Bullying has become a serious issue for children, but many people don’t know that adults get bullied, too - and it often occurs at work. Furthermore, most adults are ashamed or embarrassed to tell anyone they’re being bullied. How do you spot bullying in the workplace? How should you handle it?  Studies have shown that 37% of workers have been bullied at work. When witnesses are included in the survey, the number rises to 49%. Unless the abuse is severe, employees may not realize they are being bullied. Around 45% of individuals who are bullied experience stress-related health problems, including cardiovascular ailments, a lower immune system, depression, and even post-traumatic stress disorder. Bullying is causing more problems than sexual harassment at work, causing more stress and higher turnover rates. The Workplace Bullying Institute has promoted legislation asking employers to address bullying with legal recourse. Spotting the Signs  People may not realize they are witnessing or receiving bullying unless they consider the following signs: If you are physically ill at the start of every workday or workweek, ask yourself if it is due to anticipation anxiety. You may be nervous about meeting the bully.  Complaining About Work. Complaining is a coping mechanism and your complaints may be related to the bully. If your family or friends complain about your ever-present complaining, consider bullying as a possible source.  Blood Pressure. Due to bullying, anxiety may be increasing your blood pressure, putting you at risk for heart problems. Your doctor might tell you to switch jobs if the problem is persistent.  A supervisor or fellow employee may bully through yelling at you in front of others. This is embarrassing and manipulative.  Gossip and Critical Comments. Bullies often target one or two people to verbally pick on and spread slander about. Don’t encourage others to complain about your co-workers and take note of repeating offenses.  Passive-aggressive bullies might simply ignore and avoid you. This can be a problem if they are vital to your work or get others to join in excluding you from mealtimes, meetings, or conversations.  Not Forgiving. Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is not holding past mistakes against someone. Bullying supervisors or coworkers may continually remind you of past mistakes. 

We recently talked about how you can recognize bullying in the workplace, but how should you handle it? Equipping Yourself  These tips will help you on the road to recovering from being bullied:  Take a Day Off. Use this day to consult a mental health professional. Get emotionally stable to make reasonable decisions, and come up with a plan for confronting the bully or your employer. Check in with your physical health as well, because stress has many adverse effects on the body.  Research Law and Policies. There may be legal recourse you can take against bullies. Even if you do not take this option, you can research state and federal law to provide this information to your employer. If the problem is significant, talk to an attorney and write a demand letter. The handbook for your company may already have policies in place that can protect you. Use these to recruit a supervisor as your advocate.  Start Job Searching. Searching does not mean giving up. It means having a plan B in case the bullying doesn’t stop.  Expose the Bully. Talk to your management about the problem. If the management is the problem, talk to someone higher in the hierarchy. If your business is corporate, you may have to call someone off location.  Keep on Task and be Objective. When presenting your case to bullies or managers, be as objective as possible. Don’t drift into side issues or unrelated stories. Prepare your case ahead of time with numbered points and a conclusion.  Get Advice. Whether from friends, administrators or legal professionals, get advice. You do not need to fight this battle alone. Being bullied in the workplace is stressful, but attempting to ignore the problem will not make it go away. Follow these tips to help you have the best possible working environment.

