Great Movie!

Rating: 9/10 (13 November 2016)

Although 12 angry men does not explicitly show all these four aspects, the protagonist of the movie, Juror 8 applied several negotiation techniques that accommodates the needs and requirements of that individual and scenario. In most of the scenarios that he is put in and has to deal with, he makes most use of the first two aforementioned aspects, the separation of people from the problem and, focusing on the interests and not positions. At the start of the movie we see that the only Juror 8 has not been swayed or influenced due to his past conflicts or prejudices he holds. The movie shows us the true power of negotiating, one man managed to convince 11 other men who were at first staunchly against the idea of the defendant being not guilty. The main aspects of negotiation that he employs is the act of separating the people from the problems and the focus on interests. For example, we see that when Juror 8 is challenging testimonies that police officers and witnesses gave he comes across some backlash from the rest of his fellow jurors. But he keeps a calm head and steady composure despite the attacks from the rest. He also makes sure that everyone gets their equal say. If someone comes across as stubborn or just unreasonable he tries to break down their point of view by asking them questions and understanding why they think that way about the problem – i.e he is focusing on the interests of the person and not the position he is.
As mentioned above, Juror 8 keeps everyone focused on topic throughout their discussion. He always finds the underlying interests and reasons behind everyone's position as well. While other jurors such as 3 and 10 kept on antagonizing people and basing their judgments from their old experiences. In fact juror 8 even takes over the job of the foreman and manages to keep everyone on topic. This movie can mostly be seen as critique on American thinking and their law system at the time. Several of the jurors just want end the discussion as soon as possible and just send the boy off to his death. But Juror 8 would scold them for not taking the discussion seriously and asking them to put themselves in the shoes of the defendant on the verge of death row. Here it is important to note that sometimes interests may be better off ignored – juror 7 wanting to go to his ball game, juror 10 rambling on some unrelated story and the two jurors who were trying to do business instead of focusing on the topic. Of course, positions need to be ignored as well. For example juror 5 was raised in a poor neighborhood and wants to be separated from that fact. He doesn't want to be labelled in that manner and be on similar social standings as the rest of the jurors. We can say that juror 5 basically embodies the aspect of interest, not position. The tactics used by juror 8 can also be analyzed quite thoroughly throughout the movie. His task of convincing 11 other people who were against him seemed like quite the insurmountable task. However, once he managed to get juror 9 to switch to his side despite the initial early criticism and attacks from the other jurors. The jurors are seen to be very easily swayed by the peers and just seem to go with the flow. Juror 8 uses this to advantage and once he got juror 9 to his side it was easy to bring more and more people to see that the non-guilty verdict. We also see that sometimes even when juror 8's argument is not very convincing. When he tries to prove that the defendant may have forgotten the name of the movie just due to some emotional stress. He tries to test juror 4 on this but juror 4 names the first film and almost gets the name of the second film. Here we see that juror 8 is now quite reliant on negotiation tactics and the evidence for the innocence of the defendant is actually decreasing and there is no massive evidence for realizing that he is truly innocent. Another interesting point that I noticed about this movie is that the BATNA – Best alternative to negotiated agreement for both groups is actually a hung jury, in fact the only option. However, juror 8 did not want this as it would put him in a disadvantageous situation so he decided on pushing for the votes and wanted to get as many people on his side as fast as he could. If the jurors who really thought the boy was guilty had just waited out, they would have reached a hung jury and probably land the defendant a guilty verdict.
There are often times in our everyday life that we are negotiating with someone else. This may be talking to the cashier at a drinks stall about the wrong price being charged or to a professor asking him to shift the deadline or change a grade. From the many classes we had so far, reading Getting to Yes and watching 12 angry men, I have learnt to appreciate the importance of negotiations in our daily life and how much easier it could be made with the application of it.