Preface to DARE TO ASK!

Author’s Preface: ‘Name, Frame, and Claim the Conversation’

Dare to Ask! started out as a how-to primer; but mid-way through, it took on grander ambitions.

When we began, co-authors Cait Clarke and Neil Shister had in mind a simple guidebook specifically addressed to women because women are reluctant negotiators. Cait learned first-hand as a negotiation consultant to corporations and non profits that women suffer because of this reluctance and they need extra encouragement to feel comfortable making legitimate demands. Her ‘first person’ affirmations begin each chapter.

Neil, a journalist and author, wrote such a guidebook a dozen years ago. Entitled The Ten Minute Guide to Negotiating (Macmillan), it distilled what can appear to be a complex, intimidating process into simplified action steps. This approach found a receptive audience. The book ranked among Amazon’s top business negotiation titles before going out of print, and has been translated into several foreign editions.

We set out to do the same thing for women. We wanted something for women to write in and personalize.

At the outset, it is important to recognize our intellectual debt and appreciation for invaluable work that preceded Dare to Ask! The classic text is Getting to YES, by Roger Fisher and William Ury. This landmark, which grew out of the Harvard Negotiation Project, introduced concepts that have since become universal standards for effective negotiating. We, like virtually everybody else in the field, have humbly borrowed and built on many of their seminal ideas.

Another looming landmark is Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide. Authors Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, eminent academic researchers, document the consequences women face (particularly the lag in earnings) for failing to negotiate, and suggest useful explanations for why this happens and how to overcome it. A Woman’s Guide to Successful Negotiating: How to Convince, Collaborate, & Create Your Way to Agreement, by the father-daughter team of Lee and Jessica Miller, pointed the way to feminizing negotiating techniques to make them more accessible to women. Also important in shaping our thinking was Kate White’s astute Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do, which strips away the innocence of the good-girl stereotype by showing how it blocks the success of serious women. Gail Evans amped up the conversation with Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman, which influenced our thinking about how female qualities lend themselves to successful negotiating practices.

vi

During the writing of Dare to Ask! Cait had a creative insight that changed the nature of the whole project. She realized that, to help women become adept negotiators, it was necessary to not just teach technique but, more importantly, to shift mindsets. The change takes place long before opening offers are made—it’s about knowing your strengths and visualizing the conversations as something very different than a win-lose negotiation.

She recognized that if the term negotiation, (which can sound threatening) was redefined as “collaborative conversation,” much of the intimidation factor would be eliminated. She particularly understood how important it is that women internalize the fundamental principle that they have the power to take their time throughout the process and seek alternatives.

Conventional negotiation pedagogy appropriately focuses on expanding the pie for all parties by teaching Win-Win techniques. In the case of women, however, this approach, while necessary, isn’t sufficient. To unleash the full potential of women, it is imperative that they feel comfortable with a process that has been inherently biased against them. Cait’s solution to this dilemma, and the big Big Idea in Dare to Ask!, is that many aspects of behavior that are already second nature to women—being social, empathetic, good listeners, team players, creative problem solvers—comprise the skill set of adept negotiation. In other words, there’s less to learn about negotiating than you think, provided that you just think about negotiating in a different way.

With that leap, the nature of Dare to Ask! transformed. The text began to address fundamental women’s issues like aspiration, empowerment, and fulfillment. Negotiation remains the medium of discourse, but it is now understood as part of a much larger conversation. Rather than a specialized act reserved for specific instances, negotiating becomes a life skill for women to employ daily to further their self-realization.

As a practicing attorney, law professor, negotiation trainer/consultant, and nonprofit director, Cait (her real name is Catherine but she prefers the Gaelic version) has come to appreciate first-hand the critical role negotiation can play in improving a woman’s professional (and personal) life.

Our goal is to help women overcome their reluctance to negotiate. There is a real need for this. Examples of women being discriminated against and subject to bias are legion (for ongoing documentation, check out our blog at www.WomenNegotiating.com). Whenever we told a woman about our book, the immediate response typically was: “I sure could use that!” And then we’d hear a flagrant example of unfair treatment when she didn’t get something she deserved because she failed to ask for it. Invariably, she looked back at that moment with regret, wishing she had the negotiating nerve and know-how at the time to tap into her womanly strengths, take her time, and deal with the situation differently.

Cait understands that feeling. A formative moment in Cait’s development as a negotiator occurred at a leading Washington, D.C. law firm following her second year of law school when she was a summer associate. At the end of the summer, she was the only member of her class not to receive a formal offer of employment for the following year. Instead, she was told that she had been deferred and to check in after graduation to negotiate a permanent job. Although she wanted to do this, she lacked the courage to return (despite graduating

vii

near the very top of her class and as editor-in-chief of the law review). She would later come to realize that it wasn’t just a bruised ego that inhibited her, but a lack of experience and self-confidence in her own skills as a woman at the negotiation table.

“Looking back, I wish I had explored the possibility of working out a situation tailored to my strengths, but the whole idea of negotiating a special deal was outside my comfort zone.” In retrospect, things worked out well. Her career focusing on public interest and social justice has been successful and satisfying. “But I still wish I hadn’t set up imaginary boundaries in my own mind that I was unable to cross. I wish that I had dared to ask.”

The mission of Dare to Ask! is to empower other women with the courage and tools to directly confront situations like Cait’s in their own lives.

Unlike some of the works mentioned previously that are more theoretical and detailed, our book is intentionally short and practical. It is designed to be consulted regularly, to be used again and again like a field guide or a handbook. At the end of each chapter are simple exercises so that you can practice applying the techniques discussed. Mark up these workbook pages—but do it in pencil so you can re-use them over time as different events arise!

We produced this book to be a personalized, hands-on, easy-to-use reference guide to negotiating. But we hope it will prove more than that. We hope it will inspire you to seize opportunities, to set your sights higher, to refuse to accept unfair inequities, to be patient, and to trust your intuition. We hope it will enable you to jump-start learning curves and empower you to maximize your life potential by becoming your own best advocate.

We hope this book inspires you to dare to ask!