Life is a series of negotiations. You negotiate all day, every day, from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep. If you're like most people, when you think about negotiation, you picture people talking to "the other side."
In "WHEN DOING IT ALL WON'T DO: A self-coaching guide for career women," we state that too often, our collaborative nature, distaste of conflict, and/or longing to be popular and well-liked will sabotage us as we avoid asking for what we need or want.
It is important to recognize that although we may believe we are not negotiators or poor negotiators, each of us will be required to negotiate throughout our lives. We’ll negotiate with our partners over household responsibilities, care of children and finances. We’ll negotiate when purchasing vehicles, our home, major repairs, etc. We’ll negotiate when offered a job or looking for advancement. We might as well get prepared.
Secondly, we’ll want to evaluate who has the power or authority to give us what we want. We need to identify the person who can say “yes” and change our situation—a “critical enabler”.
Thirdly, we must understand what we desire. The idea of negotiations is to see if you can get your interests met through mutual agreement. It is not being confrontational. It is about working to solve a problem to everyone’s satisfaction. Approaching negotiations with a positive attitude is crucial for a positive outcome.
In a work situation, you will want to be prepared with a plan that includes trying to determine what the other side may want and why. Of importance will be a statement that points out what it is you are looking for and where you add value to the organization. This will bolster your confidence when you speak.Developing our negotiation skills will be one of our most valuable accomplishments. Many women don’t receive what they deserve simply because they don’t ask.
Whether they are pitching to a customer in an office, brokering a peace deal or arguing over curfew at the kitchen table, negotiators are people trying to persuade other people of their point of view. But, according to business leadership expert Erica Ariel Fox, who's taught negotiation at Harvard Law School for nearly twenty years, that's only half the story.
In her book, "WINNING FROM WITHIN: A Breakthrough Method for Leading, Living and Lasting Change," Fox offers a fresh and compelling way to see things differently; the most important negotiations we have are the ones we have with ourselves.
Can you talk to yourself without being crazy?
You probably recognize the internal tug-of-war. It's what happens when you want to stay at the office, but also want to keep your promise to the family to get home in time for dinner. When you intend to collaborate with your colleagues on the management team, but then get rigid and stuck in your opinions. When one side of you votes to roll the dice and go for your dream job, while another worries about paying the mortgage. It's what you do when part of you wants to give your relationship every chance to work, while another knows that this time it's really over.
Negotiating with yourself goes on all day, both at home and at work. Learning to communicate well and to influence other people are essential skills in business. But Fox makes a strong case that even more fundamental to high performance and personal fulfillment is learning to negotiate effectively with yourself. WINNING FROM WITHIN breaks new ground by giving readers a seven-step system for tackling these internal negotiations, whether they want to improve their results and relationships at work or in their personal lives.
Fox teaches people to see the different sides of themselves as negotiating parties, what she calls your "inner negotiators." These inner negotiators have their own interests and preferred outcomes. They also correlate with different regions in our brains. These inner negotiators govern your capacity to dream about the future, to analyze and solve problems, to build relationships with people, and to take effective action. Each one enables you with its own skills, unique characteristics, and particular values about leading and living.
Focusing only on your behavior won't create the lasting change you want. That approach is well tested, and proven to get you similar outcomes, if packaged differently. Thinking you can change the world by focusing only on what's happening around you or outside you is a failing mindset. It just doesn't work. To generate lasting change, you need to work on both the outside and the inside. You'll get better results, stronger relationships, and more of life's deeper rewards as you pay attention to both of them.
Sources: Erica Ariel Fox: Winning from Within: A Breakthrough Method for Leading, Living, and Lasting Change
John Agno: When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women
John G Agno: Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge.