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Negotiating to Win-win
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Added: 05/10/2004
Type: Summary
Viewed: 1040 time(s)
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Negotiating to Win-win
Whether you know it or not, you are always negotiating. Your negotiating skills become particularly apparent during the job hunt, when you convince employers and recruiters that not only should you be at the top of the pile of resumes but you should be their choice for the job. Once you negotiate past those hurdles, you face yet another—the negotiation to get what you want out of the job, including pay, benefits, location, etc.
The problem is that negotiating is not innate. And your mere lack of negotiating skills might forever hinder you from getting the job and terms you want.
USA Today called Ron Shapiro “one of baseball’s most respected agent-attorneys,” and Sporting News named him one of the “100 most powerful people in sports.” Shapiro has negotiated more than $1 billion in contracts for the likes of Cal Ripken, Jr. and baseball’s Hall of Famers Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson and Kirby Puckett.
The funny thing is Shapiro isn’t known for trouncing his opponents, aiming to squeeze every last penny and benefit out of “the other side.” Rather, the coauthor of book The Power of Nice: How to Negotiate so Everyone Wins-Especially You! says the commonly used bully approach usually ends in a lose-lose. Anyone negotiating anything will fare better if they go in with the mindset that both sides should walk away from the table feeling like a winner.
“Careful negotiations is extremely important for job candidates because the deal you negotiate will be what you have to live with for the foreseeable future,” says Frank Heasley, PhD, president and CEO of MedZilla.com, a leading Internet recruitment and professional community that serves biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science. “The goal of your negotiations has to be to understand the needs of the employer and position yourself so that you are the person to meet those needs.”
Shapiro’s philosophy is simple: In order to get what you want, think about helping the other side get what it wants. “It’s based on an understanding through years of negotiation that if you play win-lose, frequently it ends up being lose-lose. If you’re an employer … and you squeeze the people who work with you for the last penny, hour or minute, they’re going to get you back. And they’re not going to give you the performance you want,” he says. “There are examples of that in the baseball world, where management squeezes labor and labor squeezes management. That led to a baseball strike. Everybody lost. They pulled down the World Series in 1994.”
The last thing that Shapiro wants you to do is be wimpy, however. Good negotiating is not about just giving people whatever they want, that’s wimp-win, leading to lose-win. The whole idea is to walk away with what you think is a Win-win, where you might have an edge, but not enough of an edge to leave the other side feeling like a loser.
“The philosophy that we’re talking about is focused on allowing you to make a good deal—one that satisfies everyone--and to build a relationship. You need relationships,” he says.
Dr. Heasley says those “relationships” are invaluable once you land the job. You might sweat it out in the negotiation process to get the job, getting top dollar and making the other side’s life miserable until it gives in, but that kind of fight will only come back to haunt you as an employee of the company, he says.
Learning the steps of negotiation
According to Shapiro, negotiation is a process and not an event. Shapiro says the secret to powerful negotiations is employing the three Ps: prepare, probe and propose. You might be used to going right in and doing the “propose,” not realizing the “prepare” and “probes” are the foundation of a strong deal. Without them, your deal or negotiation will be on shaky ground.
Prepare
Preparation involves gathering your arsenal of information. Research the topic. Study your and the other sides viewpoint and stockpile your information. Shapiro recommends using these seven steps for gathering information:
Precedents: If your goal is to negotiate salary, get you hands on information about what similar positions are earning. Don’t throw a number out; rather, have a basis for that number in order to support your terms.
Alternatives: Know your alternatives going into the negotiations. If the employer can’t give you every penny that you deserve in the marketplace, what are some other things that would make the deal for you?
Interests: Know the other side’s interests. Is the employer faced with a shortage in workers doing what you do? Also, recognize your interests. Do you need a job in order to pay the bills or are you just looking around?
Deadlines: Understand the pressure you are under to get the job and the employer is under to fill it. That understanding will help you determine how to proceed in the negotiations.
Strengths and weaknesses: Shapiro says that negotiators tend to over-estimate their own weaknesses and the other side’s strengths. Take an “honest inventory” of each side’s strengths and vulnerabilities, he says.
Highest goal/walk away position: Develop a goal and a walk-away. If you don’t develop a walk away, you’ll get yourself into a frustrating situation.
Strategy and team: Understanding the players. Who has authority? Is it the person you are dealing with? Strategy is about setting up a plan. Write out of script detailing your negotiation strategy and try it on someone before meeting with the other side.
Probe
It’s easy to jump into presenting right after you’ve prepared. But before you do, you want to get more information from the other side, Shapiro says. “You want to learn how to probe. That’s about asking questions and being a good listener.”
Being a good listener makes it possible to end the negotiations on a Win-win note. Ask questions during the negotiations before making your proposal. Some good ones are:
What’s important to you (the employer)? What else is important to you? What’s most important to you? Ask about hypothetical situations.
“Frequently, when you make a request for money, the other side might say, ‘We don’t have that in the budget.’ Then you’re left in a situation where you could be deadlocked. Whereas if you probe, and say things hypothetically speaking, ‘If you had it in the budget, would you support this?’ ‘Have you ever had a deal where you haven’t had it in the budget and have been able to make it work?’” Shapiro says. “By asking questions, you don’t move to deadlock and you get information which might lead to a solution.”
The key is to spend more time listening than talking. If you can, take notes as the other side is talking. The information you gain during the probing phase will shape your proposal and give you invaluable insight during your negotiations.
Propose
After you have done good preparation and adequate probing to understand the interests and needs of the other party, you are ready at least to make an initial proposal. Shapiro says there are guidelines that impact the way to propose. First, you want to try not to make the first offer. After all, the employer might be willing to offer you more than you thought, or if the offer the employer makes is awful, you’ve left yourself open to come back with a counteroffer that will keep the negotiations alive.
When you present your offer, aim high (with reason) so that the other side has some room to negotiate down, Shapiro says. Finally, do not immediately take the first offer. If you do, the other side might think them made a mistake. Raise a question or tell them you want to think about it. Put a condition on it--do something to make them feel that a negotiation is taking place and not that they have over bid.
“The employer who is negotiating with you for salary might ask how much you made at your previous job. Your answer to that question is that it has no relevance. Keep focused on negotiating the job at hand and presenting your information, asking questions and making your proposal based on that knowledge,” Dr. Heasley says. “If you stay on course, you will probably not only get what you want but be able to look forward to a long and valuable relationship with your employer.”
About MedZilla.com
Established in mid 1994, MedZilla is the original web site to serve career and hiring needs for professionals and employers in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, science and healthcare. MedZilla databases contain about 10,000 open positions, 13,000 resumes from candidates actively seeking new positions and 71,000 archived resumes.
Medzilla® is a Registered Trademark owned by Medzilla Inc. Copyright ©2004, MedZilla, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce and distribute this text in its entirety, and if electronically, with a link to the URL www.medzilla.com. For permission to quote from or reproduce any portion of this message, please contact Michele Groutage, Director of Marketing and Development, MedZilla, Inc. |
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