The Importance of Negotiation in Business and Your Career

The role you play at your job is essentially always up for negotiation, so it is crucial to not overlook the value of negotiation in business and in your career. You should keep negotiating in order to evolve and take advantage of new opportunities. Katie Shonk, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Business School, discusses the following three guidelines on how to capitalize on the advantages of negotiation in business.

1. Negotiate for Long-Term Career Success

Negotiation about a starting salary and benefits should just be the beginning, experts realize that these concerns are not the most important in the grand scheme of things. It’s wise to look at the bigger picture and consider what you will need in the long-run in order to become feel fulfilled and well-compensated. It can be helpful to think about the job you’re at as if it is setting you up for your next job and all your future jobs after that. This mindset can be very powerful at making you notice the advantages of negotiation in preparing you to thrive in the future. Some examples of tools you might want to negotiate for are training programs, schooling, support staff, or a job title that goes along with a future career goal.

2. Negotiate Your Role

We tend to fail at negotiating confidently and consistently for the success of our career as we get settled at a job. The book, Negotiating at Work: Turn Small Wins into Big Gains, explains this phenomenon and offers advice on how to overcome this tendency. The book classifies “capital N” negotiations as formal and “small n” negotiations as more personal and informal situations. Often times the value of all of these negotiations are overlooked because we don’t know the potential of the possibilities available. Make your value known and stand strong in all your negotiations no matter how small.

3. Negotiate for Your Deal’s Success

In order to close “big N” negotiations, you’re going to have to get it approved by all the stakeholders. This is another prime example of how negotiation in business is very important. Jeswald W. Salacuse, author of Negotiating Life, recommends that you research and discover your company’s specific interests through speaking with various people within the company. It is a good idea to speak with these people about negotiating on their behalf, you may discuss specific deals or tentative commitments on their behalf. Constantly keep these key members informed about everything as the negotiation progresses, in order to reinforce and strengthen your negotiating authority.

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