Podcast: In Workplace Negotiations, Put the Relationship First

“If you can’t achieve your goals without the cooperation of somebody else, you’re negotiating,” says Thompson, a professor of management and organizations.

All relationships involve this push and pull, she says, and the professional kind are no exception. On this episode of “Ask Insight,” Thompson demonstrates how managers can negotiate solutions in three tricky situations.

Podcast Transcript

Laura PAVIN: Leigh Thompson is a professor at Kellogg, and she specializes in negotiations. So she gets a lot of questions about negotiations. And according to her, they all sound kinda the same.

Leigh THOMPSON: When I ask people, “when was the last time you negotiated? How often do you negotiate?” A lot of people are like—and they immediately go to cars, houses, and jobs. But anybody who lives in a household with other human beings, you’re negotiating from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed.

PAVIN: Thompson says we may not notice them, but things like, which one of your teenagers gets the car that evening? That’s a negotiation. Who gets the last cup of coffee? A negotiation. Your partner has to practice tap dancing at the exact moment you need to nap?

THOMPSON: That’s a negotiation right there. If you can’t achieve your goals without the cooperation of somebody else, you’re negotiating.

PAVIN: And what all these kinds of negotiations have in common is that they involve an existing relationship. Friends, partners, kids, coworkers … heck, even ourselves sometimes. These kinds of negotiations are way more common than haggling over a home price, and they’re often a lot more complicated.

So we decided to focus this episode on navigating those negotiations, specifically in the workplace.

This is The Insightful Leader. I’m Laura Pavin. And today, we bring you a fresh installment of our “Ask Insight” segment, where we take pressing questions—sometimes from the audience, sometimes from ourselves—and bring them to one of our faculty for answers.

Coming up, Thompson answers tough questions about being a savvy negotiator in the workplace. We’ll hear how to approach a supplier who’s undersupplying, how to make a compelling case for a new hire in the middle of a freeze, and how to handle a direct report who’s been underperforming.

In none of these cases should you think of the other side as your opponent—as someone to wrestle into negotiation submission. Instead, Thompson says, you’ll want to start from a place of wanting to work on a solution together.

We talk about that next.

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PAVIN: Thompson thinks that when it comes to negotiations, we often focus on only one part of the equation.

THOMPSON: People forget that they’re interacting with another human being. They’ve just learned, “Okay, I’m at the negotiation table. I’m supposed to make the first offer,” and they insult the other party. So I always tell people to lead with your relational foot. Make sure that you’re building the relationship.

PAVIN: All those tactics and strategies—sure, they’re useful. But just as critical is the way the person you’re negotiating with feels about the interaction.

The first flavor of negotiation we’ll talk about involves a working relationship where one person is underdelivering. It’s based on a scenario submitted from a member of our audience, and the situation is this:

You are an auto-parts manufacturer, and you rely on semiconductors to make those parts. You’ve got a supplier for those semiconductors, but there’s a problem. For the last couple months, they’ve been coming up short. You’re only getting 60 percent of what you need. They tell you it’s because of machine issues.

So, what do you do? How can you bump up that percentage?

THOMPSON: The real question here is, how do I preserve the relationship while securing my interests? So I’m going to lead with my relational foot. Don’t start this conversation by being threatening or demanding. Don’t say, “Hey, this is ridiculous. You’re contracted to deliver a hundred percent. I’m only getting this.” You’re in a long-term relationship with this supplier.

PAVIN: In other words, don’t burn the bridge. If you’ve had a good working relationship up to this point, you’re far better off opening in the spirit of problem solving.

THOMPSON: Something like, “You know, supplier, we value working with you over the years, and we’ve had a very productive relationship, and I’d love to keep it that way.”

PAVIN: Now, let’s be clear: that doesn’t mean you can’t look into other options. In fact, before you even have a conversation with the supplier, Thompson says you should do some research—research that will help you devise a plan B. In this case, it might be asking your operations manager to look into alternative suppliers.

THOMPSON: So as much as I don’t want to switch suppliers, I need to find out, is there somebody else out there who can give me these parts?

PAVIN: Now, on its face, it might seem like you’re going behind your supplier’s back. But Thompson doesn’t see it that way.

THOMPSON: What you want to do is invite the supplier to problem-solve with you. And it may be that I need to switch suppliers. It may be that I need to get 60 percent from supplier A, and then I’ve found another supplier who can give me the rest. This isn’t about me persuading them to change their business. It’s about me trying to leverage my own options.

