Columbo (with his shabby raincoat, his cigar, and his generally ‘lost’ demeanor) was a hero of mine growing up (him and Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote). He seemed to fumble his way through things and his genuinely curious and interested personality always seemed to get the better of him. He claimed confusion on just about everything and by doing so got the other party (the suspects he was investigating) to reveal pretty much everything…
Dramatic Pause In Negotiation
Good negotiation and good public speaking are very similar in a lot of ways. And it’s probably easiest to describe dramatic pause by relating it to good public speaking. Ever seen Barack Obama speak? Barack Obama is a master of the dramatic pause. I don’t care what you think about him or his policies, but that man knows how to create dramatic effect in a speech. He controls his speeches with incredible ease and draws…
Good Guy/Bad Guy Negotiating
We see the good guy/bad guy routine on T.V. all the time. It’s always some detective drama or movie where the two cops come in and run the routine and within minutes they’re getting the suspect to spill their guts in a dimly lit room with a metal table and metal chairs. But is the good guy/bad guy routine BS or does it actually work? The scene is always the same in the movies, isn’t…
Negotiating A Raise
I was going to write a post about all the different types of negotiations that you can have in the workplace and make a very ‘listy’ type post, but then I remembered that I hate those types of posts (even if they get more eyeballs). So, I decided to get specific and go through the types of negotiations you have in the workplace, but get deeper into each one. I was trying to avoid the…
Splitting The Difference And Other Crazy Ideas
Well, I guess I should say, don’t offer to split the difference. There can be very good reasons to accept someone else’s offer to split the difference, but there’s never a good reason to offer to split the difference. Let’s say for example you’re purchasing software licenses (originally offered at $70 per user and you originally countered with $40) and you’ve gone through a few rounds of negotiation and you’ve gotten the salesperson to…