The Most Important Career Advice You’ll Ever Hear With Harvard Business School’s #1 Professor
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Negotiating with Empathy
This chapter emphasizes the significance of understanding others' perspectives in conversations and negotiations, highlighting the need for empathy and active engagement. It explores practical strategies for communicating effectively, fostering relationships in the workplace, and negotiating conditions like work shifts. Additionally, the discussion covers how to approach salary negotiations, advocating for oneself while recognizing the broader context of workplace dynamics.
00:00
Transcript
Play full episode
Transcript
Episode notes
Speaker 2
Yeah, they go in and do what you're saying, which is they go in sort of righteous and resolute thinking this is what an influential person looks like. This is what they sound like. They're decisive. They're convincing. They're compelling and strong. Aren't they? But when you talk about dialogue, when you talk about, oh, there's a human being on the receiving end of this, and you realize that every encounter, whether it's a salary negotiation or a first date or whatever, that's another human mind sitting on the other end, and they need to receive what you're saying. making your argument, this is not a public speech. This is a co-created dialogue with another person who has needs and wants and desires and opinions and beliefs that differ from yours. And you need to figure out what they are in order to be the best position to actually deliver what they need. How does knowing what somebody else needs help me get what I want? Oh my goodness. It's the most direct pathway. And the thing is, Mel, we're not good at guessing what other people need, even with people you know well, like your husband. Well, then
Speaker 1
how the hell am I going to know what my boss needs? You
Speaker 2
got to ask questions, endlessly ask questions. You can ask them, what do you need? What are you excited about? What is this other employee doing that's so great? How can I do better? What am I doing on my list of tasks that I'm totally nailing? What could I do better? You need to be a sort of glutton for learning, a glutton for feedback, and then it will actually make you invaluable to them and put you in that powerful position to say, look, I know I'm invaluable to you. You've told me, and now I think I deserve more. Well, you've also
Speaker 1
just signaled that you're now wanting to succeed and that you're not going to waste time guessing. Yeah. That you're willing to align and be flexible to cause more value for us.
Speaker 2
You yourself want to succeed. And at the same time, you're signaling, I want us to succeed. I want this organization. I want this restaurant. I want this investment bank. I want whatever, this school. I want us as a group to succeed. Let's figure out how I can help us do that. So I
Speaker 1
think most of us probably wait until our annual or mid-year review to do this, but when is the best time? I really love more casual feedback. Okay.
Speaker 2
It's so stressful to go into like a 360 review or your annual feedback meeting and everybody's nervous and it feels very high stakes. You have the opportunity to ask questions anytime. That's true. Anytime you see somebody, hey, I tried this thing. Here's, let me give you, like show you a video. Let me show you what, what do you think about this? Was this a good idea that I did this? What could I have done better? You were in that presentation I gave the other day. What did you think of my slides? Like, what could I have done better? Should I have not even used slides? Right there, the opportunity to ask for lower stakes, more casual feedback is always there. But it requires that you ask those questions. you're in a dialogue where
Speaker 1
it's pretty clear you're a valuable contributor. Exactly.
Speaker 2
And they're more invested. It's causing people around you to actually think about you, right? It's saying like, hey, I care about your opinion. And now we have a meaningful enough relationship where I feel comfortable asking you. That's so valuable. Like you're embedded, you're enmeshed in this sort of social network. Organizations are just a group
Speaker 1
of people who care about what they're working on. So let's say you're a shift worker, right? One of my daughters works at a restaurant. And let's just say she wants better shifts. How do you use this strategy to try to negotiate without being very direct around getting better shifts? And I'm not saying for the record that my daughter wants better shifts. I'm just using it as an example because somebody might listen to this at the restaurant. Yes, exactly. But as a former waitress and bartender, I know when the schedule comes out and you're like, oh, another crappy shift. How do I get the good shift? Totally. I spent many years of my life waitressing too. I know this feeling. So
Speaker 2
I think there's a couple answers. The first question is, who are you talking to? Who are you targeting? Because you could talk to your fellow servers first and say, are you also unhappy with your shifts? Are there any opportunities for us to trade? That would be win-win, right? So we call that trading on differences. People have different preferences. There might be win-wins in there to trade with the fellow servers. You could then, if if that's not an option, you can go and talk to your boss and say, like, when you're making the schedule, what are you thinking about? Is there something about this shift that you think I'm uniquely positioned to do? Am I doing a good job here? What value am I bringing? Or what this, I would really love to be on this earlier shift, but I see that, you know, this other server is there. Do you think they're uniquely positioned to be there? What are they doing that's great? Or what could I do to put myself in a position to be considered?