PAVIN: This type of creative problem-solving can help you get what you need for your business, while also maintaining your integrity with your third-party partners. Thompson says in these scenarios, the best policy is to be open and straightforward.

THOMPSON: It’s really good practice to learn how to say, “Look, my goal here, Laura, is to keep this great relationship that we have, but we have a business matter to discuss today. And with your permission, can we jump into it?”

PAVIN: Chances are they’ll appreciate your approach and will be more open to finding a solution.

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PAVIN: Trying to maintain a relationship with a party that’s slipping up—that’s one type of negotiation you encounter in the workplace. There’s another kind, one where you’re on the opposite side of the power dynamic, and you need to negotiate something that the other side says it can’t give.

One of the audience-submitted questions we got falls into that second bucket. The question-asker writes that his team has been understaffed since Covid, and he’s in desperate need of an admin role to do some data-entry work—a task no one on his team has had time to do. Problem is, his company has instituted a hiring freeze. But his team really needs some help. He’s not sure if it’s possible to negotiate with his boss for a new hire.

Thompson says she’s actually navigated a situation very similar to this in a previous role. And much like the first scenario, she says how you approach the negotiation is key.

THOMPSON: So the first thing you’ve got to do is you’ve got to quantify your ask. Don’t just say, “Hey, we’re drowning in administration and I’m suffering.” You’ve got to use data. You’ve got to say, “For every day or minute or hour—whatever metric you’re using—that we don’t have X, we are losing Y dollars.”

PAVIN: Here again, Thompson is presenting the request as a solution to a problem. Going to your boss and telling them that your team is overworked or stressed—that’s vague and unlikely to receive much sympathy.

THOMPSON: Don’t make your ask seem about you and your team. Align your request with the overall company strategy. So it’s not just our problem in my team. It’s a collective problem.

PAVIN: So, start collecting data that proves to your boss what you’re observing anecdotally. Actually track how many hours your team is losing because they have to do this data-entry task. Even just a couple of hours from each team member adds up quickly to serious dollars and is going to be more compelling to your manager or executive. It also demonstrates that you’re not just looking out for yourself or your team; you’re looking out for the well-being of the company.

The other thing Thompson advises is to not ask for the full position from the jump.

THOMPSON: Somebody has put on a hiring freeze, and there’s probably lawyers—God love ’em—who are telling people, “There’s no way we’re gonna do this.” So what you wanna do is propose an idea where you’re not asking for a full-time salaried position. You’re gonna say, “Look, let’s do an experiment. How about I get permission to hire an administrator or communications coordinator on a contract basis? It’s a contractor for three to six months. If we don’t move the needle on X, Y, and Z—the metrics that I have on my little spreadsheet on the table between us—then this will be a valuable lesson. I will learn. You will learn. I predict that we will move all these metrics. Profits will be up, deliveries will be up, customer satisfaction will be up. And if we do move that needle, I’d like to see this turn into a full-salaried role.”

PAVIN: There are probably good reasons for the hiring freeze, so asking for special treatment is probably a nonstarter. But running a short-term experiment? There might be some flexibility there. It all comes back to having the data and being very clear about the metrics. If you can lay out the case for giving this pilot a shot and how you’re going to measure success, you are far more likely to get the green light.

The headline in all of this: when you’re on the opposite side of the power dynamic and you’re trying to negotiate something, consider what would be a win for you and your boss. And devise a way to get there.

In this case, it might land you some much-needed short-term help for your team—and if it works out, you might just secure it permanently.

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PAVIN: So far, we’ve learned how to negotiate with our relational foot forward, and we’ve heard how to devise creative solutions when you’re on either side of the power dynamic. But there’s another scenario we wanted Thompson to weigh in on—one that wasn’t asked by a listener but felt like a situation that might hit home for a lot of people, where the stakes for preserving the relationship feel a lot higher.

Here’s the scenario:

You run a design firm with about 40 people. You’ve got an employee—let’s call him Mike—who has been with the company for 14 years. Mike was key to helping the business grow in those early days. You wouldn’t have the success you’ve had without him. But the industry has changed and so has some of the technology your firm is using to work. Mike has been slow to adopt these changes, and you’ve noticed his productivity slip in the last year. Some junior employees have even started to reroute work around him.

You can also tell that Mike is frustrated, but he doesn’t realize that he’s part of the issue. Now, he hasn’t done anything that would demand letting him go, but keeping him in this position is going to require other employees compensating for him—and that is going to cost you.