Even the most enthusiastic employees can hit a slump around Wednesday or Thursday, so it’s crucial to know strategies that will help them overcome it. Sleep Well & Wake Up Early Getting enough rest Tuesday night will keep you alert on Wednesday. Sleeping well and maintaining a good diet will go a long way in preventing mid-week slumps. Sleep deprivation causes your body to work less efficiently, using more energy. While you are sleeping, your mind organizes your thoughts for better memory and processing during the day. Getting enough rest will help your brain function better and will improve your creativity and alertness. Wake up on Wednesday with enough time to have breakfast and do something active. Going for a short walk or even stretching will ensure that you don’t pull into work half-asleep. Starting off on the right foot sets the mood for the rest of your day. Take a Break Take a mid-day break. Round everyone up for a short coffee break to give them an opportunity to return to work with energy. The break will wake people up and keep them alert. Schedule a mid-week meeting to get some face-to-face time with employees and allow everyone to speak. Empathize and foster team spirit to end on a positive note and send employees out refreshed. Be Positive When You Don’t Feel Like It  Attitude is contagious. When you catch yourself being pessimistic, say the opposite. Negativity causes anxiety and stress, which will affect health and productivity, and is twice as contagious as positivity. Watch what you say around others as complaining is a prime motivation killer. Keep your complaints to yourself and encourage others when they start complaining. Take a moment to practice some deep breathing techniques to release stress and the tension in your muscles. Combine this with a light stretch and you have a recipe for increased alertness. Write down your thoughts. The Journal of Research in Personality has shown that writing out your thoughts can enhance positive moods and relieve stress. Negative attitudes are vicious cycles that can be helped with a private outlet. Redefine Wednesday  Turn your half empty glass into a half full one by reminding yourself and others that you’re on the downhill slope to the weekend. Personally motivate yourself by doing something fun Wednesday night, like going on a date, watching movies, or having family fun night. Start a mid-week tradition worth looking forward to.  Create an Energy Diet and Exercise  Create a diet that sustains your energy and grab some healthy snacks. Some foods to include are eggs, Greek yogurt, edamame, whole grain cereal, trail mix, water, guarana, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, goji berries, nuts, fish, beans, dark leafy vegetables, and dark chocolate. Exercise also helps boost energy levels. Studies have shown that going for a short mid-day walk can boost your energy more than a nap. Get your blood pumping to wake yourself up and increase your alertness for the rest of the day. Exercising regularly provides endorphins to fight stress and naturally increases your overall energy levels. Challenge Yourself  Set up a Wednesday productivity challenge and reward yourself if you meet it. Creating a challenge turns a boring day into a game. Set hourly challenges to keep you alert throughout the day. Even if management does not reward you, reward yourself. Challenging yourself can go a long way in creating motivation at any time during the week.  Challenge others as well. Creating some friendly competition or a collective goal can boost morale in the whole office. Getting everyone on board and providing a larger reward incentive can turn Wednesday into the most exciting day of the week.

Managing employees involves a delicate balance of productivity, focus, and good interpersonal skills. Sometimes managers can feel like they are expected to be good at everything. The effort gets easier through the cultivation of habits and tools for performance improvement. Good practices start with a lot of time and energy and then become second nature. Forming good management habits also means getting rid of bad habits. As we look at good and bad habits, think about how you can implement these tips into your workplace. Good Management Habits Starting a habit takes determination and practice. Determination is preserved through reminding yourself repeatedly of the good reasons you are forming a habit and the consequences of not following through with the new practice. Begin with some of these good habits. Be open to creativity. The best leaders are quick to spot and implement new solutions, wherever they come from. Most workers and fellow managers just want to stick to their job, but keep an eye open for creative employees who think of new solutions to old problems. Be willing to change "the way we do things around here." Communicate well and often. Teams work together through communication. When you are frustrated about a lack of compliance, consider whether you clearly and frequently communicated your expectations. Listen. Build a habit of listening first. In every conversation you have with an employee, challenge yourself to listen more than you talk. They don’t need to know everything you have to say, but they do need to know you care and are addressing, or at least empathizing, with their concerns. Bad Management Habits Being a know-it-all. Leading does not mean being the best at everything. It means knowing where to turn for the best solution to any problem. You do not have all the answers, and it is a common bad habit of managers to think that rank equals knowledge of the truth. Sometimes the one who actually works the task 40 hours a week knows better. Holding paperwork above people work. People are always more important than paper. Leaders who know this have the happy side effect of increased productivity. Spending more time with spreadsheets than people and giving a half-baked effort at employee relationships is a good way to keep employees bitter and unsatisfied. Micromanaging employees. If someone can do a task 60% as well as you can, delegate responsibility to them and forget about it. Sure, you might want it done exactly your way, but that’s an unreasonable and oppressive expectation to place on employees. Don’t micromanage. Employees tend to fill the shoes they’re put in. Always being suspicious of their activity will harm productivity. Trusting them more than they deserve garners more responsibility from workers. Starting these habits will launch you on a road to increased productivity, a better work environment, and less work-related stress.

