Category: Jobs and professional relationships

  • Mythical images of negotiation

    Picture a negotiation. What comes to mind? Two people, explicitly negotiating for a fixed period of time, over a fixed set of issues, from opposite sides of a table. Right? Common and obvious as that image may be, I’m here to tell you that it represents precious few negotiations in the real world. Outside of…

  • Don’t take no for an answer! (Ask a question)

    One of the most common words any negotiator hears is “no.” “Can you do X?” “No.” “What if I offered you Y?” “No.” “Would you consider Z?” “Sorry, no.” Most negotiators, hearing the fateful word, conclude it’s time to concede. But negotiators who have read my previous posts know that the temptation to concede is…

  • “That’s not negotiable.” (Yes it is)

    Many an aspiring negotiator has been stymied by three simple words: “That’s not negotiable.” How often do car dealers, retailers, and employers utter that tremendously painful phrase? And how directly does it strike at the heart of our grand negotiation strategy? Well, I’m here to tell you that sometimes it’s not negotiable. But many times,…