Job Crafting Tips: How to Negotiate With Your Boss for More Meaningful Work

As more white collar and blue collar workers alike look to their jobs for more than a paycheck, many are wondering if it’s better to quit or try to shape their current job into something more meaningful. For the latter, a more self-directed career development strategy of job crafting the role you’re already in, can be a terrific strategy if you still enjoy aspects of your work and the opportunities it creates for you. But recrafting your current role takes some work so heed these job crafting tips. If you’re not sure whether to quit or job craft, decide first if you have the energy to negotiate with your boss. If the answer is “no,” then it may be better to start fresh elsewhere.

To be clear, it’s definitely possible to reshape your job without a direct, overt and open, negotiation. You can just be clearer about what you want to do and covertly try to move other responsibilities onto other people’s plates. This takes time to truly reshape your daily work and, unless luck is on your side, is less likely to get you exactly what you want. So negotiation is a good option, especially when you’re clear on what you want.

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Why negotiating with the boss makes us nervous

Let’s be honest. No matter how skilled a negotiator you are, putting your livelihood into play includes some uncomfortable risk. What if it all goes bad and they fire you? Or what if you “lose” and end up with a set of responsibilities you enjoy even less than what you’re already doing? 

These are real concerns, however, they’re not very empowering. Fears like this tend to hold us prisoner to inaction. They obscure the fact that as we grow and change, we’ll outgrow our professional roles unless they grow and change as well. These fears keep us operating at the extremes, where we’re either happy or miserable. We have to quit or “put up with anything.” Operating at the extremes is often a “false choice” and is very energy-intensive. It leads to stress and burnout, which leads to poor health. 

However, once you put yourself into a true negotiating mindset, knowing what you want and at what point you’ll walk away, it becomes easier to manage the risk. Psychologically, being ready for a negotiation means being able and willing to accept multiple outcomes (including the less desirable ones), before you begin the negotiation.

In short, don’t negotiate until you’re emotionally ready for the good, the bad and the happy surprise outcome. 

Job Crafting Tips When Negotiating wtih Your Boss 

“Winning” Mindset

Negotiation 101 advice: go in looking for a win-win. For you to win, you have to know what you want, and be able to help your boss understand it, too. For your boss to win, you’ll have to see your work through their eyes well enough to know where your perspectives align and where you can compromise. “Winning” is about clear communication, so start out with a clear understanding of your own wants and needs, and ask a lot of questions to help you see how your boss perceives their needs. With this understanding, and a willingness to be flexible, you can find the win-win.

For example, you may want more flexible work hours and your boss may need assurances that certain hours can always be covered. When you’re clear on what you mean by “flexibility” and what your boss means by “coverage,” you can often find a way for both needs to be met.

Business Value

While you’re a human being with a diverse, rich and complex set of skills, needs and interests, the organization can only afford you if you use all those assets to deliver meaningful business value. If the value you want to deliver is meaningless to your boss, your negotiation is doomed to failure from the outset. Get super clear on what business value matters to both you and your boss, and be sure that your proposed role changes allow you to deliver it. 

For example, if you want to deliver new value on new types of projects but your boss needs to be sure you can still deliver on one “old” (but critical) project, be sure your new role configuration allows you to do both.

Development Framework

Your boss may be surprised by your request to change up your job, so help them see your request to negotiate in a professional development context. Share some of your career goals (or remind them of what you’ve shared before). Point out that you’re requesting these changes so you can stay in the organization and keep growing,and that you want your role to change and grow along with your own growth and change.

For example, instead of asking your boss to “change your job,” share with them your desire to keep growing and ask for their help to make adjustments to your responsibilities that allow you to develop new skill sets. 

Ultimatums

Think very carefully about whether you want to give any ultimatums such as wording that implies “if I can’t negotiate changes to my role, I’m going to quit.” Most of the time, ultimatums in a negotiation are a bad idea because they take away your own flexibility to compromise or respond to opportunities you haven’t previously considered. An ultimatum also assumes you have a lot of power in the discussion, which may or may not be true (and even if it’s true, it can make your boss angry that you’re flaunting the power you do have.) For these reasons and more, it’s better not to reveal a potential walk-away point unless you’re 120% sure to follow through. 

For example, if you know that you will quit or look for a new job if you can’t move XYZ off your plate, tell your boss that XYZ is really holding you back and that this is the main reason you’d like to discuss revising your responsibilities. Don’t tell them you plan to quit if they say “no” — unless you’re truly ready to walk out the door when they do.

Keep salary separate

You may find yourself negotiating your way into a new job that should come along with changes to your salary. This is fine, but I suggest leaving salary to the side until you’re closing in on what the responsibilities actually are. Once the job changes themselves are clear, you can bring up and negotiate salary. This is because it will muddy your motivations, in your own mind and in the eyes of your boss. Of course, if the real issue is salary to begin with, just say so and start there. One key to successful negotiations is trust on the part of both parties. When motivations become unclear, trust erodes. 

Look for the surprise option

The best negotiation reaches an agreement that neither party was originally aware was even on the table. This is because no one can see all possibilities on their own, but in dialog, all kinds of ideas can come up. You begin a negotiation for exactly this reason, to explore opportunities and possibilities that aren’t apparent unless you’re looking for them with the other party. So go into the negotiation with a:

• Clear understanding of your intention, what you want
• Willingness to listen to the other person
• Ear to what other possibilities exist

For example, you may think you want the opportunity to run a team, but when presented with the opportunity to run a matrix project, only managing people’s work (without administrative accountability for the people themselves), you may find yourself very happy to accept even though no one “reports” to you.

Sometimes these job crafting tips won’t work, because the other person isn’t a very good negotiator, because there truly aren’t very many options for win-win possibilities or because luck wasn’t with you. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

Even if you don’t get what you want by negotiating with your boss, you increase your chances to get it anyway. After negotiating with your boss, regardless of the outcome, you will be clearer on what you want and because the universe was probably listening in, help may come from surprising directions. In either case, if you decide to quit or move on, you’ll do it with greater clarity and focus. And that will absolutely increase your chances of success in the long run. 

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