Negotiations

Negotiating: A Piece of Cake or Mission Impossible? 

Many creative professionals struggle to open their mouths when it comes to negotiating about salary, copyright, or other contractual issues. The cake is on the table, but it seems impossible to get even the tiniest slice of it.  

Without any training in negotiating skills, we are often left to believe that it is always the party with the highest status, more money or bigger ego to land a better deal in any negotiation. The poor freelancer must be happy, if they are offered even a small piece of the cake, right? 

According to research, one of the biggest challenges in any negotiation is the tension between being assertive about your own goals and showing empathy towards the other party and their interests. Luckily, here also lies one of the biggest possibilities: with empathy and good interaction, it is possible to grow the cake larger, before it is sliced. Thus, more cake for everyone. 

Many negotiation instructors tell a well-known story, originally developed by the pioneer in management and organizational behavior research, Mary Parker Follett. The story is about an orange and two people, who both wanted to have it. Thus, a negotiation began. With an assertive mindset, both negotiators were focused only on their own goals, and did everything they could to make the other person give up on the orange. Dirty tactics were involved. If both parties trusted their high status, they ended up compromising: half an orange to both parties. Negotiators left the stage feeling satisfied in themselves: “Well done me, at least the other party did not get a bigger slice!”. In the case of a poor freelancer and an economically stronger party, the freelancer maybe only got a sniff of the orange – and it was gone. Parties did not even stay for a handshake, and the atmosphere was bleak. Co-operation did not flourish, and the poor freelancer was left to feel like they had absolutely no skills or value. 

If, in the same story, at least one of the negotiators decided to use empathy towards the other party, they started the negotiation with open inquiry: “I would really like to know, why is the orange so important to you – why do you need it?” The orange was put aside for a while, and a discussion took place. For the amazement of both parties, it turned out they needed the orange for different reasons: the other wanted to press orange juice, while the other was in the process of baking a cake, and orange peel was needed for the dough. The solution was now crystal clear: the orange was peeled. One negotiator got the whole pulp, while the other got the whole orange peel. Thus, both parties got the whole orange for their purposes. As a bonus, they also felt great about having been heard, and the relationship between the parties grew closer.  This example illustrates the so-called win-win negotiation, which is discussed in the book Getting to YES (1981) by Roger Fisher and William Ury. 

It is enough to have at least one of the parties use empathy and aim towards integrative bargaining, where value is created for both parties. Even if the other is equipped with a very distributive and assertive mindset, one person can change the course of the conversation and help the other to see that giving is as valuable as getting. The key is to have the courage to negotiate a bit differently from how things are usually done and start a conversation instead of a debate.  

By separating people from the problem, it is possible to find a solution that not only solves the matter but strengthens the relationship, as well.  

A good negotiator has a set of skills ready to be used in their toolbox. It is important to learn how to prepare for a negotiation, as well as to have different means of creating options for mutual gain. It is also important to know oneself and the behavioral reflexes one is accustomed to using. Only then is it possible to make informed style choices in any given situation. A negotiator’s toolbox also includes a couple of skills already known for every creative professional: creativity and intuition. These too can and should be used to expand the cake. 

The distinguished negotiating expert Dr. Chester L. Karrass even titled his book as follows: In Business As in Life, You Don’t Get What You Deserve, You Get What You Negotiate (1996). Negotiating is not just the interaction between two parties over contract terms or an orange; it is included in any conversation between two or more people. Good negotiating skills don’t just help us in our professional negotiations but make our whole life a bit easier.