At work and at home, you’re involved in many negotiations every day. Sometimes those are small negotiations, like who is going to do the dishes after dinner. Sometimes those are bigger negotiations, like convincing your boss to try your solution. And sometimes those are really big negotiations, like asking for a raise.
It’s all negotiation in the end. And at its core, negotiation is all about persuasion. That is, presenting your ideas in a way that moves your counterpart to agree with you.
This terrifies most people, even though it’s something we all do every day. We don’t want to offend people, or cause conflict. We don’t want to play “office politics.” We want to compromise, or approach situations from a consensus basis. Unfortunately, this is a recipe for disaster. We can’t control how other people feel. We can only control our own actions.
We see negotiating as aggressive and confrontational, when the reality is, good negotiation skills help us communicate what we want, and move others toward a positive outcome for everyone.
Every time you want to sway someone to your side on something, you are in a negotiation scenario. You can’t escape negotiations, but you can improve your negotiating skills so you’re more likely to get what you want and make others happy to agree with you.
While negotiation is a part of every aspect of our lives, this post and the next one will help you improve three vital negotiation skills in the workplace. There you might be trying to persuade your boss to approve a project, or convince your team to run with your idea. No matter. It’s all negotiation. And better negotiation skills on your part lead to better outcomes for everyone.
Skill # 1: Do Your Homework
The first step to a successful negotiation is understanding who you’re dealing with—who your counterpart is.
I’m not just talking about pulling up their name in a Google search, or looking at their profile on the LinkedIn. I’m talking about going much deeper than this.
- What does your counterpart want?
- What does she need?
- What is her background?
- What motivates her?
- What pressure is she under?
- What other options does she have?
The biggest mistake you can make when you enter a negotiation is to assume your counterpart feels and thinks like you. There is no shortcut to doing your homework. You must take the time to learn as much information as you can before you start presenting your ideas or making requests. This may mean that the negotiation takes place over several conversations. The first conversation or two is simply information-gathering on your part.
Information is the surest path to empathy
If you do your homework, you’ll be way ahead of the empathy game. You’ll be in a prime position to show your negotiation counterpart (your boss, in this example) that what you’re presenting will actually benefit him.
Adjust the questions to get to the emotional core of what your counterpart is after. In the case of getting your boss to approve a purchase, what makes him look good?
- How does your boss make decisions?
- How does this purchase solve his challenges?
- If he’s subject to a committee, do you know for sure that his challenges are the same as the committee’s?
- What are the committee’s goals?
- What are the goals of your boss’s department or organization?
- How can you demonstrate that it solves your boss’s challenges?
- How is your boss and your team evaluated at quarter end, or year end?
- What is your boss’s schedule like? (This question will help you determine the best time to approach him.)
Bring in the data
Part of your information-gathering process should be centered around data. Backing up your points with the right data is a good idea for two reasons:
The data itself tells your counterpart a story. It speaks for itself—and data comes across to us as unbiased. (Even if we know better. All data is biased in some way—we know this—but still, the human brain interprets numbers as impartial.)
Bringing data to the conversation tells your counterpart that you’ve come prepared. You’re not just speaking off-the-cuff and from your emotions—you care about the topic at hand, and you’ve done your research.
Concentrate on finding data that clarifies the problem and shows the benefit of your proposed solution to the problem. For example, how purchasing this software fits into this quarter’s budget, how many man-hours it will take to implement it, how exactly it will benefit the team, and how it will save budget starting the very next quarter.
Most importantly, look for data that shows you understand your counterpart’s individual goals, the goals of the organization, and that you are invested in helping them achieve those goals.
I'll share the other two negotiation skills in the next post.
To your greater success and fulfillment,Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance ConsultantSMART DEVELOPMENT
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