Negotiation Paper

In the realm of argumentation and debate many debaters negotiate their point of views in front of people all the time. Debates are basically distributive bargaining situations where debaters utilize selective presentation to try and win their arguments. This paper will define what a distributive bargaining situation is and secondly, this written discourse will define the technique of selective presentation. Furthermore, this paper will also discuss the definition of power, and the role power plays in negotiation. To elaborate on distributive bargaining situations and the use of selective presentation, I will use two arguments from a debate between James Carville, Jr., a liberal political commentator and professor at Tulane University, and S.E. Cupp, a republican political commentator, writer, and Ivey League socialite. The arguments originally specified by the republican commentator S.E. Cupp, stated “President Obama did not received the same microscope treatment that President Bush received from the media, congress, and the Senate;” and “raising taxes will not create more jobs, cutting taxes will create more jobs because businesses are job creators.” These two arguments will be used to show how selective presentation is applied in intellectual distributive bargaining situations. Before I jump into the overall essence of this paper I would like to emphasize the race factors that come with the first argument that will be analyzed. Secondly, I will also touch on the problematic and complex intricacies that the second argument relates to concerning the gap between the wealthiest one percent of Americans and the rest of us. As you stumble upon the beginning of this paper one may ask the question I thought this paper was about Negotiation? Make no mistake about it, this paper is about negotiation. The reasoning behind my decision to bring these two issues to light is because of their importance and the influence these social issues have on negotiation. In an article from the Harvard Business Review written by David A. lax and James K. Sebenius titled A Guide to Complex Negotiation, the article states that "direct negotiation "at the table" often makes sense. But for complex deals, which are usually built on a series of smaller ones involving multiple parties, a more strategic approach is to focus on what unfolds away from the table." If one focuses on the issues that impact negotiation away from the table, gender, race, and status are at the top of the list; furthermore, if these particular issues effect negotiations away from the table you better believe they also effect negotiations at the table. If someone thinks that their gender, race, and overall status do not have an effect, they are sadly mistaken. As stated in the previous paragraph, race, gender and social status plays a vast role in negotiation. One might ask the question how I came to that conclusion. I answer that question with one word, simple, the founding principles and ideals that a nation, country, business, or entity is founded upon seeps through its entire existence; case and point, America was founded upon racism, rebellion, and sexism. That’s why we all see things on the news about occupy Oakland or American citizens causing a rut cuss in New York at the stock exchange; or the fact that woman are not considered equal in the workplace, for example still in this day an age of 2012 women still get paid 91 cents for every dollar a man makes according to the Washington Post. “… [women make] 91 cents for every dollar, as compared to men, due to factors that have nothing to do with life choices — a difference that many researchers identify as discrimination” (Washington Post, 2012). Concerning racism, let’s just look at the denotation and underlined mean of the statement S.E. Cupp, stated towards Professor Carville, “President Obama did not received the same microscope treatment that President Bush received from the media, congress, and the Senate.” What she is really saying is look how we treat President Obama he has it way better than former President George W. Bush, we the republicans are not racist. You know what Professor Carville retorted with, “The reason why President Obama did not receive the same microscope treatment as President Bush is because President Obama did not start two wars and create a recession.” To be fair, the denotation and underlined meaning behind what Professor Carville’s statement implied was that S.E. Cupp was using a false truth to try and cover up the racial issues that the Republican Party has with President Obama and the rest of the minority population of the United States. When it comes to issues such as gender, sexism, oppression and racism, that train in America is never late. It’s like what abolitionist Fredrick Douglas once said about the Criminal Justice System, “justice is often painted with bandaged eyes. She is described in forensic eloquence as utterly blind to wealth and poverty, high or low, black or white, but a mask of iron however thick, could never blind American justice when a black man happens to be on trial” (David V. Baker & Richard P. Davin, 2001), I’m just wait for the trial to finally be over. It abundantly seems that Justice Thurgood Marshall was correct and will always be correct when he stated that it is “wishful thinking that racial discrimination is largely a phenomenon of the past” (David V. Baker & Richard P. Davin, 2001). The second argument stated by S.E. Cupp was that “raising taxes will not create more jobs; cutting taxes will create more jobs because businesses are job creators.” On the surface her statement suggest that if businesses receive better tax rates then the revenue or currency that they keep will influence businesses to expand and therefore big business will create more jobs. The denotation or accentuated meaning behind her statement permits the expansion of big business with the attempt to have a smaller government that doesn’t have Medicare, Welfare, or Social Security; on the other hand, because of the outstanding type of intellectual Professor Carville is, his rebuttal stated “Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy and created 22 million jobs, Bush cut taxes on the wealth and created 1 million jobs. What are we arguing about, it’s like we are arguing about evolution or creationism.” This argument leads me to one saying,” the rich get richer and the poor get prison.” When it comes to politics people usually vote with their wallet. The richer some is the more like they are republicans; the poorer some is the more likely they are democrats. S.E. Cupp is no different, all of her arguments she stated during the debate are all geared towards the purpose of obtaining more wealth. Now on the essence of negotiation, one can see as I analyze both arguments how a distributive bargaining situation is created between the two individuals. A distributed bargaining situation is a state of affairs or congregation of two or more different parties with different goals and aspirations. This type of situation arise when both parties come together and discuss their wants and needs with one another, with the idea of meet at some type of common ground so that both parties can leave with some of their opening wants and needs. Distributive