06/15/2008 17:03
Here is a little story from the negotiation module we had in Lithuania a few weeks ago. We were given a scenario where Linda and I played the role of a happy couple wanting to rent a summer cottage on a beautiful island in Sweden. Tapio was the cottage owner and we were deciding on which price we can rent it for. Naturally, Linda and I thought that the price was way too high and we had some ideas on how we could get a better price such as taking care of the lawn and cleaning the cottage. There were also some defects that we thought would make the price lower. We had a plan and a structure on how to handle the negotiation that we had learned as theory just moments before. As the role playing started, the discussions got more and more heated and we were getting further and further away from each other. The discussions even got so heated that we had to take a time out in order to calm things down. According to Tapio this was a very unique cottage with magnificent scenery and with very beautiful trees, flowers, sky, grass, rock… and even the bugs were beautiful! Tapio painted the most amazing picture of what this cottage looked like. What Tapio missed, however, was that we didn’t care the slightest bit about the beauty of the cottage; we just wanted a nice peaceful place where our kids could play football. Contrary, we found what Tapio valued the most: that someone took good care of the cottage that his grandfather built a long time ago. I even told Tapio that his grandfather will be smiling in his grave if he rented the cottage to us. That probably wasn’t my strongest argument, but the outcome was that we got one of the best deals of all the different groups performing the scenario and Tapio said afterwards that he would rather have burnt the house down than to rent it to us and that he hoped we would starve on the island.
It was a fun exercise to do but even funnier to hear how Tapio felt afterwards. Everyone was laughing hysterically. I think we all learned that in a real situation we would never have reached a deal because our opening positions were too far off. It was like playing poker with fake chips. However, it was still good practice to prepare us for when we do negotiate for something valuable.
04/08/2008 12:12
Reflecting on the first two months
During my first two months as a TeliaSonera trainee; I have already had the opportunity to participate in interesting projects, developed my leadership style and made many new friends. The program has so far been very good at engaging us to try new challenging projects and harvest a strong bond between all the trainees.
My projects vary much in priority and subject which makes it both exciting and demanding to coordinate and deliver results. Because the trainee program is divided into 50/50 trainee projects and regular work; I am able to make significant progress in my own unit and network into other areas of the organization such as Sourcing and Product Development within both Broadband and Mobility Services.
The two modules we have had so far have focused on team building skills. We have first learned how we are as individuals and understand different cultural differences, which is important since we are from many different countries. I learned that my personality type reflects that of someone from France: warm, emotional and impulsive. During the second module we weren’t told anything other than that it was a teambuilding exercise in Norway. Fearing the worst (swimming in the ice cold fjords), I was not very relieved when we were told it was cross country skiing and sleeping in snow caves that we had to dig ourselves! It was -17 ºC; I hardly slept and my body ached all over; but it was still an amazing experience because of the strong bond developed with my fellow trainees. On top of that, I was proud of myself for having done such extreme – at least for me – skiing.
Lastly, let me share with you how fun it is to move to Stockholm (I am from Gothenburg) and get to know my new colleagues and their friends. We have regular lunches together, go to dinner in the city, meet up for drinks on Fridays, play squash, go jogging together, go shopping, cook dinner together, or just hanging out. It’s really an added bonus to the trainee program.
Next time I will share my next challenge: where to spend my three months abroad. If you have any questions about the trainee program or how its like to be a trainee at TeliaSonera you can contact me at thomas.jonsson@teliasonera.com. Thanks for reading my “blog”.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thomas Jönsson
Age: 28
Place of residence: Stockholm, Sweden
Background: B.S. Chemical Engineer and M.Sc. Intellectual Capital Management
Interests: football, jogging, wine & restaurants, theatre, house music
Working with today: Change Manager & Process Control for Service Management & Project Delivery
Working with in the future: I am also interested in sales, business development and HR.
Best with TeliaSonera: The immense possibilities to work with practically anything you want in an exciting industry.
Secret talent: I have a personal best time of 81 seconds on the expert level of minesweeper. I have been an extra in what is possibly the worst movie ever made: Dykaren (A Swedish thriller with Isabella Scorupco). I have previously worked as a bartender and can make one of the best caipirinhas you’ve ever tasted.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
