How to Manage: Negotiating for Your Team

KELSEY ALPAIO: You are listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Kelsey Alpaio.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And I’m Amy Bernstein. When you lead a team, they come to you with requests to extend a deadline, to get a raise, to get more resources. Maybe they don’t even have to ask, you just notice the need and you start thinking about how to meet it.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Personally, I found negotiating for others to be energizing in a way that negotiating for myself, I didn’t hesitate so much or worry about coming across as aggressive. I actually got what I wanted more than usual.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That was my experience too. And research shows that a lot of women have that very same experience.

MARTHA JEONG: It seems to me that we become more free to negotiate in a way that’s most effective when we are worried less about this gender backlash.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Martha Jeong is a management professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She studies the ways people act when they’re negotiating and which behaviors are effective. For instance, she’s written for HBR about how being warm and friendly backfires in certain situations.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Not that Martha recommends we come out swinging either. She used to be a litigation attorney and thought that negotiations were inherently confrontational and argumentative. Then she became an academic and set aside the courtroom attitude. Her new beat was collaborative decision making at companies among colleagues.

MARTHA JEONG: A lot of interests that we have, especially if you’re thinking within the workplace, a lot of our interests are actually aligned. And so, if you frame it in that way in your mind, it will help you with the negotiation, but also help you in terms of not feeling so anxious or apprehensive about doing it.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Martha’s here to help us understand what’s negotiable, where our authority begins and ends, and that a series of casual conversations instead of one big serious one is how experienced negotiators win?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Martha, when someone moves into her first managerial job, what is actually negotiable?

MARTHA JEONG: Yeah, I think the important thing to remember is that the organization wants me and my team to succeed, but really I’m in the position to know the best in terms of what my team needs to succeed. And so, in addition to thinking about individual economic or objective outcomes such as are my team members getting paid enough, are they getting their raises, are they being recognized enough, are they getting promoted, you should also think about what does my team need on an everyday working basis to be happy and working at their best? And so, that could be asking questions like, when is the work done, what kind of work is being done? So, are people getting good, relevant, challenging, motivating work? Are they working on the right projects? So, if your overall framework, you remember that everyone wants you to succeed and your interests are actually aligned. I mean, it’s not saying that it’s easy. There are constraints. There’s definitely things that need to be worked out. But I think if you have that overall framework that everything that I am negotiating for is also aligned with the organizational goals and interests, I think that makes for a much better and effective negotiation.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I want to ask a follow-up to that. You mentioned the constraints. And when you as a new manager are trying to make a new hire, get a raise for someone on your team, what factors should you be considering outside your own narrow purview as you’re formulating your ask?

MARTHA JEONG: You should always think about it from multiple perspectives. So, let’s say for you what’s most salient is your team is overworked, you need someone else. Oftentimes you tend to get very narrowly focused on, I have these needs and these needs are not met, and you need to meet these needs. And I think you focus narrowly on the problem and you focus narrowly on the solution. Broadening both are important. And so, if it’s that new hire, it shouldn’t be, Oh, I need this, right? I need this. My team needs this. It should be, in order to keep this team productive in the long term, our organization really needs more manpower in this department. And your boss might say, “I told you that there’s a hiring freeze.” And you’re like, “yes, I understand. But honestly, I feel like if this continues, people are going to burn out, productivity might decrease, people might leave, and then we have to hire and train. And that’s very costly.” Stressing the fact that this is also in the organizational long-term interest. And then broadening the solution is recognizing that there may be multiple ways to get at what you need. Are some of these deadlines with clients flexible, or is it that we can have some part-time help? Is it that we can shuffle some resources around? So, you make your ask in terms of what you think is the best solution, but you’re also open to hearing about other potential solutions.

KELSEY ALPAIO: To that point too, I always went into negotiations having a specific goal in mind. So, it made it harder to know, okay, when have I actually reached as far as I can in this negotiation, how do I know that I’ve gotten everything that I can get for my team?

MARTHA JEONG: So, I think it’s really good to think about these things ahead of time. So, as you approach a negotiation, what’s the best case scenario here? What is the worst case scenario here? And also, what’s the most realistic scenario? When we talk about or teach negotiations, we talk about something called a BATNA and reservation points. So, the BATNA is the best alternative to a negotiate agreement. We always have one. Whatever negotiation you’re about to start, you always have some kind of alternative if this negotiation falls apart. And it’s really important to acknowledge what that is before you start the negotiation because if you don’t, in kind of the heat of the moment, you may forget that you don’t have to be so desperate in making this negotiation work if it’s not coming to terms that are good for you. And then the reservation point or reservation value is basically at what point do you kind of walk away from this conversation at this point. Perhaps things can change, but it’s important to think about these things before you enter into a negotiation because especially when you’re negotiating with someone who’s very good and very experienced, they can start to change your reservation point in your mind. You’re like, oh, no, I think they’re right and they’re so persuasive. I think that I should just take this agreement or make this agreement when it’s not so beneficial for you. So, I think thinking about these parameters are really important before you actually start to negotiate.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Hearing about these kind of back and forth conversations, it reminds me a lot of conversations, negotiations I had where over time I just felt like I was losing my power, even though … It turns out I probably like didn’t even have it to begin with. But I did take it personally even though it wasn’t personal that I wasn’t getting what I wanted or that I wasn’t a good manager or negotiator because I wasn’t winning this conversation. How do you keep your confidence up as a new manager when you’re navigating these conversations and they’re going on and on and on and you’re going back and forth and you’re not really getting what you want?

