Honestly, the biggest hack to negotiations I've ever found isn't "no" or "silence" or other such nonsense. It's: "Fair".
When I start a negotiation, I don't think about what's best for me, I think about what's fair. I think deeply about this and come at it from multiple different angles of where my personal jealousy-free line is were I on either side of the deal. And then... I just start there. I describe it in detail and elaborate on any nuance as needed.
And you know what, as a result people sure seem to like doing business with me. Negotiations aren't draining experiences, they get increasingly frictionless and the business relationships have tended to grow into rubber-stamp deals of my proposals. Also in my experience, increasing the velocity of transactions is far better for growth than trying to maximize selfish individual gain on any particular deal.
This also has worked for me in business, my personal life, and many other contexts. I've solved some really bitter, decades-long, emotionally charged disputes this way.
Your story reminds me that Rotary International promotes "The Four-Way Test," a simple guide to business and personal ethics. (There's even a copy of the test on a bronze plaque set into the corner of the Palace Hotel on Market Street in San Francisco: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SF_Four_Way_Corner...)
The Four-Way Test of what we think, say or do
1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
When I hear someone using the word 'fair' in a negotiation, I immediately think that this person is trying to manipulate me because they have run out of better rational arguments and/or they're not transparent.
If they said that 'I think would get around X after more job search but I'll settle with 0.95X for a quick offer', I'd be thankful for the information and consider the deal. If they said that 'I want X because that's the amount I'd be free of jealousy/resent/etc.', I'd be glad they shared the not completely rational but honest emotional reason behind their preference and also consider the deal.
Using the 'fair' card means that 'if you don't agree you are unfair therefore you're a bad person'.
So I recommend everyone to unpack what 'fair' means to them and explain that thing instead of using the word 'fair'.
My strategy is generally quite extreme transparency, especially in cases when we're at the beginning of a long-term relationship.
>So I recommend everyone to unpack what 'fair' means to them and explain that thing instead of using the word 'fair'
Yes, that's basically how I do it, although I don't have any reservations about using the word 'fair'. I don't think this is problematic unless you're attempting to unilaterally declare what "fair" is without offering up all of your assumptions in detail with the explicit declaration that they're up for debate. It's more like: "Hey so I've tried really hard to define what I think a fair deal would look like in this situation and here's the exact methodology, angles, and assumptions I came up with to do that. When I applied that methodology, here is the number I came up with. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, or if you can think of any criticism or omissions in my assumptions or methods, or if you have any different methodology you'd like to consider, please let me know. Let's chat."
Usually when I go over all the different ways in which I have already considered their viewpoint, needs, benefits, and drawbacks, that's enough for a yes. Sometimes though, people will take issue with one of the assumptions or criteria and then we can debate about that, but the whole discussion at that point tends to already be framed on defining what fair is, rather that what they want, or what gripes they have with the opposing party.
Collaborative vs. Adversarial Negotiation essentially.
Putting yourself in the other person's shoes and knowing what they want, which is what we do all the time in trying to convince another person to do something for us, be it a child, friend, or coworker.
On a related note: It’s also a good idea to walk a mile in someone’s shoes before you criticize them. That way, when you criticize them, you’ll be a mile away from them - and you’ll have their shoes!
I negotiate professionally. I'm still tempted into one or two books a year on the subject. But the only one I'm ever tempted to recommend is Jim Freund's Smart Negotiating. Very modest in its claims.
Negotiation is a lot like public speaking. The first, most important thing is getting past the idea that it's something you're supposed to be afraid of, actually doing a deal, and realizing you got away with it. Not "crushing" the other side. Not scoring a "win". Just working through the process and ending up better off for it.
Once you're confident enough to practice, it probably won't be hard to find opporunities. Most other people still avoid it, after all. From there you can learn.
Negotiations is a complex subject, and certainly one that us engineer types normally don't get directly involved with. I had some exposure to this world early in my career, as an engineer for a small software house, getting involved in pre-sales support. My job was to get called into meeting and to say 'no'.
How this worked was that at a particular point in the sales cycle, the client would invariably ask a deep technical question (it was usually a tech from their side who had been brought along to the meeting for this very purpose). Our sales team would call on me, i'd turn up, hear the question, and my job was to say 'no' we couldn't solve that. I'd mention that we could do something close to what they had asked for, and maybe it was worth taking this discussion outside of the meeting. I'd swap cards with their tech, and we'd continue the discussion over the coming days.
This proved to be a very important part of the negotiations. They needed us to say no, our engineers and their engineers would start talking about implementation and how things would work together (where the boundaries were between systems). Their techs would give positive feedback to their management, and the deal would close.
