The Power Of Relationships

Standards are especially effective with hard bargainers. 

With difficult people, use standards. It is a fundamental tenet of human psychology that people hate to contradict themselves.

So if you give people a choice between being consistent with their standards—with ...

What is the other person feeling? How do they perceive the situation? What are the pictures in their heads?”

 Thinking from the other person’s point of view often turns up surprising results. 

Your outcomes will be improved once you start thinking from the other perso...

A key to getting other people to give you what you want is to value the other party.

People like to give things to others who listen to them, who value them, who consult with them.

Listen to and value the other party. It will improve your outcomes.

Negotiation is at the heart of human interaction. Negotiation is not a battle. It’s a process of better relating to people in all kinds of circumstances.

Common enemies bring parties closer together and make the negotiation easier.

Some legitimate common enemies in business relationsh...

In much of business, money is not the most important item of importance to either side, regardless of what they say. The price has to be reasonable, but so much more is required. Intangibles can bridge the gap between seemingly inflexible positions. 

It’s rarely just about maximizing the mo...

With persistence comes self-confidence: the belief that you can do it.

It doesn’t matter how many times the other person says no, or disagrees with you, or gives you a hard time. Keep asking, stay focused on your goals (without making yourself the issue). Persistence, after...

It is much more persuasive to let others make the decision, instead of telling them what the decision should be. You want to lead them to where you want them to go, through framing and by being incremental. 

 Framing and being incremental are two of the hardest things for people to learn. M...

Perhaps the biggest cause of negotiation failure, worldwide, is communication failure. And the single biggest cause of communication failure is misperception.

This means that their perceptions are more important than your proposals; that is, if you want to persuade them.

Most communic...

People do some of the most important things in life not for money, not for rational benefits, but for how it makes them feel.

As much as economists want us to believe that people are hyper-rational actors that consider all angles of every decision they make, they’re not. Most of the things ...

When someone is interrupted, the tapes are still playing in their head.

 It’s so easy to interrupt someone once you understand what they are saying or have your response ready to go. But it’s a terrible habit. Because once you interrupt someone, they aren’t listening to yo...

 We all think that everyone else has the same thought processes, set of experiences, and perceptual framework that we do.

We all imagine that others think like we do. They don’t. We also attribute people’s behaviors to their identity instead of recognizing the importance of the spe...

You make small talk. Not just because you read somewhere that it’s smart to make small talk. You do it because you are interested in them. Because you want to try for a point of connection with other people. It’s a way of approaching life.”

Small talk helps open up and deepen connections. D...

Trust is a feeling of security that the other person will protect you. With some trust, another person will help you until it’s too risky for them or a better opportunity comes along. With a lot of trust, the other party will help you even if it harms them. It is very important to understand the ...

Contextualize the argument, no matter how heated, with the following: “Hey, we’ve been friends for x years—over 1,000 or 2,000 days. Do you really want to toss everything out over one bad day?”

This will help put things in perspective and diffuse the issue.

With compensation, it is especially important to know what the other party is thinking before asking for something specific.

Knowing how your company makes compensation decisions and what your boss values are important pieces of information before you ask for anything specific in a compensa...

The more you tell them to calm down, the madder they get. That’s because telling them to calm down devalues the legitimacy of their emotions. And when people feel devalued, they become more emotional. 

Good negotiation requires valuing the other party and their needs. Telling someone to cal...

Ask how the company retains, trains, and promotes people in their careers. Ask about the company’s philosophy of work? The answers to these questions will give you invaluable information about the culture of the organization and whether or not it’s a fit for your needs.

Making an exception requires the other person to candidly reflect on whether or not they have treated someone differently in the past, and often, they have. Once they realize this, it’s more likely that you’ll become one of the exceptions as well.