MARTHA JEONG: So, there’s a few things that come to mind. First is when you’re advocating for someone else, right, you’re negotiating for your team, the disappointments will feel even greater because you feel like you’re letting down or disappointing people on your team. So, I think it’s really important that before you start the negotiation, you are very open and honest with your team members that there may be constraints where I can’t get exactly what we’re envisioning at this time, perhaps just so that you don’t feel this pressure. For sure negotiations, they can be tiring and emotions start to get involved, especially as they get drawn out. And then when you think about why that usually happens is because you start arguing and you’re in this competitive mindset. So, you may have first started out with the framework of our interests are aligned, and then you start to get into a more competitive mindset, you’re arguing, you feel like you’re losing the argument or the arguments and unfair, and then some of those emotions start to get involved. And so, perhaps some of the difficulty is my boss is not seeing the value of the solution that I’m providing, but if I can convince him or her that the problem is real and important, and then I’ll be more open to their solutions, which is fine too because at the end of the day, if the problem gets resolved, even if it’s not my way of addressing the problem, if we are able to jointly think of how to solve that problem, then that’s a win for everyone.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, one of the things I’m hearing in your answers, Martha, is that you have to walk in with the confidence of someone who’s taken seriously as a manager. And that’s really hard for a lot of women in their first managerial roles. Do you have some advice for our listeners? Is there self-talk that you’ve done in your role when you first became a manager yourself?

MARTHA JEONG: Yeah. I think that it’s too much pressure when you feel like all of a sudden for this negotiation, I need to be taken seriously and I need to act or talk differently. And so, I think about how am I going to be taken seriously is something that you’ve built up every day. If you are someone who is value-add to that organization, then you are going to be taken seriously and your needs and interests are going to be taken seriously. And so, when you think about starting a negotiation, it’s really, These are some of the things I need and my team needs so that I can continue to do the work that I’m doing.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Another thing that we talked about in the last couple of episodes as well is needing to be perceived as nice and likable, but also authoritative, and especially in the negotiation setting. I think that’s a challenge. Martha, I know you have some research around being nice in a negotiation and what that does and doesn’t do for you.

MARTHA JEONG: Yeah, so, this is one of my favorite projects I’ve worked on. And so, the negotiation context in which we studied this was with purely competitive negotiations where people are negotiating over the price of an item, like a buy or seller role. And we kept the economic offers the same, but all we did is change how those offers were communicated. So, more warm and friendly or more tough and firm. And what I mean by that exactly is that when people were told to be warm and friendly in a negotiation. They were more polite, they really increased their levels of politeness. So, greeting salutations, showing gratitude, making compliments. And then when people were told to be tough and firm, it wasn’t like they were being jerks, but they were just kind of taking out all those words that we usually say to be polite and warm and friendly. They would just be more direct and to the point, “you need to lower your price.” Whereas someone who’s warm and friendly would couch that with a lot of hedges, a lot of conditional language, “could you lower the price” or, “I need you to lower the price if that would be okay with you.” And what we found in that research is that people who were tough and firm did a lot better economically. And what was interesting is that when you are warm and friendly to someone in a negotiation, they are warm and friendly back to you. So, there is reciprocity linguistically, but they are much more competitive with you economically, so you don’t get the things that you’re asking for. And one caveat to note is that that research was done in a purely competitive negotiation setting, right? Buyer or seller, we’re cutting up the pie, the more you get, the less I get. The conversations that you’re going to be having in the workplace are not going to be these one time you’re going to see your boss again, there’s reputation, there’s long term at stake, and they’re not these purely competitive negotiations as we already talked about, but I think some of the basic psychological mechanism remains the same. And so, in terms of actionable advice … and after I’ve done that research, I’m much more careful in the words that I use to make any kind of request in the workplace setting. So, when I’m talking or emails, I really try to take out some of the hedges and the conditional language because I feel like it’s not necessary. It doesn’t come off as rude, it just comes off as more direct in what you’re asking for. There’s no need to add all this fluff to make it seem more friendly and more polite because I think what happens is that people will be polite back to you, but they see you as perhaps less dominant, less experienced, and so they’re less likely to give what you’re asking. Conversational politeness is great for social conversations, but in a workplace setting, when you’re making requests and advocating for things that are important to someone’s career, you don’t need to add all of that conversational politeness.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, how does the relationship you have with your boss or whoever you’re negotiating with factor in? How do I think about building the relationship that will bring me the credibility, the ease of conversation, whatever it is that will smooth the negotiation and I hope get me what I’m asking for.

