Hello, I'm Barry Nailbuff. And today we're going to have a special live session on job negotiation, featuring my colleague, my friend, Daylian Cain, and then we tell you more about Daylian. He joined our faculty at Yale in 2007, where he and I have been co teaching the core negotiation course ever since. Daylian is a behavioral economist. So, between the two of us he does more on the behavior side. I do a bit more on the economic side. Along with teaching negotiation, he teaches Business Ethics and Leadership in our Executive MBA program. The focus of his research is on why smart people do dumb things. As we've discovered, there's a lot for him to do research on. Here's a few fun facts about Daylian. He's Canadian, he comes from Nova Scotia the southern tip of small fishing village. In addition to his roots, he has been featured on one of the National Geographic brain game episodes. You can find that if you look it on YouTube, he's an avid poker player. In fact, he even does poker coaching at a website called Advancedpokertraining.com where his avatar is Daylian raising Cain. Like me, he has an online negotiation course which you can find at Yale negotiation strategies. The course is a bit pricey. So an alternative is if you invite yourself to connect with him on LinkedIn mentioned Coursera so he'll know who you are and why you're connecting. Many of the ideas he talks about in the online course you can find in various webinars on his LinkedIn site at no cost, so that's a little negotiation tip. Now for the rest of today, our focus is going to be on Daylian and so you'll hear me in the background adding my comments, but the camera and the attention is all on Daylian. So, take it away Daylian. >> Thanks Barry. So I'm going to give a little 20 or some minute spill and then we'll take Q&A but most of the questions have already been sent in on email, and so we'll try to answer some of those, me and Barry together. So let me just start by saying, if you were in my class, let's say Romesh and Carrie were negotiating against each other, and Romesh was signed to be recruiter, and Carrie was assigned to be a candidate with that, and then the week before I would send them some homework like here's your recruiter page, here's who came into the page. But let's say that Carrie cheated and the day before she got a copy of the recruiter sheet the other side's sheet, she read up on Romesh sheet and didn't tell him about it. Now, I can just ask this we don't have to pull you. It's more of a rhetorical question. It's so obvious like, who would win here? Like, clearly Carrie would and it wouldn't even be close. And why that's an interesting question is because if you think of what makes for a good negotiator, personality wise, you might think while it's a slick talker, it's a firm stance, tough handshake, I don't know, suave words, I don't know, right? High emotional intelligence and all those things are useful when some of them feed into what I'm about to say Carrie has which is a massive information advantage, right? And I say that silly example because I want you to see negotiations as this as figuring the other side's sheet or page out. Now in real life, there's no professor handing out homework ahead of time. There's nothing to read, to read a person you have to figure their mental states out. So what I mean is, you want to know what they want? Why they want that? So separating their interest and their priorities, what they want? Why they want that? In what order? In other words, is this a top three issue for them or a low priority issue for them. Ideally, you know if it's 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, but at least have a sense if it's high or low priority or can become high low priority. And finally, fourth is how much they value that thing precisely like how much they're willing to pay for that. So maybe they want to be done by Friday. Why? Because they have to catch a plane that's super urgent for them and they'll pay $2,000 extra if they succeed, that kind of thing. Now you should know 100% all the answers to these questions for yourself and you have to estimate or get intel on the questions for the other person. So this sounds also basic, right? And maybe you're like nodding your head but a lot of people don't think this way. For example, if you think that negotiation is investigating the other side sheet, in fact, I would say it's three stages. You get your own page prepared, easier said than done. And what does that mean? You have to know what do you want, why, in what order and also, I would say the big gap is that when I coach people how to negotiate, they know what they want. That's easy, but they haven't figured out how those issues trade off against each other. For example, I want a big house, with a big kitchen, in a nice neighborhood with a low commute. But the question is, how do they trade off so how many extra minutes will I commute to get this much nicer of a house or in that much nicer of a community? Which is really hard, right? Because maybe the school ratings are 8 to 10, 8 out of 10 or 9 out of 10. But what does that mean for my son? Is that an 8 out of 10 experience for him or a 9 out of 10? And are some of these issues taxed or repetitive like commute is something I have to do twice a day every day. So how many weeks extra in a car am I willing to spend each year get a slightly better school system for my son. And I wouldn't drive 1000 miles to increase the school system. I'm surely going to drive a mile or so where is the right number? And this is hard and it's not, it's not very sexy, it's not like someone says, what's the most important thing than negotiation. Well, one of them is preparing. And it's preparing your own interests and priorities, but then figuring the other side out. And what Barry's course taught you a lot about was how to combine these pages and efficiently together so that you expand the buy and get at least half. And certainly, hopefully, he would have taught you things like being allocentric or other, like focusing on the other side that's getting figuring out their page. And so, if you see negotiation as investigation or as my buddy Deepak Malhotra at Harvard more eloquently puts it, negotiation is learning. And if you see negotiation as learning about the other side, then do you talk a lot or listen a lot? You listen a lot, you ask a lot of questions. So what this highlights all of this sounds all kind of fine and good, I'll give you an example where smart people get this wrong. They'll ask me the night before the job negotiation Daylian, how do I get $20,000 more stock? What sense do I use? And I think a big error there is they don't have a good sense of what the other side thinks about that. In other words, would they rather give, would the recruiter Ramesh rather give stock, signing bonus, performance bonus, base increase, a title change different roles and responsibilities. All the issues are prioritized in the recruiters head and you shouldn't ask for anything until you have a really good sense of how they feel about those things. And you get a sense of those by asking them questions during the negotiation, but also by using your social networks way ahead of time. So if Claude is the vice-president of HR that I'm negotiating with, and Reluca and Sarah are the people that interviewed me along the way, I as a candidate should have a healthy sense that I don't get declawed. Unless where Raluca and Sara probably like me, because it's just so competitive these days, right? It's just hard, it's hard. And so you probably interviewed with four or five people along the way. And so it's not rocket science, you pick up the phone, you think if I had some bond with Raluca, it's like, Raluca you asked a question about when to talk about salary, I like that question, we're going to talk about it. And so if you have some rapport with Raluca you can say hey, do you mind if I pick your brain and talk because I got to talk to Claude next week. Now she's not going to give you the keys to a safe, right? And but, but she can help you out. And so I would say, for example, one little turn of phrase is I don't say, where do you think Claude is flexible, right? Because if imagine if a person came up to the street and said, hey, where are you flexible? It's like geez, what are you going to do to me, right? So I like to ask where are you inflexible? Because I don't want to ask for too much. And then so I would say to Raluca, where do you think Claude is inflexible have issues of like salary, signing, performance pay, location projects and she might say, you just can't ask for more salary monies to tie right now. And now I've learned maybe to ask for something else. Now, I don't- >> Do I add something on this? >> Please, yeah. >> I think a great advantage of asking somebody where you're most inflexible or where you're inflexible. He is that when they answer that question implicitly, they're also telling you by what they didn't say, is where they are most flexible. That is where if they're really inflexible about A, it means they're less inflexible or more flexible, about B. >> Exactly. And one nice thing also about this is if you're looking for what are your top three priorities, if there's eight issues, not all, nothing, not everything can be a top three. So it's hard for them to lie about this, right? [LAUGH] They can say, he's inflexible, here, here, here, here, here. Okay, well then why are we talking maybe now maybe isn't flexible and everything you just got to take the offer. But my experience is usually there's a few things that there are more well, it's not that you can get it if you ask it. It's just where's the right place to start? And if I can give you one mantra to remember me by, it you want to ask for things that are valuable to you, but cheap to them, emphasis on cheap to them, especially in a time like this, where your bargaining power may not be so good and everyone's purse strings are tightening up. You have to find a way to be both valuable to them but also inexpensive to them. And so it's a lot about them, right? Like you know what's valuable to you, but you have a sense of what's easy for them. It could be which pot of money, which budget money comes out of or when or maybe it shouldn't be about money because money is too tight. It's really about roles and responsibility or how do you climb the whole trial. And so another question I would ask, and so by the way, I would think of negotiation, I might divide it into two parts like asking the easy questions firsts, and maybe some hard haggling questions later. And so when you have your first phone call with the HR person Claude I probably wouldn't be asking him, I wouldn't be claiming anything or negotiating for anything, I would just be asking him questions. I would ask a question like Claude so I'm so excited to work for you, I thank you for the job offer, I think there's a lot of fate here, how long do I have to decide? He might say 30 days, well, great, I think this is going to work out, I'm really enthusiastic to join your team. