People often think negotiating well involves tough questions about money, but a better place to start is understanding how important your role is to your boss.
Here’s how to get there so you can make your own progress.
When Money’s Not Forthcoming, What Next?
Nicky is a project manager in a pharmaceutical company, and an executive coaching client of mine. Recently, she took on a role that was new to her in a project that was completely new to the organisation. She’d been told that the project would likely improve her ‘rating’ at the company. Plus, she’d get the support of other team members.
However, four months in, neither were forthcoming, and she was struggling to make progress. Negotiating well for Nicky had nothing to do with more salary; it was about getting the internal support and resources she needed. Nicky didn’t like conflict, but wondered if she’d been fed a line about how important this project was. This was a concern, given that she had left a thriving part of the business to tackle this ‘experimental’ area at their request. Nicky now had tough questions not only for herself, but for her senior stakeholders.
In that executive coaching session, we talked about Nicky’s dissatisfaction and her potential options. She enjoyed working at the company, so didn’t want to leave, but was beginning to wonder if the project had ever been a real priority. Rather than complain, we talked about how she could use tough questions as part of negotiating well in a conversation with her boss.
Tough Questions that Go Beyond Money
Nicky let David, her boss, know she’d like to use their next meeting to one to get clearer on several things about this ‘innovative’ project. In that meeting, she didn’t complain, but rather asked David a few tough open questions:
- Who on the senior team had championed this project?
- What was important about it to that person?
- What was the appetite now like internally? How had that changed?
- What did he think could be achieved if she had more support as promised?
- What would it mean if the project failed?
- What did David think ‘success’ would actually look like – particularly with limited resources?
To Nicky, this was about having an honest conversation; it required her admitting she hadn’t made the progress she wanted. However, this was done with a creative mindset, prompting her stakeholders to think about what could still turn the project around and how they could help.
Keep Pushing Yourself
If you are, or have ever been in this place, use these tough questions as part of your own negotiating.
If you think you could benefit from the kind of perspective change Nicky went through, keep an eye out for my next round of Peak Resilience Accelerator sessions, or get in contact for some executive coaching sessions, or a webinar talk.
