The goal of the Project is “to build gender-equity in government, leadership and public service.”

I have been invited to teach a symposium on negotiation training and couldn’t be more honored.  Each participant receives a copy of Dare to Ask! and this handy guide which I want to share.

10 TOP NEGOTIATING TIPES FOR WOMEN IN BUILDING GENDER-EQUITY IN LEADERSHIP ROLES 

I’m delighted to have been with you at the launch of The Women in Public Service Project in Washington, D.C. and hope you’ll find this copy of Dare to Ask! The Woman’s Guidebook to Successful Negotiating useful in expanding our work. If I can be of any service to you in the future, please don’t hesitate to contact me.  Whenever an individual woman becomes more empowered, the lives of all women benefit, and the world becomes a better place.

Cait Clarke,    Cait@WomenNegotiating.com

1.  Be Clear About the Difference Between What You Need and What You Want

2.  Know Everything You Can About the Other Side

3.  Mobilize Different Constituencies, Get to the Bargaining Table, and Be Your Authentic Self

4.  Prepare Your Opening Offer in Advance by Thinking BIG. Be Daring and Be Creative. Make the Conversations About More than One Issue.

5.  Don’t Take ‘No’ Personally (it’s not the end of the conversation, it’s the start of a new conversation)

6.  Remind Yourself to Use Your Natural Skills such as Creativity, Intuition, Empathy, Compassion and Attention to Detail

7.  Never Say “Yes” to the First Offer

8.  Be Patient (80% of the agreements come in the final moments of the process).

9.  Whenever You Give Something, Get Something in Return.

10. The Measure of a Good Negotiation is when Conversations Lead to Trust and Relationship-building

]]> http://womennegotiating.com/2011/12/women-in-public-service-project-negotiating-to-build-gender-equity-in-leadership/feed/ 0 http://womennegotiating.com/2011/12/political-negotiating/ http://womennegotiating.com/2011/12/political-negotiating/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:55:42 +0000 Cait Clarke http://womennegotiating.com/?p=679 I’m a lawyer, not an expert like on international relations or diplomacy.  But I”ve been invited to speak at a State Department group of international women leaders on negotiating and I thought it useful to suggest how aspects of my fundamental approach to negotiating are applicable to a political context.  Wanted to share my thoughts on the blog with readers.

1. Power—-A central tenant in negotiating theory is to identify, even before the formal process starts, who truly possesses the power on the other side to agree to your demands.  Often you find yourself negotiating ‘through’ the person on the other side to his or her superior.  And thus in building your position, you are not trying to persuade him so much as your are provding him with the ammunition to persuade his boss. 

2. Objectives and goals:  In high level negotiation, the opening positions are  preliminary ‘conversation starters’—just ‘authentic enough’ to get both parties to the table—but in no way a final statement of what is ultimately acceptable.   I teach that negotiation is a collaborative conversation, so rather than resist the other side early in the process, better to use their demands as stepping stones to  move them closer to where you want to end up.

3. Threats and promises:  All too often a negotiation will reach a point where the spirit of exchange is replaced by hardened positions .  When this happens, it is not unusual for one of two tones to enter into the conversation—a ‘dooms day scenario’ of the dire consequences of failing to accept the other side’s offer or, a different track, the promise of ‘great things’ that can occur in the future if you’ll just accept their position right now and ‘trust’ them at their word.

Such a diaogue, in more muted form, often occurs in negotiations and my advise is pretty consistent: don’t be                    distracted by the atmospherics, focus instead on the elements of mutual interest which can be used as ‘currency’ to move the process forward.

4.  Mobilizing Constituencies:  One of the ‘negotiation arts’  I encourage is bringing the authority of others to the table to lend added credibility to your position.  If you know the groups or points of view that are most critical to the strength of the other side, and you can base your positon on support from those authorities, it becomes harder for the other side to  refute your position or resist the invitation to engage in ‘collaborative conversation’.

5. Saving Face:  The measure of a successful negotiation,  which I say in the book, is the willingness of both sides gaining something that is important to them and, most importantly, a willingness to come back to the  bargaining table  in the future should the occasion arise.  In politics it is said ‘there are no friends or enemies, just interests.’  It’s the same with a negotiation.  The end game in a negotiation is providing the other side with enough of what he/she needs to take away — both personally and substantively—so their self-esteem remains entact and they have not been publicly emgarassed.  In a word, don’t be greedy but always leave something on the table for the other side.  Cultivate alliances!

There’s no reason anymore to buy into this enslaving mythology.

Spotted a fine article in the Salt Lake Tribune about negotiating techniques.  “Inside Every Woman, A Bargainer Lies in Wait” reads the headline.  Of course I was hooked.  The piece is based on what looks like a pretty interesting book, Negotiate Like You Mean It: Nine Tips to Help Women in Business.  The author, Vickie Milazzo, lays down a solid foundation which my book, Dare to Ask!, leaps off from in its presentation of tactics tailored for women.