MARTHA JEONG: I read research that women engage a lot less in negotiations and men enter into negotiations that they didn’t even realize were negotiations. For women, it’s this idea that, okay, I need to have this negotiation with my boss about my team members’ promotion, and you don’t build up kind of regular conversations and all of a sudden you feel like you need to pounce on them with this request or this negotiation. Whereas oftentimes, men will just have these conversations without even thinking that they’re entering into a negotiation being like, oh, someone on my team, I really think they need to be promoted. They work so well, but they’re passed up for a promotion. They don’t even realize that they’re actually negotiating or advocating for their team member. And so, I think especially as a female manager negotiating, think about the conversations that you can have more casually on an everyday basis if possible, that kind of builds up your relationship and communication in a more natural way instead of not doing that and kind of saving it for these one-time big requests or formal negotiations.

KELSEY ALPAIO: So, it kind of sounds like negotiating is really just relationship building. It’s building that relationship over time and having that communication over time to then lead to that bigger conversation?

MARTHA JEONG: Yeah, I think that’s right. And also with relationship building, as you get to know someone better, you like them and you trust them, and trust is so important in making these negotiations as effective as possible because if you trust someone and they’re making some kind of request, you’re going to trust that they’re making a reasonable and good request that’s actually necessary for them. So, I think that relationship building every day of liking and trust and communication about your needs is something that’s really important.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Got it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Martha, this has been so informative. Thank you so much for joining us.

MARTHA JEONG: Thank you. Thank you so much.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Reflecting on some of the negotiation mistakes, but also successes I had when I was a new manager, I realized all of the times that I was successful in a negotiation, it was because I didn’t take it personally. I was really focused on making sure my team and myself were getting everything they needed to do their best work. And I think everything that Martha told us just kind of underlines that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yep. Although I bet you put your team’s interests before your own interests.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Yeah. I mean, I negotiated for a raise for my direct report before I ever tried to negotiate for one for myself. And that’s weird to reflect on now, but it makes a lot of sense. I tend to avoid conflict. I tend to avoid negotiations because I’m intimidated by them on a personal level. But when I’m able to separate myself from that and separate myself from the emotional aspects of it and just look at it as simple as the problem that I’m trying to solve … I don’t know. It feels like I can do anything when I do that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. I’ve always found it way easier to argue for the team for a teammate than for myself. I think a lot of us feel that way, don’t you?

KELSEY ALPAIO: I do. When I became a manager and I started negotiating for all this stuff, I don’t even think I realized I was negotiating. And so, I think that’s also what made it a little bit easier for me was I wasn’t going into these conversations saying, this is a negotiation. I better write down every single thing I need to ask for. I didn’t intimidate myself by labeling every single conversation I had with my boss in negotiation, even though it could be considered one.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I mean, I found in the course of the conversation with Martha that I kept thinking about things I had asked for as a manager rather than negotiation, I think for exactly the same reason. But a lot of times, it’s asking to move deadlines, it’s asking your boss to help you make a decision about trade-offs, “my team cannot possibly meet this deadline for this thing and the deadline over here for that thing, so let’s prioritize one over the other.” And so, one of the things I really had to learn how to do was to marshal all of my facts to understand the team strategy, the business unit strategy, the organization strategy, and frame my request in those terms, and then to ask on behalf of the greater good, which I think Martha was talking about, but that was a skill I had to develop.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Yeah, it’s kind of like optimizing everything. And I love optimizing. I think that’s why negotiating as a manager was a little bit easier for me because I saw it as, okay, how can we as a team get the most done?

AMY BERNSTEIN: I also think that when I’m asking for something sort of half saying, half telling, half asking, I always think about the second part of my argument, which is, and I don’t want to break the team in the process. So, when I’m asking for deadlines to be moved, priorities to be set differently, usually what I’m thinking about is we’ve got a team full of people who are 110% committed, and they will do what needs to be done at a high cost to themselves and their families. I feel like our job as managers is to make sure they don’t have to make that sacrifice.

KELSEY ALPAIO: You said something interesting, asking versus telling. What is that?

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, Martha was talking about how we have to stop hedging with our language, and sometimes you have to communicate the urgency of your request. We have to decide which is more important, project A or project B, and if you couch that request in hedging language (“if you don’t mind, if it’s at all possible”) instead of making clear the context that has driven you to make this request (“I have two people who are out sick and I have another person who is exhausted physically and emotionally exhausted, and people are starting to drop balls. People who don’t drop balls are starting to drop balls. I can see the quality of the work is slipping because we’re trying to do too much at once.”) That is what I am referring to, that kind of request. I actually listening to myself say that, I’m thinking, “I should never let things get to that point,” but sometimes you have to say that this is what we need to do, rather than can we do this?

