Today’s a big day! Bernice’s plant stores, Green Growing Things 1 and 2, have been going like gang-busters, the international 800-pound gorilla of the plant world, 1–800-GOT-GREEN.COM has approached her. They’re so impressed at her ability to keep her Audrey IIs from taking over the world, that they want to offer her a job. She’s going in today to talk to them.
“Do you think they will make me a good offer? Perhaps they will let me come in at the director level!” Let you come in? Excuse me? Before she’s walked into the room, she’s already given away 90% of her negotiating power. We have to save this situation, and save it fast. We’ll use a framework I learned from management consultant Joe Yeager when I was just entering the business world.
Hierarchies Rule
This little framework is the Bees Knees. And bees have six joints on each leg, and six legs, so that’s a lot of knees. Plus they have Queen Bees. So when the Queen Bee holds court, there is a lot of kneeling. They have a very complicated social hierarchy that involves a lot of kneeling with different numbers of legs. When two bees meet, they kneel to each other and quickly know who’s higher and who’s lower on the food chain. I’m sure this is true, because it feels true.
You know what else feels true? I feel that humans evolved from bees, not primates. Why? Because we call each other “honey” and give each other flowers for romance. When we want to know what’s going on, we ask “What’s the buzz?” Do those sound like monkey things? Of course not. But bees … honey, flowers, buzz … well, that makes sense! Besides, look at the legs of the most beautiful people in the world, Milan runway models. Do their legs look more like the legs of a Great Ape, or the skinny, svelte legs of a bumblebee? I rest my case.
Know Your Place in the Hierarchy
Joe’s framework is simply, “one-up,” “one-down,” and “equals.” Because we evolved from bees, humans are hierarchical too. You have “high born” and “low born” people. “High” and “low” refer to the place in the hierarchy. When two people meet, they often unconsciously sound each other out to figure out who’s the alpha bee. The alpha bee, the one who is higher status, is “one-up.” The beta bee is “one-down,” lower status, and at the mercy of the alpha.
What you’re after is the feeling of equals. Since it’s all in your mind anyway, you may as well prime your mind to feel powerful enough to hold your own in the negotiation.
Those of us not born into wealth and privilege have been conditioned to think of ourselves as “one-down.” We’re the ones asking for a job. We’re the tiny peon petitioning the Great Pharaoh. We’re Oliver Twist, in search of gruel. Many people born into wealth or fame think of themselves as “one-up” and expect the one-downs of the world to do their bidding. There’s even a bunch of neuroscience showing that if you get wealth and power, it creates a “one-up” mindset that shuts off empathy and makes you into kind of a jerk, unless you explicitly keep it from happening. I hope someday to be faced with that challenge.
It’s All in Your Mind
Now that we don’t live in small communities where we know everyone, we establish hierarchy with each new person we meet, based on what we might happen to know about them in advance. Like, they have a job to offer.
Bernice is falling into one of the oldest traps in the book: she’s stepping right back into her accustomed role of job-seeker, where she’s one-down to the employer. This is all happening in her mind. She hasn’t even stepped into the room yet, so her first step is to step up her game, quite literally. And here, my friends, are the steps.
Choose Your Status in Advance
First, think about this specific negotiation. Do you want to come in one-down, one-up, or as equals? You might want to be one-down if you want them to underestimate you long enough for you to lay the groundwork to take over the company in a surprise proxy battle. You might connect as equals, or if they came to you, you might want to explore taking the one-up position, since you have something they want. Generally speaking, my preference is to come into the room as equals, or from a benevolent one-up position.
Assume the Position
There are places in your life where you have all three positions. If you’re a high school teacher, you are one-up to your students. You’re equals to the other teachers, and one-down to your boss, the principal. Status can change depending on context. In high school, I was one-down to my favorite teacher, Mrs. Schlesinger. She could ask about my life and my life plans, but it just wasn’t appropriate to ask about hers. At my reunion, however, we met as equals, and she told me all about the doubts she had about being a teacher, instead of a management consultant, or other careers she’d considered.
Remember a time in your past where you had the same one-up, one-down, or equals relationship you want to have in this negotiation. Mentally put yourself back in that situation. Then ever-so-slowly, change the memory so you’re imagining being in the same relationship with your negotiating counter-party, keeping the same feeling. I would imagine my conversation with Mrs. Schlesinger about her career doubts, and then change the image of her into an image of the person who will be across the negotiating table. The whole time, keeping the feeling of being “equals” in place, until the image of tomorrow’s negotiator has the same feeling of “equals” that Mrs. Schlesinger has.
What you’re after here is the feeling of equals, one-up, or one-down. Since it’s all in your mind anyway, you may as well prime your mind to feel powerful enough to hold your own in the negotiation.
Bernice did her thought experiment imagining her singing teacher. They had an “equals” relationship and would often commiserate over lunch about the dramatic differences between high E and high F-flat. It was a source of existential angst for them both.
Now, she feels great and is just about to charge in to negotiate her arrangement with 1–800-GOT-GREEN.COM … but ... I’m holding her back. Because feeling is only one piece of the puzzle. Next, we need to know how to signal status during the meeting itself.
In next week’s episode, we’ll do exactly that. We’ll explore more about one-up, one-down, and equals, and how you signal status when you’re in a negotiation.
This is Stever Robbins. Follow GetItDoneGuy on Twitter and Facebook. I run programs to help people have Extraordinary Lives and extraordinary careers. If you want to know more, visit SteverRobbins.com or join my personal mailing list by texting GETITDONE to 33444. You’ll also get a free copy of my secret book chapter on how to build relationships that help you succeed.
Work Less, Do More, and Have a Great Life!
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