Monthly Archives: April 2017

I noticed the importance of negotiation since I was a kid. During the time when I was still in my middle school, people fight to resolve conflicts. It was useless and stupid. In the end, the conflicts usually ended up getting worse. However, with proper negotiation, a win-win situation can be created a lot of times. Therefore, negotiation is probably one of the best way to resolve conflicts. There are several types of negotiation strategies that can be applied to different situation. What’s more, before entering a stage of negotiation, one should develop a strategy based on the situation (Langton 2016).

How can we effectively negotiate with others?

First, you should identify your target and your resistance points, which refer to the outcome that you would like to achieve and the lowest acceptable outcome, also known as the best alternative to a negotiated agreement(BATNA). With that in mind, you should try to identify what the other party wants as well. My peer, Homen, provided a great example of how Donald Trump sets his targets and resistance points in his blog. Donald Trump says, “I always go into the deal anticipating the worst.”, which corresponds to his resistance point. As he knows when to stop, he can deal without sweating as long as it does not go over the bottom line. Also, he says “if you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.” He believes the target point should not be a limit on bargaining possibilities. By setting the target point high he opens up more potential for negotiation. (Feng, 2017)

Another key to a successful negotiation is to improve your negotiating skills. Here are some tips that I found useful. First of all, you should begin the negotiation with a positive overture. It is crucial to create an open and trusting climate. To do so, you should also emphasize win-win solutions. During the negotiation, what you need to pay attention to is to address the issues, not personalities and the initial offers. By using these techniques, I believe successful negotiations can be achieved.

Word Count: 347 words

Work Cited:

Nancy Langton, Stephen P. Robbins, Timothy A. Judge and Katherine Breward (2016) Organizational Behaviour Concepts, Controversies, Applications

Have you ever felt unmotivated and lazy that all you wanted to do is nothing? I have this kind of feelings a lot of time. A lot of time, I simply ended up procrastinating on my work. In COMM 292 class, we learned the theories of motivation. I attempt to apply the theories to analyze the reason why I often feel unmotivated and try to find a solution for myself.

As my peer, Karina mentioned in her blog, the lack of intrinsic motivation is one of the causes of procrastination. However, there are two kinds of motivators. Intrinsic motivator refers to a person’s desire to do something, while extrinsic motivators refers to the motivation that comes from outside the person, such as tangible rewards. The effect of those two motivators may differ from one person to another. For me, I feel myself driven by extrinsic motivation most of the time. Unfortunately, the work that I have to do does not usually come with tangible rewards. I figure out this is probably the reason why I often feel unmotivated.

To solve this problem, I come up with the idea of that I should focus less on rewards. Instead, according to Alfie Kohn’s theory, I should focus more on creating a motivating environment(Langton,2016). Since intrinsic motivators do not have much effects on me as well as my work do not come with extrinsic motivators, I think creating a motivating environment would be the best solution for me.

In order to do so, I propose three ways to achieve a motivating environment. First, I do my academic work in my room most of the time. It is sometimes distracting. Therefore, the first solution is to work in places such as library where other people are also working. The second step is to work with friends who can encourage me to focus on my work. The last step is to have multiple tasks on hand so that I don’t feel bored working on the same thing for a long time.  By doing these, I believe it will help me to improve my problem.

Word Count: 349 words

Work Cited: