Name : Wahyu Fahrul Ridho

NIM : 29116013
This story of negotiation happened around 3 years ago in august
2014, in PKL(Praktek Kerja Lapangan)/Field Word Learning. It is a
compulsory program for my undergraduate studies in Public Health. It is
a story about a negotiation with village authority and public health
authority in Ngrejeng Village, kecamatan Purwosari, Kabupaten
Probolinggo, East Java. It is not the first time I dealing with negotiation
with authorities, but this is the most challenging that Ive ever faced
because me and my team have to deal with different culture and interest
from the villagers and authority.
My PKL was somewhat unique. Normally you go to the company
for PKL. Instead we were pushed in the rural area and improve the health
condition of the villagers without any supplies except from ourselves. I
was a project leader at the time in my group. A project leader is
responsible for the planning, organizing, executing and controlling of the
health program. Inevitably, I became the main negotiator with the
stakeholder there.
First I went to puskesmas and ask for a direction of the program.
They openly giving us suggestion, to improve the maternal health in the
area and running their program. However went we came to the village
and negotiate with the village public figure, they want gapura (village
gate sign). Thus our confusion started. The three players each have
different interest regarding this issue. At first glance, the village public
figures want infrastructures, Puskesmas want us to help running their
programs and we want to create a community development program.
We have limited budgets. Our strategy that I proposed was evidence
based strategy. It was a strategy which we presented the data that we
found in the field regarding what really matters.
 It was hard at first because everyone seems to have different
interest. And even though they puskesmas played hard ball, we
overcame that and bridging the interests. Finally we employed
community development program. Increase the economy condition to
tackle iodium health problem of the villagers by taught them
entrepreneurship.
ANALYSIS
Traps and Weakness
What makes the negotiation traps are ever apparent in my case were
already established relationship, our position and different interest in the
stakeholder. The negotiations were hard, pretty hard. Were almost
shunned by the puskesmas. Village public figure and puskesmas already
have resentment toward each other. Villagers said that puskesmas were
alienating them compared to other village because they have hard
access. It takes 3 KM from the main road to the village through dry
forest, with narrow, hill rock road and no lights at night. Puskesmass
side of story said that they already do what necessary. It is bridging this
gaps that make it hard.

1. Leaving Money on the Table

This trap maybe is the most apparent one in this negotiation.
Because of already established bad relationship, many of the
member of our team are inexperienced with the negotiations
especially with authority, and how pressured are we with the
deadlines, we could easily fail to find best solutions. It is more the
reason because of our bargaining position. They didnt give regards
of who we are. We have weak bargaining position. Because of that it
is safe to assume that we couldnt demand anything more to them
 and obscuring the potential bargain we could do for the win-win
solutions
2. Settling for too little
This is a field work and it is rumored we could easily gain score
from this activity even though the program arent too great and at
least it happened. It is dangerous because we could easily settle
for little bargain and just do what puskesmas wants, ignoring the
villager and go on with the whatever program. It is our BATNA, just
do whatever puskesmas wants or spending all of our money to build
gapura. We could settle for too little because we already feel
guaranteed about the score. But thats not the essence of our
hardships and ideal.
3. Walking away from the table
The negotiations are heated and personal feelings are abounded.
Each of the stakeholder doesnt have strong reason to keep the
negotiation especially villager and puskesmas. Villagers feels that
they are fine with this current condition and doesnt have a dire need
to make change. Puskesmas have a lot of works rather than dealing
with a bunch of inexperienced undergraduate student. We are the
one who have large interest of this program rather than other two.
They could easily walk away from the negotiation table given that
they resent each other but need each other. The solution we
proposed could easily rejected by them.
4. Settling for terms that are worse than your best alternative
We could easily agree with any terms that puskesmas give, even
though that it is worse than our best alternative. Puskesmas could
only use us as an executor and claiming that it is their program not
ours. Of course it is tempting because we could claim it as our
activities.

Proposal of Improvements
The strategy
The ones I will be discussing is the integrative strategy that I
already employed and that could make the outcome of the negotiations
better rather than taking it distributive. This negotiation were
distributive, zero sum game at the beginning. Because either sides gain
were loss for the others. Puskesmas gains were loss for the villager
because they want gapura. Its also loss for us because we cant show
our community development skills and will be resulting in average or
bad grades. If villager wants gapura its a loss for us for the same reason
as before, and puskesmass loss because they couldnt employ their
program and using us. Our program will be loss for them because it
didnt accomodate their wants. Zero sum game because its either one
of side which will win and another are lost.
Puskesmas
(want maternal health
program)

Conflict
s of
Interest

Village Us
(Want (Empower
Infrastructure) Community)

However we look beyond what they want and focusing on underlying

interest behind those wants. The key to connecting those interests were
villagers health problems. Thus the interest grid became like this:
 Puskesmas
(Solving health
problems)

Synerg
y of
Interest
Village Us
(Solving villager's (Good score and solving
problems) health problems)

The distributive, zero sum game at the beginning were

transformed by us to be integrative, non-zero sum game. I proposed at
the time to conduct survey and observation to the villagers of what
really matters especially in the health problems. It is based on our
analysis of the underlying interest behind those we already heard at the
beginning. By using integrative technique we try to emphasize that
every stakeholder view a same viewpoint and speaks the same
language. We provided our findings and arranging a negotiation with
local leaders. They confirmed our findings and proceed to highlight the
important issue. We showed puskesmas the aspirations of the villager
and they agreed upon it. Rather than choosing who is going to win and
who is going to lose, we enlarged the pie.

How the outcomes became better

The proposal of improvement that already been done, solved the
negotiations traps and dilemma when we employed it. If we try to force
ourselves to share the pie, and choosing either side to win/lose, then it is
surely we will fall into the negotiation traps. We could fall to one of the
traps and possibly all of it. The integrative principle which we employed
thought further than sharing the pie. It give us insight what is the
underlying reason and how to tackle it and make every stakeholder
achieve their interests. Village public figure could accommodate their
villagers wants, Puskesmas could improve public health and we could go
on with the community development plan. Every side is happy with the
result and their resentment toward each other diminishing because of
the cooperation in tackling the problems