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions first, and one of the questions at some point would be, maybe not right away, but at some point is how do I climb the organizational ladder? In other words, what does the next three years look like? Or what does me being awesome look like to you? Or what's a perfect candidate for you? Or if I was going to be an intern, what is and you want to guide them a little bit not just like what are common mistakes that idiots make. But what are common mistakes that smart hardworking people make? Where have you seen some smart people go wrong? And first of all, you want to know your milestones and goalposts in the organization is just great because a lot of negotiators kind of fly blindly and then they have the year end performance review and they don't know what metrics they were being measured on. But also you want to know this, before you say yes to the job as part of the negotiation process. Because if he says for example, that if in six months you do all the right thing you might be put in charge of some project A, he's telling you you're very close to getting project A, but if he says that project A kind of responsibilities 5 years down the road, then that's something you shouldn't ask for during the negotiation because that sounds far off in his mind. And so, as you get a sense of his vision for you through the organization, you can get a sense of how close you are to getting something and what you should be negotiating versus not. And so I would definitely ask like what does awesome look like to him? And then finally, if I can just say for a few minutes kind of my general thoughts on negotiation is, people don't spend enough time on smart trades. So here's what I mean. They'll talk about the weather and sports and bring and build rapport and they know from the books that they should be going for win wins. And that's all fine and good you don't need me to tell you to get a win win I mean, right? Like you know that get, get one of those, those are great if you both want division R ,get division R. And then there's the win lose issues which are typically like money, right? Like $1 for you costs $1 for me cost Claude $1, in fact, it's even worse cost him more. And after taxes I don't even get $1 so with red tape and benefits, he might have to pay me $1.37 and I only get 60 cents and if he gives me a raise, half of the base offer if he gives me extra $5000 raise annually the other vice presidents may hear about this if I'm a vice president, they might hear about this and they'll want a raise. In other words giving me $5000 is worth couple of grand to me after taxes, but cost him 50 grand because it breaks precedent and upsets the apple cart. So it's literally the worst thing to ask for, not only is it win lose, but my win is small and his loss is huge. And so think of the issues is win win, win lose and then in the middle smart trades which I would define as big wins for one side, small losses for the other, just the reverse of the 5K example I gave with Claude. So where I get something super valuable to me like in a start up a new title, right? I want to have a good resume in case the startup boss. So don't make me manager of tech make me Senior Vice President of tech, because it might not matter to you but it's important to me, as long as you're not incentivizing me to leave or something, it's important to me if I have to leave. And so look for the win wins first, save the win, lose stuff for the end of the negotiation, even if it's important. For example, if you're an entrepreneur and you're buying out a business, one of the most important things that I've learned, and I had a lot of experts come in and do my course and one of them was, he buys businesses all the time, and he was The western representative of the largest IPO in history, Alibaba, Jim Wilkinson. And one of the things he told me was when you're buying a company, you have to control social media. You have to get a hold of the young people's phones kind of thing and manage what they're tweeting about during the takeover, especially if it's a little bit hostile. So that's a top issue for you, but you don't lead with it. And so in other words, there are things that you want to think about. Well, just because they're important to you doesn't mean you lead with them. And money's important to you, but I wouldn't lead with it. Because it's kind of contentious and it's a win loss issue. So win wins first. Smart trades, big wins for one side, small losses for the other. And I would say that that's where people should spend. They don't spend enough time that's like one of the top mistakes people make is they don't think about trade offs on their own selves. They don't think about negotiation as learning. And then they spend too much time, they talk about some weather and sports and then some win wins and they jump right into money. And they don't spend enough time looking for smart trades or they look for smart trades as a last resort rather than upfront. And that is super key. So I would also say and we can get soon to some q&a. I would say that when it comes to upsetting the applecart often it's easier to ask for title change. That you're close, you're almost here, you're almost worth in their mind. You're very close to getting promoted to this title. It's often easier to negotiate that title change than it is to become, for example, the highest paid vice president in the organization. That's hard. And it upsets the applecart. Everyone now wants to be paid like you. It might be easier to become a lower or medium paid executive vice president. And I'll end on a practical tip >> Let me add on that. >> Yeah please. >> One idea Is to say, can I come up for review earlier? Or do I have the option to come up for review earlier? So when you get a promotion typically that comes with a raise, and it may be the case that you're not ready for it now but you're a little closer to it than a normal person might be. So a normal position might have the promotion evaluation take place the year 18 months. You asked, can I have that as an option to bring myself up in six months? And if it feels like you're ready, and your mentor your boss thinks you're ready to, then you can do it without having to ask again. Say, look, can we do this something out of the ordinary, because you've already established that this is something that you have the option to do. You don't have to do it, but it's very valuable if it turns out you're ready for it. And they're ready to give it to you as well. >> Yeah, and Barry, I'll think about this but a good question from Paul. And I'll think about right now also, think about some examples you've seen in smart trades and employment negotiations. So while you're thinking I'll leave with one. So often there's a base pay and performance pay. And maybe your mix is different than their mix what they have in mind. But for example, you might think you're amazing, and they're not so sure. And so you ask for a $20,000 raise because you're worth it. But they're not sure you haven't proven yourself yet. So a smart trade you can make is like a contingent contract kind of thing where you say, look, you tell me if I hit these milestones, which I think I'm going to hit, and you're not so sure, if I hit these milestones, bump up my performance pay. In fact, I'll even take five k less base and I want heavier bonus. And they might think that's a great trade because both performance bonuses cheap to them because they only have to pay you when you've made them wealthy. So that's one simple example. >> We hire salespeople, I love it when they say they're prepared to work for pennies or dimes per unit in terms of commission. Because it means that they are convinced that they're going to be successful in terms of selling the product and they're going to make a lot of money. And if they end up being the highest paid person organization, God bless them because basically it means they've sold a ton, which means we're doing really well. And so that the fact that they are well compensated when they're great and in fact, they've demonstrated their own confidence and are being rewarded for their ability. All works wonderfully from my perspective. >> I love that you said that you don't