An Example of Negotiation

1 The conflict

(A) How to ensure to the teacher that I am fair and square to my colleague while dividing the task of training students for the Inter-school Quiz Competition.

(B) How to eradicate the bad feeling of my colleague who thought that I had been unfair to her and complained that I had assigned to her a heavier task than she has expected.

How did the conflict happen?

The school headmaster had assigned to me the task of preparing a time table for the training schedule for my school's inter-school English quiz competition team. The headmaster is a man with a high vision. He wants the school's quiz team to emerge as the champion team in the competition so that the image of the school could be raised and upgraded. He had reminded me several times that I must prepare a good time table so that all the training sessions could be carry out smoothly. He insisted that I must also ensure that the other teacher who is involved would be willing to work happily with me, without any complain! However, when the time table was distributed to my lady colleague, she started to grumble and complain. To solve the problem, I invited her to have a drink in the canteen the next day and at the same time having a negotiation with her about the matter.

2. The parties involved

The parties involved in this conflict is my colleague and me.

3. A brief write-up of the objective of the negotiation for both parties

(I) Objective of the my colleague

She is not happy with the arrangement. She thought she had been exploited. In fact, she was expecting a much easier task. She was not willing to come for too often to the school. Instead of coming for eight times, she requested to come for five times only. Besides, she was also not willing to help me to prepare half of the four hundred quiz questions for the students to practice. She told me that she is too busy at the moment because she has to spend plenty of time at home looking after her new born baby!

(II) My objective

I want to assist her in whatever way I could but not at the expense of myself. I want

to understand the real problem faced by my colleague. I want to solve her problem so

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that everything could run well. I really hope that we can work together closely and all of the students will be trained properly and we will be able to achieve our ultimate goal i.e. emerge as the champion team in the competition.

4. You and the other party's bargaining points

(I) My colleague's bargaining points

-Woes