Negotiating is part of everyday life: Here's how to do it and get results

Maybe you need more time or resources for that big project. Or you think you deserve a raise. That means asking the boss, and that means negotiating.

Buying a house or car? More negotiating. Where to go for dinner, what to watch on TV, when is the kids' bedtime? All come down to negotiation, too.

Everything we do is a negotiation, some would say. And everything is negotiable. Given those stakes, here are some expert tips on how to negotiate for what you want.

Negotiation occurs any time two or more people engage in a conversation that includes expressing needs and interests in what they're trying to do, according to Sharon Press, director of the Dispute Resolution Institute (DRI) at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul.

"If you have been in a relationship of any kind, be that familial or romantic or friendship, if there have been times where you have entered into conversation with another person about decisions that are to be made or plans, those are all negotiations," Press said. "These are not just professional skills. These are life skills."

A new DRI Press book, "Star Wars and Conflict Resolution," addresses negotiation in the novel context of the epic space opera. To differentiate the classic "win-lose" and "win-win" approaches to negotiation, one chapter pits Darth Vader's empire-takes-all strategy against Ben Kenobi's more imaginative option of paying Han Solo less up front and more at the end for a ride on the Millennium Falcon.

Win-lose or distributive negotiation tends to be adversarial, with parties bargaining about a "fixed pie" of limited money or other resources in a "zero-sum game," the chapter's author, Chad Austin, a law professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy, wrote. Win-win, or integrative negotiation, emphasizes relationship building, with parties seeking creative ways to meet each other's needs and "expand the pie."

Successful negotiation is 80% preparation, experts say. A critical first step is figuring out what you want and why (your position and your interest, respectively, in academic terms).

Clearly identifying what you want to accomplish in the negotiation can open up more ways to accomplish it, Press said. Consider your options going in, and if you can't get a better deal outside the negotiation, try to make it work.

Similarly, anticipate what the other party wants and why they want it, said Lori Abrams, a strategic and organizational communication consultant and former professor at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. Determine what you can give up. Prepare for contingencies because "you don't want to lose our poker face."

If the negotiation isn't working, be ready to leave the table.

"Knowing where you walk away and sticking to that makes you a very powerful negotiator," Abrams said.

Don't anchor yourself to an opening offer, Abrams said. When an agent asked Abrams how much she wanted to spend on a condo, her anchor-avoiding reply was, "it depends on how it meets my requirements."

To bargain with the best, negotiate like a child, said Danielle Hansen. She teaches negotiation strategy as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas and is vice president of global sourcing at JBT Corp., a food-processing machinery company.

Children are great negotiators because they push barriers, think critically, challenge assumptions and question the status quo, Hansen said.

"By the time we get to be adults, we're constantly thinking, 'If I asked for that or if I push a little bit more, am I going to be rude or perceived as rude?'" Hansen said. "We have to be looking at what is our full value, and are we truly negotiating for that value?"

Competitive negotiators, those out to meet their needs while caring little about yours, often haven't prepared, said Press, from the Dispute Resolution Institute. Questioning competitive negotiators might help them understand what they're trying to accomplish and realize, "Here's a way that maybe we both can achieve what we want to achieve."

Preparation is all-important before asking for a raise, said Lin Xiu, professor of human resource management at the University of Minnesota Duluth's Labovitz School of Business and Economics. Pay comparison sites such as Salary.com or the O*Net OnLine website might offer the evidence you need to back up your claim that you're getting paid below market rate.

The negotiation context also makes a difference, Xiu said. Researchers had long held that women needed training to improve their negotiation skills to ask for higher pay and help offset pay disparities with men. (Minnesota lawmakers this year passed the Preventing Pay Discrimination Act, which as of January will prevent employers from asking prospective employees about pay history when they apply, aiming to close racial and gender pay gaps).

In two recent studies, Xiu found women were less likely to ask for higher starting pay if employers weren't clear up front whether pay is negotiable. Women are as likely as men to bargain for higher pay, though, when job ads say that pay is negotiable. Women also are more likely to ask for higher pay when employers have explicit rules for determining raises, Xiu found in studies with colleagues in Duluth.

"These are easy things for organizations to do to address the gender differences in salary negotiations and eventually address the gender pay gap," Xiu said.

Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Lake Elmo. His e-mail is todd_nelson@mac.com.