Lifescripts

What to Say to Get What You Want in Life's Toughest Situations

Stephen M. Pollan, Mark Levine

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119571964
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Small Business
• Index: Business

Expertly navigate any workplace conversation and come out on top

When confronted with difficult situations in the workplace, many people are at a loss for words. That's why New York Times bestselling authors Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine created Lifescripts: What to Say to Get What You Want in Life's Toughest Situations. Using two-color flowcharts, Lifescripts maps out 109 difficult conversations, guiding you through discussion openers and effective responses reach the desired result. This completely revised and updated edition includes nearly 50 new business-focused scripts covering everything from apologizing for a misdirected email to requesting better meeting manners.

Inside, you'll find scripts to fit any situation you're confronting at work. Use the signature Lifescripts visual flowcharts to work your way through exactly how the conversation should go. Be it boosting employee morale or getting the raise you deserve, when the time comes, you'll be prepared not only with the right words and phrases, but with the confidence you need to get what you want.

• Work your way through conversation scripts for terminations, performance reviews, negotiating job offers, asking for raises, and much more
• Learn a unique set of icebreakers, pitches, questions, answers, and defenses for each difficult conversation
• Easily develop a winning conversational strategy using the signature visual flowcharts unique to Lifescripts
• Get strategic tips on attitude, timing, preparation, and behavior to help make any conversation a success

This revised Third Edition of Lifescripts is here to help employees and managers communicate even more clearly and effectively. Whatever the situation, Lifescripts provides a road map to navigate the most perplexing, problematic dialogues for success.

I
Lifescripts

for Dealing with Supervisors

1
Meeting Your New Supervisor

STRATEGY

Your goal when meeting your new supervisor is to clearly demonstrate you're not a problem. You're smart, but not so smart as to possibly be construed as any kind of threat. If you're given the opportunity, make a full verbal presentation and then leave behind a formal memo outlining what you presented. If you're told there's no time, make your elevator pitch and set up another appointment; don't leave behind the full memo since it could be used to avoid a full meeting. If you're confronted with a problem that you anticipated, frame it as an obstacle and launch into your pitch. If you're surprised, explain that the problem is news to you and offer to get back to the supervisor with information as soon as possible.

TACTICS

• Attitude: Be welcoming but entirely businesslike. You're a good soldier with a sense of urgency.
• Preparation: Draft a formal memo reporting on the status of all your projects, your staff, and your budget projections. Use this memo to prepare an oral presentation that touches on all the important points. Then, develop an elevator pitch.
• Timing: Initiate the meeting by setting up an appointment with the supervisor or their assistant.
• Behavior: Dress the way you normally would at work. Make sure to maintain eye contact and use your formal body language.

ADAPTATIONS

This script can be modified to:

• Meet one of your company's major clients or customers.

KEY POINTS

• Initiate the contact.
• Have a detailed memo, a full verbal presentation, and an elevator pitch prepared.
• If you're short on time use your elevator pitch and set up another meeting.
• Use the written memo as a leave‐behind, but only to back up your full verbal presentation.

2
Asking Your Supervisor for a Raise Outside of the Annual Review Process

STRATEGY

The days of individuals asking for raises is gone for all but the smallest businesses. Today most companies create a range of percentage salary increases, based on the company's performance, which are then linked to annual performance reviews. As a result, discussions revolve around the performance review rather than the raise. The only way to get a raise outside of this system is to leverage a job offer from another company. Unfortunately, even if this effort is successful you'll likely be marked as a flight risk and become number one on your supervisor's hit list. The answer is to either just accept the other offer and leave or ask for an employment contract or termination agreement in addition to a matching raise. This is probably a very difficult request for a supervisor or company to meet. The most you can expect is that your supervisor will do their best and get back to you with an answer. In that case, make sure to add time pressure since you already have another company waiting to hear from you. A savvy supervisor may offer you something other than money or match the raise but not the termination package. Keep in mind: Neither of those counteroffers will keep you from being targeted because of this.

TACTICS

• Attitude: You love your current job, but you have to place the financial needs of your family first. No one can argue with that.

  

• Preparation: Have all the details about the new salary offer in hand and consider if there are any non‐financial counteroffers that could make it worth staying.
• Timing: Make this approach as soon as you have a formal offer from the other employer.
• Behavior: Do this in person if possible.

ADAPTATIONS

This script can be modified to:

• Leave a long‐term supplier, vendor, or professional.

KEY POINTS

• Express your love for your job and your desire to stay, but the importance of your family's financial security.
• Insist on getting the security of an employment contract or termination agreement if you're going to stay.
• Be ready to weigh non‐financial offers, if they include that termination agreement.
• Give your supervisor time to research their options, but make sure to provide a deadline.

3
Having Your Pay Cut

STRATEGY

The bad news is your pay is being cut. The good news is that you weren't fired. Accept that there's no appealing this decision. There was a target on your back because of your salary. That target has, in theory, been removed. Going over your supervisor's head in a fruitless effort to reverse the decision will just put the target back. Instead, either ask for the reduction to be phased in gradual...