Negotiating: Seeking Advice in the Shadow of a Doubt
In 2007, a Fortune 500 company closed a plant in the Midwest United States. One of the people to
lose her position was an effervescent research scientist named Annie. The company offered Annie a
transfer to the East Coast, but it would require her to give up on her education. While working full
time, Annie was enrolled in a nighttime MBA program. She couldn’t afford to quit her job, and if she
did, the company would no longer pay for her degree. Yet if she accepted the transfer, she wouldn’t
be able to continue studying. She was in a bind, with little time and few options.
Two weeks later, something extraordinary happened: she was offered a seat on the company’s
private jet, which was normally available only to top executives, with unlimited access until she
finished her MBA. She accepted the transfer and spent the next nine months riding the corporate jet
back and forth, twice a week, until she finished her degree. The company also paid for her rental car
every week and commercial plane tickets when the corporate jet wasn’t running. How did she get the
company to make such a big investment in her?
Annie landed all of these perks without ever negotiating. Instead, she used a form of powerless
communication that’s quite familiar to givers.
Entering negotiations, takers typically work to establish a dominant position. Had Annie been a
taker, she might have compiled a list of all of her merits and attracted counteroffers from rival
companies to strengthen her position. Matchers are more inclined to see negotiating as an opportunity
for quid pro quo. If Annie were a matcher, she would have gone to a senior leader who owed her a
favor and asked for reciprocity. But Annie is a giver: she mentors dozens of colleagues, volunteers
for the United Way, and visits elementary school classes to interest students in science. When her
colleagues make a mistake, she’s regularly the one to take responsibility, shielding them from the
blame at the expense of her own performance. She once withdrew a job application when she learned
that a friend was applying for the same position.
As a giver, Annie wasn’t comfortable bargaining like a taker or a matcher, so she chose an
entirely different strategy. She reached out to a human resources manager and asked for advice. “If
you were in my shoes, what would you do?”
The manager became Annie’s advocate. She reached out to the heads of Annie’s department and
site, and started to lobby on Annie’s behalf. The department head, in turn, called Annie and asked
what he could do to keep her. Annie mentioned that she wanted to finish her MBA, but couldn’t afford
to fly back and forth. In response, the department head offered her a seat on the jet.
New research shows that advice seeking is a surprisingly effective strategy for exercising
influence when we lack authority. In one experiment, researcher Katie Liljenquist had people
negotiate the possible sale of commercial property. When the sellers focused on their goal of getting
the highest possible price, only 8 percent reached a successful agreement. When the sellers asked the
buyers for advice on how to meet their goals, 42 percent reached a successful agreement. Asking for
advice encouraged greater cooperation and information sharing, turning a potentially contentious
negotiation into a win-win deal. Studies demonstrate that across the manufacturing, financial services,
insurance, and pharmaceuticals industries, seeking advice is among the most effective ways to
influence peers, superiors, and subordinates. Advice seeking tends to be significantly more
persuasive than the taker’s preferred tactics of pressuring subordinates and ingratiating superiors.