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The Skill Of Workplace Negotiation

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When your work life is good and everyone is getting along, it’s easy to let your negotiation skills slip. However, it never seems to last long. As much as you may dread it, change happens. You might get a new boss, a new employee or a new colleague who turns your happy life upside down.

When change happens, it’s time for you to brush up on your negotiation skills so you can become your own advocate. If you’re aiming for a promotion or raise, for example, you should be able to explain why you are deserving of it. Practicing your persuasive speaking will do you a world of good in this situation. Good communication is key. You can’t expect to negotiate effectively if you can’t articulate your position.

Simply saying, “I need a raise,” isn’t going to win over your manager. Instead, say something along the lines of:“I appreciate you complimenting me on my successful handling of that big account last week. I’d like to get some time on your calendar in the next few days to update you on my other high-profile account accomplishments. During my last evaluation, we discussed the possibility of me getting a raise based on these types of endeavors, and I’d appreciate your feedback as to how close I am to meeting that goal.” Not only are you showing your confidence, but you’re also showing the extent to which you took the suggestions on your performance review to heart.

It’s advantageous to be emotionally adept. If someone was promoted ahead of you, it’s perfectly OK to ask what you could have done better. Practice a mature, neutral tone of voice, so when you ask for time to discuss the query with your supervisor, you’ll come across as a colleague eager to learn — which sets you up as a candidate who will be well thought of in the next round of promotions.

I believe becoming emotional about a change that doesn’t benefit you personally will waste your time and diminish your sense of perspective. It’s easy to think someone has it in for you when your work world falls to pieces. Step back and look at the situation dispassionately, and you’ll realize that you weren’t the personal target of the change. It was likely initiated by a business need in the organization.

I’ve worked with people who think their VP has a personal vendetta against them. It’s difficult to make progress in your career when you won’t stop complaining. It doesn’t solve anything, and it only serves to make you look irrational. No one is interested in giving a raise to, or promoting, an employee with a negative attitude.

What instigated the change?

Divorce your feelings of betrayal from your powers of logic to answer the question, “What caused the change?” Is one office or department underperforming? Are there some major discrepancies in the projected profits and the current balance sheet? Did corporate decide to consolidate offices?

Instead of bottling up your feelings, reach out and connect on a reasonable and honest level. If at first you feel like doing some venting, remember that work is likely not the proper venue. Your friends and loved ones can provide you with a safe space to express your feelings. Take a deep breath, and connect with a workplace counselor, trusted colleague or mentor.

When your boss announces the change or holds a preliminary meeting, you might be too overwhelmed at that time to make sense of it all. Once you’ve processed it, you can absorb the facts, have a constructive meeting and negotiate your way into a more advantageous position during the change.

Prepare yourself.

When you do feel ready to negotiate, be prepared. Who will be in the meeting? What questions are you likely to be asked? This is the time to bring facts and figures with you. Documentation, logic and rational thinking are called for.

Be an active listener. What are the major points being made? Make notes so when it’s your time to speak, you have relevant material to bring to the conversation. The best negotiations are collaborations where everybody wins at least a little.

If you’re new to the negotiation game, consider the advice of “Negotiating at Work: Turn Small Wins into Big Gains” by Deborah M. Kolb and Jessica L. Porter. They explain, “If you have previously never negotiated in your workplace, then you’ve essentially trained people to expect that you will not do so.” They advised that if others will likely be surprised by the fact you’re even negotiating, you “should address their surprise and consider how they will react to the content of your negotiation.”

Think about how you’re going to frame this negotiation in the best light for the team and for the company. How can you ease the participants into a valuable discussion mode? Consider the tools you have, from persuasive speaking to credible presentation material.

Ensure you’re all on the same page.

I’ve found clarification is also important. The assumptions you and your perceived adversary have made might be completely off the mark. According to Peter Landau at Project Manager, “Chances are both parties are walking into a negotiation with a lot of preconceived ideas of what the other wants. … Therefore, it’s always helpful to start the negotiations on the same page by asking the other party what their motivation is.”

When you step outside yourself and think in terms of the other person, the main participant in this negotiation, you bring yourself into a different viewpoint, and you can get into a better space for the meeting. When you think of it as a fair compromise between two or more parties who desire different paths to the same outcome, it’s easier to visualize a successful conclusion for everyone concerned.