Speaker 1
To earn that thought. Yes. What can I do to earn it? You know what I love about this is that oftentimes, and I'll speak as an employer and as a parent, right? Because kids are constantly negotiating. Oftentimes, it feels a little bit like me against you. And what I love about this strategy, Professor Brooks, is that all of a sudden, you in a very sneaky way, you made me with you. And so there was nothing adversarial. There was nothing confrontational. It's not like you're making me wrong because I didn't put you on the great Saturday night shift. You're basically saying, what do I need to do to put myself in a position to be considered, which then allows me to be with you versus against you?
Speaker 2
Their job is hard. The job that they're doing to decide who's doing what shift is a complicated puzzle to solve. And so you're saying, I see that this is a complicated puzzle. How can I help you solve this puzzle? And how can I become a more valued part of the puzzle? This is a really great mindset shift. Whenever you confront even a tiny disagreement, instead of thinking of it as confrontational, instead setting it aside and saying like, I'm with you, I care about you, I see what you're doing is hard. Let's try and solve this together. That's a really important mindset shift. And it's almost always true, right? Whether it's with your spouse or your kid or your boss, these are people you really care about and admire. You don't need to be getting in a fight with them about really anything. feel like my husband has
Speaker 1
taken your negotiation and your science of communication course because he constantly, when I start to get agitated about something, he'll be like, Mel, I'm not against you. We need to work on this thing together, which gets me out of that adversarial thing. You feel that way, particularly at work, because money, livelihood, a sense of feeling good about yourself and that you're progressing, that you start to get really nervous about it. Humans
Speaker 2
need a lot of affirmation, Mel, and you can give it to them in these tiny little moments in your conversations with them, just reminding them relentlessly, hey, I'm with you. I got your back. It makes sense that you feel upset about where you are in the schedule. Let's talk about how it could get better in the future, right? We're in this together. I'm affirming you. And also, I can't move you in this right now.
Speaker 1
Well, I think that's important because a lot of us have adversarial relationships with our boss or with our business partners. And we think they're against us. And it's a huge shift. And again, I'm going to remind you as you're listening, she's not making this up. I mean, this is what they're teaching at Harvard Business School in the renowned course on negotiation. And this is what you are summarizing in your bestselling book, Talk, which is based on you teaching one of the most popular classes at Harvard Business School. Learning how to communicate and negotiate effectively is a important skill that helps you have more influence, make more money, be more effective with your family, with everybody. So let's say that you take this important advice and you actually have been peppering with small conversations and you've been putting yourself in the person's shoes that you're now trying to get something from. Is there a certain time when to have the conversation if you've been having all the little conversations all along to try to understand their position?
Speaker 2
Yeah. If you've had these conversations and you feel like you really understand how you're adding value, you've really put in the effort to become this sort of invaluable, irreplaceable contributor, and you really have assessed and been honest with yourself, do I deserve more? And you get to this place where you're like, yes, I think I do. After all that, which is important, that's an important first step. Then you get to this point where you need to work up the courage to say, is there a world where you could even afford, could you give me a raise? Can the organization afford it? Can you afford it? Do you agree with me?
Speaker 1
Because I'm feeling like I really need it and it would really help me. Well, hold on a second. That sounds weak. I'm just going to come right out and be like, it sounds weak to say, could you afford it? And
Speaker 2
I need it. You know what I'm saying? Like that's actually the language you should use. I think in our minds, we have this image of what strength looks and sounds like, but in the experience of a conversation, strength actually looks quite different. It's people who go in open-minded with good data, good reasons, good reflection. And you can say, hey, we've had a lot of conversations about this. I know you think I'm doing a really great job, that I'm invaluable to you because of these things that we've talked about before. We've gotten to a point now where I'm really hoping that
Speaker 1
you could reward me for it. Put your money where your mouth is, asshole. No, that's not what you say. Yeah. I
Speaker 2
think we have this idea of what strength looks like that in the practice of human
Speaker 1
to human
Speaker 2
connection and conversation is not actually how it plays out. Well,
Speaker 1
what's also interesting is if you work for a larger
Speaker 2
company, the fact of the matter is a lot of this is tied to
Speaker 1
your title and your tenure. And it's also going to require the person you report to, to then have to go advocate on your behalf. And it's not always as personal as you'd like to think. But if you're in a smaller organization, the presumption that the company's doing well, therefore you deserve to do a lot better than you currently are, is kind of an arrogant presumption because you haven't seen the PNL. So actually asking, could you even be in a position to do this? Because you agree that I'm killing it here. What
Speaker 2
can we do? It's a very, the questions of, are you the right? It's kind of tricky, actually. Are you the right person to, do you have the power to even say yes to me? Figuring out who to talk to is a really hard question. They would love to give you a raise, but they don't have the power to do it. Or they would love to give you a raise, but they can't afford to do it. These are all things you need to figure out. It's not weak to ask. It's smart to really be thinking, are they in a position where they can give me what I want? Are their hands tied? Well, and I suppose if they're not in
Speaker 1
a position, you can also say, well, look, I'm looking to make $10,000, $20,000 more. What do I need to do here to actually have that happen? And they might say, you need to bring
Speaker 2
in more clients so that I can afford to give it to you, right? And that's good to learn. And then you can go out and do it. Yes.
