Coalition Blogs

For the majority of the negotiation we were an informal coalition. We understood that it was in all of our best interests to help each other succeed.  Helping each other succeed meant more store traffic and as long as all three of us stayed in business lower rent.  In the majority of matters, we agreed on the middle ground that didn't any particular store a complete advantage or disadvantage.  There was one difficult issue that we could not agree on where we saw the coalition of three dissolve into a team of two.  The temperature was a strict divisive issue. Myself and Patrick (Baker and Grocer) could not agree to allowing the central temperature to be dropped to 14 C which would freeze out our customers. The lowest we were willing to agree to was a brisk 16 C.  However, Andres was a florist whose flowers would wilt once the store reached 16 C. Patrick and I teamed up against Andres and debated this issue alone for thirty minutes.  We felt it was better for two stores to benefit rather than only one (Side note: what kinds of flowers can only survive in temperatures lower than 60?). Eventually Andres reluctantly agreed to to 16 degrees C.  Perhaps a better approach would have been to give each store one of their highest scoring issues, and that would have offered the same amount if not more success than agreeing on the middle for everything.  Negotiating with three people introduced an interesting dynamic and allowed us to exercise new tactics.