Bias in Negotiations

Write a post in your blog about how bias has affected you in decision making or negotiations in the past. If you cannot come up with a personal example, cite one from public knowledge (history, politics, culture, etc.). For the situation you select, please describe:

1. What happened? 

2. Which type of bias did this illustrate?

3. What was the effect of the bias?

4. What can you do to keep yourself from falling prey to that bias again (be specific and concrete!).

In looking at how bias can impact decision making and negotiation skills, there were lots of great resources in the course learning materials this week to help one identify how they have been affected by biases in the past. When I think about a personal example, I think of choice overload and how I've seen it work in my farmer's market business at home. When we first started with the sales of USDA processed homegrown pork, we offered three main items, sausage, bacon, and pork chops. Our sales were okay but customers were wanting more items. So, to appease customer requests, we added in 6 different sausage blends versus the original 2 that we started with. Adding in bratwurst, andouille, chorizo, and mild with extra sage to the traditional mild or hot breakfast sausage gave us more options, but it also seemed to decrease sausage sales overall since customers couldn't decide which type of sausage they wanted to try when making purchases. During the several weeks we ran with this extra stock of sausage blends, we saw a rise in the sales of bacon and pork chops because these things were not something of which that there were multiple varieties. It was a cut and dry choice. Simply put, the lesson learned from this was to simplify our offerings and streamline it to feature our best sellers. We limited our supply and tightened down choices and overall sales have basically quadrupled since this time last year. In the future, we are definitely keeping to the basics when it comes to our "menu" of available items, as it said in the article online, Less choice, more sales; More choice, fewer sales. The website from the course gave great examples and explanations for many of these that we experience: http://humanhow.com/en/list-of-cognitive-biases-with-examples/

In anything you do, understanding your own biases as well as those of someone with which you are interacting or even negotiating can really make a definite impact on the outcome of situations. Our values, beliefs, and backgrounds can have an enormous impact on the way we view the world and process information. Understanding and recognizing bias will help one to reduce its impact on your negotiation performance, because by identifying bias in your decision-making you adjust for it, thereby making more rational decisions, and achieve more efficient outcomes.