Open Thread, November 15-22, 2013

drethelin

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

I've been worried that I'm not very good at negotiating about money. Recently, I had evidence to update in that direction. As part of a course, we paired up and did a negotiation roleplay exercise. I was one of two massive outliers out of thirty who agreed an outcome much, much worse than the rest of the group.

The exercise was structured so that there was quite a lot of space between the two negotiator's bottom lines. I was clear of my bottom line. I got everything I had to get. But almost all of the money that was available for negotiation went to the other person. This seems very familiar from other, real-life contexts I've been in.

I don't like the idea that I'm losing money that I could have just by negotiating better. What can I do to get better?

I've read lots and lots of books and articles, and been on lots of courses. I could write a very convincing guide to negotiation skills. I think that I would find doing more of this very interesting, but it wouldn't make me any better at it in practice.

I've explored more training courses, but haven't found any that offer more than a handful of role plays, and none that promise the sort of feedback that would make deliberate practice#Deliberate_practice) work. Do such courses exist?

My other idea was to practice with friends using games that involve a lot of negotiation. But I'm good at those games already. The skill doesn't seem to transfer over to real-world contexts. Are there games that are very close to real world negotiations?

What have I not thought of?

There are plenty of real world situations where you can negotiate prices. If you buy groceries at a chain such as Walmart you can't negotiate prices.

If you however buy them at a farmers market you can.

Even if you buy a hot dog at a street vendor you can negotiate for price.

Are there games that are very close to real world negotiations?

A friend of mine learned negotiating by trading world of Warcraft items. I think he brought WoW-gold for 50€ and used that as capital basis for trading the items.

When you want some form of interacting with your friends, you could bet with them frequently. Betting means that you can negotiate the odds.

9Desrtopa13y

At NYU a month or so back, I saw a flier for paid participation in an experiment which assesses your negotiation skills, and vitally, offers feedback. I don't know if you're in the correct area, but if you are, it might be worth looking into whether it's still running (I don't know for a fact that it is, but I do know that other advertized studies have run for significantly longer periods than that.)

3Viliam_Bur13y

In real life, do you feel high-status or low-status? High-status people feel like they deserve more, so it would be probably natural for them to extract as much value as possible, while "the bare minimum is good enough for me" would be a natural attitude of a low-status person.