Employers are always looking for new negotiations training activities that engage people and produce effective results. Negotiators need to learn communication skills, appropriate aggression and ambition, how to think from a different perspective, how to deal with difficult people, and more. Here are some innovative games and activities worth trying for your negotiations training: . Role-Playing  Defining a scenario, whether realistic or off-the wall fiction, can boost confidence, develop listening skills, and train creative problem-solving techniques. Role-playing is where one person describes a situation and other people respond to it. Also called cooperative-storytelling, the narrator defines a problem or enacts an imaginary stranger and the role-players then need to work together to handle the situation. This negotiation training provides a controlled environment where people may test and practice their negotiation skills without fear of bad consequences.  Body Language Activities  Create a game, like charades, where one "speaker" has to communicate a message without speaking. As others guess the message, the  "speaker" refines body language until the message is communicated. This entertaining exercise helps people test what gesticulations work and which do not.  More tied to real-life scenarios, watch movie scenes or public debates in which negotiations are taking place. Have your group observe non-verbal cues, including vocal fluctuations. Write these down then have each participant share their observations with the group afterwards.  A third activity is to play a variation of Simon says or follow the leader. Designate one participant "negotiator" and one "client." Make up a creative scenario where the negotiator and client represent different companies in a negotiation, each with different goals and assets to draw from. Divide all other participants in the room into two groups with each group mimicking the non-verbal cues of the negotiator or client. As the activity progresses, everyone will become self-conscious about the body language being used. Let each person have a turn in the negotiation. Afterwards, discuss observations on the effectiveness of different types of body language.  Arm Wrestle  Set up the following game to help people become aware of their assumptions and disposition when entering a negotiation situation. Participants will become aware of whether they aim for "beating" the other person or try to find a conclusion with mutual benefits. Direct two participants to a table with hands clasped and elbows in an arm wrestling position. Tell them they have two main rules. First, a participant gains one point if the back of their partner’s hand touches the table. Second, the goal is to get as many points as possible without concern for anyone else. Explain that each point will earn a candy after ten seconds of wrestling. Debrief by asking people why they got their score and how they could approach the "negotiation" differently. Help them become aware of and challenge their initial assumptions. These are just a few of the creative ways to increase people’s self-awareness of their negotiations assumptions and communication skills. Think outside the box and come up with similar negotiations training exercises.

To be honest, even the most exciting jobs have times of drudgery and boredom. Many factors on and off the job may kill motivation, and productivity with it. How does an employer or employee boost his or her own motivation and keep production efficient? 1. Reduce stress. Think about things in your life that cause stress and start working on them. Relationships may need more attention to fix problems. Obstacles at work may need to be delegated to someone else. Employees can inform supervisors they’re struggling to be productive in certain tasks; usually they will offer help in some way. Engage in stress-relieving activities. Lighten your workload and cut down your busy schedule. 2. Boost confidence. Motivation is often killed by lack of confidence. Sure, you’re not good at everything; nobody is. Don’t let being normal get you down. Instead of thinking about your failures all the time, think about your successes. Employees may ask their supervisors to be reassigned to tasks more suited for their skills. Keep the conversation going and find encouragement in other employees. 3. Take criticism constructively. Nothing kills motivation more than criticism. When you receive it, write it down. Think about whether it is true and either accept it or deny its ability to get you down. Corrections are often given with good motives, but people are not always the best at wording things gently. Give people the benefit of the doubt and be thankful for the feedback. Many people covet good feedback and instruction for improvement. 4. Challenge yourself. When the task is boring, make a game of it. Set a time-sensitive goal, trying to get a certain amount accomplished by lunchtime or the end of the day. When break time comes, reward your success. If you failed, keep the challenge going. Keep setting new personal records and chart them out. As you see yourself improve, this chart can be a reminder of your abilities that boosts your confidence. 5. Maintain momentum. When you are on a roll with some good speed and quality, don’t entertain the temptation to take a break. Rewarding yourself too early can be counter-productive. Keep the momentum up and push through for a bigger self-reward later. 6. Don’t complain. There’s always something to complain about. This is a broken world and everybody has problems, including you. Don’t dwell on them or speak of them to others or you will kill the motivation of yourself and your coworkers. Thinking often about problems causes bitterness to fester and decreases your job satisfaction. Fight temptation by immediately thinking of the positive side. It will be hard at first because you’re in the habit of noticing inconveniences more easily than blessings, but changing this habit will help you maintain motivation. 7. Keep Good Company. Friends gravitate toward each other based on common experiences and interests. That’s why complainers seek each other out and collectively decrease each other’s motivation. Those who work hard, think positively about their work environment, and spend their conversation swapping jokes and stories will keep a higher motivation throughout their day, workweek, and career. Change your disposition through these practices and help others do the same. These behaviors are their own reward, and as you enjoy them you’ll become more pleasant to others. Hopefully, your new habits will be contagious and affect your entire team of employees.

