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In this role-play, I was a senior partner of Jones and Jones, who was the representative of Absentia Ltd. My client (Absentia Ltd.) wanted to buy the Bullard property of Downtown, Inc. to build a high rise hotel. This was a commercial purpose. My responsibility was to negotiate with the representative of Downtown. I had the authorization to offer up to $24 million from the client to buy the Bullard houses. In addition, the client wanted to keep the prestigious name of the house, which was Bullard.

More importantly, they strongly recommended me not to reveal the purpose of using this property. This was because of some reasons. Firstly, if the intended use of the Bullard Houses of my client was disclosed, it would lead to a rise of the price of this property as well as other sites. Secondly, the Bullard property was zoned for mixed residential and commercial use. However, my client wanted to use this site for a high rise commercial purpose only, they did not have any interest in residential or non-hotel purposes. Therefore, given the assumption that the client could get the Bullard Houses, the client needed to convince the Zoning Board to accept changing this landmark into high rise commercial use. For this reason, it was important to not reveal the purpose of building the hotel because that could increase the external objections that could influence the Board’s decision on the rezoning proposal of my client even when my client successfully got the site.

• What do you believe would have constituted unethical behaviour for the party you played in the exercise? Did you or the other party overstep any ethical boundaries?

Regarding the confidential instruction from Absentia and the general information of this negotiation, there could be...

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...t any preparation will probably end up with inadvertently disclosing information or lying. Another point is that, a good negotiator must prepare their BATNA carefully. This is the most powerful strength of the negotiators. Other sources of power comprise the knowledge and expertise, good negotiation plan, and valuable resources. In order to optimise the power of the negotiators’ BATNA, the negotiators can follow such strategies as explore all possible alternatives to agreement, chose the best alternative, then try to enhance its attractiveness and viability, continue to look for better options over time. Finally, there are tactics that assist the negotiators to approach a persuasive conversation during the negotiation. That is the application of Aristotle’s elements in persuading the others. These elements are the reason, the empathy, the credibility and the focus.