MBA diary: The art of persuasion
Ariadna Peretz, an MBA student at Chinese University of Hong Kong, says her degree has helped her see past the status quo
OUR graduation ball, held in late May, was a lovely affair, with lots of sharp suits, flowy dresses and photo opportunities. Before we sat down to dinner the outgoing assistant dean gave a speech in which he summed up the year. This year’s MBA cohort, he said, had succeeded in breaking some records and attaining many firsts: the largest number of international students, the highest ever representation at business school competitions around the world, the first case competition at our annual CSR conference, a four-day around-the-clock role-playing class…and the very first class-wide grade appeal.
The latter was not a welcomed innovation. It was initiated by one student over two essays we had written for our pre-term seminar. The student was so successful in rallying the student body that the assistant dean had to give a formal explanation for our grade. Now that’s persuasion.
I’m sure it was an annoyance to the MBA office and, in the end, nothing came of it, but honestly I couldn’t have been any more proud of the student. Isn’t this what an MBA is all about? Learning how to see past the status quo, identifying things that we consider wrong and doing our best to right them? He may not have won the grade appeal but he did mobilise the students and had the school change its policy regarding this type of thing. I think that is quite a success in and of itself, don’t you?
In my last MBA diary I mentioned the “six principles of persuasion” and how to influence people. But they are not the only tactics that can be used to get people on your side. We covered many more in our leadership development course but really put them into use in business negotiation class, one of the best I took at CUHK. This class was all day long every Sunday for five weeks and even though it meant waking up at 7.00am, I had no complaints. In fact, I don’t think there was one student in that class that regretted enrolling.
We learned about our BATNA (best alternative to no agreement), ZOPA (zone of potential agreement), and the difference between an integrative negotiator (sharing the pie equitably and sharing information) versus a distributive negotiator (who is possessive about information and wants all the pie), and that usually the integrative guy gets screwed. We also learned how to make the most of our concessions (always make it sound like it’s a big deal, even when it is not, to get something good in return). The professor also introduced us to the strategies and tactics to use if we are the weaker party, most importantly how to reframe the discussion so the other side better understands our situation. These are all great things to know not just at the negotiating table but for regular day-to-day life.
But, like most things in life, we won’t learn how to negotiate just by sitting through the lectures. As such, we had two simulations each day. We started with a very simple negotiation in which we were buying or selling a piece of land. By the end of our course we took part in a multi-day union versus management negotiation in which we had to agree on a new collective agreement.
One of the most interesting things I learned during the course is that I am a terrible negotiator when I am negotiating only for myself. However, once I am in a group or am negotiating on the behalf of others, I fight a good fight (like when I was fighting as part of the union). I need to feel that I’m representing a group when I’m fighting for something I really believe in (something Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s second in command, says in her book “Lean In”). This is probably because my need for affiliation is greater than my need for achievement. If I am to be a success post-MBA I will need to come to terms with the fact that certain decisions I make may not sit well with others. I’m going to have to make the most of the next couple of months at school to learn how to be as confident and determined as the guy who launched the attack against the MBA office.
Media: Economist
Section: Which MBA?/ Articles/ MBA diaries
Date: