Imagine you’re about to ask your boss for a raise. Your stomach tightens. You’ve rehearsed what to say, but doubt creeps in. Should you be more assertive? More understanding of company constraints?
Bob Bordone, who has taught negotiation for 25 years including 21 years at Harvard Law School, joins us to explain why you don’t have to choose between empathy and assertiveness. In fact, combining them is key to successful negotiations.
“It might feel like a tension, but it’s not an actual one,” Bordone explains. “I can fully appreciate what you’re feeling without ever giving anything up in a negotiation.”
Bordone breaks down his three-part preparation framework:
1. Mirror work: Identify the different sides of yourself in a negotiation — the empathic side that understands company constraints, the assertive side that knows you deserve recognition, and perhaps an anxious side worried about finances.
2. Chair work: Give each side a voice through role-playing exercises, literally sitting in different chairs to embody each perspective.
3. Table work: Bring these voices into the actual negotiation in an authentic way that doesn’t make the other person feel attacked.
He also introduces fascinating concepts like “conflict recognition” — how quickly we perceive something as a conflict — and “conflict holding” — our comfort with leaving conflicts unresolved. These differences often cause relationship problems when we’re unaware of them.
“My best friend and I might debate over Flaming Hot Cheetos for 25 minutes. For me, with high conflict recognition, it’s completely fun. I go home and sleep like a baby,” Bordone says. “For someone with low conflict recognition, they might think, ‘That was horrible. Did I hurt the relationship?'”
When someone tries to shut down your request with policy (“that’s just how we do things here”), Bordone recommends what he calls the “Wizard of Oz tactic” — asking a few more questions rather than immediately accepting defeat.
The skills you develop asking for a raise transfer to other challenging conversations — from family inheritance discussions to political disagreements with colleagues.
Bordone emphasizes that conflict isn’t something to avoid but rather a normal part of relationships. The question isn’t whether we’ll have conflict, but how we handle it when it inevitably arrives.
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