Once you’ve managed the art of cooperation instead of confrontation, you’re well on the way to achieving a peaceful and profitable resolution to the issue at hand.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes

How To Avoid The Pitfalls Of Office Politics

Although you might think of “office politics” as a phenomenon beginning in the business world, I believe its origins trace back further. For example, if you take a long view of it, one’s behavior in the workplace might stem from childhood experiences, such as those in the family unit, on the playground or in the classrooms. As a leadership coach, I’ve seen that if these behaviors are negative, they can play a role in creating in office politics and an unhealthy work environment.

According to a 2019 study by Randstad (registration required), a “pleasant work atmosphere” is among the top five most important attributes for U.S. workers. If you’re someone who wishes the politics of climbing up the corporate ladder could be eliminated and replaced by a logical, merit-based process, you’re certainly not alone. There are likely a number of workplaces out there that can fit this ideal description, but sometimes, they might feel hard to find. If you don’t feel you’re in a positive work environment, below are five steps you can take to navigate your workplace without getting stepped on:

Scope out the playing field.

What does the official organization chart look like? Perhaps, more importantly, what does the “unofficial” organization chart look like? There are figureheads, and then there are the people who really get things done. It pays to know who is who.

Consider how your position fits into the team structure.

Who do you regularly interact with, and how can you build on those relationships? If you’re constantly at loggerheads with a colleague you work with frequently, every day can seem like a battle. The first thing you can do to make the situation workable is to try to understand why the interactions are unproductive and consider the other person’s point of view. Do you always insist on things going your way? Are you uncompromising? What is the other person being tasked with producing? Are your business goals the same? Taking the emotion out of the equation can be a big help in this step.

Have the courage to ask a couple of associates whose opinions you trust and respect what improvements you could make in everyday interactions with other employees. How are your listening skills? Does your body language make you appear unapproachable? If you’re having problems with your interactions with team members, they might be on your end, not the other person’s, so it’s critical to look at how you might be contributing to the situation.

Find common ground.

When you get an assignment you don’t like or have to work with a peer you don’t get along with, what is your reaction? If you take the easy road and immediately start complaining to your group of friends, it accomplishes nothing. And in my experience, if word of that behavior circles its way back to your boss, it probably won’t be looked upon favorably.

Instead, spend a bit of time figuring out how to make the assignment a success. How can you manage to make the assignment more palatable? Try to find common ground with your peer. Is there anything you have in common that isn’t derisive? For example, is there a hobby or sport you both enjoy? Or, perhaps you both have children the same ages. There is likely a common denominator to be found that can help defuse the combative urge between you.

Don’t make others look bad.

It might be incredibly tempting to take down the colleague you don’t get along with during an important project meeting, especially if you have them dead to rights. But put that fantasy out of your mind and take a breath. Making them look bad might feel good for a minute, but you likely will have made an enemy for a lifetime. No good can possibly come out of revenge in the workplace. Think about how you would want to be treated in that situation.

Your colleague isn’t necessarily a bad person. They might have made a mistake or misunderstood their assignment, and you never know — they could be going through something in their personal life. Ask them privately what the problem was, and offer a solution or assistance. (But do remember that if they constantly drop the ball, that’s a different scenario and might require some more input to from their direct manager if they aren’t in your department.)

Make it a win-win situation.

When it comes down to it, our main function at work is to make the company a success. If that doesn’t happen, nobody wins. In today’s competitive economy, if your company isn’t able to reach its goals, another company probably will (and you might find yourself looking for a new job). When approaching any new assignment, project or interdepartmental endeavor, ask yourself what would be a “win” for you. Then, take a moment to ask the others on the team what would make it a “win” for them. And most importantly, what would make it a “win” for the organization?

If you can find a way to weave all of these needs together in one coherent strategy, you’ve already completed the hardest part. If everyone thinks they’re getting something out of the deal, I believe they’ll be much more likely to fully participate in making the project a success.

In her book “Secrets to Winning at Office Politics: How to Achieve Your Goals and Increase Your Influence at Work,” author Marie G. McIntyre notes, “Unfortunately, if people lack clear goals, have unpleasant working relationships, or simply don’t understand how organizations operate, the joy of accomplishment is often replaced by frustration and disappointment. When people fail to master the political side of work, their jobs may become unrewarding and unhealthy.” Wishing that your office environment weren’t so political won’t get you anywhere. It’s up to you to create a better environment, adapt to the one that currently exists or plan your exit.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes

The Impact Of Connecting At Work

Humans are social animals — we crave meaningful interaction with others. Unfortunately, when we don’t get enough of it, there can be serious repercussions. This need, unsurprisingly, carries over to our lives at work. We spend so many hours of our lives working that we can end up shorting ourselves on important interactions with family and friends, so it’s only natural that we crave real connections in our work environment.

