Understand What You're Negotiating

Understand What You’re Negotiating For? - Made me think during a conversation with one of my mentees

When we ask professionals to describe a career negotiation, the first thing many people think of is bargaining with a hiring manager over an offer package.

Although reaching agreement on pay and benefits is important, failure to think more broadly about your career could mean losing valuable opportunities for advancement.

Think strategically about not just what you might negotiate but how. That means going beyond planning what to say at the bargaining table; it requires keeping your eye on larger objectives, ensuring that you are negotiating with the right parties and preventing misunderstandings from derailing your requests or proposals because they are unconventional or potentially pathbreaking.

Career Negotiations can fall into 3 categories

Asking negotiations, you propose something standard for someone in your role or at your level.

Bending negotiations, you request a personal exception or an unusual arrangement that runs counter to typical organizational practice or norms.

Shaping negotiation, you propose ways to play a role in changing your organizational environment or creating a new initiative (such as revamping the way a project is run or launching a new business unit)

Depending on whether you are in an asking, a bending, you will need to vary your arguments to win your counterparts’ support.

Asking negotiations, you must demonstrate that your request or proposal is reasonable because it fits with existing practices or norms—often arise in the context of routine conversations about role assignments. Organizational needs you to perform a certain role, agree to do the job for the sake of organizational needs in exchange look for some other career-advancing opportunity. For example, you might say, “I will take on this role to help us out of the current crisis, but I would like to rotate into a job with more P&L responsibility after two years.”

Bending negotiations are particularly risky because they may give the impression that you’re seeking special treatment or unwilling to pay your dues. Justifying your request is particularly important if you are asking people to take a chance on you, such as putting you in a position for which you are not traditionally qualified. Consider the case of Bela, who wanted to move from finance into a leadership role in IT as her company launched a digital transformation. The CIO considered her unqualified and seemed likely to dissuade the CEO from giving her the job. Bela came to realize that the CIO wanted someone more experienced to oversee the IT transition, in part because failure would reflect poorly on the CIO’s own leadership. So she asked for a six-month trial while the CIO searched for a potential replacement. Bela explained why her deep knowledge of the company’s financial systems and her track record managing cross-functional teams prepared her to succeed in this IT role or, at a minimum, keep the company on solid footing until she was replaced by a new hire.

Shaping negotiations centre on proposals to change the path of your organization or working group. Because that commonly means seizing leadership opportunities, shaping negotiations typically involve more parties and the backing of allies. Organizations are also welcoming shaping proposals from employees who have ideas about how to redeploy resources and open new markets in response to economic disruptions at home and abroad.

As you prepare to negotiate, write down all the questions you have:

? What is potentially negotiable?

? How should I negotiate?

? Who will be my counterparts, and what do they care about?

? What are my fears?

Although your personal and professional networks can be a valuable source of information, you should not rely on them alone to get an unbiased understanding of the situation. Stretch your inquiry beyond your closest networks to ensure that you have the broadest information possible. Recently many people have been learning from how organizations in other industries or geographies are responding to the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. Better information helps generate innovative solutions; it can also help you make a persuasive case for managing your career the way you want to during these turbulent times.

Let me know your views

#thankyou#Negotiate#Career#HBR