Reflections on Casino

I represented Vice President Jamie Jackson in the Casino case and the environmentalist group in Harborco. The Casino conversation is a more simple negotiation in terms of numbers of people involved because there were only two people whereas the Harborco involves the whole class. Harborco was more complicated since it’s a multiparty negotiation. However, the Casino is really very difficult, personally speaking. Despite the difficulties that I have intrinsically, I think I still managed to reach a successful result.

One of the reasons why I felt a greater difficulty during the Casino talk is that the two parties were supposed to talk about not only their professional performance but also their relationship. I am not very good at handling the relational problem but it happened to be the most important part of this difficult conversation. In my childhood, my parents rarely had intimate talks with me or with my brother and then the children are not encouraged to share the deep most emotions towards the parents or siblings. Showing the intimacy is an embarrassing thing in my family and in most Chinese families. For example, boys are not supposed to cry. Hence, I have been very clumsy in this aspect. While growing up, I was not at ease to show my true feelings to my friends; I could be humorous and funny but I was not ready to say what I really thought. Right now, even with my boyfriend, I have similar problems. I need to think about what to say for a very long time beforehand. I need to prepare myself and summon the courage to initiate the conversation. In most situations, I will try not to touch on the sensitive parts and make the conversation flow. Hence, I was not comfortable for a deep conversation between Jamie Jackson and Allison although we had done the brainstorming. I think that my personality might prevent myself from being communicative because I am not good at expressing what I feel. This might make people think that I am always discontent or the inverse.

Only after doing Thomas-Kilmann assessment, did I know that I have a propensity to avoid or withdraw from the problems during the negotiations. I assume that this is a common problem among East Asians. In the Taiwanese culture, people avoid to say “No” directly to one another because they want to maintain the harmony within the group. It’s very difficult for me to come to someone and then to make a complaint to the person directly. Blaming somebody or asking a person to assuming the responsibility is not in the traditional culture because the decisions are based on the consensus. Nowadays, the American culture permeates the Taiwanese traditional culture: people are more and more straightforward. However, it’s very hard for me to suggest the other party that he has made a mistake and he has not met the expectations. Normally, I would prefer to escape from the conversation like this kind. I would just avoid seeing that person and postpone the conversation from taking place. However, I had an American partner who represented Allison. He was more direct than me. I felt some pressure from his questions. For instance, when he asked me “Are you avoiding me?” I felt a sudden guilt and I stuttered a little bit because I felt as if I was truly avoiding Allison. During the negotiations, my partner came up most of the key questions, which actually saved me from not getting my key issues. Nonetheless, I think I need to be more active in this kind conversation next time because I won’t have the partners of same character all the times. If I keep behaving in this way, the others would judge that I am not engaging in the conversation and they would probably give up talking the problems through.

Notwithstanding, I realized that I have a suppleness that would be actually helpful in future negotiations. When we debriefed the situation, other classmates mentioned that admitting their own responsibility in the event facilitated the conversation. It’s not difficult for me to assume the responsibility and to identify my contribution to the problems. During my education, I am always asked to seek for the reason inside myself first before going to seek faults in others. With aid of introspection, I avoid being stubborn and blaming the others, which does not redound to the mutual trust and to the ongoing negotiations. Therefore, I think this quality is a useful factor.

Furthermore, active listening is a good quality in understanding the other party’s concern. One can listen to the counterpart but at the same time is not paying attention to the counterpart. If a person is rush to react, he would think about how to fight back along the entire conversation. Actually I think this is an American propensity because not responding immediately means that somehow this person is slow in USA. On the contrary, I am a very good listener. My friends like to talk to me about their problems because I am very patient and good at listening without being careless. I suppose this is mainly because I am from Taiwan. Under the influence of Confucian philosophy, people are taught to be more patient. “Silence is gold,” says a Chinese proverb. I think it’s appropriate to be not hasty to respond because in the case of Casino the hasty behavior is not useful in lowering the counterpart’s defense. Luckily, my partner is not oppressive and he did not start with harsh accusation. Therefore, I did not have to arm myself either. My counterpart and I were both calm and not hurried to say who is at fault. At the end, I think we had reached a better understanding. Hence, I assume that this negotiation was successful in terms of building a positive professional relationship for the future.