I sold a lemon
After a year and a half holding the back-to-school status, this semester I decided to take my first 'soft skills' class.
Soft skill= cheap psychology classes. Hard skills=anything quantitative or academically solid.
The choice is turning out to be a quite interesting cultural exchange. In my negotiation class at MIT I am learning how to negotiate with Americans, with Asians, with Europeans...
The other day, in one of the exercises, I sold a land to a Korean student for $150.000 and I thought I had screwed him, "what a good deal", I told myself. Wroooong. It was just a so, so deal. Despite the poor communication skills of the Korean student, he managed to negotiate a price that was good for him. I thought, 'woao, I beated him'. Wrrrong. With Tao, another Asian students, things went much better...I sold him an old car for 3 times my minimum selling price.
Americans are more conciliatory. They generally want to be nice. How overused the word 'nice' is in this country.
Soft skill= cheap psychology classes. Hard skills=anything quantitative or academically solid.
The choice is turning out to be a quite interesting cultural exchange. In my negotiation class at MIT I am learning how to negotiate with Americans, with Asians, with Europeans...
The other day, in one of the exercises, I sold a land to a Korean student for $150.000 and I thought I had screwed him, "what a good deal", I told myself. Wroooong. It was just a so, so deal. Despite the poor communication skills of the Korean student, he managed to negotiate a price that was good for him. I thought, 'woao, I beated him'. Wrrrong. With Tao, another Asian students, things went much better...I sold him an old car for 3 times my minimum selling price.
Americans are more conciliatory. They generally want to be nice. How overused the word 'nice' is in this country.
Comments