The quality of employees boils down to two things: they must perform efficiently and work well with others. Mastering these two traits requires discipline. Pouring a lot of effort into creating good habits will cause an employee’s performance improvement to be noticed, increasing the likelihood of getting hired or promoted. Likewise, bad habits may get employees disciplined, demoted, or fired. Good Employee Habits  Repeat your boss’s words. Supervisors are often unsure if employees really understand and accept their instructions. The simplest listening tactic that communicates understanding is to repeat instruction in your own words. This gives your boss the assurance that you know how to do your job well. Anticipate requests. Instead of doing the minimum, do the maximum. You probably have a decent idea of what your boss wants you to do next without them telling you. The more you act responsibly without forcing supervisors to micromanage you, the more they will respect you and favor your service. Build relationships. Supervisors like a team player who works well with them and with other employees. Put some effort into small talk and build connections that will improve your work environment and productivity. Fostering good relationships at work can carry over into personal life, which is often encouraged by management when possible.  Bad Employee Habits  Triggering your boss’ pet peeves. Everyone has irrational behaviors. When supervisors exhibit these, employees tend to respond in bitterness and resentment instead of humility and forgiveness. Instead of resenting your boss and intentionally provoking them or doing things your own way behind their back, consider their pet peeves as opportunities. If you are the only employee who successfully communicates empathy in this area and does not anger your boss, they will notice and favor you. "That’s not the way we’ve always done it." This is one of the most crippling bad habits. The lack of willingness to think creatively or change one’s routine causes employees to resist changes in instruction. Instead of reacting with bitterness at the inconvenience, change your mind and be eager to win your boss’ favor through quick adaptation. Exploiting benefits. You’ve got free coffee in the break room or have an allotted time for breaks. Exploiting these and pushing your boundaries doesn’t go unnoticed as you may think. Continuing to abuse benefits may cause supervisors to enact stricter policies, decreasing your freedoms. Treat your freedoms responsibly and they will expand. When you stick out as one of the few employees who has a good relationship with management, anticipates requests, follows direction, and doesn’t exploit benefits, your supervisors will notice and may give you added freedoms or privileges.

There are many times you come to work with a lot on your mind, and employees, potential hires, and outside salesmen can all sense it. Other times, youarrive in a meeting prepared to negotiate with someone who may incite negative emotions. Depending on the other party, you may feel intimidated. The following are a few things top negotiators rely on to keep emotions out of negotiations.     Find Your Poker Face A great way to start your negotiations training is by spending some time in the mirror. Study what your face looks like when relaxed. Practice various types of smiles and nods. It may feel silly, but once you have begun to associate the feeling of a particular expression with how that expression appears, you can recreate it more easily in the throes of a negotiation.   Breathe Deeply and Focus When continuing your personal negotiation training, it is important to remember to breathe. Focusing on your breath will allow you to keep your systems calm: your heart will beat at a normal pace, your body will be continually oxygenated, and your mind and circulatory system will maintain an even keel. Once you have focused on your breathing, make sure your mind is in the proper place. If you are running a thought on loop about how important this negotiation is or about the rewards or consequences of its outcome, you are likely too far in your own head to project an air of calmness and confidence. Replace those thoughts with ones that induce peace. Think about your children, most recent vacation, or favorite spot to go for a morning run. If an opportunity for some alone time presents itself, amp up your calming practice by leaning back, closing your eyes, and focusing on your breath and a positive, serene scene. Confidence is power, and a collected demeanor will communicate an absolute sureness in your point and goals.   Check Your Tone During your meeting, keep your tone in mind. A low, steady tone with your words properly paced is a good way to ensure any internal emotions you may have are not communicated to your associate. Utilizing these methods, the scales will be tipped greatly in your favor for future negotiations. If you’d like to take your skills to the next level, there are courses in influence training and corporate sales training available that offer even more ideas on how to become an expert negotiator.

