“Step 1 for Negotiation Success: Identifying Your Needs”

What’s your next big opportunity? Is it a new job? A stretch assignment? Do you need to realign work to position yourself for the next advancement opportunity? Do you need more money?

We all have goals that require us to work through others to achieve. To be successful, we must negotiate. We must also realize that we are negotiators — not occasionally, but every day. And we must realize that successful negotiations don’t occur haphazardly but require careful preparation.

These are basic lessons I impart to students in the negotiations course I teach. I then give them an assignment to plan for a negotiation they need to have soon, such as for a job, to buy a car, to enter an apartment lease, and so forth. Based on interest-based negotiation principles from “Getting to Yes” by Fisher and Ury and “Negotiation” by Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry, I ask them to evaluate the following issues. Consider these issues for your next negotiation and see how careful preparation improves your results.

Understand the negotiation situation and the multiple issues involved.

For example, your job negotiation will involve salary, your position and title, duties, advancement opportunities, where you’ll work, who you’ll report to and work with, benefits and perks, and much more. Consider all these issues and how important each is relative to others.

Which items are less negotiable? Which issues can serve as trade-offs for items that matter more to you? Don’t forget the value of less intangible issues. If you are considering two jobs, would you take the one that pays less but is in a geographic region you prefer, offers fascinating research opportunities, or allows you to work remotely more often, compared to the higher paying job?

Also consider the realities you face, such as time constraints and other pressures that may require you to decide sooner than later, or constituents you may need to consult before finalizing a deal (is there a spouse who must also uproot?). These factors will influence how you balance the importance of the issues you’ve identified.

Define your and the other party’s relative interests.

Interests are the needs, wants, and goals you have and hope to satisfy. The party with whom you are negotiating also has interests, which are likely different in some respects and similar in others.

For example, when negotiating for more challenging work assignments, with the goal of realizing a promotion eventually, you have an interest in both the nature of these opportunities and in reducing the time and energy needed for routine assignments. Your supervisor has an interest in meeting team and organizational objectives, ensuring work isn’t diminished in other areas, and balancing workload among all team members. But you both have an interest in serving the team and the organization and seeing they are successful. You both also have an interest in your continued job satisfaction (you’ll leave if not satisfied, she’ll have to replace a good employee).

Define the negotiation limits.

How will you know when you’ve struck a deal? If you don’t have a solid end goal, you may get sucked into accepting a deal that sounded good, but in the end was much less than hoped for. You may also be guided more by emotion than reason. This is why, through preparation, you must know when to walk away.

The key term, popularized in “Getting to Yes,” is the “best alternative to a negotiated agreement,” or BATNA. In other words, when is it better to fall back on your alternatives, whatever they may be, than accept an offer that is inferior to your pre-determined BATNA?

In job and salary negotiations, you have determined — based on job market analysis, your level of experience, pay expectations within your region, and other factors — that a reasonable expectation is $80,000 with good benefits, advancement opportunities, and flexible work. In negotiations, you are offered $85,000, advancement opportunities within two instead of the three years you anticipated, incredible educational opportunities, flexible work arrangements, and so forth. While maintaining a poker face, yet giddy inside, you accept this deal because it exceeds your BATNA.

Conversely, $77,000 with reasonable benefits and fewer opportunities will likely not be acceptable unless some compelling factor influences you to take it. Simultaneously negotiating another job gives you confidence to negotiate the current situation. But if you have no such opportunity, or your current job has exhausted its potential, you may be influenced to accept a situation that is less than your BATNA. In general, though, thorough research and preparation should instill confidence to recognize a bad deal and take a prudent risk to walk away, knowing a better opportunity awaits.

Define targets and openings.

Successful negotiation requires a strong opening and a strategy for managing the give-and-take of proposals and counterproposals that occur.

Neither you nor the other party are likely to begin negotiations that reveal your bottom line, such as requesting $80,000 when that is your goal. You must have a plan for making an initial proposal, and subsequent counters to the other’s proposals, to land at your preferred, or target, goal. You might start at $86,000 to negotiate down to $80,000. Also, keep in mind the value of less tangible factors, such as benefits and advancement opportunities, that may influence how you open and define your target or how you redefine it in the course of negotiations.

Determine standards for a fair agreement.

How will you know whether a proposal is fair? Your preparation should also include an understanding of the standards by which a fair deal is determined. This is referred to as “objective criteria.” In a job search, you will look at reliable websites and other sources to determine relative salary expectations for the job you seek. Buying a used car involves consulting the Kelley Blue Book. Each negotiation requires a different analysis that will equip you in negotiation to determine when you are offered a reasonable deal (or better) and when to avoid being taken. CUPA-HR and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics are good places to start when doing research.

Focusing on fair standards also keeps parties from making extreme proposals. In our salary example, your prospective employer may doubt your seriousness if you request $100,000, just as you will question their integrity if they offer only $60,000.

Interest-based negotiation provides parameters by which you can arrive at a mutually beneficial agreement. This article provides guidance for assessing your side of the negotiation. My next article provides guidance as you prepare to approach the other person.