This post is by Jeff Perry

Negotiations are a fact of life. We cannot avoid them. Whether we are negotiating compensation for a new job, the price of something we are trying to buy, a large corporate agreement, or even what to eat for dinner, we are constantly negotiating.

Always Look for Negotiation Opportunities

One of the biggest problems with negotiations is many people do not even try! Usually this is because they think that issues are not open for negotiation. The truth is, unless there is some sort of ethics issue involved, it is always okay to ask if things are negotiable. This can have huge effects on your life and career. 

Think simply if you negotiate an additional $5k/year in starting salary for your first job and an additional 1% increase in salary per year. The cost of not negotiating can be in the millions of dollars over the course of your career, even though it seems so small up front. 

Just ask and see what happens.

Find the Win-Win

Many of us have the wrong idea about the idea of winning a negotiation. We wrongly think that negotiations always result in winners and losers. Sometimes this is true, but it does not have to be. 

We can get caught into the trap or perception that we are working with a “fixed pie” – that there are only so many resources to go around, and we must fight over them in negotiations. Often, there are mixed motives involved, where interests do not directly line up across parties.

Win-win negotiations are possible in many cases. It’s not easy, but it can be done. 

Seek to Understand

To find those win-win opportunities, you will have to spend time deeply understanding the interests and desires of your negotiation partner(s). This is especially true if there are multiple items that are being negotiated. 

Each of you may have different priorities or values associated with each item for negotiation. This is a good thing. This means that you each have opportunity to give up something of less value in order to receive something of more value. 

Spend a lot of time asking questions that help you understand every interest of your negotiation partner. Being genuinely curious about what they care about will not only help you know what items you should focus on, but also help build trust. 

Similarly, it is very important to share you interests or what you want in the negotiation. Being coy or failing to reveal your interests makes it such that the other side must guess your interests, and people do not often guess correctly. This means that you are less likely to get what you want. 

Successful negotiation is like a puzzle that needs to be put together. It takes time to make the discoveries, but it can also be kind of fun!

Learn from Each Experience

It is hard to appropriately debrief and get feedback in real-life negotiations. Rarely will people share exactly how satisfied they were with the negotiation outcome. However, like anything else in life, if you are not continually seeking to learn and improve, you will not get any better. 

Perform some personal analysis from each negotiation experience. Ask a friend who knows something about the issues at hand for their thoughts and ideas. 

If negotiations are foreign or scary to you, learn more about them! Take a short course on negotiations, watch some YouTube videos, or find a coach who can help you through a negotiation situation. 

Negotiations are a part of life – if you can focus more on what the other parties are trying to accomplish and help them do that without sacrificing what is most important to you, you can develop those win-win opportunities.

About Jeff Perry

Jeff Perry provides engineering professionals and teams with transformational coaching and programs to help develop soft skills like leadership and mindset to unlock hidden potential and remove self-imposed roadblocks for career and life.

For years, he has had the pleasure of supporting engineers and software pros from new grads to executive levels. Having been on the front lines in the technical world, he has been able to map out the necessary skills for becoming a quality leader in the field.

You can connect with Jeff on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffcperry/ or visit his website, morethan-engineering.com.

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