I WILL GET BACK TO YOU

“Never fear to negotiate and never negotiate out of fear”, John F. Kennedy,


Robert was working as a Faculty in an engineering college in a rural area. He decided to shift to metropolitan city for providing better education of his children. As a result, he needed to have more money to support his family and also to meet the higher standard level of living in the metropolitan city apart from meeting the extra educational expenses. He had necessary qualifications and rich experience also. He had been short listed by many employers and called for interview. As he was experienced he was able to respond the questions related to his domain at ease and pleased up to the satisfaction of the employers. But whenever he was posed with a question like, “How much salary do you expect?” he used to reveal his salary figure. When he quoted his salary figure the employers replied by saying “We will get back to you”. The Robert waited with patience anticipating the employers would be getting back to him. But to his misfortune, they never bothered to get back to him. It happened in three interviews at a row.

Robert took stock of the situation and analyzed where he went wrong. He convinced himself that his replies were correct and he noticed positive affirmation from the body language of the employers during his replies. When he probed himself further he strongly felt that it was salary issue that was the thorny issue, where he was not able to negotiate properly. He further diagnosed that there was sudden shift in the body language whenever he quoted his salary figure. What Robert expected was that the employer would tell salary figure. However, the employers were dumbstruck without quoting any probable figure. That resulted into lot of gap between expectations and realities.

When Robert went to the next interview he handled the entire process successfully and again the topic of salary negotiation came and he replied by counter posing them “May I know how much can you offer?” The employer has not come out with any figure and insisted on Robert saying the salary figure. Since it was an interview he thought it was not proper to antagonize or argue with them and said that presently he was drawing some amount and negotiated with them to hike 30 per cent of the present salary. The employer has ultimately has come out to hike only by 10 per cent from the existing salary and Robert bargained for 20 per cent hike and finally the salary was fixed by 15 per cent hike from the existing salary and Robert was also happy as he did not have to hear any more responses like “I will get back to you”. It was a case of win – win situation. Had the Robert been aware of negotiation skills initially he would have got better employment much earlier.

In this context, it is relevant to explain what is the meaning of negotiation skills and it significance.

We all negotiate in our daily life either directly or indirectly. Negotiation skill is the ability to persuade the other party or person to agree to your point of view while resolving a deadlock or like asking to come to your terms and conditions. It looks like persuasive skills but negotiation skill comes into the picture where two or more parties are involved in any conflict due to discord. We negotiate when we go to shopping, we negotiate when we go for interview and also we negotiate in our day to day work life.
Knowing the art of negotiation helps to survive and succeed in every aspect of our life. At home, we negotiate when there is disagreement among family members. Similarly at the social life also we negotiate in various occasions. At the office level, we negotiate with peers, subordinates, superiors, and with suppliers and customers. Countries also negotiate at the global level to resolve various long pending disputes.

Basically there are three types of negotiation skills ----- Win-lose situation, lose-win situation and win-win situation. In win-lose situation, one party win over the other party during the negotiation process. In lose-win situation, one party loses to the other party. In both these situation there will be ill-will and hurt feelings after the negotiation process for the loser. Where as in the win – win situation, both the party stand to win and come out of the conflict/dispute successfully without having any regrets over their decisions. It is the best of all the three types and creates everlasting impact on the involved parties so that they can meet later happily.


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