mind that I would have guessed that about you. But when I work with sales organizations, that's one of the first questions I ask is if I set up your top salesman to make more money than you what do you think? And I love that you said that you think that's great, because he's making you he or she's making you rich. Some CEOs don't think that way. They're like, like, the staff would say, well, we can have our top car salesperson make more than me. I've been here for 30 years. And that's a sense of friction. Other examples of smart trades could be title. So I mentioned that In a startup. They don't have a lot of maybe equity is super valuable to them because they think more than you think that that stock will be valuable. And they just don't have enough liquidity to pay you a lot now, so it's just like they don't want to give you money now. [LAUGH] They don't want to give you money later on. Can they give you an amazing title or amazing projects or amazing experience or amazing training? >> An amazing mentor that's worth a lot. The ability to work from home. Well, maybe we want to less of that now, but that can be worth a tremendous amount. I think another is information. In particular one useful piece of information is to know what is the size of the average bonus that people are getting. What's a good bonus? What's a bonus that goes with not such great performance? And the reason why that's so useful is that a year from now, when you get your bonus and they say, look, we're giving you you've done incredibly well. We're going to give you this big bonus of 20,000. And you know that in fact, the high bonuses 40,000 the average bonuses 20 and the low bonuses 10, then it didn't go together that is they can't tell you hey, you did a great job. And yet, we're only giving you what the average bonus is. Now here this one key caveat. What you never want to do is ask them what next year's bonuses are going to be because people don't want to predict the future. So what you should do is say, Can you give me a sense what previous bonuses were what was a great bonus? What was a bonus that went with average performance and what's a bonus and went with the 25th percentile. So 25th percentile 50th and 75th percentile level bonuses. That type of information is much harder to get once you're working there. But now when you're still thinking about it and evaluating it, it's completely reasonable for you to ask ahead of time. Give me a sense of what the bonuses are like. And that should be easy for them to give you because you're not asking for more money. You're just asking for some more information that will help it make it easier for you to make your decision. >> Yeah and someone said could it be negative to talk about promotions and stuff. And Barry's last point is super salient here. It's that, I'm not saying you gotta promote me to make me interested or when do I become vice president cause I don't know if I want to sign yet. It's more like I'm super keen to make this deal. I just want to know what the org chart looks like and what a perfect deal looks like to you What does a perfect Dalian look like to you? What do you want from me ideally? How do you want me to work? When do you want me to work on what? And so Really you're not, that's what I meant by two phone calls. On the first phone call, you're not asking for anything for yourself, you're just asking information. And then you take a day or two to think about what is the right thing to ask for. So you're not asking for a promotion now and maybe, there's a right way and wrong way to ask it. And I would just encourage you the night before the phone call to practice this to your closet or out loud to your family members and say, does this sound in a greedy way or more just in a curious way? It should be curious, not greedy. >> As Dallian mentioned, I'd like to emphasize this idea of talking to people outside of HR. So you should talk to the people who interviewed you because they obviously like you. You can talk to some of your classmates who may be at the company a year ahead of you, you can talk to recent hires. And the question to ask is, what is it that has led people to be particularly successful in this company? And similarly, where did people who you thought were going to be great end up screwing up? The reason I ask this is you share a common name. They're hiring you not to set you up for failure, but because they want you to be successful. And so they're going to be excited to have you discuss with them and learn the information about what it takes to be great in this company. >> Another example of smart trades could be the form of payment, right? So base payment versus base, end your salary, end year bonus versus signing bonus. So in regular times, so like six months ago, signing bonuses are very valuable to liquidity constrained students who have debt, but they're very cheap for firms. Because I'd rather give you 20K signing and a little less salary because salary, I have to pay you year on year and pay benefits on that. >> [CROSSTALK] >> Let me emphasize that point. If they give you an extra $20,000 signing bonus, that's $20,000 one and done. In contrast, if they give you an extra $5,000 a year salary, that 5,000 this year will grow to be 6,000 next year, 7,000 perhaps the year after. And when we add it up over your lifetime with the company, that could easily be worth $100,000. So what that says are a couple of things. First, think about not just their value to you, but the cost to them. Secondly, whether the $20,000 sign on bonus is worth more than the increase in salary. It depends a lot on how long you're going to plan to be with the company. If you're only going to be with them one or two years, then the sign on bonus is worth a lot more. Conversely, if this is the place you're going to make your career, then having an extra 2 or $3,000 salary might actually be worth more in the long run than the $20,000 sign on bonus. >> And that's a great example of what I see, when I said earlier that people don't think about their trade offs. Very rarely do I coach a candidate who, before they met me already thought, how much salary would they have to give me per year for me to be indifferent between that salary and say a $5,000 boost to my signing bonus? Because it's probably not much, right, would I take $5,000 more signing or $1,000 more salary? I think $1,000 more salary is more valuable because benefits are tied to that and if I stay for a long time. And then I'll ask the candidate, they might be liquidity constrained, look I just need moving expenses, I need money up front. So I have to crush my future income for current income. Okay, you need liquidity now, but does it have to be from this company? Can you take even a high interest loan just to move? >> One of the things I did when I came to Yale is I said, I've got a challenge, which is my wife is currently working in New York City. And so long as she's working there, we can afford the house that we've purchased in New Haven. But when we have kids, she's probably going to want to move and work closer to home. And so we have a challenge because if she starts looking for a job in New Haven and can't get one, then we're going to have a challenge paying off the mortgage. So as a deal, as part of the negotiation to come here, what I asked for was the ability to borrow and have a second mortgage in the event that my wife looked for a job in New Haven and was having trouble getting it. At the end of the day, she was hired, it wasn't a problem. We never needed a second mortgage. But knowing that it was there made it easier for her to leave her job in New York, look for a position in New Haven, and give us great peace of mind. So this was something that was super valuable to us, in the end, very low cost to Yale. In particular, right, they're paying my salary, they know how to get my money, they can just deduct any mortgage payments from my paycheck, I'm not going anywhere. And so as a result, they know that it was a low risk loan on their part. >> Yeah, and someone, Robert points out there's time value of money with the signing bonus. Do you invest it in Amazon stock or Zoom stock? And there's tax consideration, capital gains versus income and there's all these things to think about. But you have to think about these things ahead of time. And when you're in this question mode before you're haggling, you should phrase it in ways that are very unthreatening to them. Like I would say, would you rather give me less salary and more signing? Or more signing and less base? And so, Ramesh can tell you actually, we have bureaucratic rules on this and that and that. So you're not saying give me 5K more salary, or 5K or 500 or 20,000 more signing. What you're saying in the beginning is, Ramesh, how do you feel at this organization about signing versus base? So for example for me when I talk to a dean, and you'll notice how I word in a way that he likes to hear, I always put things in terms of trades. Though this isn't a smart trade yet, I don't know which trade is smart. I'm getting information from him on the first phone call, then on the next phone call I'm proposing a smart trade. But at the initial stage notice what I'll do, I'll say hey Eddie, would you rather give me less salary? He likes the sound of that. Notice I didn't say would you rather give me more salary or would you rather give me less salary and a bigger office? Or a smaller office and more salary especially if I was willing to work a little extra and some some teaching for you? And what he said was Dalian, I've got Nobel Prize winners running around here and there's no way you're getting your corner