Collaboration is value-generating. It takes more effort and yields more return. Rather than 'pushing back' you work together to understand what is important to each party and find ways to meet those needs. This must be built on an equal foundation - your needle in the middle - for most effective good-faith negotiation. Your partner needs to be reasonably intelligent and reasonable for this to work.
You need to teach people what's important to you, rather than expecting them to read your mind.
Highly recommend the negotiation book 'Getting to Yes' for a thorough treatment of these concepts.
> Your partner needs to be reasonably intelligent and reasonable for this to work.
Most people are capable of being reasonable and behaving intelligently; they may just not be used to it. I figured this out some time ago. The way I do it if someone doesn't behave reasonably is to politely make it clear that working together on a problem is the only way they can get something from me.
"Getting to Yes" is a good book, I second the recommendation.
If your technical decisions are black or white, you work on trivial problems - collaborate to tackle a bigger issue where you need to consider tradeoffs.
You talk about it. Either you reach a decision you both agree on or you don't. In the latter case, it's usually more important to keep the ship sailing than to have it your way, so one of you will have to give up. If you both can't, agree on a fair procedure - like asking a third party or throwing a coin - and stick with the answer. If you disagree with the decision, you can always say your disagreement explicitly and refuse to take responsibility for it, but that's totally orthogonal to supporting it when the decision has been made.
Your technical preference is a position you take to achieve your interests. To collaborate, you have to be willing to reveal and effectively articulate your underlying interests.
Here's a sample model: http://righttojoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Assertive-v...
Collaboration is value-generating. It takes more effort and yields more return. Rather than 'pushing back' you work together to understand what is important to each party and find ways to meet those needs. This must be built on an equal foundation - your needle in the middle - for most effective good-faith negotiation. Your partner needs to be reasonably intelligent and reasonable for this to work.
You need to teach people what's important to you, rather than expecting them to read your mind.
Highly recommend the negotiation book 'Getting to Yes' for a thorough treatment of these concepts.