In Getting to Yes, his classic book on negotiating, Roger Fisher writes: “Like it or not, you are a negotiator. Negotiation is a fact of life. You discuss a raise with your boss. You try to agree with a stranger on a price for his house. . . . Everyone negotiates something every day.”

Fisher, who founded the Harvard Negotiation Project, was right. When you stop and think about it, you realize that you are probably negotiating for something every day . . .

-     Can you work on a flextime basis, instead of logging in and logging out at regular hours?

-     Would your company consider setting up an in-house daycare center for employees’ children?

-     Will your husband or wife cook dinner for your family tonight, so you can go to the gym on the way home?

-     Can you take on a bigger job – the one that a departing colleague just vacated?

When you are about to discuss questions like those, it is tempting to think that you are about to enter into conflict, not into conversation. According to Fisher, that is a mistake. He writes that it is better to practice something that he calls Principled Negotiation – an approach in which both parties look for areas of mutual gain.

Here are the four principles of Fisher’s approach . . .

-     Separate the people from the problem. For example, set aside the fact that you don’t like your office manager and that you want to score a win against her. Remember that when you negotiate, you will come to a better agreement if you focus on issues, not personalities.

-     Focus on interests, not positions. Instead of saying, “I need flextime, period,” discuss your underlying reasons for needing it and invite the other side to express its interests too. When you strive to make a situation better for both sides, you are more likely to make progress toward your goals.

-     Generate a variety of options before coming to an agreement. Yes, it is tempting to seize upon the first agreement that you and the other party find. But is it really the best solution? According to Fisher, you need to do the hard work to develop several solutions to any negotiating problem – and then pick the best of them. After all, it is possible that the third solution you hit upon will be the best.

-     Make sure that your agreement is based on objective criteria. You will stick with your flextime schedule after a month of evaluation to make sure your productivity remains strong, for example. Or your promotion will become permanent if you improve your department’s output by 10 percent. When you develop objective ways to evaluate the results of your agreement, you make it more attractive for the other side to agree to what you want – and you keep the door open for later negotiations of the agreement does now work out as well as you hoped it would.

Medical Administrative Assistant Blog is sponsored by Ultimate Medical Academy (UMA), a healthcare career school. UMA has campus locations in Tampa and Clearwater, Florida, as well as a national online program.  For more information about UMA please visit our website at www.ultimatemedical.edu

Tags: Boss, Colleague, Conflict Resolution, Cook Dinner, Daycare Center, Express, Fact Of Life, Flextime, Harvard Negotiation Project, healthcare jobs, Job, job advice, Medical Administrative Assisting, Medical Assisting, Mistake, Mutual Gain, Negotiator, Options, Personalities, Roger Fisher, Score, Simple Steps, Stranger
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