Quiz 15 – Negotiating and Handling Complexity
… an Atlas quiz for Atlas206 Internship Reading
11 concept comprehension questions on
Negotiating and Handling Complexity
Note: All 15 quizzes for Atlas206 Internship Reading are available at Concept Quizzes for Atlas206 Internship Reading.
CCQ206.15.01. Among the statements a-d pertaining to action-forcing mechanisms choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. Action-forcing mechanisms are external events or stipulations created in the course of negotiation or mediation that are designed to force parties to take steps toward reaching or implementing an agreement.
b. Action-forcing events are clear breakpoints that force some or all of the participants to make hard choices or incur substantial costs.
c. Deadlines are classic examples of action-forcing mechanisms, and are the most common way to manipulate time in order to induce a settlement.
d. Deadlines rarely lead parties to alter their goals.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
CCQ206.15.02. Among the statements a-d pertaining to advice for women negotiators choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. There are no substantial differences in the way men and women approach compensation determination.
b. Women who are more active in negotiating their compensation tend to be more satisfied with their jobs than those who are more passive, but an active approach can produce a backlash.
c. When women negotiate issues that challenge people’s deeply seated beliefs about gender, their supervisors may respond with moves that question their credibility and competence.
d. Collaborative techniques can be employed to minimize the effect of the backlash.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
CCQ206.15.03. Among the statements a-d pertaining to dealing with difficult people choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. When someone is being difficult, take yourself mentally to a place where you can look down objectively on the dispute and plan your response.
b. Dealing with difficult people requires coming to like them and even agreeing with much of what they claim.
c. Use your power and influence to help educate your opponent about the situation.
d. Discuss acceptable norms of behavior with a potentially difficult counterpart before you negotiate.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
CCQ206.15.04. Among the statements a-d pertaining to best alternative negotiated agreement (BATNA) choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. Your BATNA is the best one can do if the other person refuses to come to an agreement.
b. Your BATNA is not necessarily your ideal outcome but it is the best you can do without the other person.
c. If the only available agreement is better than your BATNA, then you should accept the proposed agreement.
d. Your BATNA should always be revealed to your opponent because it will strengthen your argument.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
CCQ206.15.05. Among the statements a-d pertaining to Fisher and Ury’s Four principles of negotiation choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. Separate the process of inventing options from the act of judging them.
b. Focus on positions, not interests.
c. When the other party stubbornly refuses to be reasonable, shift the discussion from a search for substantive criteria to a search for procedural criteria.
d. When a problem is defined in terms of the parties’ underlying interests it is often possible to find a solution which satisfies both parties’ interests.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
CCQ206.15.06. Among the statements a-d pertaining to complexity choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. Scholars have reached a reasonable consensus on a non-complex definition of complexity.
b. A complex system is greater than the sum of its parts; those parts are interdependent – elements interact with each other, share information and combine to produce systemic behaviour.
c. Some attempts to influence complex systems are dampened (negative feedback) while others are amplified (positive feedback) which means that small actions can have large effects and large actions can have small effects.
d. Complex systems are particularly sensitive to initial conditions that produce a long-term momentum or path dependence.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
CCQ206.15.07. Among the statements a-d pertaining to dealing with ambiguity choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. Treating ambiguity as a steady state, and making decisions in this state is an appropriate position for managers.
b. Ambiguity can be reduced by clear decisions, by team goals, and by performance feedback.
c. Managing ambiguity typically requires working to reduce ambiguity and finding ways to become productive even when uncertainty is unavoidable.
d. One can never get rid of ambiguity but a good manager should try to reduce it.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
CCQ206.15.08. Among the statements a-d pertaining to dealing with uncertainty choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. Any leader facing high levels of uncertainty needs to do get comfortable with the idea of not having all the answers and take steps to reduce uncertainty.
b. Making a decision even if it’s deemed imperfect later has the benefit of reducing uncertainty for the rest of your company or team.
c. Searching for more information will always reduce uncertainty and ambiguity.
d. Handling uncertainty – something that is doubtful or unknown – is a persistent challenge in management.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
CCQ206.15.09. Among the statements a-d pertaining to determining sources of complexity choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. Imposed complexity comes from laws, industry regulations, and interventions by nongovernmental organizations and it is not typically manageable by organizations.
b. Inherent complexity is intrinsic to the line of business, and can only be jettisoned by exiting a portion of the line of business.
c. Designed complexity comes from choices about where the organization operates, what it provides, to whom, and how, and although organizations can remove it, it would likely mean simplifying valuable wrinkles in their business model.
d. Unnecessary complexity arises from growing misalignment between the needs of the organization and the processes supporting it and this can be easily managed once identified.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
CCQ206.15.10. Among the statements a-d pertaining to practicing integrative thinking choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. Integrative thinking assumes that each decision will affect the others and suggests considering all aspects at once.
b. After having explored the range of possible criteria, the integrative thinker determines whether they are causes or effects of one another.
c. Integrative Thinking is based on iterations, forcing one to go back to re-evaluate criteria or their causal arrangement.
d. Integrative thinking simplifies each preceding step to rapidly reach a clear, unequivocal decision that can be evaluated based on defined initial criteria.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
CCQ206.15.11. Among the statements a-d pertaining to recognizing obliquity choose the one that is invalid or choose e if all are reasonably valid.
a. Obliquity recognizes that what happens happens because someone intended it.
b. Obliquity recognizes that systems are complex and depend on unpredictable reactions.
c. Obliquity recognizes that we learn about the nature of the objectives and the means of achieving them during a process of experiment and discovery.
d. Obliquity is the idea that complex goals are often best pursued indirectly.
e. All of a-d are reasonably valid.
Page created by: Ian Clark, last modified on 18 June 2017.
Image: Hyoin Min under Creative Commons and the United Nations Development Program at http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/labour-love, accessed on 3 January 2016.