. Organizations have so many different attributes, cultures, employees, motivators, goals, etc., that it’s hard to say that every developmental tool established will solve the problems of every organization out there, especially those yet to come. OD is dynamic in the sense that as these organizations change, so will the tools, programs, techniques, and objectives of the OD field for organizations.

For example, our organization established a middle management structure in our building that helped deal with the number of employees each manager was leading, and also to help with the culture and to help with relationship-building among leadership and their teams. This worked for the past five years, but as the competition in the retail industry became more fierce, we had to devise a way in which we met our objectives and remained relevant in the industry by saving money and delivering products to the stores that everyone would like. We recently changed our middle management structure again to meet these new objectives, and it’s a program that has a similar layout as those introduced to me throughout the two courses with ERAU. Why did we change? Because we had to, because the retail industry is dynamic and ever changing and the techniques and tools used five years ago would not have worked now, with every factor taken into account.

So, if you ask me, the field of OD is just warming up. As new technology emerges and industries become more competitive and organizations are looked upon to satisfy more employees and on a larger scale, the new techniques and programs of organizational development will be present. Organizations will never stop developing themselves to be better than they were the day before. We see it in current organizations and we will continue to see it, whether it be saving money, building a better culture, improving morale, improving performance, or developing a better product. This is a dynamic and promising field with a very positive future.