A632.4.5.RB - Deception in Negotiations

Negotiation is a skill that dates back to the beginning of time as we know it and in today’s business environment it is considered a key skill for success in most chosen professional careers.  This skill encompasses everyone from the local car dealers to the United States Four Star General.  The art of deception; often referred to as the use of deceit is also seen as a skill possessed by many great leaders.  It is not as highly respected and valued as negotiating; however, it is still considered a valuable skill in certain environments.  Even the great Sun Tzu, author of Art of War, was quoted on the importance of deception, “All warfare is based on deception” and has been used throughout some of the greatest battles in history. 

Of the six ways to evaluate information during negotiations discussed in the course textbook; there are four that stand out from rest.  First the text refers to establishing trust; however this task may be a difficult one to achieve due to the fact that one party is looking for an advantage over the other.  I do agree that shifting the frame plays an important role in negotiation.  This step lets both parties know what issues are important to each other.  The next step is asking direct questions.  Asking direct questions may be important to maintain unambiguous communication, however the issue here is will the answer provided to the question be one of honesty with no deception.  Listening carefully can reveal little clues that can reveal deception.  Something as simple as a change of volume, a change in pitch or even instant stuttering may be a clue to something being hidden. Paying attention to non-verbal clues are one of the most important hints to detecting deception.  Something as simple as a lack of eye contact may reveal that something is being hidden in negotiation.   Last but not least is keep records and get things in writing.  A good motto to live by in business is, “if it is not written down and recorded you may as well say it never happened.    

I can recall a time in my life where it seemed like deception in negotiation was an everyday practice.  As a military member stationed overseas, I can recall owning more than 20 cars in less than nine years.  Back then, the goal was to buy a car, clean it up and sell it to a younger military member, especially those who had just arrived in the country and did not know better.  I can remember telling them they would not find a better deal and if they walked away someone else would buy the car the next day.  Overall, the goal was to give myself an advantage in purchasing a better vehicle after every purchase until you had a very nice car.  Even though the car had to pass a road worthy and safety inspection, it was common practice not to reveal all the little things that were wrong with the vehicle.  On the same note, as I purchase another vehicle after each transaction, I was very aware of the same practice being used on me. It was almost like a game of cat and mouse.  It got so bad that someone bought a car, had it painted and tried to sell it to me. Unfortunately the person did not know I owned the car two years earlier.   As far as the question of how far you would be willing to go to leverage your position; I would never put someone life in danger by selling an unsafe vehicle.  There were also unspoken rules like never sell a vehicle that needed work to a single mom or elderly person. 

I think everyone has been part of some type of deception at one point in our lives.  We have either been the ones doing the deceiving or we are the ones being deceived.  Even to in my later years, I have seen such practices as a retail manager, where I would reduce the price on one item to get a customer to purchase another, knowing the profit was still the same.  Even something as overstating your qualifications on a resume to either help in getting a job or increasing pay can be considered deceptive negotiation practices.  Yes I am guilty of that in the past.  Many people would say it is important educates ourselves on the art of deceptive practices, however if it were than easy we would have eliminated such situation from our live a long time ago.

A632.3.4.RB - Reflections on Decision-Making

For this assignment, the first of Shoemaker and Russo hazards associated with "frame blindness" and how to guard against it have to deal with “Seeing the Frame by Conducting a Frame Audit”.  As the saying goes, you cannot address a problem if you do not know and understand what the problem is.  The same goes for frames.  However, before a person addresses a particular frame, they must understand that they cannot fix all frames (thought processes).  Of the three steps mentioned for conducting a frame audit, understanding the frame of others stands out the most in my opinion.  At one time in my career, I served as a first sergeant in the military during military deployments.  Basically, this position entailed ensuring several teams of individuals were relocated to a new location to perform a group of tasks for a certain period of time.  From the beginning, I began to coordinate the project using my past experiences.  I was pretty sure I covered all the critical areas and had the team ready to go almost a full week early.  The problem in the whole situation was my failure to understand the frame of others involved in this endeavor which caused me to have to readdress the project from a different perspective. My first step should have been to present the process to all the stakeholders in a pictorial manner so everyone could visually walk through the same process (later, I did follow this process).  This process of self-reflection taught me that even when you think you have an understanding of a complex decision-making situation, there is always something you can learn.  As for additional tools or "frames" that would've helped you through the process; I am not sure I needed any.  My problem was at that time I became so myopic and focused that I forgot to open up and welcome different perspectives from the other stakeholders.  As for risk assessment of my before and after recommendation, it’s hard to predict what could have happened.  If I did not change the decision making process as I did, I think the biggest issue would have been a slowdown in operational efficiency.  However as a young leader, I did learn to appreciate emerging frames (technology and thought processes had changed a lot since the last time I did such a project) and to slow down and look at the big picture; from others eyes, not just mine.      

