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Excerpts from Cracking the Corporate Code

Al Little knows how to use power to negotiate the outcome he wants, whether on behalf of his corporation or for his own professional advancement. "I always size up the situation in a conscious and purposeful way to determine how I can achieve the best outcome for my company and for me. As long as it's ethical, I will do whatever it takes, whatever I think will work in that particular situation. I'm a pretty good negotiator, and I've learned to use a number of different techniques. Maybe it's ambition. I know it's confidence that I can persuade people to my point of view."

Witness Little's confident style: "I was the best labor relations guy in the company. I reached contract settlements in cases that resulted in strikes when others led the negotiations, and I did it at lower cost. I really learned how good I was as a result of those experiences. My boss was promoted, and I was a candidate for the corporate director of the department. Instead, they brought someone in from outside the company. I was pretty young to be a corporate director anyway, only thirty-two. This had happened to me once before, and I had waited it out and got the promotion a year later. But this time I decided to look for another job and see what I could leverage in the meantime.

"First I got a raise, because they wanted me to feel okay about bringing in the outsider. That helped, because then I could command a higher salary at a new company. In a few months, my strategy worked, and I was offered a great job at a new company. Then I went to the vice president of HR at my old company as I was leaving and said, 'I did a great job at the last negotiation, and I think I deserve the bonus I would have had if I were not leaving.' It was an unprecedented request at that time, but it worked. That vice president sent me a check at my new company. I almost framed it. The bottom line is, 'Why get angry? Just get even.' I got the money and a better job."