Speaker 1
This is so helpful.
Speaker 2
Can I tell you what, say one more thing, Mel? Yes. Much of our conversation has focused on asking for a rate, asking for more money. A very big takeaway from the negotiation course at HBS and this talk book is, yes, money matters tremendously. We all know that. But also, your happiness at work and outside of work so heavily rests on so many other things about your work, the meaning of your work, how connected you feel to your co-workers, to your boss, your relationships. Do you have a work bestie? Do you have anybody there that you enjoy being around? Is there convenient parking? Is there good coffee? These things are not insignificant. So when you find yourself over fixating on getting that $10,000 raise, I would urge people to also really think about what are other things? If my company can't afford to give me $10,000 or $20,000 more a year, are there other things that would make my life so much better, so much more pleasant that are not about money at all? Like, could I
Speaker 1
do a four-day workweek? Could I do a four-day workweek? Can we
Speaker 2
get an espresso machine in the office? I have a friend who's really well qualified for this open role that we have. Could we think about hiring them? I would let, that would make me so happy to work with them.
Speaker 1
You know, think creatively, think outside of just one issue. That's so true because we do get fixated. Yeah. And not to say that the money isn't important and not to say you don't deserve to be compensated for the contributions and the effort that you're making. And I do think the other thing too is that a lot of times, at least speaking for myself, is I would show up in a role and do the job that was asked of me. And then I expect because I'm doing the job that's asked of me, that by the way, they could hire a hundred other people to do the job that is asked of me. But am I contributing more so that I am more valuable? And these are not the conversations that I ever had with myself because I was so busy going, my friends in investment banking are making all this money. And, you know, I want this and I want that. Look at these influencers online. And, you know, my company looks like they're doing well and my boss drives a nice car. So therefore I should, you know, and you get up in that mindset. Dangerous. Very.
Speaker 2
Yeah. And there's a saying of like dress for the job that you want, but it's more than dress like that. You need to behave like the job that you want. So if they hired you to do a very simple job, if you start doing things that are actually above and beyond and more valuable, truly valuable to the organization, you're already doing the next level job. And you can go in and point that out to them. And they might say, yeah, you're right. Like we need to reward you for it. We need to pay you like you're doing that job. So if the research is undisputed that
Speaker 1
making your contributions known is one of the most effective things that you can be doing, because just assume your boss is so busy, they don't even know all the things that you're doing. And if you're really good at your job, you're taking care of so much that they're not aware of it because it's not on fire anymore. Yep. So are there strategies that you recommend that somebody think about in terms of how you make sure that the value that you're providing is known at work? I
Speaker 2
think two things.
Today, you’re going to learn exactly how to earn more, get promoted, network more effectively, and finally land your dream job.
This is the most important career advice you’ll ever hear.
In this episode, Mel sits down with Harvard Business School Professor Dr. Alison Wood Brooks, who’s pulling back the curtain on everything your boss won’t tell you: from mastering negotiation and communication to building real influence at work.
Dr. Brooks teaches Harvard’s #1 course on negotiation and communication. Today, she’s giving you information that could change everything.
Whether you’ve just been laid off and need a roadmap, you’re stuck at a job and craving recognition, or you’re doing well but ready to level up – this episode is your next step forward.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
-How to ask for a raise, and actually get it.
-What it really takes to earn a promotion.
-How to nail any interview with confidence.
-The path to discovering and landing your dream job.
-The science behind negotiation, and how to do it better.
-How to handle high-stakes conversations with ease.
-Strategies to conquer anxiety and show up like a leader.
If you’re ready to make more money, step into your power, and move your career forward with clarity and confidence this episode is your playbook.
For more resources, click here for the podcast episode page.
If you liked this episode, and want more incredible communication tools, listen to this next: Research From Princeton: 13 Proven Hacks That Boost Your Influence & Make You More Confident
Connect with Mel:
Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts
Save insights instantly, chat with episodes, and build lasting knowledge - all powered by AI.