You know you need to have a talk with him. But what’s the best way to go about it?

Thompson says the first step is giving Mike the opportunity for reflection.

THOMPSON: I wanna sit down with Mike and say, “Look, I wanna have a conversation with you on how you think things are going—with you and your skills versus, in some sense, this new fast-paced digital work that we’re all doing.”

PAVIN: It might be the case that Mike has been waiting for someone to talk to him about this and is fully aware that things haven’t been going well. That obviously makes it easier to start a conversation. But let’s say he takes more of a defensive tone.

THOMPSON: If he’s in denial, saying, “Well, I think things are fine, and I think I’m great,” then you’ve got some tougher groundwork to do.

PAVIN: Here again, Thompson thinks that data and evidence are essential. If you just tell Mike, “Well, you haven’t been as productive lately,” but can’t point to specifics, you’re not going to get anywhere. So before you go into that conversation, have some examples in mind that you can talk through.

THOMPSON: You wanna say something like, “Look, I can tell you what I’m observing. Based upon these data, I’m observing that junior team members are rerouting work. Here are two examples, Mike, that occurred last week.”

PAVIN: This gives Mike something concrete to respond to and hopefully allows him to understand where you’re coming from. The next step, Thompson says, is to put forward your relational foot. Let Mike know that he is a valued member of the team.

THOMPSON: “Mike, you’re instrumental to this company. I believe in you. And I want to look forward through the windshield, not the rearview mirror. I think we can address this, but I need to know what your motivation is.” And this is the magic moment.

If Mike says, “You know what? It’s been a good run and I think I’m outta here,” okay—that answers your question. But if Mike says, “Yeah, I wanna learn,” then what you want to do is say, “Okay, well, why don’t you and I come up with a re-skilling plan? Let’s set a 90-day goal. And let’s do weekly check-ins.”

So this is a chance for Mike to become, in some sense, proactive in his own re-skilling.

PAVIN: There are a few things there I want to unpack about this. First, the response demonstrates that you care about Mike and want to figure this out with him—again, presenting the situation as a problem to be solved together. Second, the solution has clear next steps: make an action plan that will take 90 days, and reassess. Like with the hiring-freeze example, set a timeframe for the experiment. And finally, Mike is given agency over the re-skilling plan. This last point is crucial to success in this scenario, Thompson says.

THOMPSON: The last thing I want to do is have me create the performance improvement plan, shove it in front of Mike’s face—because then he is not a co-owner. Then he’s in defensive mode. So what I want to do is lean in and say, “Hey Mike, why don’t you come up with this 90-day performance improvement plan?” In other words, give him work to do. If he sees that and comes back and says, “Yeah, I’ve got this on a spreadsheet,” or “I’ve got it on a chart, and here’s what I’m gonna do,” great. He’s already doing it. He’s already energized. And then what you want to do is say, “Okay, so after 90 days we’re gonna see whether you’ve hit goals A, B, C, D, and E.”

PAVIN: Now Mike has clear benchmarks to aim for, a timeline to follow, and—most importantly—is leaving the conversation knowing you’re invested in the relationship and want him to succeed.

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PAVIN: With all of these scenarios, it all comes back to putting your professional relationship first, even when conversations are high stakes. It’s about transforming the negotiation from “me vs. you” to “how do we solve this problem together?” It’s a small change but one that makes a huge difference.

So to recap, when it comes to those workplace negotiations, always make sure you’re putting your relational foot forward. Open the conversation by affirming that you value the relationship. You should also make sure that you’re doing your research and have the data to make a plan B, a strong argument for a request, or to explain what’s not working. And finally, make whomever you’re negotiating with into your collaboration partner. Give them agency to help solve the problem instead of dictating what you want to see happen.

The theme in all of this is that any win for you should also be a win for the person on the other side of the negotiation. That way, you can get what you want without severing a valuable relationship.

[CREDITS]

PAVIN: This episode of The Insightful Leader was produced and mixed by Andrew Meriwether. It was produced and edited by Laura Pavin, Rob Mitchum, Fred Schmalz, Abraham Kim, Maja Kos, and Blake Goble. Special thanks to Leigh Thompson. Want more The Insightful Leader episodes? You can find us on iTunes, Spotify, or our website: insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu. We’ll be back in a couple weeks with another episode of The Insightful Leader podcast.