Negotiating to Win-win
Effective negotiations will land you many things in life, including the job you want. Bullying your way into a good salary and benefits is not the way to go. You might think you’ve won; only to find out you’ve lost in the end. Accomplished negotiator and sports agent Ron Shapiro walks Medzilla readers through the fundamentals of a successful negotiation and how to create not only a win for you, but also a win for the other side and a relationship for the long term.
Marysville, WA (PRWEB) May 7, 2004 -- 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.”
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/5/prweb124045.htm