So you can approach your negotiation with oodles of confidence
Supercharge your push-back responses with a single move!
When you receive a push-back or a rejection during a pay rise, using an open question to get the negotiation back on track is your go-to move. Summarise and feedback what you are hearing, to supercharge your impact.
In other blogs I have explained how a rejection or a push back can be used by your boss just to create some space for them to process what you have just asked for, or to let you know that they aren't yet convinced by the veracity of your pitch. Once you have that push back, an open question can get them talking and explaining to you their rationale or motivation for their position.
By listening intently and with curiosity to their response and seeking to understand the deep motivation behind what they have just said, you should be able to move the conversation into problem-solving mode. At this moment your curious tone is important because it communicates both that you are listening and that you care about hearing an answer. Your boss (or negotiating counter-party) will feel heard, which will encourage them to be more open and relaxed in response.
Often you may need more than one open question to get the conversation flowing. So identifying a few 'go-to' open questions before your negotiation is a good idea. A few of my favourites are:
- 'Can you say more about that?'
- 'Can you help me to understand that better?’
An important part of listening is feeding back what you think you have heard. Confirming that you understand helps your negotiating counter-party to feel that you care about them - because you are taking that time to check. Two phrases that I often use to do this are:
- 'It seems that you feel [insert emotion] about [insert topic] - am I understanding that correctly?'
- 'What I am noticing is [insert observation] - did I get that right?’
These phrases work to keep the conversation going, encouraging your boss to give you even more information. The language used is deliberately open and enquiring thereby signalling that you are flexible and open to suggestion. This in turn reduces the extent to which the conversation feels confronting and increases the likelihood that your boss will engage and respond positively.
Your boss's confirmation that you have understood them correctly is also an agreement. This act of agreeing with one another reduces the tension in the opening stages of the negotiation. From this point you can take a confident and supercharged step forward because you are clear about the base issues that require attention and solution.
