One of a product managers most used, but perhaps most underrated, skills is negotiation. Almost every conversation a product manager has can feel like a request that needs to be weighed and agreed upon in some fashion. While a product manager can (and should) say “no”, the way in which they get to the no, or verbalize the no, is all about negotiation. It is a key pillar of communication, and one that can affect speed, outcomes, and team morale.
Specific negotiations with a pessimistic developer, or an over-promising salesperson, or an impassioned stakeholder will be different. But there are core strategies that remain the same.
When we think about negotiations, we often think of them as positional - where each party stands in opposition and applies pressure in attempt to get the other to yield. This is most often seen in bargaining transactions, or when someone is talking about “holding a hard line.” However, the better approach is often principled negotiations, where all parties come together as a team to find the best outcome and maintain the relationship. The Department of Product wrote up an informative article that summarizes the findings of the Harvard Negotiation Project on principled negotiations well.
According to the study, there are 4 facets which make up principled negotiation:
People - Try to separate the people from the problem, by focusing on the real issue, not who brought it up. Then be sure to bring in empathy for the multiple perspectives involved, participation from those people, and resist the temptation to get emotional.
Interests - Understand the shared interests, which are common to all parties, and the divergent interests, where they disagree. Also keep in mind many interests can be traced back to security, wellbeing, sense of belonging, recognition, or control, and so try to address these root causes first.
Options - Generating options for an outcome should be separate from deciding, and no option is a bad one when you are just at the brainstorming phase. Then compare and contrast within your list.
Criteria - Attempt to use objective criteria wherever possible in your negotiation to move away from emotional influences. Search for criteria like fair market comparisons, professional standards, scientific judgement or raw data to analyze options.
A product manager even tackling one or two of these strategies in their daily interactions can rapidly move them toward more effective communication. Not every negotiation feels like intense conflict, it can simply be a question of priorities or slightly different goals. Negotiation isn’t inherently a good or bad thing, but getting to the best answer makes a difference for speed, morale, and outcomes. And, importantly, the best answer isn’t winning - it is a result that is good for all involved, takes the appropriate amount of time to get to, and preserves or even strengthens relationships.
STAND-UP EXERCISE
Give a prompt to product managers to ask them about a negotiation conversation they had this week / sprint / cycle. Examples might include - an executive wanted a new feature added to an MVP; do we prioritize working through this technical debt or getting started on this new initiative; the designer wants more time to iterate and the engineers just want to get going; our lead candidate just got another offer for $10K over our budget; do I really need to attend this meeting or can I send another team member…
What went right? What went wrong? Using investigation of the four facets of principled negotiation, where could they have dug in deeper? Be sure to share yourself, as negotiation is not a once-and-done skill, but a learning path for all of us.
A following stand-up could come back to this topic and ask if anyone was able to use these techniques to find a desired or beneficial outcome.
BONUS:
The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a famous game theory problem that shows that single event negotiation is very different from multiple event negotiation. On any given product team, you’ll need to negotiate often, so it is best to stay focused on the long term relationship. Have your team play though this interactive game “The Evolution of Trust” to learn and enact the theory.