office. You are not getting a corner office, no matter what. In fact, offices aren't negotiable. It's all hierarchical. There's rules. Now what he told me is office is not flexible. And what I learned is perhaps money is. And so that's what I mean when you're asking information, you're not proposing trades yet. You're just asking him his opinions of various trades. You're asking smart questions, not like how do I get stock? But how do I earn stock or a smarter verbiage? How do I buy stock from this company? And so you when you ask them for something, ask them in a hypothetical give and take not just a take, take, take. >> A lot of people focus on the initial stock grant. Another question you should be asking is is this the last grant that I'm getting? When would I expect to get another set of options? How large will those options be? How regularly? What's the range that people get in terms of those options? And so it's a reasonable question to ask. You're not asking for more money. You're asking for more information because if you're trying to choose between one job and another, in order to evaluate what they're actually paying you in this job. You need to have an understanding of not just what salary today is, but what the future path will look like, which includes, in many cases, stock options, which are a large part of your compensation. >> Yeah, and Angelo I see a lot of good questions here, some of which we plan to answer in the Q&A anyway. But Angelo asked is work experience abroad one of the nice things is you probably are focused I mean, it's easy to say money is important, but often, sorry, six months ago, I would have said it's often not pivotal because people usually often have two offers and the money is not so different in those two offers. Now you may be only facing one offer and the money is pivotal for you but pivotal for the firm also. And to Angela's point perhaps working abroad or just think in terms of projects, right, like what roles and responsibilities can you take on they like the sound of that. >> I want to go back to something you said earlier on. >> In our course Dailan and I emphasize the role of symmetry. And it can't be the case that both sides end up listening more than they ended up speaking, right, at the end, it has to add up to one. And so I want to encourage you to not just pay attention to what the other side cares about what they want and learn from them, but also to volunteer information about yourself so they can learn about what matters to you, and therefore they can give it to you. Information sharing is not a one way street. You can ask questions you can listen, but you also have to volunteer information. It's true that the more they know about you, perhaps they can take a little bit advantage of you. But you'll also end up getting what really matters to you what you care about. >> Yeah, excellent and you want to say what do you want to learn, but also reveal what do you want? Why, in some sense in what order. You can say this is a top three for me bottom three, but you hide how the last thing which was how much you willing to pay for those things. So you you share your interests and priorities, but not your willingness to pay for those. You don't share your bottom line, your BATNA, you just say, for example, say I'd like to have this wrapped up by Thursday, but you don't say and I'm willing to forego $5,000 signing bonus if you can get there. You just say it's important to me that we wrap up for Thursday and stress why you want these things and be more flexible. I say be firm on your goals but flexible how you get there. I think a lot of rookie negotiators when they job negotiate, they have their heart set on something like I want an extra 5%. But they should be flexible how they get that. And so you should make multiple offers to the recruiter. Ramesh, I'm hoping you can give me either this or this, give me either one of those things and I'll sign right now and let him pick. It signals flexibility, but also allow him to find what's cheapest for him. >> I want to emphasize something Dalian and just said, which is the power of allowing the other side to know, promising other side, that if they give you what you're asking for, you're prepared to sign right now. The worst thing that can happen from the other side's perspective is that they go out, and they make an exception, they stretch. And the end of the day you use this more generous offer they've made to go and get a better deal from another company. So they've used a lot of their chips, their points, and then in the end, they end up with nothing. And so if you want them to stretch for you and really push for what is you're asking let them know that if they do that, they will be successful in recruiting you. You can also, of course, ask that from the other side. Now, let me say that if you don't offer, and you don't say, look, if you have, if you make this thing happen, I'm ready to sign, then you're implicitly saying I'm not so sure I'm ready to sign. And that may actually give them some pause in terms of how far they're willing to go. I should add that this is the opposite of saying if you don't do this, I won't come. That's more of a threat. This is the promise. If you do this I'm prepared to sign right now. And of course, that leaves open what happens if they don't do it, you could still decide to sign. We haven't said what was going to happen if they can't meet these terms, which you've told them is if you're prepared to make me happy in this way, I'm prepared. I'm ready to sign. This is where I want to be. >> Allow me to expand on that just for a second. So one of the things that I spend a lot of time teaching is this XYZ technique. I say it's a deal maker, not a deal breaker and it's not just a turn of phrase. What I mean is, so to elaborate >> Turn of phrase? >> Yeah, it's more than just that, to elaborate on what Barry just said, so let's say you are, you're all, you they offer your manager position, but you're qualified for senior manager. In fact, they say if everything goes right, he'll be senior manager within end of year. And so a great way to say is if you have 30 days to decide. You could say and even fit, you could even be humble in your mind and not even sure you're old enough or experienced enough to become senior manager. So you're not saying give me senior manager or else I don't like this job, or I'm having second thoughts. It's I love the job. But I've got to uproot my family. I have to change schools. I've got to move to Boston for this, and I just need a week or two to think about it. But I really want this to happen. I think I'm a perfect fit. And I'm so excited to work for you, Angelo. Ever since college, we've been trying to work together. This is our chance. And I tell you what, though, if this could be a senior manager position I signed yesterday. I'm in, I've all ready I don't even have to ask my wife we're in. We're in. I'm dragging the kids. I'll buy them a trampoline. I'll figure it out. So it's and the idea that little sillies phrasing. It's like, he might not give you senior manager just because you said it. But notice what I'm offering him something might be important to him, which is finality and certainty. I'm not just saying give me senior please. I'm saying if you gave me senior manager, you have my signature now. And the implication is not if you don't give it to me, I don't come is if you don't give it to me while I've got something to think about I may say yes in 30 days. So it's give me XYZ and I'll sign right now, as opposed to give me XYZ else I won't sign. Very key distinction. >> My last point here is that when you get an agreement, you should write to them what your understanding of the agreement is. Ideally, they'll have put all of the extra features of your negotiation down in the letter to you, but if they haven't almost as good is you write to them with your understanding of what all the points are that you've agreed to. That way, if the manager leaves, there's some ambiguity in the future about what is you agreed to you can always point back and say, look here, this is the offer that my understanding that I accepted, these were the different conditions that went with it in terms of the special features that I had. And it helps in terms of people's memories can change over time, they can be different people you've been working with, and so that way you don't have to renegotiate it, its all ready been there in agreement its in your personnel file and of course you have a copy of it as well. And if it turns out you're not entirely right about your understanding of what the agreement is, this is a good time for them to correct it before you actually start showing up. We have a lot of questions and so let's start with one on the role of emotional intelligence in negotiation. Dalian. >> Yeah, I mean I think if you see negotiation as learning and to use Barry's words being owl centric or other person centric. I want to say one thing about emotional intelligence. I don't know what Barry thinks about this. I'm less about empathy than a lot of the current gurus are. I think empathy is great. If you have it, go for it. But some of the people I coach are negotiating with criminals and evil people. Like in my course we had an FBI hostage negotiator come on and her partner was one of the interrogators for Saddam Hussein. And you can just imagine either side of that conflict, negotiating with people that are very hard to empathize with. But I think you still should try. There's always some human basis to empathize with the person. So I think empathy is important. But it can also be exhausting. And I think ideally, I would