Not sure I fully get it, but in this case you said "maybe"? Doing a workaround or even continuing to gather requirements is not really a "no", in my book.
I think maybe an example would be easiest. Let's say the client asked 'can your system respond within 10ms to requests?'. I'd say 'no it can't guarantee this'.
I'd then discuss how the system architecture couldn't give any hard latency guarantees, but that depending on the load and hardware they purchased we would generate different latency characteristics, say, 98% of requests processed within 10ms.
This would lead to an offline discussion and sharing some profiles for existing hardware configuration we'd tested, and maybe some estimates of the hardware costs to meet their requirements.
So I heard from the source material is its important to start with a "no" and then talk about how you can solve their problem with what you can do. In my book, that's not a "Maybe". Negotiators come in with a set of presumptions and its important to bust that bubble perceptually and then offer what you are capable of doing.
> 48. “Sure, Frank, we’re on board. We want to place the biggest order ever with Acme—50, 000 widgets.”
> 49. Then, one or two calls later, “I didn’t even bring it up, Frank. It seemed unnecessary. I’m assuming about a twenty percent discount at that volume. Is that what you have in mind?” Never fall for the quick “yes.” Assume nothing. Avoid the emotional roller coaster. Don’t get needy. Don’t “chase the results” that seem to be shimmering so invitingly right in front of your eyes.
This is such an annoying negotiating tactic, though more common than asking for a large volume discount is springing things like net-90 (or longer) payment terms.
Advice from a cold-calling salesman? Yes there is a use for employing strategies in the dog eat dog of raw sales, but apply it to the rest of your life?
This is like getting childraising advice from a mafia boss, marital advice from a special forces assassination squad member, etc.
Sure, since they operate at the extremes, they have some perspective, but invariably their situation doesn't apply to yours, who live in the "normal" world of "normal" interaction.
So if your job involves collaboration, then guess what, this is a shitty shitty approach. If your job involves knife fight budgetary battles and internecine middle management machiavelli warfare, well, yeah.
The format of this summary doesn't do the book justice. The book has a big idea (seek "No", don't try to avoid it), but the format hides that pretty well. There's a lot to unpack before that idea makes any sense, but this ordered list doesn't do the job.
Also, the pronouns "I" and "my" imply that the summary was written by the author (Jim Camp), which it was not.
> Also, the pronouns "I" and "my" imply that the summary was written by the author (Jim Camp), which it was not.
I don't know this book, but did not assume it; this read like notes I might take from a book, which I will tend to write in the voice of the author so that the pronouns don't reverse if I take a direct quote.
> As a negotiator aspiring to excellence, you must, at all costs, avoid showing need. In order to avoid showing need, you must never feel it. I cannot say this enough: You do not need this deal.
Isn't this a contradiction? Because why would someone be negotiating in the first place if they weren't needy in some sort of way? On top of this though, they care about the negotiation so much that they read this annoyingly long guide and obsess over "not showing need"
Isn't suffering through this guide itself a sign of neediness?
If you "want" something, you're willing to pay a fair price for it (maybe), but you're also perfectly willing to walk away if the negotiations don't go to your liking. If the deal falls through, it's a disappointment perhaps, but no biggie.
If you "need" something, it's suddenly very hard to back away emotionally, and the other side will pick up on this and exploit it.
Using this technique I got a great deal on a car after the salesman threw out a number first. I simply sat there looking at him and said nothing for maybe 20-30 seconds. He threw out a lower number. Then I said "I'll think about it" and walked off the lot. He called me back later with an even lower number.
It felt awkward at the time to do it, but I didn't feel awkward after saving thousands of dollars.
Walking off the lot got me into the craziest argument I ever had with another human: I went to Maxwell Ford, in Austin, (2018) and asked what the cash cost of the base model Explorer was. These are practically "no options" vehicles, as they're loss leaders. Every few minutes someone would come by and try some tactic that didn't involve telling me a cost (we'd swapped ph#s at some point). At the 30 minute mark, I just got up and walked away, while the sales person & their manager were blabbing at me. They followed me to my car as I drove away. Then they just started calling ... and calling. Each time I'd say "what's the cost?" I'd count to 30, and if they didn't respond I'd hang up. About the 10th time, I asked them to stop calling.
The next day the manager calls me & begins loudly complaining that I can't just hang up on her staff. I hung up on her. She called back screaming at me. I just lowered the volume & let it go. After a minute she paused to take a breath, and I said "can I ask a question?" She said "yes", then I asked how much the car was. She started screaming again; I hung up & blocked their number(s).
Anyways: don't go to Maxwell Ford, they're not mentally well.
I ended up getting the Ford at Lief Johnson. I showed up, saying I was buying with cash. The salesman, Bob, just stared at me for a few minutes and told me a number (29k$), "take it or leave it, my commission is only $50". Out the door in 90 minutes.
