The UCL School of Management recently welcomed staff, students, alumni and guests to celebrate the launch of Associate Professor Dr Sunny Lee's new book, Your Next Move: Reclaiming Agency in Career and Life.
The book offers practical advice for navigating salary negotiations, setting healthy workplace boundaries and making more intentional decisions about careers and life. Drawing on over a decade of research and teaching, Sunny encourages readers to think beyond negotiation as a workplace skill and instead see it as a way of taking ownership of the choices that shape their lives.
Professor Colin Fisher, Programme Director of the MRes/PhD in Management, opened the evening by reflecting on his long-standing collaboration with Sunny. He spoke about her journey from London Business School to UCL, praising both her academic achievements and her leadership as the School's first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Lead.
The event also featured Carmen Gonzalez, Director of the Wonder Foundation, who shared how agency can transform lives far beyond the workplace. Through education, skills development and mentoring, the charity has supported more than 165,000 women and girls around the world.
"Negotiating life on your own terms does not begin with negotiating a salary," Gonzalez said. "It starts with believing that you matter. It starts with asking: Am I allowed to dream? Can I choose a different future?"
She also reminded the audience that "no one negotiates alone", highlighting the role of mentors, managers, families and communities in helping people recognise opportunities and build confidence.
Although Sunny has spent the past 12 years teaching negotiation to senior executives and master's students, she explained that Your Next Move is about much more than negotiating a pay rise. At its heart is the idea of agency, our ability to make deliberate choices and shape the direction of our own lives.
Drawing on the work of psychologist Albert Bandura, she described agency as "our ability to direct the course of our lives strategically and deliberately towards the goals we set for ourselves." While we cannot control every circumstance we face, she argued that we can decide how we respond to them.
One of the central themes of the evening was how people define success. Rather than measuring success purely through salary or job title, she invited the audience to consider what matters most to them. Audience members shared a range of answers, including finding purpose in their work, maintaining a healthy work-life balance, spending time with family and achieving financial security.
Sunny also challenged common perceptions of negotiation. Many attendees said they associated negotiation with conflict or unequal power, making them reluctant to negotiate at work. She instead described it as a process of solving problems together. Using the example of monkeys dividing apples and bananas according to their preferences, she showed how understanding what each person values can lead to outcomes that benefit everyone involved.
She also spoke about the importance of accepting trade-offs. She explained that time and energy are limited, so making progress often means deciding what deserves attention at a particular stage of life, whether that is health, career, family or personal development.
Throughout the evening, attendees took part in interactive exercises drawn from the book, encouraging them to reflect on their own priorities, identify areas where they wanted to make changes and consider the practical steps needed to achieve them.
During the Q&A, she also discussed the role organisations play in supporting agency. While individuals can develop the confidence to negotiate and advocate for themselves, she argued that organisations also have a responsibility to create fair and transparent environments where people have the opportunity to succeed.
Reflecting on why she wrote Your Next Move, Sunny said she wanted to make the lessons she teaches in MBA and Executive Education programmes available to a wider audience.
The event concluded with remarks from Richard Green, Group Publisher at The Quarto Group, and Jack Fogg, Literary Agent at DunnFogg, who reflected on Sunny's journey from idea to publication, praising the book's accessible approach to negotiation and agency.
Purchase a copy of Your Next Move: Reclaiming Agency in Career and Life to learn more about Dr Sunny Lee's practical approach to negotiation, agency and career development.