In a 2018 survey of 20,000 U.S. adults by Cigna, the company found that there are consistent traits among those who lack a connection with others: “It was found that lonelier people are more likely to have infrequent in-person interactions, disagree that their ‘social skills’/relationship statuses are good, be in fair/poor overall, physical, and mental health, and have less balance in their lives — all of which are interconnected and come with repercussions of their own.” For instance, only 36% of those who never have in-person interactions say they get enough sleep (compared to half of those who have daily interactions), and only 37% say “they get the right amount of family time (vs. 65%).”

Furthermore, a whopping 50% of those who never have in-person interactions are in fair/poor overall health, and they have an even harder time finding balance in their lives: “Only a third (33%) of those in fair/poor overall health are getting the right amount of sleep (vs. 51% of those in good, very good or excellent overall health), while 38% of those in fair/poor overall health report working for the right amount of time (vs. 57% of those in good, very good or excellent overall health).”

For those of us who work alone as freelancers or those of us who work in the corporate world but feel overwhelmingly isolated, what can we do to ensure that we have a better quality of life? One answer seems to be that we should satisfy our need to belong at work, and that appears to come down to trust and respect. According to EY’s Belonging Barometer study, “more than half (56 percent) of respondents feel they belong most at work when they feel trusted and respected, with baby boomers feeling this way the most at 63 percent, compared to Gen X at 56 percent and millennials at 53 percent.”

People also want to feel as though they’re being heard and understood at their places of work. As EY’s study found, “thirty-nine percent of respondents feel they belong most at work when they have the ability to speak freely and voice their opinion.”

Having others show that they care also can play a role. As EY reported, “thirty-nine percent of respondents say that when colleagues check in with them about how they are doing both personally and professionally, they feel the greatest sense of belonging at work.” In fact, people appear to value check-ins more than public recognition, receiving invitations to events outside the office, being invited to meet with top leaders and inclusion in email conversations with top leaders.

And so we come to the crux of my point — we crave human contact. Even at work (or perhaps, for those who have few other human interactions, only at work), we want to feel that someone else cares enough about us to inquire about our well-being.

Clearly, it’s very important to connect at work. People tend to be less healthy and have less balance in their lives when they feel they exist in a vacuum.

You also can see the results of employees feeling engaged with other employees and engaged with their work in Gallup’s 2017 State of the American Workplace report. Business units that score high in the area of employee engagement have 41% lower absenteeism and 59% lower turnover than business units in the bottom quartile. In the same engaged group, there also were 70% fewer employee safety accidents. These, plus other positive statistics, help businesses in the top quartile realize a 21% higher profitability.

Interestingly, according to the Cigna survey, “loneliness scores differ when analyzed across age/generations. Gen Zers (adults ages 18-22) surveyed have a total average loneliness score of 48.3 — granting them the title of the loneliest generation — while scores gradually drop as respondents continue to age, culminating in a total average loneliness score of 38.6 for the least lonely group, the Greatest Generation (adults ages 72+).”

Therefore, while management might intuit that the portions of their workforces who are loneliest and most disengaged are their senior employees, they would be incorrect. The employees they may need to concentrate on keeping engaged are the junior employees. But, in actuality, every employee likely wants to feel engaged and acknowledged.

One of the important things to keep in mind when trying to engage people in the workplace is their communication preference. Some employees might prefer a face-to-face chat. Those who are much busier or working remotely might prefer a video chat. There are still other employees who really prefer an email. The key to making employees feel involved, seen and acknowledged is communicating with them in the method they find agreeable. Doing this shows that you respect their individual needs for communication, which can boost your image as a supervisor or manager who has excellent communication skills.

The general idea is that interacting with people is important. Encourage your employees to interrelate. Taking the hard line that “work is work” and “personal is personal” isn’t likely to win you any prizes. Today, meaningfully interacting with co-workers is how many people get their daily dose of humanity, and that can go a long way toward employee satisfaction and company productivity.

This article has previously been featured on Forbes