Use these 4 tips to negotiate successfully with your boss

We all want the perfect workplace.

Positive environment. Good friends.

Great boss.

High pay.

Job satisfaction.

What if one (or more) of this is not meeting our requirements? Find another job? What if it doesn’t work in the new place either?

As career people, we need to determine our worth, and our wants. If we love doing our job, and the boss is good, but the environment is not so healthy, we need to work on that. Finding a new job is not the answer to everything. Fight for what you want.

I once had to negotiate with my former boss about my job scope.

Some of the tasks I was supposed to do, were continuously being done by my Senior Manager, and so I didn’t have the chance to learn how to do it by myself. That made me feel useless, especially since I was already promoted as Manager for quite a while but was still doing Senior Engineer’s jobs.

I decided to have a discussion with my former boss (his boss).

What I did was:

1. Approached him and tell him verbally that I would like to request some time to talk privately. That should warn him that I have something serious to talk about.

2. We booked a meeting room and used a time when we are both normally calmer from daily hectic times. Avoid mornings when everyone is busy.

3. I prepared my points in a bullets, so I can work my story correctly, and don’t leave important parts. I needed to be precise, remove any emotional matters, keep positive, and connect with my suggestions.

These are 4 important tips that you must remember when negotiating something with your boss.

• He doesn’t have the time to listen to your lengthy complaints, so keep it short.
• Making an emotional burst (of anger, or tears of sadness, etc) will make you look weak and, well, emotional.
• Use positive words, avoid negative words (I will touch on that in other posts), because language indicates your mind and attitude.
• And finally, prepare your suggestions. You’re not there to just say your complaints. Be prepared to answer when your boss asks, “So, what should we do?”. Your proposals can be one or a few, in case he doesn’t agree with them. Don’t worry if he doesn’t, keep negotiating until both parties are happy.

4. When I talked with him, I showed him what I wrote, even though they were just simple notes. This is to show him that I took the time to think this through, and that I am serious, and that I hope this would work out for both of us – it is not just a complaint and I’m off.

Suffice to say, our discussion worked out well, and I later got what I wanted.