Your Best Self Negotiation Strateiges

Increase the chances of getting what you want in any negotiation by bringing your best self to the table. Here are a few best self tactics to keep in mine when strategizing how you will ask:

1. Your behavior leading up to your negotiation is beyond reproach. Clean up your side of the street at least three months before sitting down to negotiate. You do not want your ask for a raise, or whatever you are negotiating, to be muddied with questionable past behavior. Why would a boss give you a pay raise when your behavior is disrespectful or disruptive? Why would a client continue business with you when your customer service is spotty? Clean up past behavior before attempting to ask for more.
2. Compassionate concern for the other negotiator. According to Webster compassion is defined as “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” Yes, its true. Enter any negotiation with the notion that you are there to help the other side alleviate their challenge. Become other-conscious so you can stop thinking about your needs, your desires, or your wants. Help them help you reach an agreement from a place of mutual concern. Even the toughest negotiator has a heart. Connect with genuine concern for their well being.
3. Pause, slow down, listen. Your behavior in a job interview, sales conversation, or contract negotiation is a sneak peak at how you will conduct business. You can come across as uncaring and machinelike by avoiding eye contact, racing through what you have to say, and not stopping to hear what are the other side’s objections. Remember, in any negotiation, the conversation is about how you can help the other person overcome their challenges.
4. The negotiation table is a place where equals meet. Do not bring past power struggles with you when you are about to ask for a salary increase, pitch a program, or suggest a new vendor. You cannot show up as your best self if you are anxious about your lack of power. In my public policy work perceived lack of power use to get the best of me and still does sometimes. Arguing for public policy initiatives against high-powered lobbyists from firms with large budgets is intimidating. Those are the moments I remember my mantra: “I am inferior to no one.” Repeat, “I am inferior to know one.”

Bring your highest self to any negotiation. If your behavior is above reproach you will have a stronger place from which to negotiate. Have compassion for the well-being of the other side and show it by pausing, slowing down, and listening without judgment. Arrive at the negotiation table or phone conversation as equals. When it comes to finding agreement there can be no pretense of power. Mantras can be very helpful when leveling the playing field in your mind.

Are you ready for your big ask? Click here to set up a time to chat with Patty Tanji. You will get a clear vision of what you want, learn how near or far you are from getting it, and understand what might get in the way of your next successful negotiation. You will walk way from our chat knowing exactly what you must do next to ask and get what you want.