Complexity of Negotiation and Negotiation of Complexity Getting to Trust

Abstract

Negotiation is back and forth communication. [1, p. 279]. Communication is ubiquitous, we communicate even if we do not want to or do not intend to communicate. Thus communication is unavoidable, so why not communicate successfully and achieve the managerial objective. We negotiate not only with other individuals on daily basis, but we negotiate with ourselves as well, should I…?, or should I not…? How will it benefit me…? Should I eat that ice cream…? Hmm, only if I promise to run 10 minutes longer tomorrow…., Should I ask her for date…? What if she says no….? What do I have to loose, if she says no, I will be still at the same position as I am today…But negotiation is more complex than that. We can also observe negotiation as managing complexity. However, complexity is more than the buzzword understanding and usage of it in our common language and observation. To reduce the complexity of complexity, the author suggests the following description and hypothesis: Complexity is an adoptive-, self-organizing-, emergent-, unpredictable (and complex system (s)’s or) agent (s)’s number of possible states, parts, behaviours, interactions, variables, varieties, and choices, which need to be attenuated, absorbed and observed for the system to be under control or for the objective to be of mutual satisfactory result between the agent agent’s interaction, agent machine’s interaction or agent and environment’s interaction. In negotiation, information is critical. Agents (managers) often have information they do not need and want; they get information that they do not need, but above all information they want is information they do not need. The challenge is to obtain information that an agent actually needs and they are more than he wants to pay for or the situation he will be in, if he tries to obtain them, thus obtaining information is giving information. [2. p. 229]Interaction of any form is communication; only through communication control is maintained, executed and possible. Knowing “The Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement” (BATNA) [3. p. 97] of one self’s and/or an opposed agents may reduce a vast amount of variety for the negotiation system, thus it requires precise assumptions, which also must have the capacity to be questioned as assumptions for computing the best alternative possible. However, negotiation is about a win-win game and agents are better served if their interaction is about increasing their number of choices mutually for better agreements and results.