Leverage Logic

Know where you stand before you negotiate

Facing a negotiation? Describe the situation, what you want, and anything you think gives you leverage. Leverage Logic helps you see where each side has room to move, what you may be assuming, and how to make your case without giving away more than you need to.

Overview

Leverage Logic helps you reason about negotiating power instead of manufacturing it. Describe the negotiation — a raise, a lease renewal, a vendor contract, a dispute — along with anything working in your favour and anything working in theirs, and it separates what you have actually established from what you are assuming on top of it. Where something important is unknown, it says so and tells you how to find it out, rather than filling the gap with a plausible guess. It does not rate your leverage strong or weak, invent the other side's budget or motives, predict what they will do, or score your readiness out of a hundred, because none of that can be known from what you typed.

How to use it

  1. Describe the negotiation, what you want, and pick the type (salary, lease, vendor, purchase…)
  2. Add anything working in your favour — and, separately, anything working in theirs
  3. Read your position and theirs: each fact, what it may mean, and what its value depends on
  4. Work through what is still unknown before you go in, using Am I ready?
  5. Paste what they said into Counter for a read on what it settles and what it leaves open, or draft the ask as an email

Example

Scenario: You're asking for a raise after two years without one, and you have a written offer from another company.

What you do: Enter the situation and what you want, list the offer and your billing-system knowledge in your favour, and leave their side blank because you genuinely do not know it.

Result: Three established facts with what each may mean and what its worth depends on; an empty column for their position saying that is the biggest gap; five things to find out first, including whether the outside offer has an expiry; and an approach that names which fact it rests on.

Tips