The next of Shoemaker and Russo hazards associated with "frame blindness" and how to guard against it have to deal with Identifying and Changing Inadequate Frames.  I interpret this process as how to update our thinking process, which also includes upgrading the tools we use to assist us.  One of the biggest issues to addressing changing inadequate frames I have to deal with concerns the new generation of college students; which includes my kids.  I have learned on numerous occasions that the past frames I have used were ineffective when it comes to educating the new generation of young adults.  There is definitely a difference in educating a 19 year old student versus educating a 40 year old student.  Quite often I have to frame discussion forum case studies differently to get students to seek out the correct answer.  This especially relates to #4 on the list provided by the author; “is the frame easily communicated to and understood by others”?  What I have had to learn in this situation is that one size does not fit all especially, when addressing complex decision-making situations.  Also I have to acquire a better understanding of “recognizing my key assumptions”.  I cannot speak for all educators but I know that I have the predisposed view that everyone should be dedicated to their studies…it led to success for me so it should work for you also.  I could not be any more wrong.  Education in the world today is a choice, and there is no rush to finish but these students…to many of the new generation, it is about the experience more than what I learned.  My biggest risk in this is not being able to connect with my audience when trying to teach them how to address and answer case studies.  What I did learn from this experience is flexibility and the value of understanding how frames must be adjusted to accommodate both the teacher and the student…all stakeholders.    

The last of Shoemaker and Russo hazards associated with "frame blindness" and how to guard against it have to deal with Master Techniques for Reframing. This area has a lot of information that can be used to address frame blindness.  However, I will only address two strategies (use multiple frames) that will support my answer.  As I stated in the discussion forum, I believe all framing starts with focusing on the objective.  Many times early in my career I had been presented with an organizational objective and instantly I tried to figure out how to modify it to fit my own needs.  Too often, without knowing it, I would apply the highly recognized term WIIFM (what’s in it for me).  As stated by the text, I should have been focused on tangible results and future problems.  Without a doubt, I had to learn to frame situations differently, not from a myopic view point. This process of growth and maturity taught me a lot about complex decision-making; it’s about the organization, not the individual.  Tools or "frames" that would've helped me through the process are navigating multi-stakeholder and environmental complexity.  By using these frame, I would have been able to listen to and understand fellow stakeholders and assist in building a consensus for accomplishing the task of complex decision making.  This alone would have reduced the overall failure risk of making decisions. As far as learning through such as exercise, I am not finished.  This process is ongoing and will continue to be until I no longer have to make decisions for an organization.  

632.2.3.RB - Sheena Iyengar: How to Make Choosing Easier

Freedom of choice is a privilege that we all feel should be afforded to us.  However, some in society think we sometimes have too many choices and we often use these numerous options to make choices to harm ourselves; whether mentally, physically, financial or so on.  Do we as a society need to enforce paternalism in the business environment just as the government does in our personal lives?  Sheena Iyengar made some very good points with the fact that we as a society seem to think we want the ability to customize experiences and products at our discretion.  But the question is this, and it would make a good research topic, “what is the failure rate when we are given the opportunity of hundreds and hundreds of options?”  I never gave this any consideration until seen Sheena speak on the subject.  Nevertheless, this subject has stared me in the eye even as a child and I never even knew it.  Background:  When I grew up, my father painted cars for a living and I often worked in his shop.  Every week I could remember someone coming into his shop and wanting some exotic paint scheme and color on their car.  Many times he would try to talk them out of it, explaining that it was very expensive and if they did not like the color, it would cost them double to have it repainted, but quite often his words of wisdom came with little persuasion.  Bottom line is most of them admitted they made a mistake when they saw the final product and ended up choosing one of the colors he suggested earlier.

Sheena Iyengar explains how the businesses environment (and sometimes our personal lives) can improve the understanding of choice.  Her perspective on how choice overload rang a bell with me.  I now think about how many times I have visited a new restaurant and the menu was busy with numerous items to choose from which in turn caused me to take longer to make a choice.  On the same note, when the menu was small and very select what were the time results?  I can personally recall the time was quicker on the limited menu.  She suggests several ways of assisting us improve our experience in choosing.

1: Reduce the number of choices, “cut, cut, cut”. This might sound counter to conventional wisdom, but she points to business cases (grocery store study) where reducing the number of products on the market actually improved profits for a number of brands.  From a professional organization perspective, I work for the government and their retirement plan and the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) that is offered is very limited in choices. Although limited in choice, over 100% of employees are enrolled in the federal retirement plan; and over 90% of federal employees participate in the TSP with little complaint.  I also relate back to my childhood story I mentioned earlier in this blog.  They problem is sometimes society does not want limited choices, whether it is good for them or not.  They would rather learn through trial and error than have someone take the ability of having many choices away from them.      