She’s stoking motivation, telling women that they don’t have to settle for less.  Right on, sister!  The next is knowing how to actually engage in a negotiation and structure the process and close the deal.  Which is, for women, no simple thing to do.

VICKIE MILAZZO DARES WOMEN TO ASK FOR WHAT THEY DESERVE

But we can!

Just like Ms. Millazzo recommends getting in the middle of the action at the office and being passionate about your opportunities, we advocate building off that passion to create  ‘collaborative conversations’.  Can’t have one without the other, first comes passionate outrage, then stratagems and tactics.

‘Don’t say ‘yes’ too fast,’ urges Ms. Millazo.  It’s always smart to assess the situation, the person making the offer, and how far you might be able to go before signing your name on the dotted line. Chances are, if your request for more is denied, you’ll still be left with the initial offer.

I couldn’t agree more.

When IBM named its new CEO this week—Virginia M. Rometty—out-going CEO Samuel J. Palmisano made a point of saying her selection had “zero to do with progressive social policy” (read: gender-based choice). Nope, “Ginni got it because she deserved it.”

What high praise as IBM now joins Xerox, PepsiCo, DuPont and Hewelett-Packard with a woman at the helm.

Before concluding that the glass ceiling has been forever shattered and the playing field is now gender neutral (as many a woman under 30 is wont to do), it’s worth nothing that Ms. Rometty attributes much of her success to becoming of a confident risk-taker (like a man) and less of a ‘self-doubting 100 per center’ like a woman.

What’s this mean, ‘self-doubting 100 per center’?  It’s what we see all too often when women enter a negotiating situation.  They believe they have to have mastered every detail, solved every problem, anticipated every question, have a response for every doubt—before they can even begin to ask for what they want.  Rather than approach the negotiation (or business problem) with innate faith in their ability to handle each juncture along the way to the end goal, women all too regularly shut themselves down because they don’t have all the answers.  The one thing we know absolutely for sure about negotiating is this:  ‘if you ask for something, you might get it but if you don’t ask you’ll never get it.’’

Ms. Rometty alludes to this personal transformation in a tale reported in the New York Times.   Early in her career a recruiter offered her a big job but she felt she lacked sufficient experience to go for it.  That night her husband asked her, “Do you think a man would have every answered that question that way?”

Virginia M. Rometty, IBM's new C.E.O.

“What it taught me was you have to be very confident, even though you’re so self-critical inside about what it is you may or may not know. And that, to me, leads to taking risks.”

Yes!!!!!!!   Whaaa-Hooo!!!!!  Three Cheers for Virginia M. Rometty

If there is one Absolutely Golden Rule for women when it comes to negotiating, or seizing opportunity, or going beyond the immobilizing self-doubt of thinking that you always have to be 100 per cent certain, it’s have confidence in yourself to dare to do it!

The argument for implementing corporate diversity management programs for women—including negotiation training—grows stronger.

In the report Women Matter, A Corporate Performance Driver, McKinsey consultants offer a dismal portrait of a male-dominated system wherein, if current circumstances prevail, in 2035 women in top executive positions in France, for example, is projected to be well under 20% (so much for the International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde as the new norm).

The problem? A management model that equates leadership with ‘unfailing availability and total geographic mobility at all times’.  Translation: no declining assignments or transfers.  An equally important key to success lies in the ability to promote oneself and to be assertive about one’s performance. Women are remarkably timid, as well as un-mentored, in doing this.

But when companies do elevate women to top management, the corporate culture is positively impacted in a decisive way.  No surprise, the cultural piece improves:  companies with three or more women in top management functions score higher on employee evaluations along such corporate dimensions as work environment and values, direction, coordination and control, leadership, accountability and innovation.  When it comes to financial performance, results are even more remarkable: companies with a higher proportion of women in top management out-perform industry-average diverse companies by 10% in ROE, nearly 50% in EBIT, and saw a two year stock appreciation 1.7 times greater.

They think that bias doesn’t apply to them, that the world is post-feminist and gender neutral.  Success or failure, opportunity or dead-ends, have nothing to do with whether or not they’re female because—so they insist—the playing field is now level.

Alas, not so!  Rather than deny reality, they’d be best advised to heed these recent items:

• A May study by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University polled nearly 600 young men and women who graduated from college between 2006 and 2010. The authors found that young men are not only out-earning young women, they’re doing so by an average of more than $5,000 per year. Male participants reported first-year job earnings averaging $33,150, while young women earned about $28,000.
• Another report released in May, this one by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, indicated that new female college graduates are earning 17 percent less than their male counterparts.
• “Historically, men out-earn women across all sorts of occupations,” says Carl E. Van Horn, a professor of public policy at Rutgers and a co-author of the study. “All of our data confirms that’s still going on with young people who have graduated from college in the last five years. I’m just disappointed that the disparity is still so large.”

