Negotiation is a routine part of our day-to-day work lives. However, negotiations do not always unfold as smoothly as we would like. They can get “stuck”, causing interpersonal tension and creating inflection points in our relationships. How these inflection points are resolved determines the quality of our ongoing organizational relationships.
In recent field work, we asked women top draw on their experience of everyday workplace negotiations, and to tell us what they thought women needed to learn about negotiating. Their responses helped us to identify the inflection points that punctuate women’s everyday negotiations, and to identify the skills that women need to manage relational inflection points.