What Your Boss Doesn’t Want You to Know About Negotiation

39 points by sr3d 7 years ago | 9 comments
  • DoreenMichele 7 years ago
    You have no idea what the other person wants, and don’t think that matters anyway

    This point leaves me agog. If this is at all an accurate description of how many people think... I guess that would explain a lot of lousy stuff out in the world.

    You want to win the argument more than achieving your goal.

    An awful lot of people operate this way. I tend to view it as a mark of immaturity.

    • tluyben2 7 years ago
      > I tend to view it as a mark of immaturity.

      Is it? In my experience people, especially men, get worse when they get older. Especially between 45 and 70 this seems to be strong; they are (always) right and winning the acknowledgement of that being right is more important than anything else. Even if it destroys companies, money, respect for them or people in the process of winning, completely and irrationally ignoring the goal of the discussion/argument.

      Still might be immature, but then what is that exactly? I know people from all walks of life who have this issue. Maybe almost no-one grows up?

      • rkhassen9 7 years ago
        Agreed: “that almost no-one grows up.” And is “immature”. Just because that has become the norm doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call a spade a spade. How else can we collectively, as a culture, identify where we lack and then to choose to grow?
        • DoreenMichele 7 years ago
          Paradoxically, emotional growth is held back by one's strengths, not their weaknesses.

          Lots of bright students have zero patience and have never learned how to cope with failure. Perhaps typically privileged people, as many men are, don't deal well with things like their growing physical frailty as they age and react to that by refusing to acknowledge any weaknesses in other areas, such as their knowledge base or logic.

          • vorhuts 7 years ago
            I love how you make this a gendered issue. Well done, identity politician.
      • quickpost 7 years ago
        Reminds me a lot of the book Never Split the Difference. If you enjoyed this post, I highly recommend that book. It's fantastic and really opened my eyes to all the areas I could improve my ability to relate to other people and negotiate more effectively.
        • shostack 7 years ago
          Can you share any insights?
        • babaganoosh89 7 years ago
          The title of the article is hardly related to the contents.
          • shanghaiaway 7 years ago
            It's funny how Medium thinks they'll find a business model in subscriptions when what they actually are is a clickbait farm.