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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MZ" data-source="post: 49011" data-attributes="member: 8055">Hi Jacob! I have an assessment centre coming up that involves an assessed negotiation, but I’m a little nervous because the preparation portion of it won’t be assessed (it will just be me and my partner in the virtual breakout room), so only the actual negotiation between the two groups will be assessed. I’m a little confused about the decision to only assess the end product, as I thought the point of the exercise was to judge whether candidates can work well in a team (which would be most apparent in the first part), so I’m not sure how to approach the exercise now that the focus has shifted. I have 3 main concerns about this:My first concern is that I can easily control my approach (and therefore, how I am perceived) in a “group work” setting because we’re all on the same team and I’m quite a social person, so my collaborative approach would naturally come through. However, in the actual negotiation, I have no idea how to demonstrate teamwork when I am actively engaging with the other side rather than my partner, and I don’t think I can ask for a sidebar in a virtual negotiation (not necessarily because it wouldn’t be allowed, but because the assessors most likely won’t know how to set one up and it would take too long to figure it out). I’ll try to refer to the points my partner makes if possible to present more of a united front, but I can’t speak to them directly mid-negotiation (even if we use the sidebar chat, the assessors won’t know about it) and we’ll most likely be leading separate points on the negotiation so I don’t know what I could do to come across as more collaborative. Another worry I have is that my negotiation style (which is pretty much the only thing they can assess me on) will depend almost entirely on the negotiation scenario and the other side’s approach. For example, in a case where a company is suing us (or vice versa), I would still try to start off on a positive note but would probably spend most of the negotiation being much less “cooperative” and would use a completely different style of questioning. Similarly, I would always hope to start a negotiation in a collaborative style, but what if the other side goes in with a “hardball” approach from the get-go? If I switch up my style to a more competitive one to match theirs, I’m worried that this will come off badly and make me seem uncooperative or even aggressive, as it can be a slippery slope between hardball and being a full-on ruthless shark that no one would want to work with, and that distinction can sometimes depend on the assessors’ perceptions. However, if I continued trying to adopt a collaborative approach, the assessors may see this as me being a pushover and not being able to get the best deal for my client. I wouldn’t be as worried about this if they had seen me interact with my partner in the group work portion, because then they’d have an idea of my true character, whereas if they only saw the negotiation, their entire perception of me would be based on my negotiation style. My last, and probably biggest, concern is that my teammate will go against something we previously agreed on in the negotiation. I’ve had (and heard of) negotiation exercises in the past where one person in the group makes a unilateral decision to offer something that the group had previously decided was non-negotiable, or reveal a piece of information that gives the other side leverage, or start off with a different number than the one agreed upon, etc. This is never an ideal situation, but usually, the assessors have seen the preparation portion of the exercise and would know that the group member was acting alone, so he/she would be the only one penalised in this situation. However, if my partner says something during the negotiation that I strongly disagreed with or that we'd agreed not to do in the teamwork portion, I would be in an extremely difficult position. If I outwardly disagreed with my partner or tried to backpedal in front of the other side (assuming sidebars aren't possible), it would pretty much destroy any perception of teamwork and I would look horrible for undermining my partner in front of the opposition. On the other hand, if I stayed silent and did nothing to oppose it, the assessors would think that I'd agreed to this (since they didn’t see our initial plans/discussions), which would make me look incompetent for agreeing to a strategy that completely undermined our position or put our client at a disadvantage. I have no idea what the best thing to do would be in this situation so I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to approach it.I would be very grateful if you had any advice on how to conduct myself in the negotiation exercise, how to demonstrate teamwork throughout the negotiation, or what to do if my partner says something that I disagree with.</blockquote>

Verification: Our company is called, "The Corporate ___ Academy". What is the missing word here?

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