How can you negotiate important matters like compensation, benefits or promotions with a manager, team-mate; or directly report if you don’t trust that person, don’t feel respected, or the person feels you don’t listen?

Here are some tips to sort out your office troubles and also share a good rapport with your colleagues and boss:

Define your goals

When you focus on improving your working relationships, you are not trying to become friends with the other person, or making an attempt at being liked.

Rather, you are trying to make sure that, inspite of any personal feelings, the two of you are able to constructively deal with your disagreements and differences.

Your aim is to create a relationship in which you can talk honestly with each other and work together to find solutions to the core issues.

Focus on the relationship

The only way to resolve a relationship or communication issue is to discuss it directly.

Many people hope to cure problems in their working relationships by coming up with a substantive solution, thinking that if they get the right answer, they will get along better with the other person.

In fact, it is quite difficult to discuss substantive issues when you and the other person do not trust each other, respect the other person, listen to or understand each other. You are far more likely to reach a frustrating stalemate than a mutually acceptable resolution in most cases.

A better approach is to realise that when you have significant relationship problems, you should focus on improving the way you and the other negotiator communicate with or treat each other.

Then return to the substantive issue at hand after giving enough time. For example, one of my clients made a commitment to himself to not talk about his desire for a promotion for three weeks.

During that period, he met four times with his manager, and limited the conversation to the issues that were damaging their working relationship. This approach helps settle issues without any acrimony.

Resolve issues efficiently

Once you open the door, it is usually fairly easy to get most people to talk about the problems they see in the working relationship. Usually, they are as unhappy with the current situation as you are with them and are looking for some fair process to resolve the issue.

Often, the simple act of talking about the problem, sharing perceptions of what is going on and why matters have degenerated to this point opens up new lines of communication. Try this easy approach.

This works much better in resolving most contentious issues.

In my experience, this type of conversation builds mutual understanding, which then provides you with room to find ways to improve the situation (perhaps by promising to communicate better in the future, by exchanging apologies or by providing an explanation for misinterpreted actions).

Effective conversations

These conversations are never easy, but they can be quite effective. One of my clients had great success by saying, “You always say I don’t get it. Well, this time I am listening. Tell me what it is that you think I don’t get.” The other person was happy to provide a list of complaints. Then my client said, “Fine. I want to work with you to address those matters. I also want you to know that there are some important issues that I feel you don’t get. I’d like to share those with you now, and then we can discuss both sets of issues.”

Address the key issues

After you have done the best you can to address the relationship issues, you can return to the reasons for which you are having these discussions in the first place — the raise, promotion, change in job responsibility or the transfer you have been seeking.

Make sure that those are effectively solved or at least sorted out before you can proceed further professionally.

Only now you will find it much easier to deal with that person. Where before there may have only been stony silence, tension and stress, there should be more open dialogue and problem solving. Effective and good working relationships are essential to productive negotiations. If they do not exist, you have to take time to develop them.