7 ms·

This matches my experience perfectly, both in salary and contract negotiations. You get a long way with smile and a focus on the core: We both want to do someth

• Normal_gaussian 7y ago
  Unless they use your easy going cooperativeness to run you in circles, endlessly delaying something they don't want to happen. Or constantly delivering only a token amount of their side of any compromise deal to cause re-compromises etc. Sometimes soft negotiations have to turn to hard negotiations. In fact, I would argue that the potential to turn into a hard negotiation - but not yet being such - is a key factor in making soft negotiations work.
  • Madmallard 7y ago
    In my experience if it's not a point they are actually flexible on they will 100% do this no matter how charismatic you try to be.
  • jacobush 7y ago
    Speak softly and carry a big stick.
    • theelous3 7y ago
      Sure, but in employment post salary negotiation your only (or at least biggest) big stick is leaving. For many people that's a... double edged stick, to stretch the analogy. There's not many sticks to emolpy unless you're unionised or otherwise have strong networking in the company.
      • ReptileMan 7y ago
        Timing is critical. If you are crucial to a project and threaten to leave while deadline looms and cost the company couple of million - then they will be flexible.
        • ChuckNorris89 7y ago
          Be careful with that though as it will only work once and you might not last long there after that. While the company might give you what you ask for this one time, they will feel blackmalied and will see you as a flight risk, ready to leave for greener pastures at any moment anyway, so they'll prepare themselves by restricting your access to promotions, trainings and critical work so you don't pull that stunt again and slowly reduce its dependency on you and you could soon find yourself training your future replacements. It's all 101 in the HR handbook. Try it, but only as long as you always have an exit planned.
          • plapetomain 7y ago
            > While the company might give you what you ask for this one time, they will feel blackmalied and will see you as a flight risk, ready to leave for greener pastures at any moment anyway, so they'll prepare themselves by restricting your access to promotions, trainings and critical work so you don't pull that stunt again and slowly reduce its dependency on you This is a pretty reliable trope. I feel like I hear this every time someone mentions putting the screws to their employer. Yet I have yet to see it borne out by evidence. It sounds scary. In practice I have never experienced it. The reality is that institutional memory at most institutions is so fleeting that this above threat has never become an issue in practice. Mind you in all cases I’ve always been prepared to walk, so that’s something to keep in mind, but I’ve never experienced worse treatment for leveraging what scraps I have. It’s pretty much been the opposite. Once I have that promotion by whatever means, magically I’m treated better. It has never failed.
      • eru 7y ago
        Well, the company doesn't really have that many sticks either, once you are in. They can fire you, and they can delay advancement. (Btw, you have an implicit stick about not working with as much motivation.)
  • chasd00 7y ago
    very true, being nice gets you very far but it can also lead to you turning into a doormat. The trick is seeing it coming and changing the discussion appropriately. I had a boss that was an expert at this, he was all smiles and sunshine with vendors until they started to take advantage. At that point, they found they were negotiating with a calculator on the sum of 2+2.
• watwut 7y ago
  > My intuition is, that as long as the talk is progressing in a pleasant manner, you're inching towards your goal. Not in my experience. Plenty of people able to progress talk in super pleasant manner without moving from their original position. Or to pleasantly promis and then conveniently forget that. Or most often, to make it sound like they agree, make vague pleasant statements that mean nothing.
  • Proziam 7y ago
    This sounds like a process issue to me. If you document what was discussed as it happens ("Just to confirm, you're happy with X?) and have a record of that (actually recording a conversation, with everyone's approval of course) is a good way to keep everyone honest. That's not to say you can't have a dishonest counterpart - they certainly do happen. But in my experience when there's an issue like you described above there is fault to be found on both sides of the table. Leaving your notes visible in some form during a chat is another way to solve this. By having it written and in plain view it suddenly becomes much harder for the other party to come back later and say 'well I didn't actually agree to...'
    • watwut 7y ago
      That requires power I don't have. And I can not reasonably demand to record conversations with local management. And no matter how much notes I write to myself, the management simply does not care, because I don't have power to force them to follow own words. Visible notes do nothing if couterpart does not mind being dishonest or worst treats notes is being rude. (Not working in that worst group anymore, but it played in dishonest way with multiple people.) Dishonest people set up process and culture so that it is easy to be dishonest. They do happen quite often. And it is not fault of people who are being intentionally lied to.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • magicalhippo 7y ago
        Clearly it's rather different to negotiate when you're in a symmetric relationship vs an asymmetric relationship. What Proziam mentioned "[if] they don't take a fair deal when offered, be prepared to walk away" doesn't work if walking away means not eating for the next week, for example.
• irateswami 7y ago
  If a company ever told me I cannot work on other things in my personal time, I would promptly tell them to suck on a rock and walk out. You can't negotiate with asinine people/corporations with asinine policies. If they feel comfortable telling you what you can and cannot do on your own time, imagine what they feel comfortable telling you to do while you're working.
  • astura 7y ago
    It's not as "asinine" as it seems at first glance. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-projects/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr...
    • irateswami 7y ago
      Telling someone they can't do projects on their own time is a different question than the ownership of said projects.