2: The next option is referred to as “concretization…in order for people to understand the differences between the choices, they have to be able to understand the consequences associated with each choice.” Sheena addressed the financial side of our lives for this option.  I can personally relate to the use of the debit card versus carrying cash.  I am aware that I am an impulse buyer.  Knowing this, I do not carry a debit card and barely carry my credit card around.  Knowing I only have limited cash in my pocket, I find myself walking away (not buying) from items I want but do not need, thus saving money.  At the same time, I watch co-workers purchase every little thing under the sun with their debit card, even if they already have it at home.  It seems like because they have an unlimited choice to use the card, they do.  Sheena’s main point in this section focuses on consumers thinking about their retirement savings.  She discusses how ING found that they could entice more people to enroll in a 401K program by getting them to focus on the longer term benefits.  This is helpful to getting them to buy-in.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words; and ING figured out how to help employees see the picture to assist them in their choices.  Without this image, on paper the 401K program was hard to appreciate. This also relates back to me as a member of an organization.  Referring back to the TSP, there are less than six options to choose from in the program.  Each option is not only explained, they provide a performance history of each one while providing software that gives you a performance prediction for the future; thus assisting you in understanding the consequences associated with each choice .   

3: Putting choices into categories which assist users better handle the number of choices. Sheena provided support for this thought process in a magazine rack experiment.  The final result of the research noted that consumers considered 400 magazine titles broken into 40 categories to be a larger selection (and therefore a better selection) than 600 titles broken into just 20 categories.  This makes me wonder about the operations of car dealers.  Sheena used this similar example for the fourth choice, but I also see it for the number of choices.  Have you ever noticed that some dealers have hundreds and hundreds of cars on the lot while some are specialty shops that only deal in certain models and brands (ex. Sport cars only)?  I wonder what would be the visitor to sale ratio if you could compare the two. (Something to think about)

4: Last but not least “condition for complexity.” This refers to the amount and complexity of choices we need to make every day, while analyzing the steps by which we need to make them. Something as simple as going to Baskin Robbins Ice Cream or eating at your favorite buffet can drive some people crazy.  The same goes for kids in a candy store.  Next time you are there, watch how people will become overloaded as they have to choose how to build the perfect sundae, pick the right choices for their plate or even choose the right bag of candy.  By the way Dairy Queen makes an awesome banana split and it is only made one way.  When deciding on such item and options, I agree that it needs to be kept simple, having consumers make the easiest decisions first and then increasing the complexity, will eliminate frustration.

            So for me the million dollar question is how can you improve your ability to decide?  The answer is simple in many ways:  prioritize needs before wants, what gives you the best bang for your buck in the long run, and finally did you provide yourself with enough time to consider all end possibilities…if you didn’t take more time.  Good luck on your decision and be grateful you live in a country where you have options for your decisions  

A632.1.4.RB - Multistage Decision-Making_Washington James

After reading Chapter 3 of the Wharton text, I am not sure if I would overhaul my decision making process.  I have learned over time that one of the biggest factors to making any decisions is to take into consideration the overall impact of my decisions and how it affects everyone around me.  I am sure in my maturation I have learned to make better decisions.  I often try to teach my kids about the decisions they make; however through this course, I have learned that I have failed to comprehend how many decisions I make on a daily basis.  Some of these decisions are no brainers while others are complex; and I often find myself putting them off until a later date.  As educated as I am, I will admit that I an uncomfortable with the complex equations used in the text and I will more than likely never use them in my decision making process. I have been told that I am person that researches all options available to me and then I weigh the overall value of potential results (dynamic decision making) before deciding (which drives my wife crazy because I will go back and forth). But I do not feel that I make decisions impulsively. I have used many different techniques when it comes to making a decision about life changing events and my fall back is a list of pros and cons. I will confess however that I do not view decisions from a myopic perspective, which has been supported through many personality assessment which state that I am a strategic thinker (always looking toward the future in my decision making process).  I am not sure if reading Chapter 3 will impact my forward planning on my decision making process. I usually research the background of major decision and make sure I am very knowledgeable and understand specific issues that surround the problem before me, which is similar to what is mention in the text.  However, I am not sure if I will embrace using multi-stage equations for my decision making process. I am not a fan of trial and error; too many unknown risks. To me self-preservation and the well-being of my family will always be on the forefront of my decision making.  As for applying the optimal dynamic decision analysis to predict the future impact of today's decision; thus serving as a valuable asset?  I believe having the ability to retrieve past data from my own life experiences and the experiences of others to address present decision making is a valuable tool. Due to the changing environment, we must understand that no one situation from the past will be identical to present situations; however, there will be some similarities. I feel it would be a travesty if decisions were constantly made without understanding that there is similar information available for application to a specific problem.  It can be as simple as trying a new bank and realizing that although on the surface their benefits seem great, but later you find out their customer service is horrible or as complex as taking the job of a life-time only to realize that it involve a lot of travel that will take you away from your family. No one ever said making decisions was supposed to be easy.