“Negotiating For What You Need” By Poornima Vijayashanker
A few weeks ago I shared a post with you about how we all struggle to create time for ourselves because we’re constantly on someone else’s timeline. I talked about how my dear friend Rachel was completely burnt out. She wanted some substantial time off but her company was unwilling to meet her needs, even though she had made major contributions. Instead of submitting to their standards, she handed in her resignation letter, and gave herself a much needed break. After the break she set a goal to be more thoughtful about evaluating opportunities rather than just diving right in and then being in a less than desirable situation. She started to set boundaries and communicate what she can contribute.
After I sent out the post some of you wrote in asking me what it looks like to set standards and communicate your needs clearly. I’ve been thinking about how to best showcase this, and I think one of my students Devin, did a really great job in his email to me. I’d like to share with you what Devin wrote:
Dear Poornima,
I was head of marketing and merchandising for one of the first e-commerce companies and we’d grown our little website into the 10th most trafficked e-commerce site on the Internet. But I was feeling exhausted and burned out. I’d worked every weekend forever but after some real thought realized that I wasn’t as critical as I’d imagined. Of course my team could last for a month without me. Before I got my MBA I was an artist and I needed to refuel that part of me.
So I went to the CEO and told him that I’d decided to take a month off and paint in Italy. He informed me that I only had two weeks of vacation and that I wasn’t allowed to leave for more than a week at a time, much less a month.
I responded that I was going to go to Italy for a month to paint, and that he was going to pay for the extra two weeks.
I had a great time in Italy during that month of paid vacation and came back completely refreshed and ready to tackle challenges with a new perspective. There were 5 key things for me in that negotiation:
Everything is negotiable. Policies, regulations, etc are almost always malleable under the right circumstances. I have found this to be true often.
No one is irreplaceable. As good a job as I was doing, the company could survive without me for a month and longer if necessary. When we are in the midst of intense work, it’s natural to feel a sense of obligation that may be exaggerated. Guilt and self-importance fuel a lot of bad decisions.
People usually have more power in negotiations than they realize. I went into this discussion compensating for my natural tendency to underestimate my position.
It’s important to be prepared to walk away. You have to know at what point you are prepared to walk away and I knew that I was not willing to forego this vacation and it had to be a full month. What was up for negotiation was what I would do to prepare the company for my absence. That meant that I had already processed the ramifications of having to leave this job. I was OK with that, because…
My health is more important than any job. The long view is key and once I came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t forego my health and that I would not be doing irreparable harm to the company, I was very clear on what I needed to do.
Couldn’t have said it better myself, thanks a lot Devin for sharing your 5 key negotiation strategies!
My favorite is #3. It’s sometimes hard for us to believe in #3 because we think people who are in a position of authority have more power than us. They have one form of power: position power. But the truth is we have other forms of power that are really valuable such as knowledge power: the skills and talents we have, which our superiors need. The second is relationship power: the relationship we’ve built with them and using that to remind them that we have done a good job to meet their goals and deadlines, and we’ll continue to do so but only if they learn to respect us.
Now I want to know, if you’ve tried any of these strategies, and if you have additional ones you’d like to recommend? Just let me know in the comments below!