It is still imperative—perhaps more so than ever, given the dismal economic state—that women be aware that they will be offered less unless they dare to ask for more!

The funny thing was, I was reading this study on my phone. I had picked up the story through a friend’s Twitter feed, so I clicked on the link, which opened the browser on my phone, which opened the article and asked if I’d like to save the full-text version, along with all my other documents, among my phones other files (mp3’s, videos, documents, powerpoints, etc). So I found myself, sitting at my cluttered little desk, thinking, if all these documents can all be on my phone, why is my desk so messy?! What are all these erroneous papers? Perhaps someone threw a ticker-tape parade in the living room without my knowledge?

I’d like to go with that answer, but I’m afraid the true answer is far more complex. Human behavior is governed by a myriad of principles social psychologists have neatly categorized and explored, but never totally defined. The human psyche is a many splendored enigma. And yet, we think we know everything. Heck, I knew enough to get this study downloaded to my phone.

It’s easy to forget how little we really do know, especially with our arsenals of direct access to breaking news (and status updates) from Facebook, CNN, BBC News, MedPage, Politico, Twitter…I could go on and on. But I won’t. The point of my blog post is to illustrate that we often believe we know more than we do.

When I was a child, my dad told me the “wisest man in the world is he who knows what he does not know”. My 6 year old, concrete mind, attempted to convince myself that if one already knew what one didn’t know, there was nothing not to know. But now I get it. Sometimes, we don’t even think that we are missing something, we don’t even think to think we may have gotten it wrong.

Take, for instance, my first job. The dreaded question- “So what salary are you looking for”? My answer, and I quote (to my mortification), “I’ll take whatever I can get; I really believe in this company!”

Up to a few months ago, I had no idea this was such a horrid response (and it is, my friends, it is). I thought it demonstrated my fervor and my devotion to the cause. But what I didn’t know, what I didn’t even know I didn’t know, was that the other folks interviewing for the position were asking directly for what they desired. It’s like the classic police interrogation technique of convincing the suspect that there accomplice is in the next room over, confessing everything, and blaming it all on him. If I’d just known that my “accomplices” were letting loose on what their salary requirements were, I would have been in a much better position.

It’s worth noting that many of those folks who are negotiating their salaries are men. As a die-hard feminist, I hate to admit this, but as I woman, I have been conditioned by society to avoid conflict, and to try to please. If I had considered it a conversation, not a “test question”, I could have vocalized my requirements and made out much better in the long run.

So here’s a secret, ladies: It can only help you to respond to this classic question during interviews with an honest answer. Expect to negotiate; it’s what everyone else is doing, and they are ending up making far more than you are. Go ahead, dare to lay it out there. What do you have to lose?

Now, my friends, sally forth and negotiate for your first salaries! Good luck, fellow Millennials. Remember to never- OMG, I’ve got a text. TTYL!

When women pattern themselves after men, when they model the aggressive style of the “stereotypical male,” research shows that they do poorly in negotiations.  Indeed, worse than they might have done otherwise. As Hannah Riley Bowles of Harvard (and others) has shown, such “role reversing” actions trigger underlying gender biases inherent to many social interactions.

When they behave more according to gender expectation, however, women do much better.  Rather than repudiate one’s feminine identity when negotiating (which many think is required), just the opposite is called for; when women embrace their identity, they are more successful negotiators.

Thus, if a woman realizes that the social texture of her days is actually a succession of small negotiations, she’ll see that negotiating actually comes naturally to her.  We stress this idea in the book and I have found personally that there is great empowerment in this approach.

-      Cultures worldwide almost universally proclaim the gender value that women not be perceived as pushy or aggressive vis-à-vis men (even at the level of language; for example, there is no male counterpart to the female term ‘bitch’ which adequately connotes the same tone of sexual possession and oppression).

-      Socially, women have historically been fixed in subordinate roles, and thus, conditioned to ‘operate below the radar’ to get what they want.  In the absence of socially sanctioned power, one doesn’t have authority to make demands.

-      Biologically, women appear to have evolved in ways that facilitate social bonding (whereas men evolved with a premium placed on climbing and dominating hierarchies).  Via a greater preponderance than men of such hormones as oxytocin (sometimes referred to as ‘the cuddle hormone’) and lesser amounts of testosterone, women behave in ways that favor ‘getting along by going along’.  Negotiation, on the other hand, is typically perceived as confrontation.

One more factor needs to be mentioned: women have typically not been mentored in negotiating. Most fathers don’t teach daughters how to ‘dare to ask’ for what they want.  At work, men will often be exposed early in their careers to situations that call for negotiating; women generally will not be (although this is starting to change as more women penetrate the glass ceiling).