Comments on: How to negotiate in a gray world

The real world isn't black-and-white, meaning that negotiation skills are critical to success, especially in the workplace. Here are five keys to effective negotiating.

[jabelar]

I can imagine most of the engineers I know spending a lot of time on the "support your terms with backup", walking into a discussion and laying all this "proof" on the table, then getting totally surprised by the "gray" answer likely to come back. I don't think this article actually addresses the grayness ...

[stobak]

Jabelar makes a good point. The other party may "dodge" the issues and the data.

Unfortunately, you can't force the other party to negotiate in good faith. Moreover, an employer doesn't have to promote or hire you and, in most states, can fire you at will. That's why employees have the option of leaving and going to another company where their skills are more valued or they're treated more fairly.

Any negotiation assumes the desire of both parties to reach some sort of settlement that satisfies both. If not, this post does not apply. If you want something and the other party doesn't want to play ball, your only choices are to suck it up and live on their terms or walk away and live on your own terms. That's very black and white.

Steve Tobak

[chuckcintron]

A wise old farmer once told me: when negotiating don't try to wring every dollar out of the deal. At the time, he was talking about buying or selling a used tractor, but the advice applies to almost every type of negotiation. You have to leave the other party feeling as though they got something out of the deal. The image of the ruthless "winner take all" negotiator may be interesting Hollywood material, but in the real world if you behave that way all the time, soon you won't have anyone willing to deal with you.

[Wink Junior]

Great idea for an article, but lacking any real insight, just some common sense, some old corn that even enginerds know, and filler. Too bad, a great topic, esp. with tech job salaries, at least where I live, sitting around the same as what they were 10 years ago.