want to empathize more. But there's going to be some point at which I'm unable to. And maybe that's my fault. So I would just add a twist in the in the EQ world, I like to say, empathy is great, but at least we can be curious. In other words, I don't have to feel what you feel. But I should know what you feel. Corollary that is when I coach CEOs I often say you should know what the person in the call center thinks of your new design. You don't have to do what she says. But you should know what she says. And your biggest critics, you don't have to do what he says, but you should know what he says. And so it's more about being curious about the other side. Empathizing with their points is great. But curiosity is a lower bar, maybe a more realistic bar. >> And let me add to that, and whatever, don't be a jerk. >> 100%. >> And in particular, don't keep on fighting for that last penny. Because at some point you want you want them to be enthusiastic about you coming. And yeah, and once that once they say no and their reason makes sense, I stop asking. If the reason doesn't make sense, I may push one more time. >> We have some more questions to come to, but first I'd like to do another poll. So this is a poll about negotiating job offers and potentially losing job offers, because you try to negotiate them. So the vast majority of our people as we're seeing these come in, you can't see them. But I can tell you, almost 80% of people have negotiated a job offer. Not surprising. It is a little surprising that about 15% of people seem to be losing a job offer because they actually tried to negotiate. >> Was it in writting already or just [CROSSTALK] >> Well, I'm getting to that. Interestingly, it seems to be low numbers. But it's not that different between men and women. It's 48 to 41. So I'll call that a tie. And of the people who lost a job offer 80% of them did not have it in writing before they- And that's a super important part is when you first talk to them, you just want to be keen and show fit. And you don't negotiate until you get an offer in writing. Ask questions. But don't ask for more until you know how they think about it. You know it's a smart trade. Or it's the right tree to bark up. But also get an offer in writing before you start asking for more signing bonus or promotions or what a vice president would, just get that offer. In good faith and okay let's turn some Q&A, Barry. >> So the first thing that therefore you should ask for in negotiation is the offer in writing. >> Make me an offer Barry. I'm excited. >> Yeah I've offered you a job. You say great. >> Can you send it to me by email? Can you fax it over to me? PDF it. Love to see the whole thing. And say something about how excited you are. Don't I need to see this in writing. Just, can you send it to me in writing. Wow, I'm so excited to work with you, Barry. I'm excited to work with you Dalian. We had a question from Giuseppe, which is this issue of when to talk about what are your salary expectations. Giuseppe, are you with us by the way? >> Yeah and Mr. Conti, hey. So two things. There's two parts. And Reluca asked this also. How do you handle the salary expectations question? And her part was when do you talk about salary? I think you can talk about anything upfront in the Q&A. But you negotiate salary I think way later. And just because it's kind of a win lose issue, so I don't talk about money upfront too much. I talk about it. I asked him opinion about it. I asked him for past data. But I don't grab any money. Expand the pie first before you go grab pie. It's easy to get a big piece of pie when the pie is expanded. So first I'm trying to figure out what projects and titles they want me on. So long story short, talk about money or haggle money later. How do you handle the salary expectations question? I, let me just tell you a story. I was once talking to an HR conference. This happened two years ago in New York. And in the middle of the talk, I interrupted myself. It was kind of dumb. I realized I had 300 HR people in the audience. And this is the number one question that all people asked me. How do you handle the salary expectations question? Which is why I put Raluca, Giuseppe on blast early on. Right, how do you handle this question? And so I turn to the audience. I said wait, you folks are the other side of this. What do you mean by this question? Is it you're trying to get them to pin to a number so you can beat them over the head with that number. Later on in the negotiation, you said you'd work for $68,000. Or is it a little bit of that. But mostly just to weed people out who aren't in the ballpark, who have missed expectations. Or maybe they're worth 400 K, but that's not near your budget and so by promoting them, in other words, you have 800 applications. And you got to weed them down to the final 30. And this can be a weeding out question. And once you weed them out as long as they're in ballpark, it's still negotiable, especially if new information, new roles and responsibilities come to light. And 95.9%, the vast majority I think all but less than 10. Like, 293 hands went up. It's the first thing. We're just trying trying to get a sense that they're in the ballpark and they're being reasonable. So how do you answer that question? Reasonably, get market information. Talk to people who you've interviewed with. If you think the market wage for your role is 40 to 50 K, say 45 to 50 K or just say 50 K, I wouldn't go outside of a range in case a computer is doing some checking and just ruling all people out above 50. Use the word negotiable. Say if you can type text say flexible but 45 K-ish. Or to Barry's idea put in market rate. And I understand the market rate is 40 to 50 depends on roles and responsibilities. If a person asks you in an interview, hey Dalian here's an evil question. He wouldn't say this but it is an evil, hey, Dalian What is the least we can pay you? So I have my money hat. Actually, I have my money hat on because I can't go to the hairdresser my hair is yeah, thank you. So if they say what's your least the least we can pay you in my mind I'm wondering yeah, but what's the most likely you could pay me but that's too cheeky to say, so I would defer the question, but would ask their permission. Do not ignore a question! It looks like you are a BSer or you're not paying attention, if Barry says ask me inappropriate question, I would take it on, and I won't make him feel bad say that's inappropriate, Barry. What I'd say is, hey Barry, I'm happy to give you a number if you need one, but can I ask a few more questions about the job because, my salary expectations might depend on how much commuting you have me do, how much flying to other cities you have me do, and what are my roles and responsibilities. So if I know a little bit more about those, then I can give you answer. So may I ask you, what city would I be in? And he might say no Dalian I need your salary number, but he probably says, you're in Toronto, if what I mean. So ask for permission to defer the salary discussion later when someone says hey Dalian, so for example, if someone tries to hire me for negotiations coaching, Dalian what's your rate, I always just have questions. I'm happy to give you an excellent rate in fact, since I met you as a Yale student, I will give you a Yale alumni rate, but I just need to know a few things first. How many people, how long of a talk, do I need to fly somewhere? I just have a few questions first, and then I'll give you a great rate. And so it allows me to get information, before I grab. >> And by the way, if they tell you there's 1,000 people in the audience, then you've learned a lot about what it is they're more likely willing to pay. If they tell it's only 12 people in the audience, but those 12 people are CEO and the board, again, you might realize that there perhaps a little less inelastic in terms of how much they're willing to pay. Another very revealing question is to ask, who has spoken to you in the past? Because if I discover who that is, that might give me a sense of what they likely charged. >> Yes, and then I email those people often know them. >> And if they tell me it's Colin Powell, then I have a sense my God, they must have paid 100K, and they tell me somebody I've never heard of, well, that's another story. >> I love this point, let me say something because it has a very important general point here. Even if you're not a professional speaker, just think about this as a general point, so someone asked you to speak for 40 minutes. Why is it relevant whether you're speaking to 400 people who paid a lot of money to be there, or four people who are there for free? Because it's just the same work to you, right? Well, the pie is a lot bigger, their value for this is a lot bigger when it's 400 financial advisors who paid $500 each. And I just I have no shame asking I want to know a little bit of the value that I bring. And so I will say if the audience is huge and the value I bring is bigger, but I don't phrase it if you've got more people, I'm going to charge you more, the way I phrased it flexible, inflexible, the way I phrase it is, because if you have less people I'd like to give you a price that makes sense for you. So I frame it as it's cheaper if it's less not it's more expensive if it's more often I don't have to do any of that. I just ask them, how many people are there and they just say 80, and great. >> Another example of valuable to me and cheap to them is giving out books to attendance when you have a book, sometimes it helps get the book on the New York Times bestseller list. Other times, it means that book is passed along in the