There are tons of different studies, statistics, and anecdotal lessons on the emotive impact of body language. According to the overwhelming majority of research and statistics,  body language makes up the largest portion of communication. Most studies show that roughly 70% of communication doesn’t even come out of a person’s mouth, but through their body. What’s interesting is that body language is really just communicating what the mind is really thinking. The body normally responds to the subconscious mind and innately mirrors those conditions in order to communicate what is going on internally. There are plenty of people who write off the power of body language and prefer to listen purely to what a person is saying alone. However, a person has time to think and construct their sentences. They are able to work more out of their ego and shut their mouths if they don’t want to talk. However, it is virtually impossible for a person to shut down their body language without communicating zombie-like behavior. Even when people are quietly listening to someone else in a conversation, they are still communicating with their body language, demeanor and facial expressions. This type of non-verbal communication happens whether they want it to or not. For this reason, many people are fascinated with mastering the interpretation of body language. This is also the reason why many women read tons of articles about romantic body language because they want to know what their men are truly thinking. When people are operating in a business setting, body language is incredibly important because it can play a major role in whether a person experiences success or not. For the business setting, there are two major types of body language: strong and weak. This two types communicate the mind, and the emotional state of the person speaking.   Strong Body Language Strong body language is characterized by a few different components. When a person imagines a symbol of strength, it isn’t difficult to think of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. They are visibly strong with large, lean muscular builds. They are able to spread their arms and defy gravity and space. They each maintain their own presence and make it clear when they enter a room. The majority of these characteristics are communicated on the pages of comic books through depictions of strong body language. In the business setting, people with strong body language usually emit a palpable presence. Whether they are short or tall, they seem to take up space in the room. They will tend to sit in the front and center of a room, and during a discussion, they are the ones most likely to visibly assert themselves and dominate the conversation. When a person with strong body language enters the room, people take notice. People with strong body language have great posture. They stand with their shoulders back and keep their head up. They usually use their hands for gestures and can command control of the room through engaging body language during a discussion. During a business meeting that involves negotiation, strong body language is vital because strength communicates confidence and a person’s ability to win an argument. People are more likely to trust a strong mind and not a weak one.   Weak Body Language Weak body language obviously communicates the exact opposite of its counterpart. Instead of looking like some of the great superheroes, people with weak body language end up mirroring turtles. They are seen mimicking symbols of frailty. People who exude weak body language often shrink in a room. They are much more inclined to pull their bodies close to themselves and take up as little space as possible. They try their best to make sure they’re not seen or heard. They also tend to recluse and disengage during a conversation. They may touch their necks and pull their arms closer to their bodies. These non-verbal cues send the message that a person prefers to be less engaged and is intimidated in a specific setting. People with weak body language also don’t want to sit in an area that will draw attention. They prefer to sit in the corners and if they have a point during a discussion, it is very difficult for them to assert themselves over others. When they are looking to be called on in a classroom setting, they may raise their hands slightly, but the gesture is so small that it can easily go unnoticed by a professor or fellow classmates. The weak body language communicates a person’s lack of confidence in their ability to eloquently deliver their perspective to their colleagues.   Fake It Until You Become It Social psychologist Amy Cuddy delivered an excellent presentation at TED Global where she discussed the power of body language on success. She noted that in corporate settings, the majority of people who communicate powerful body language are usually men. Women are more likely to display weak body language. Women are often cast in social settings as the weaker sex, so there’s no surprise that this translates into business settings. As a woman of influence, she encourages women (and men) to learn to change their mindset in order to display powerful body language. The mind is so powerful because a person’s thoughts become their actions. Cuddy suggests a few practices to help transform the mind for success. She encourages the practice of power poses and positive affirmations. Power poses include stances with hands on hips with feet firmly planted in the ground or arms in the air as if they’re arriving at the finish line of a marathon. For example, a person who is going on a major job interview should prepare to get there a few minutes earlier than expected. Upon arriving at the building, a person should go to a private bathroom stall and give themselves a two-minute pep talk. While they mentally strengthen themselves, they should also stand in the power poses. This may sound bizarre, but her research proved that these tactics can literally help to change the trajectory of an interview. Even though it may feel a bit silly to practice the poses and techniques, it is important to continue to practice them until it feels less awkward. These strategies can subliminally change the mind and encourage a person to begin thinking powerfully. Once a person’s mind is powerful, their body language will follow suit! So, strike a pose!

