Week 7: Negotiation and Conflict Management

Negotiation skills are useful in all walks of life. As they apply to business, they entail the successful navigation and settlement of the wants and needs of multiple parties, aka stakeholders. To put it into my own words, I would say that negotiation is a form of positive conflict resolution in which the outcome is mutually beneficial for all parties. Successful negotiation takes a dedication and practiced skill for all of the interpersonal skills previously discussed on this blog, especially active listening, non-verbal communication, and situational knowledge.

A new skill that I learned in relation to negotiation skills is managing argumentativeness versus verbal aggressiveness. Per the textbook Strategic Communication in Business and the Professions, “An inclination to argue or a fondness for arguing is called argumentativeness…the tendency to attack other people instead of other points of view is termed verbal aggressiveness” (O’Hair, Friedrich, & Dixon, p.323). To find out where I fell on this spectrum, I personally completed the Argumentativeness Scale and Verbal Aggressiveness Scale Assessments available in the text. I found that my argumentativeness rating was a -3, corresponding to a moderate-low level of argumentativeness. My verbal aggressiveness rating was 15, corresponding to a moderate level of verbal aggressiveness. I learned from this exercise that I am very much down the middle when it comes to conflict, and this is true in the sense that I don’t enjoy conflict but also don’t strive to avoid it. I recognize the benefits of conflict when it is leveraged constructively, but I am not the type that will argue for the sake of the art. Mastering negotiation and conflict management skills will help me use the inevitability of conflict to the greatest advantage.

References

O'Hair, D., Friedrich, G. & Dixon, L. (2011). Strategic communication in business and the            professions (7th ed.). Allyn & Bacon.