I spent most of my life in a place where you get the posted, manufacturer price (or maybe lower) and there's no negotiating.
Buying a car at a dealership in the US is in my top three most bizarre experiences while living in the US. I had never witnessed humans acting that way to one another before, and I'm not sure I've witnessed anything like that since.
All this talk of "not showing need" is kinda disturbing given the pitch is that this is for work and home. If someone wants to be a super hard negotiator in a professional context, I have no comment on that, but being super reserved and not demonstrating need in the context of your spouse and kids is toxic and manipulative. "I don't need you, you must come to where I am, and where I am is the status quo. We're all rational adults here." is not a way to speak to people you have an explicitly emotional connection to (where your relationship involves what I like to call arationality, which is to say, irrationality without the pejorative connotation; not employing rationality in a context where rationality is inappropriate). "We're all predators who take advantage of the needy" is a poor outlook on life in general, but to treat people in your personal life that way is. Very concerning.
Codependency is real and you may not have experienced it but saying 'no' and giving yourself the freedom to not be needy when you negotiate - works for some people and it doesn't mean you are being toxic or manipulative or less caring - it just means you aren't always going to put the (often less than ideal) needs of the other ahead of what's best. Imagine being a parent who always caved into every desire of another - it's not always in their best interest - especially if they are not fully mature or have some other issues. Sure, if the other person is fully mature and more or less ideal then this is less of an issue.
I actually was in a terrible relationship with someone who I believe likely had NPD (IANAD. To establish I'm not making this up on the spot & provide more detail if you'd like to hear it, see this comment [1] from a year ago), and while it's true I did a bad job setting boundaries ("saying no"), the toxic manipulative tactics they used strongly remind me of the tactics in this document. They specifically told me I wasn't needed and wasn't helpful to them, multiple times every day, and when I would try to leave, they would tell me I was essential to them and that they would kill themselves if I left them. When I tried to erect boundaries, they would deliberately tear them down.
Establishing boundaries is healthy. Denying that you are in a relationship of mutual need is gaslighting. Establishing boundaries is about being honest about your needs and what you are able to provide in a relationship, and it requires making yourself vulnerable to someone; telling them where your tender spots are and asking that they not poke them. That is very much not what this document is about. This document is explicitly about denying people any possible leverage over you as a preemptive strike. Again, if it prescribed this behavior in the context of a sales negotiation, I'd have my thoughts on it, but I wouldn't comment on it. But it says, "go ahead and apply this idea literally everywhere," so I feel compelled to call that out for what it is.
May I ask if you have experienced a codependent relationship?
I wonder about the longest stretch of silence that has passed in a negotiation because both parties read the same negotiating self-help books and attempted to apply them on one another.
Were they making direct eye contact, menacing faces of stone each daring the others to make the first move? Were their jaws and brows completely relaxed staring dreamily off into the ether? Were they all self-consciously posing in various confidence-signalling power-poses, strewn about the conference table?
I would love to have been a fly on the wall there.
Same here, I found that, for myself, If i am talking to much, I am trying to fill up space. Its not my job, I dont need to please anyone. I have interests and objectives and if the line of conversation falls into those categories then I cane speak, otherwise, I really don't need to speak.
Job seeking and salary negotiation is slightly different because you don't only need to negotiate but you also need to sell yourself.
My strategy was to be enthusiastic and responsive to everything about the job and treating everyone I interact with like friends I just met.
Except for salary. Upon hearing the offer immediate change of mood to concern. Then pause in communication excused by the need to compare this offer with my life situation and plans (or talk to SO) and rejection of their offer after a day or two. In my experience it resulted in second improved offer.
He’s right about people being uncomfortable with “no”. I’ve noticed that people don’t expect it, and are nonplussed when I simply tell them, “no”. I’ve also noticed that people who avoid saying “no” tend, because of that, to promise what they can’t deliver. Ultimately, my “no” is more honest and respectful then their “yes”.
When I start a negotiation, I don't think about what's best for me, I think about what's fair. I think deeply about this and come at it from multiple different angles of where my personal jealousy-free line is were I on either side of the deal. And then... I just start there. I describe it in detail and elaborate on any nuance as needed.
And you know what, as a result people sure seem to like doing business with me. Negotiations aren't draining experiences, they get increasingly frictionless and the business relationships have tended to grow into rubber-stamp deals of my proposals. Also in my experience, increasing the velocity of transactions is far better for growth than trying to maximize selfish individual gain on any particular deal.
This also has worked for me in business, my personal life, and many other contexts. I've solved some really bitter, decades-long, emotionally charged disputes this way.