Some people may feel like negotiation isn’t really a skill-set they need to develop because they don’t work in sales, or law, or sports management or whatever. But the truth is everybody — except maybe for certain categories of criminals and tyrants — negotiates to have their personal needs and interests met. Negotiation isn’t the same thing as manipulation. The difference between those two things hinges on the difference between good faith and bad faith. Negotiation is a good faith effort to have our personal wants and needs met. Here are a few examples of everyday situations in which negotiation becomes necessary: Maybe you need to sell something of value and can’t afford to sacrifice on the price, but the value you imagine isn’t imagined the same way by others. Maybe you need to marshal support of peers and colleagues for an idea you feel strongly about. Perhaps you need to settle a debt. Because situations like these come up all the time, negotiation really is an ordinary, everyday task. It’s just one that requires extraordinary preparation to master. All of us have conversations everyday. And we’ve all heard conversation referred to as an artform. Well, by extension, negotiation is the art of difficult conversations. And prepared negotiation is the art of succeeding in difficult conversations, while retaining amicable relations. So let’s discuss some negotiation training and preparation techniques called the three D’s to help us work toward mastery. Draft Most of us understand how we feel on emotional levels, as opposed to intellectual levels, which means articulating our feeling without allowing emotion to dominate their expression in conversation can often feel a little strange and awkward. There’s a school of thought that characterizes honest communication as the simple act of describing how you feel, and then clearly stating what you want. It’s a simple two-step process. While that may seem overly simplistic at a glance, deeper inspection shows it’s not. Sitting down before hand to gather thoughts and sort out how we feel about the details of a situation, and then ruminate on a workable solution takes our personal, emotional experience and transmutes those vague thoughts into focused and defined concepts that can be expressed clearly. In some cases, like a tense situation or a dispute that requires resolution, the drafting stage can provide some catharsis that purges negative emotions from the situation. Drafting gets to the substance of what you want to say, but it is not the end of the conversation. A couple of other aspects to consider in the drafting stage are: Objectives: What do you hope to accomplish in this negotiation? Can it be broken down into a simple list? Precedents: Can you think of any example where other people faced a similar situation? Where they successful, or did they fail? Is there a lesson for you to draw from in their experience? Anecdotes: You may find that precedents lead to relatable stories. Telling stories is a great method for taking a particular circumstances and making them universally relatable. Consider applying this method without turning into Ben Matlock, if possible. Devil’s Advocate The devil’s advocate stage is where we put the draft we’ve compiled to the test. The goal is to verify whether or not the drafting stage sufficiently exorcised the emotions involved, or if our argument is still under the influence of those emotions in ways that are counterproductive to the goals. If the emotions and the logic don’t merge into a persuasive argument, the devil’s advocate will help reveal which of the pertinent thoughts, feelings, hopes, and expectations should remain on the negotiation table, and which ones should go. Some questions to consider in the devil’s advocate stage are: What happens if things don’t work out? What are some alternate outcomes you’re willing to consider? To what degree do alternative outcomes satisfy your interests? What are the needs and wants of the other party that you may be able to address? What are the other party’s options if they choose not to work it out with you? Recruit a Trusted friend or colleague to play your devil’s advocate. Practice delivering the argument you develop from the drafting stage and have your devil’s advocate pose counterpoints. This will put you in the shoes of the other party. Devil’s advocacy may be an ongoing process. Perhaps more than one redraft will be necessary, so choose someone who can remain involved for as long as possible. Deliver Remember the concept of honest communication from the beginning of this post? Describe how you feel. Then state what you want. Remember how we considered whether or not the idea of saying how you feel and then asking for what you want, was overly-simplistic? It’s not. But it is easier said than done. For most people the hardest part about negotiation is the asking stage. Preparing yourself for the awkward request is the real crux of this process. What makes the hard request easier is smooth and practiced delivery. The final conversation may happen in a different context, like a different time or a different location than expected. There may be unforeseen interruptions, or questions that arise and break up the flow you’ve rehearsed. This possibility also needs to be prepared for. Here are a few tips for that process. Keep your devil’s advocate on hand to act as your delivery coach. Practice delivering your scripted argument, and have your devil’s advocate interrupt with challenges to your argument. The need to negotiate does not arise from people harboring wants and needs they’re not entitled to. Negotiation arises when perfectly legitimate wants and needs are found to be at odds with the wants and needs of others, or vice versa. Those instances in which we must engage with others to find solutions for competing needs and interests are types of negotiations. Power disparities, social dynamics, and the nuances of each person’s individual perspective, and circumstances requires that each of us negotiate with others from time to time, or else resort to crime, tyranny, or the other side of that equation, victimhood and/or martyrdom.