Terry called me to ask my advice about a contract re-negotiation. He was facing a company that had changed its management recently. The company took a take-it or leave-it attitude with Terry and unilaterally reduced his contract. Allegedly, they needed to maintain profitability. What do you do in a take-it or leave-it atmosphere?

I’ll tell you exactly what I told Terry. You cannot force people to negotiate with you in good faith! If I could force people to negotiate my way, I would be a trillionaire. Move over Warren Buffet!

Here are three things that you can keep in mind when faced with a take-it or leave-it offer.

1. Recognize and leverage shared interests. Even the most hard-nosed negotiators will talk to you about shared interests. People are scared because of the economy, and some are acting like sharks. Even sharks will respond to a thoughtful conversation about shared interests.

2. Find and cultivate a champion in the company. This champion should have the respect of the people you are negotiating with. This champion can then advocate for you when your issues are addressed while you are not present for the discussion.

3. Find at least one tradeoff and make a counteroffer. Some people bluff. Some people are quite serious. If you don’t know whether they are just playing had ball with you, make a counteroffer to see if they budge. If you’ve been to one of my workshops, you know that making tradeoffs means that you will arrive at a solution that meets both of your needs.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 11:48 am and is filed under General, Tactics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.