{"id":267170,"date":"2010-02-02T14:51:13","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T19:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pon.harvard.edu\/?p=9672"},"modified":"2010-02-02T14:51:13","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T19:51:13","slug":"allies-and-enemies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/267170","title":{"rendered":"Allies and enemies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adapted from \u201cWho\u2019s Watching? How Onlookers Affect Team Talks,\u201d by Karen A. Jehn (professor, Leiden University) and Lindred L. Greer (professor, University of Amsterdam), first published in the <\/em>Negotiation<\/a> newsletter. <\/em><\/p>\n

Imagine that you and a colleague get into an argument about the layout of a final report in front of a coworker you both like. Now suppose the same argument occurs in front of someone your colleague likes but you do not or vice versa\u2014in front of an ally who is your colleague\u2019s foe. As it turns out, the presence of various team<\/a> members during a negotiation with another teammate may affect your negotiating ability.<\/p>\n

Information exchange.<\/strong> Negotiators in a team setting who distrust each other tend to withhold information even when information sharing is critical to the task at hand, Karen A. Jehn of Leiden University and Lindred L. Greer of the University of Amsterdam found in their recent research with Heather Caruso of Harvard University. This suggests that you\u2019ll be more likely to share information with your negotiation partner when you like other team members who are present. By contrast, if you dislike or distrust certain onlookers, you may withhold more. Similarly, your negotiation partner may be reluctant to share information in front of certain team members.<\/p>\n

Balanced relationships.<\/strong> In his classic book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations <\/em>(Wiley, 1958), Fritz Heider observes that we tend to seek balance in our relationships. This desire for balance may lead you to turn against a friend\u2019s enemy or, conversely, to befriend an ally\u2019s friends. If both you and your negotiation counterpart dislike an onlooker to your dispute<\/a>, you may actually grow to like each other more and collaborate more with each other. The presence of a \u201ccommon enemy\u201d causes negotiators to bond against the outsider.<\/p>\n

When one negotiator strongly dislikes an onlooker whom the other negotiator likes, the two negotiators may begin to behave competitively with each other. Suppose that your closest team ally sees you negotiating with someone he doesn\u2019t like. To maintain relations with your ally, you\u2019re likely to find fault with your counterpart\u2014a form of transference that will jeopardize your outcome.<\/p>\n

In negotiations<\/a> with colleagues, it\u2019s critical that you strive to reduce the impact of workgroup alliances. Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Acknowledge negative feelings. <\/strong>We all know how difficult it can be to confront animosity during a negotiation at work. If you\u2019re negotiating in front of someone you dislike or with whom you are uncomfortable, first acknowledge these feelings to yourself.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Deal with clashes privately. <\/strong>Try to remove personal emotions from the task at hand by dealing with them privately. This should reduce the degree to which your allies\u2019 expectations influence your negotiating behavior. Similarly, communicate concern for the relationship with your counterpart while at the same time making sure the negotiation remains as task oriented as possible. By doing so, you may be able to prevent personality clashes from influencing your talks with other coworkers.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Share information. <\/strong>During a negotiation, strive to stay focused on hammering out the best agreement<\/a> possible by sharing relevant information. Intentionally hiding information to exact revenge on a colleague who has burned you in the past is likely to backfire in the form of a deal that overlooks significant sources of value. Concentrate on the trust you\u2019ve developed in the past, and guard against \u201ccatching\u201d contagious negative feelings from observers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adapted from \u201cWho\u2019s Watching? How Onlookers Affect Team Talks,\u201d by Karen A. Jehn (professor, Leiden University) and Lindred L. Greer (professor, University of Amsterdam), first published in the Negotiation newsletter. Imagine that you and a colleague get into an argument about the layout of a final report in front of a coworker you both like. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4300,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4300"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}