bargaining situations are “… also called competitive, or win–lose, bargaining. In a distributive bargaining situation, the goals of one party are usually in fundamental and direct conflict with the goals of the other party. Resources are fixed and limited, and both parties want to maximize their share. As a result, each party will use a set of strategies to maximize his or her share of the outcomes to be obtained” (Roy J Lewicki 37). A Distributive bargaining situation “is basically a competition over who is going to get the most of a limited resource” (Roy J Lewicki 37), in the case of the two arguments analyzed above, one party wants republican governmental policies in place and the other party wants liberalistic types of governmental policies in place. (Roy J Lewicki 37), Distributive bargaining situations without a doubt go hand and hand with Selective Presentation. The overall reason I selected these two arguments is because once they are analyzed an explained, an individual can see how Selective Presentation presents itself in an argument or debate. Selective presentation is a technique used by either party in a negotiation to help their overall negotiation efforts. “Negotiators can take many actions to present facts that will directly enhance their position or make it appear stronger to the other party. One of the most obvious methods is selective presentation, in which negotiators reveal only the facts necessary to support their case. Negotiators can also use selective presentation to lead the other party to form the desired impression of their resistance point or to create new possibilities for agreement that are more favorable than those that currently exist” (Roy J Lewicki, 49). For example S.E. Cupp’s argument about the difference between the treatment of President Obama and former President Bush is a prime example of selective presentation. She says one thing on this hand but on the other hand she real means something else. She attempts to take advantage of the debate by relying on the audiences lack of understanding, but Professor Carville is to savvy of an intellectual to fall for her blinding tricks so to speak. In contrast concerning Professor Carville, he also uses selective presentation to assist his arguments; but instead of relying on false truths like S.E. Cupp, he uses selective presentation more directly and more candidly to shatter her arguments and to mold his own arguments to win the overall debate. Lastly the attributes that help Professor Carville in this date is his status, his overall social influence, and his power that he has accumulated over the years. Power is an influential and common tool used in negotiations. The general essence of power can be clearly distinct as a status that allows and individual or group to have great influence and ability to accomplish their goals and aspirations. In our text title Negotiation, the author Roy J Lewicki defines power as “the capabilities negotiators can assemble to give themselves an advantage or increase the probability of achieving their objectives. All negotiators want power; they want to know what they can do to put pressure on the other party, persuade the other to see it their way, get the other to give them what they want, get one up on the other, or change the other’s mind. (Roy J Lewicki 203). As one can see from the definition of power it is an extremely important tool to have in negotiations. It allows an individual to have an upper hand on their opponent at the beginning of a negotiation. For example, people have been in situations at work, whether it’s negotiating new terms or a new raise with their boss, or negotiating time off, or sick leave. Most people have been in a situation at work where their boss as influenced them to go a different route even if they didn’t have to necessarily go that route. When it comes to power and negotiations the most important thing is the ability to keep ones power and not allowing the other negotiator to take your power. Rosabeth Moss kanter, a Harvard University professor is an expert when it comes to power. Kanter states that “power is a loaded term. Its connotations ten to be more negative than positive, and it has multiple meanings” (Kanter, 1977). According to Kanter’s book titled, Men and Women of the Corporation, she defines power similarly to Boston College professor William Gamson who “…has differentiated the forms of power that contribute something to another person in exchange for compliance (inducements) from those that only remove a threat (constraints)” (Kanter, 1977). Furthermore, Kanter states that“… Power is the ability to get things done, to mobilize resources, to get and use whatever it is that a person needs for the goals he or she is attempting to meet” (Kanter, 1977). Give up power as opposed to keeping power is a dangerous way of negotiating. On the other hand, Kanter disagrees; she feels that the way to use ones power and the way to strengthen and keep power is by willingly, not accidently, giving power to others. “… Only [a] very few have this capacity, and they prevent the majority of others from being able to act effectively. Thus , the total amount of power and total system effectiveness is restricted, even though some people seem to have a great deal of it” (Kanter, 1977). Kanter continues to elaborate on the notion of sharing power by stating, “… Only [a] very few have this capacity [of power], and they prevent the majority of others from being able to act effectively. Thus , the total amount of power and total system effectiveness is restricted, even though some people seem to have a great deal of it, … when more people are empowered that is, allowed to have control over the conditions that make their actions possible then more is accomplished, more gets done” (Kanter, 1977). I agree with Kanter’s point concerning power, if an individual can willing share their power within a negotiation, in turn the negotiation isn’t a negotiation any more, it becomes a meeting with two equal individuals and the possibility of achieving more becomes greater. I believe the importance of this paper is to become familiar with distributive bargaining situations. Once an individual can determine that they are entering a distributive bargaining type of situation, they can then act accordingly to better increase their chances of success. The same can be said for selective presentation. If a negotiator can recognize the tactics of selective presentation during a negotiation, they then can combat the tactics of selective presentation more effectively and also maximize their overall possibility of successfully achieving their agenda and all around goals during a negotiation.

Reference Page (1) Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and Women of the Corporation. New York, NY: Basic books Inc. (2) Lax, David A., and James K. Sebenius. "A Guide to Complex Negotiation." Harvard Business Review, November 2012, 92-100. (3) Baker, David V., and Richard P. Davin. "Crime, Criminology, and, Criminal Justice." Guilford, Connecticut: McGraw-Hill, 2001. McGraw-Hill (Roy J Lewicki v) (4) Roy J Lewicki. Negotiation w/ Casebook, 6th Edition. McGraw-Hill Learning Solutions, 2010. <vbk:0077586786>. (5) Lewicki, Roy J.”Negotiation w/ Casebook” McGraw-Hill Learning Solutions, 2010.