Stephen Covey tells of experience on a subway ride in the mid-19th century:

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“I was on a subway in a very large metropolitan city. It was Sunday morning, quiet, sedate. When a bunch of young kids came running into the subway car and their father followed. He sat near me and the kids went crazy on that subway, running up and down, turning people’s papers aside, just raucous and rude. I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I can’t believe this, their father does nothing!’ I look at my attitude, attitude to try to control, but look what I could see.

After a few minutes, attitude went into behavior, ‘Sir, do you think you could control your children a little? They are very upsetting to people.’

‘Oh yeah.’ He lifted his head as if to come to an awareness of what was happening. ‘Yeah, I don’t know. I just guess I should. We just left the hospital. Their mother died just about an hour ago and I guess they don’t know how to take it and frankly I don’t either.’”

From: Covey, Stephen R. (1991, January 1). Paradigms. FranklinCovey. (Links to an external site.)

We often come to the negotiation with very different mindsets. Without making a serious effort to see the world from the perspective of the people we are in negotiation with, it can be difficult if not impossible, to come to an agreement with them.

Drawing from your own experience share an experience of negotiating with someone with whom, like the first part of the story above, you simply lacked an understanding of how to bridge to her/his world.

In your discussion posting, answer the following questions:

• What was your challenge, and what barriers did you need to overcome?
• How could you have moved from personal interest to mutual interest or agreement?
• What techniques from our week’s readings and handouts could have been applied?
• Did you achieve your goal? Why or why not?
• If you had to work with the same situation again, do you think you would be successful in moving the conversation into dialogue? Why or Why not? What could you do differently?

Please post your initial response by Thursday and reply to at least TWO of your colleagues’ posts by Saturday. Be sure to pull examples from more than one of the readings to illustrate or support your thoughts. Your replies should seek to further the conversation by asking questions, providing an alternative perspective, or expanding on the thoughts of your classmates (click “Reply” below to open the discussion box).