Negotiating as a Learning Experience

Think about typical activities you engage in: asking for more budget, talking with a customer about an escalation, turning down a vacation request, getting a bug addressed, engaging with a prospect who wants special treatment. All of them involve negotiating, sometimes with an external party (a customer, a partner), sometimes within your team (a direct report, a peer, a manager), and sometimes with another internal teams (Engineering, Sales). And sometimes you are the requestor (you want budget, resources, a change in process) while other times you are the one receiving the request.

Negotiating can be very difficult and many of us just don’t like it. And, not surprisingly, there’s a small industry of helpers who promote strategies heavy with numbers and acronyms such as the 5 Cs, another 5Cs, the 7 elements of negotiation, and the venerable BATNA. (As an aside, the very existence of many strategies suggests that none of them are infallible.)

I won’t add more mnemonics to the list, just a few suggestions to spark a new mindset when you encounter a negotiation.

Negotiations start with the start of the relationship

You may think that a negotiation starts with a request. Wrong! The negotiation actually started way back, at the start the relationship, and sometimes before you came on the scene. For instance, in the examples above:

• The relationship with the customer started when the customer engaged with your organization, which may have happened long before you, yourself, started working there.
• The relationship with your direct report started when they were hired by their organization, again possibly much before you became their manager. Even if you hired them, you may have worked with them before, in which case the relationship would also be much older.
• The relationship with the Engineering team started when the Support or Customer Success teams were created, back in the day.
• The relationship with your manager started when they first became aware of you, maybe during the interview process but potentially way before then.

Think back to the beginning of the relationship with the person or organization you are negotiating with. What events and experiences can influence the negotiation? We’ve all worked with smallish, but long-term customers who are tightly connected with the founder and expect special treatment, for instance. Be aware of connections and past history.

Be curious

Why does your direct report want that particular week off? What else can you do for your customer besides fixing the technical issue? How are off-cycle budget requests handled? What is consuming the Engineering team’s time? Who is the decision maker for the prospect?

Find out what’s motivating the request and the requestor, and don’t assume you already know. The better informed you are, the better suggestions and counter-proposals you can make.

Don’t fixate on winning

This may be counterintuitive but the worst thing we can do in a negotiation is focusing too hard for our goal. Engaging with a “must win” mentality makes us come across as harsh, unlikable, and inflexible–and encourages the other party to reciprocate in kind.

Instead, embrace the possibility of “losing” calmly and serenely. Calm and serenity helps you create better arguments. It also projects a vibe of rational detachment that shows the other party that you are serious about finding a solution that works for them. For instance, if an escalated customer is throwing their weight around and claiming they can get you fired, don’t fight back! Simply state what you can do to help them. If the Engineering team won’t give you the time of day about a bug fix, ask what it would take to change their decision. Calm reads as strength.

Reputation matters

Negotiations rarely occur as one-offs; establishing a reputation of fairness, flexibility, and strong ethics will ease future negotiations. (Conversely, if you immediately concede to your negotiation partners, they will learn to take advantage of you, and if you embarrass, humiliate, or harass them, they will seek revenge.)

The mood of a negotiation may start at the beginning of a relationship, which could predate your participation, as noted above, but you can always reset the tone for the future through your actions.

How do you approach negotiations? And if you need coaching or training for negotiations, contact me.