In
the past two decades, a barrage of books, magazines,
and advertisements for executive education have offered
instruction on how to improve your negotiation skills.
Popular negotiation guides have sold millions of copies,
and hundreds of academic papers have explored the tactics
and strategies that produce better agreements.
Until
now, however, one point has been almost universally
overlooked: All the negotiation advice in the world
is useless if you never get to the bargaining table
in the first place. No one has looked at how people
know what they can ask for—what’s negotiable—and
what is not. No one has studied the factors that constrain
or encourage people to negotiate, or whether different
groups of people, such as men or women, attempt to negotiate
more often than others.
Our
new book, Women
Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation--and
Positive Strategies for Change,
shows for the first time that women are much less likely
than men to use negotiation to get ahead and get what
they want. With several new studies—some in the
lab, some on the street, and some over the web—we’ve
confirmed the truth of this assumption. One study looked
at students graduating with master’s degrees and
found that only 7 percent of the women had negotiated
their first job offers, while 57 percent—or eight
times as many—of the men asked for more than they
were offered. We calculated that not negotiating at
this critical juncture would cost the women at least
$1,000,000 by the time they retire. And these are the
lost earnings from only one negotiation!
Women
are also less likely than men to ask for promotions
and for assignments that will give them greater visibility
within their organizations or provide needed experience.
As a result, they often move up in their organizations
more slowly—and get paid less—than men of
equal talent. The same phenomenon occurs at home: Women
don’t ask for more help with household chores,
and consequently have less leisure time than men and
often higher levels of stress, which can damage their
health.
Fortunately,
this reluctance to negotiate isn’t genetic. It’s
a learned behavior produced by the lessons women internalize
as they’re growing up about our society’s
boundaries for acceptable female behavior. But because
the reluctance to negotiate is a learned behavior, it
can also be unlearned—in many cases quite easily.
Here are four strategies that can help:
1.
Don’t assume that you’re stuck with the
status quo—begin thinking about the world
as a more negotiable place. Can you get a better price
on that Armani suit you’ve had your eye on? Can
you ask your boss to let you join a team doing work
you want to do? Can you ask to switch to a quieter office
or to hand off responsibilities that feel beneath your
level of experience? At home, can you ask your partner
to leave work early to pick up the kids one day a week
so that you can work late that day? Can you ask him
(or her) to do the dishes every night since you do all
the grocery shopping? Not all of these changes are possible,
but some of them probably are. Try identifying something
you want, maybe something small to start, and find a
way to ask for it. You may not get all you ask for,
but you’ll certainly get more than if you hadn’t
asked.
2.
Gather information. You may not realize that
you’re underpaid relative to your male colleagues,
for example. Start by finding out where you stand. Go
to Internet sites such as salary.com and jobstar.org,
type in where you live, your job title, and your years
of experience, and you’ll get back instant information
about the range of salaries paid to people in your region
doing what you do. Use your social and professional
networks. Rather than asking people how much they earn
(which may feel awkward), try asking what they think
someone in your position should earn. But be sure to
ask men as well as women. Since women typically make
only 76 percent of what men make, if you talk only to
women, you’ll probably get inaccurately low estimates.
Once you’ve established the range of salaries
paid to people like you, you can set a realistic goal
if you decide to ask for more.
3.
Role-play in advance. Practice with a friend
or colleague to anticipate roadblocks and plan how to
get past them. Imagine counteroffers that would stop
you in your tracks. Imagine the worst thing the other
person could do or say. Then devise responses that will
enable you to remain calm and focused such as “How
close can you come to my figure then?” or “Wow,
my request seems to have really surprised you; let’s
talk about a compromise that would make us both happy.”
Practice going “four rounds” with the opposing
negotiator rather than conceding as soon as he or she
reacts negatively to your initial request. Set a high
target and remember to focus on your goal rather than
on the least you’ll accept. This type of “rehearsal”
can reduce your anxiety about the negotiation and help
you feel more control over the process. It usually produces
better results, too.
4.
Pay attention to how you ask. If you ask for
what you want in a way that seems overly direct, “pushy,”
or demanding, this behavior from a woman may antagonize
others and make them resist giving you what you want.
This is sad and silly, but it’s a fact of life
today: Women need to “manage” the impressions
they create if they don’t want to be stonewalled.
You can do this by using “friendly” body
language (such as smiling and making warm eye contact)
and by communicating your wish to find a solution that
works for everyone. This approach allows you to set
high targets for the negotiation without seeming threatening.
It also has a silver lining: Many women feel more comfortable
with a collaborative approach, and this type of “win/win”
attitude has been shown to produce better results for
everyone involved. Both sides come away happier.
Learning
to Ask 