Why you should not argue over position

The most common form of negotiation depends upon successively taking, and then giving up a sequence of positions.

However, when we bargain over a position, i.e. my pay check should be X dollars and not Y, the more we try to convince our boss of the impossibility of changing our opening position, the more difficult it becomes to do so.

We end up with a new interest in “saving face”, and any agreement we may reach will reflect a mechanical splitting of the difference between final positions, rather than a solution crafted to meet our legitimate interests and the ones of our employer.

Furthermore, in this situation, negotiation is time consuming. Each decision involves yielding to the other side and is likely to produce pressure to yield further, thus our boss has little interest to move quickly!

Each request for more pay and the ensuing negotiation can also endanger our relationship with management since the bargaining can become a contest of will. If we assert what we will accept and won't accept as a pay raise and our boss does the same, the task of jointly devising an acceptable solution tends to become a battle.

What can we do to have a better pay check?

According to the Harvard Negotiation Project, there is a better solution: a negotiation based on the merits. It is organized around the following principles:

• separate the people from the problem,
• focus on interest, not positions,
• generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do, and
• insist that the result be based on some objective standards.

So, before sending an email to your boss or knocking at his/her door, you need to take the time to analyze your situation: What are the risks of a potentially emotionally loaded hostile reaction? What are the risks of unclear communication? What are your interests and those of the other side? Write down options which are already on the table and identify criteria and solutions already suggested for a basis of agreement.

Then, take the time for a planning phase, and decide what your interests are, and which are most important to you? How will you handle the emotions of the other side? What could be additional options and what criteria for deciding between them?

When you think your plan is ready, you can at last enter the discussion phase while keeping in mind that you need to:

• address difficulties in communication early,
• understand the interests of your management,
• try to generate options that are mutually advantageous, and
• seek agreement on objective standards.

Easier said than done, of course, but probably the best way to reach a gradual consensus on your pay raise without all the transactional costs of digging into a position only to later having to dig yourself out of it. And, most importantly, separating the people from the problem allows you to deal directly and emphatically with your boss making an amicable agreement on your pay raise possible!

Learn more:

R. Fisher & W. Ury, Getting to Yes, Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (2d ed. 1991).

Laura T. Coffey, Negotiating a decent raise , MSNBC,Jan. 15, 2007.

Share your experience in negotiating pay raises in the comment section below!