organization, so, it is something that as an author, they often care about, and it also makes the conference sometimes more valuable because it means people have something in their goodie bag. >> If you are a gig worker, and someone asks you what your fee is, by the way, another general point, the way you deal with price negotiations is with inventory, right? There's some famous sales trainers that say this Grant Cardone which I don't endorse necessarily, but he says some smart things also, and so I will cite him there. He and I see the world quite differently, but he does have a lot of experience. And I found that to be true as well, so as a gig worker have different levels of service, and so I could say, here's my price, and I'll XYZ it. In other words, if you give me this price I sign right now, what I'll say is, for this price, I'll talk to any number of people, all day If you want, I'll stay for the whole conference, I'll do this this, I'll sign this I'll meet with people have private panels or I'll try to extend my value. I'll give the keynote to your group, but also little workshops while I'm there, I'll give you the Platinum service for the Platinum price. And now I found a high price out there, but I want to lose them because a gig worker has to think like one of the questions was, do I say my low price or my price? because you don't want to sell yourself too short, but you also don't want to demand too much make the job go away. And so rather than thinking about this, as where in the range do I mention a number, the XYZ is I mentioning the top of the range not as a threat but as a promise. In other words, this is my Platinum price, I will do everything you need for this price but, if this is out of your budget, or there's not enough attendees to justify this price, I'm willing to work with you. I won't say the wording but it's something I will be flexible on price, if you'll be flexible on the level of service you get. And what I'll say is, if you can be flexible on the timing and find a way that this works for my schedule, then I can be flexible on price. And what happens is, some firms just say deal, they don't care you're in you're in budget, you probably ask for too little deal. But some say that's three extra budget, we can't afford it but we're still talking. They don't say Dalian we can't afford you bye they say we can't afford your Platinum price, what about your silver price? Let's talk, and so you're keeping them negotiating. >> One of the things that Q&A does, is allow people to up vote various questions, we have three questions that have been up voted over 20 times. So the first one is, one of those by anonymous or what I'll call Annie, how can a student with no previous knowledge sell him or herself dearly, when a job offer comes up? I'll start and give you a second ponder or two. >> All right, but one sec is this no previous knowledge of negotiating, or no previous knowledge of the job. >> I'm going to assume the way I read this, that it's the first job the persons applying for. And in that case, one idea I try to emphasize with my students, is this notion of having a superpower, and writing it down and making it clear to your employer, what your superpower is. A lot of people think that that's just recapping their CV putting in a couple sentences, but what you've done is not your superpower, let me give you an example. One of my students was working for a company, and noticed that they didn't have any online sales. And so he goes to his supervisor and says, should we go and create this website? And the supervisor says, that'd be great, but we don't have a budget for that, and the person says, well can I do it? And supervisor says do you know, HTML, JavaScript, and he says no. But look, I can get a manual. I can figure it out. And so the person goes and teaches himself how to do it, makes it happen, figures out how to connect with Shopify. Next thing you know the company has a functioning online sales. And that aspect of both identifying the problem, taking the initiative, figuring out how to solve it without having to be managed, that's what I call a superpower. And in particular, that's the kind of thing that a company says, yep, I need to have this person on my team. When I asked my daughter what her superpower was, she said that, it is helping people hydrate because you know, none of us actually drinks nothing. I think she's right about that. So maybe it's time to get a little some of this pretty good tea here. Yeah, Thanks, kid. >> I would add, I haven't thought of a good way to say this, but this is more of a mental state of mind for young, inexperienced people before I went into academia. I was the too young for this job person constantly. And my attitude was always like they want to always hire someone with more experience or older. And I kind of thought if you hire someone 20 years older than me, then by definition, they're not going to be where you are by the time they're your age. In other words, yes, I'm inexperienced, and I'm on a huge trajectory. And so by definition, this is an entry level position. You have to be hiring someone who's younger than you're thinking. But it doesn't prove that I'm that superstar. That doesn't prove anything. It just I had this mindset of, of course, I'm young and inexperienced. Because in 10 years, I'm going to be going for your job. Now, how you say that I don't know. Maybe you don't. But I always had the kind of attitude that I'm willing to prove that while I'm inexperienced, I can take on a project. So like Barry said, I'd ask for little projects. He did remind me of something important, which was I don't think you should negotiate your internships. When they give you an internship for free or an internship at a base rate, just negotiate the projects and titles and some people you're working with and because the money there is so low anyway and doesn't repeat year after year. So this is more a point for certainly for MBAs in a two year program, you have your summer internship. If it pays x, just take x and work more on your projects, and then negotiate your starting salary if they hire you back. Some things aren't negotiable at all. But you can find out when they become negotiable. And so you know what to ask for at the time. I've had in a rare circumstance, although I don't recommend this, this is risky, he said, here's a package, it's in finance, it's non-negotiable. When is it negotiable? Next December. So he negotiated his performance review up from December to September. In other words, review me sooner and I will prove to you. So a lot of it is contingent, if you say you're a rock star, they shouldn't just take you on your word and pay you more because you haven't proven it yet. So I wouldn't negotiate in the beginning, I have no experience kind of pay me poorly, because I don't know anything. But in three months review me on the projects I've done for you and let's talk about if I hit the milestones, what does that mean? Give me, in other words, you would pay me if you put me on that team. Well, you don't have enough experience for that team, okay? But if in three months if I solve problem x, can you put me on that team? And that's the kind of thing you would negotiate, proving yourself, in a short time, and getting to a position of power. Let me add something here if I may. I think it's okay when you're starting out to say, I'm prepared to work for what I think is a reasonable wage and what you think is a reasonable wage. At the same time, I'm not prepared to do the same job that other people are doing and get paid less for it. So that is I want to be paid the market wage. And that's something that you may know a lot more about than what I do. And so I'm trusting that you will pay me the fair market wage. So it's not what's the least I'm willing to work for. It's I'm prepared to do the work at the market wage. And someone asked if they don't hold their end of the bargain, I think that's why it's important. I mean, it's all context sensitive. We don't want to get too far into the detail weeds here but that's why Barry's earlier point of getting it in writing. So you email summarize the phone conversation and say, so as I understand in three months, if I've solved this webpage for you, I could get on team x, right? And then if in four months you're not on that team, at least, it's not that the email is a contract that you can force them to do anything. You're not going to sue your employer. It's more like you're clarifying that there was the psychological contract, or at least you're reducing the uncertainty about what was promised. >> You don't have to reopen the negotiation about our original negotiation. We can take off from where we left it. And we've have a lot less ambiguity. >> We have another question coming up over here. We should go to some of the COVID job questions because we've had a lot of these when we started out. And in particular, some folks are in a position where they've had no choice but to lay off employees. And other people are trying to find new jobs because they were laid off or furloughed. So te question is, how should we think about both of these types of job negotiations? Delian? >> Yeah, I'll say some very general things and maybe you can fill in with some specifics. I think that when you are a firm asking people to sacrifice for a brighter or possible future. Sometimes it's just everyone needs to sacrifice. I get that. Just don't forget who sacrificed, right? So for example, if Yale asked us to take a salary reduction, I hope that they give it back [LAUGH] once their endowment gets back to normal. >> On that point, just last week, the dean announced that