Negotiating power

Very soon I will have to have a difficult conversation. I have to negotiate with someone whose current position is so diametrically opposed to mine that the two of us seem to be overreaching ourselves just trying to meet in the middle. I need that person on my side.

In the past, I’ve rarely bothered to negotiate for my needs. In my experience, just battling through a difficult problem or situation is usually easier than trying to get help from someone else. In terms of emotional input, it’s certainly less costly, although it can have unfortunate consequences for my wellbeing in the short term.

There are a few reasons I tend to deal with my problems independently. The main issue is the difficulty I have in approaching people and starting conversations. Often a problem seems self-contained – perhaps time-limited to just a week or two. I might feel that, within those constraints, I have a good chance of keeping things under control. Then especially if the best person to speak to is someone I’ve never met, or someone I know I find difficult to connect with, just the stress of approaching them is a huge investment that might not be worth the benefits. Perverse as it sounds, there’s also the added uncertainty. Sometimes it’s easier to commit upfront to a bad situation than it is to hope for better, and risk being crushed.

There are other, rarer occasions, when I do look for allies. When my time-limited problem has unexpectedly extended itself, or the immediate effects are just too dire. At that point, the problem is translation. Sometimes the person understands what I’m trying to tell them; and honestly, when everything suddenly and magically gets better (and it’s amazing how often that is the case), I wonder why I don’t do this more often. But if they’re not immediately supportive, I’m still more likely to back away into my shell than to try to bring them around to my point of view.

Over the past year I’ve been building a clearer, more strategic picture of my personal needs and vulnerabilities, so that I can anticipate where and how certain things are likely to go wrong. The idea was that if I knew when a situation was heading south, I could talk to the people involved, try to manage expectations, and maybe even get some help. It only half worked. I’ve learned a lot about situations that might go wrong for me, and am developing increasingly effective tools and workarounds to maintain my own personal wellbeing. But I can’t manage expectations, and I don’t have available in conversation the flexible emotional vocabulary required to persuade others to help me. So despite my efforts, and to my increasing frustration, those little everyday disasters that could so easily have been avoided just keep on happening.

Enter “difficult conversation”, looming ominously on the approaching horizon.

I’m very aware of the skills I lack which are crucial in real time negotiation. I struggle with self-confidence and assertiveness in articulating my needs. I don’t have the ability to think quickly and flexibly in real time. Under pressure, losing verbal fluency and desperate not to antagonise others, I will agree to almost anything rather than incurring judgement on my increasingly autistic communication style. Only later will I realise I can’t deliver on what I’ve promised.

The main things I’m thinking about to prepare myself for this conversation are as follows:

1. Preparation. Preparation is key. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the parameters of this conversation and what I’ll need in order to communicate effectively. That’s before even thinking about the position I’m trying to negotiate for the longer term.
2. Time. I almost certainly won’t be able to process all the necessary information in real time, in a way that allows us to move constructively towards a compromise. The fear of not getting what I need, reinforced by repeated experience of signing up to things I can’t achieve, will make me dig in my heels – and that kind of stubbornness could go badly for me. I’ve already requested to have more than one meeting, to follow up the issues and give me time to absorb the information before we commit to any kind of agreement.
3. Expressing my needs. Communication is hard; emotional communication is harder. I’m thinking about how to use scripts or alternative forms of communication to indicate when I need a break or processing time. A friend suggested I could write some scripts on little coloured cards, like the ones you can get for exam revision or as presentation prompts. I’ll need to make sure the messages are agreed and understood in advance, as I won’t have words to explain them at the time.
4. Self care. This meeting is utterly, unavoidably essential, but it’s going to exhaust me. I’ve arranged to take some leave and work flexibly around the negotiations themselves, so that I can focus all of my attention where it’s needed without worrying about working productively, operating sustainably or avoiding overload. There’s easy food for if (ok: “when”) I get home struggling to untie my own shoelaces. I’ll try not to get run over on the way!

Negotiation is complex; but as a helpful professional reminded me recently, I won’t get anywhere if I don’t ask. I don’t know whether any of this is going to work. I’ll let you know.