KELSEY ALPAIO: Yeah. The hedging language thing is something I definitely still need to work on, and I think it goes back to me conflating it with niceness and likability, but I think to your point, sometimes it’s about the livelihoods of the people you work with. And really the nicest thing you can do is be direct in saying, “Hey, we need to do this to help the team not burn out.” When I was a new manager, I was constantly struggling with figuring out where my authority was, and that sometimes made it hard to figure out what I actually did need to negotiate with my boss and what I didn’t, like where did my authority begin and end? And I was thinking about that a lot as we talked with Martha, because I asked my boss for almost anything. I barely made a decision that I didn’t run by him. And I think partially because I didn’t have a ton of confidence in myself, and partially because I felt like I needed to. How do you figure out where your authority ends and your boss’ begins?

AMY BERNSTEIN: You ask. So, I used to try to just suss it out and figure out there will be hints about the limits of my authority, what’s expected of me, and I was always kind of amazed by people who took it upon themselves to make decisions that I would’ve taken to my manager, people I considered my peers. But here’s the quickest way to figure that out, is to have the roles and responsibilities conversation with your manager. You can even open it up by saying, “I’m new in this role, and so I’m going to need your help figuring out where I have decision rights and where I don’t. And I’d also like your guidance until I’ve absorbed the way you think about these kinds of decisions.” And say, “Here’s where I would like to be able to check in with you until I feel like we’re sort of simpatico. Does that work for you? And where do you want me to make sure to check in with you and what would you like not to have me check in on?” Yeah, that can be helpful. But I would go with a proposal because that’s a lot of stuff for someone to pull together in one conversation, and then you kind of work it out and your boss will probably say, “You know what, you don’t need to check in on that anymore. I’m totally comfortable with the way you make this decision.” And you may also hear, you know what, next time you make a decision about this sort of thing, do check in with me because I just need to know in case my overlords come after me about it, right?

KELSEY ALPAIO: Right. So, say you do say yes to something that your direct report is asking for, and then your boss finds out, they’re not totally cool with the decision you’ve made, they maybe even want you to walk it back. What do you do in that situation?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, first of all have a conversation about decision rights and not defensively. You want to be a little humble here and say, I’m sorry, I misunderstood, so help me understand where the lines of authority are, where’s the boundary, what is it you would like me to check with you on, and what would you like me not to check with you on? I won’t do that again, but try it again underneath it to understand so you don’t make that mistake again. And then you do have to go back to the person you said yes to and say, okay, I shouldn’t have said yes, and I apologize for that. It’s humbling, but you’ll survive and you’ll be smarter the next time.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Yeah. That happened to me a couple times when I was a manager. It always felt so bad. It did feel like my authority was being questioned, but at the same time, I think it was just because we didn’t communicate about it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And when your authority gets questioned by your boss, yeah, that can feel bad. But if your boss comes to you and says, “You know what, that was awkward for me because I knew something that should have affected the decision you made but didn’t because you didn’t know it. So, in the future, let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again and check in with me,” then it doesn’t feel that bad. Right?

KELSEY ALPAIO: Right. Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s lesson learned.

KELSEY ALPAIO: They had more information than you had, so what are you supposed to do, you know.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And so, that helps you understand the kinds of information your boss might have that you aren’t always going to have. And just figuring out how the world works and how the decision you make over here affects what’s going on over there in the organization can take time.

KELSEY ALPAIO: That’s our show. I’m Kelsey Alpaio.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m Amy Bernstein. Want to learn more about negotiations? Then scroll back through the feed to May 24th, 2021, where you’ll find The Essentials: Negotiating Strategically. You’ll learn tactics that’ll help you get what you want and need.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Meanwhile, How Did You Get That Raise is a series within the Women at Work newsletter that’ll motivate you to negotiate for yourself and for your direct reports. Each edition is one woman’s story about the actions she took, the hurdle she overcame, and the negotiation lessons she learned.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Receive future editions of the series by going to hbr.org/newsletters and signing up for the Women at Work newsletter. It comes out twice a month. It’s a mix of practical advice, facts, and stories like How Did You Get That Raise. Plus, it’s free.

KELSEY ALPAIO: Next week, Jen Dary acknowledges what an identity shift becoming a manager is.

JEN DARY: You have to pace yourself differently. The success metric looks really different.

KELSEY ALPAIO: And she gives us advice about how to roll with it.

JEN DARY: At the end of the day, you can think, did I move something forward today? That’s management. So, that’s what you hang your hat on.