we would be the senior faculty taking a 10% reduction in salary. The way I described is we were voluntold. And this was described to us as something that would be a precautionary measure that we weren't sure how many students would be coming in, how dire our financial situation would be. If the situation turned out not to be as bad as we were fearing, it wouldn't necessarily happen. If things turn around, he'd look for ways in the future to make it up for us. I think that's a key point to make when you're talking with your employees which is, to the extent you are asking them to make a sacrifice today that you hope and will expect and they can expect that to the extent things turn around, you will make it up for them in the future. You can reward them. It's much easier to make a sacrifice, knowing that your efforts are going to be recognized and rewarded in the future. >> Yeah, understand and here's where empathy is super key, not just curiosity. because curiosity is a needed like, you know this hurts but a little empathy like an apology. And like when you screw somebody over, you have to apologize. And maybe not a mass email if you can avoid it. But also a more general thing is like for example, I was working with a sales company a few months ago. And they had just done a 100 times earnings IPO. So they're just blowing up. But they were a small group and they had to institute certain process measures. So, think about this as anytime we need to do something painful, a process measure, a reduction in salary, whatever it is, that your current people need to feel pain so that future organization can benefit or survive. You want to find ways that the current people who are getting you to the future benefit from the future somehow. And what firms do so much is sorry Dalian we're going to make you enter a bunch of data because it's going to become super valuable to have data from our salespeople. To know CRM data, so we're going to have you institute this huge CRM system. And it's going to be painful and it's probably not going to work and the app is going to fail. But in two years it'll be really smooth and we're going to save millions of dollars. But right now, you endure the pain. I think he tried to want to borrow some of that future savings, or promise some of the future savings to the people who are getting you there, whether it becomes a personal sacrifice or just extra labor, adopting a new system. And so one of the things I face as a danger is they want me to flip the classroom and record myself. So I'm going to replace myself. Uh-oh, so if EMBA pays me a certain podium rate to teach live, but then I record myself, it's much cheaper for them to just pay me half and show my recording to the EMBAs. And ten years from now that's where we'll be and Yale will save millions of dollars. But pay me to get you there, and then the next professor comes into the new system or something. But help the people who go from high to low, who feel the pain of the transition, ease that pain a little bit and then the new people can take this new contract. This is what we offer now. We used to do this, but now we do this. But the people that that feel that transition, you need to take care of them somehow. >> Let's turn this around and ask what specific advice we have for people who are being job seekers today in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. What specific advice do we have for them? >> Yeah, tsome basic unfun advice is apply widely, right? So if you were going to apply 38 places, apply 338 places, and customize each application. It's just a ton of work, but you need to throw more darts. >> And let's also talk about, let's say you were lucky and you actually do get an offer. >> Then let me tir something to Barry's course, and when times are tough, the pie shrinks. Or if the other side has power and you don't, their end of the bargaining zone shrinks and you can't get this out of them anymore. Maybe you could get this out of them three months ago, but now this is the most they'll pay, and you don't have much power. Remember one of the key things that Barry's taught you is once you correctly define the pie, and sadly it's just a fact, for most of us the pie has shrunk. Most people have lost 30 to 40% of their wealth. I have lost 60% of my income this year, gone not coming back. Employers are feeling this, we're all feeling, and I'm lucky, I'm lucky. People have lost their jobs. So the pie is small, especially in terms of money. But two things, try to think of non-monetary things, we mentioned that. But also remember that you always have power to get half the pie once you correctly define it. A lot of these questions where now that there's COVID, I don't have much power. How do I negotiate? The same way you always did. The pot has shrunk, but you still can get half. And what is half? So in other words, you becoming a junior analyst for the firm isn't providing much unique value because they can now hire anybody. Everybody wants a job so they can hire a junior analyst. >> The other problem is that you're going to work remotely and they're not going to get as much value from you. Or that first job was supposed to be really an extended job interview, so they can figure out to hire you. It's going to be much harder for them to figure out how to do that. I think the answer is you negotiate less upfront when it comes right down to it. And you may have the ability to renegotiate after you are really working there and figure out how essential you are or not to them. >> Yeah, you gotta think creatively and maybe take on two jobs, not with different employers, although that will be also a thing. But different roles and responsibilities and let me try a bit of this, a bit of that. One of the things I'm worried about as Yale downsizes is I need to become more institutionally valuable to Yale. And so I'm just taking on all this extra online. And when Barry said, do you want to do this webinar? My first answer was yes, because I want to get good at this because this is where Yale's headed. So yesterday I sent out an email to the dean saying I will do free online intro classes to prospective students because we can't just check the box. We have to get good at presenting value to future students. So something that Yale paid me to do, I'm doing for free, because when they look for places to cut, I don't want to be on the chopping block. I want to be valuable two years from now when they need me. >> So let's take that point and expand on it. What can you do to have your employer recognize that you have a super power? What's super valuable to them and not necessarily so costly to you? Normally for Yale, well, we have a surplus of students, and so finding a way to get more people to come to campus is not a great super power. But in the midst of this online learning and not having classes in person, if you can do something that will help attract people to come to campus or to learn from us online, that's incredibly valuable. So today, Dalian has a super power. One question that Trisha asked that's been highly upvoted is how do you negotiate with organizations like NGOs or government organizations that are highly bureaucratic, highly regulated, and don't expect to negotiate? Irene asked the follow up which is, how do you negotiate with organizations like non-profits where they might be offended that you're negotiating or they're really just bad at it? And so therefore all sorts of things can go wrong because they start taking offense. So first, let's say that maybe you shouldn't negotiate in some circumstances where there really isn't a point. If you're getting an entry level job at Ernst and Young or Dunkin Donuts, there may not be a lot of room for negotiation there. And so don't try and fight on something where there really is very little to gain. Instead, think about who's going to be my manager. What project am I going to be on? Where am I located? Do I get to work from home? What will I be learning in this in terms or how will this job help me in my future career? >> And they have bands, very bureaucratic bands, like level A, level nine, and you get a package with each band. And so you've got to negotiate your title, not what benefits you get with the title. Everyone at band A gets package B, and so you got to negotiate if you give me band nine, I sign right now. Or what does it take for me to get to band nine and get this new non-negotiable package? >> So, Dalien, how do you negotiate in a circumstance where there really isn't much to negotiate over or the situation is primarily regulated or they're potentially going to be offended by the fact that you're asking something more than what they've offered? >> If you're doing it right, they won't be offended. Because, remember, you're going to get a sense of this early on. What Barry and I are saying is by focusing on them and asking questions and learning, you're learning, I'm not going to ask Eddie for a corner office. Because I already asked him, would you rather give me a corner office or a bigger pay? And he said you're not getting a corner office, Dalian. And so I'm not going to ask that bad question because I discovered it was bad. And so you're feeling them out a lot before you grab. And so if you're doing it the way we're suggesting, I doubt anyone would get offended. Because at some point they're just going to be inflexible, but you've already figured that out by talking to their peers, etc. And then I would just say if Barry says no, no, no, no, no. I might say, is there anything I could do for you that would get you to reconsider this? I don't want to be on record with a too personal example. And I don't