SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from over 240,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our newsletter.
Do you enjoy negotiating?
- I love it! I’ll negotiate over everything: 10%
- I like it especially for important things: 31%
- It’s OK, but it doesn’t really excite me: 26%
- Not really. I find it uncomfortable: 24%
- Not at all. I hate every aspect of it: 9%
Let’s make a deal. A reasonably large number of you enjoy deal-making. For those who find it uninteresting or distasteful, consider the implications of that stance. Recognize everything is negotiable – salary, time off, times to hold meetings, office locations, etc. It’s not just about negotiating contract terms. When we dislike an activity, we avoid it. In this case, it might mean you avoid preparing for a negotiation or even paying attention to the fact that you’re in a negotiating situation. That can be disastrous. The party who comes to the table better prepared is significantly more likely to achieve the outcome they desire. Many times that will be at your expense if you’re unprepared. So while you might find negotiating distasteful, look at the cost of not doing it well. That might change the way you approach all the day-to-day negotiations you might be involved in without even realizing you’re negotiating.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS. Before launching his own company, he worked at McKinsey & Co., Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He’s the author of three leadership books: “One Piece of Paper,” “Lead Inside the Box” and “The Elegant Pitch.”