recommend this dangerous sentence, especially in times like this. Scared to say it. They said, I understand you want to give me this, but would you at least consider it over the weekend because I teach negotiations and if I can't get you to consider even like if I can't negotiate against you, I said, fire me now, if I can't, right, because I'm a negotiation professor. >> For the typical person, I think you can add and here, it's always a good idea to use a little humor. Look, you should be happy to see them negotiating because one of the things you're hiring me to do is negotiate with customers, suppliers, other employees. And so, the fact is that if I can't do a good job negotiating for myself, how could you expect me to do a great job negotiating for you? >> Especially in COVID, you're going to be negotiating up and down every supply line, every firm has to trim the fat. They're going to need you to come in and trim the fat everywhere. And so they're going to want someone who's trimming the fat in their own contract. >> It's a little harder for them to be offended when what you're doing is describing a role that's of great interest to them. Yes, it's possible that they may be paying you a few thousand dollars more now, but because you're a great negotiator, you're going to get that back to them many times over because of the job you do for them. >> And it's all in terms of smart trades, right? They're giving you more of this to get a lot of that. So you're expanding the pie, bringing value. You're not just taking, you're not just grabbing, you're not just getting more. So I was worried since I lost 60% of my income. One of the things I did with Yale is I signed up to do another online course on business ethics, that creates a ton of revenue for Yale. In most years, I would have said I don't want to do that right now. But that's a way to get me some income and help Yale a lot. I don't ask Yale give me some of my loss income. I say what can I do more of? >> On this point some people are hesitant to start the conversation by telling the employer how much they love the job, why this is the place that they really want to work. Well we think the opposite is right. Which is, take it, think about it from the employer side, be allocentric here. No employer wants to hear the employee say, well look, I don't really like working for you. But if you pay me enough money, I'll just hold my nose. I'll suck it up. And yeah, I'll take this job that is really something I'm not interested in doing. And so if you let them know upfront how much you like this job, how much you've loved this job, why this is exciting for you, why this is the right career path for you, then they understand this is a great fit. And they're going to be more flexible in doing things for you. It is true that they may also realize they don't have to pay you as much to do this, but at the same time you respond, look I expect you to be paying me the market wage for this job, and paying me the value that I'll create for you. >> Can I suggest we do one more question then wrap up, because online faces that don't last so long. >> [CROSSTALK] >> We have lots of questions, we could do a second webinar perhaps. Let's end this soon. >> We're going to end on the poker question. But before we do that, somebody asked about additional readings. And in that regard I've updated the reading list on week nine. In particular, I've added a series of webinars and checklists by Leigh Thompson, who teaches negotiation at Northwestern and they're absolutely fantastic. And in terms of other books to read, well, perhaps I can recommend two of my own here. We have The Artist Strategy done with my first teacher Avinash Dixit. And the second is the most recent book. It's called Mission In a Bottle. And this is done with my former student, Seth Goldman, which tells the story of honesty. Not necessarily a story about negotiation, although there are some negotiation examples in there. But an interesting tale about entrepreneurship and business strategy. >> I have a book too, but my friend's book is better than mine. So I'm going to tell you to go buy his book, not my book. His book, Deepak Malhotra, is negotiation genius. I think it's one of the best negotiation books out there right now. >> And it's on the reading list. It's in the suggested. >> And Leigh Thompson, L-E-I-G-H. >> Three links to her videos are in the- >> She has a video but also let's link, she has an appendix on how to negotiate your job offer. >> That's in there too. >> Awesome. It's super concise and great. Okay, last question, Barry. >> Okay, last question. Here we go. Dailian, you are a keen poker player, you see the cards behind you. So help us understand what it is that you've learned about poker that helps you that you can apply to being a better negotiator. Where is it the same, where is it different? What are the poker playing skills that are relevant for negotiation? >> Yeah man, I can talk in generalities. It's not about your cards, it's about there's, especially when there's multiple opponents. I don't play my cards well at all. [LAUGH] I'm usually the biggest loser in my own game. I'm way too loose. I don't fold. I don't do what I say. I'm a pretty good poker coach though. Just don't do what I do, that's lesson number one. But I'm really good at figuring other people's cards out. And so much so that if I'm at the casino someone might challenge me I heard you can read people cards, read mine. Like I can't see through cards, it's not magic. But you can take in a lot of information and paying attention, you can at least make estimates. You can put them in kind of a range of hands. And sometimes only like one hand like, ace eight of clubs fits all the information perfectly. You're not always right. >> But how is it that you're reading cards? How is it that you're reading other people in the midst of negotiation? >> I'm asking just so many questions and getting information before I make any requests to go back to how I started, before I asked for anything I want to know what do they think about it. I want to know what's valuable to me. But I want to know whether it's cheap to them. I want to know what are their interests, so what do they want, why do they want that? In what order and I try to estimate by how much and I'm triangulating, I'm asking many questions of many people. So if I have to negotiate against Angelo, if he's an HR person, this is not sexy or rocket science, it's just hard work. If your biggest negotiation nightmare is the vice president of procurement, you should be networking and hanging out with vice presidents of procurement or people who know these people. In other words, if negotiation is learning about Angelo Sheet, talk to people who know Angelo Sheet and ask them what are some of the things they deal with? Like, for example, when I had to negotiate my first academic job, this sounds crazy, but the year prior to that, there was I can't give too many details, because I want to keep him anonymous. But he was a chain smoking dean at a university and I'm allergic to smoke. He would go out in the balcony and smoke and I would go out there and I wouldn't smoke with him, but I would sit with him. I'd find some tea. I actually used to drink an Honest tea, not on that balcony, but I was one of the first customers before I met Barry at Carnegie Mellon. They sold Honest tea and I would buy it. So I'd get a drink and go out in the balcony with him and I would say, I'm teaching negotiations. He's like, yeah. I was like just from a person with your perspective and experience, what are some of the mistakes that people trying to become professors. What do they ask for that really annoys you? And do you see where I'm going with this? I know that I have to negotiate with someone like him at a different university and I know that he'll never hire me. He's graduating me, he's not going to hire me. >> [CROSSTALK] >> And he wants you to do well in the market. >> He didn't care. He was tough. He was a tough guy. He said I don't negotiate anytime, anywhere. But over the months, I learned how deans see people like me. And I think that birds of a feather flock too much together and you need to hang out. You're trying to see their cards, so hang out with people like them. And just to give you a sense to how much this worked, I have to be careful here what I reveal. But he wanted to know what Yale and Harvard and those schools that competed against him for talent, what they were paying. So I gave him all offers I got in 2007 and to be fair if 2008, I'd probably get no offers because of the crash, scary times. But in 2007, I had a bunch of offers and I just showed them off to him and that was the trade and he gave me information what his offers were like last year. I got market info last year and he got market info this year, we traded. Find your enemies and make them information sources. >> For those students who are starting out and don't have access to Dailian's dean, instead what you can do is look at your peers, look at the people who are a year ahead of you, who are in similar types of jobs that you're hoping to get. And ask them for the type of information, or ask your classmates who are getting job offers what they've learned, or go to your career development office and see what information they can share with you. Hey and with that, it's time to wrap up, so first Dailian thank you so much for sharing your insight, spending time with us. For all of you who've submitted questions to us, thank you so much for helping us prepare. For all of those of you who've been with us, we really appreciate your enthusiasm in taking this class. Please spread the word.
