Research overload
The late 1990s trickle of research on gender and negotiation has
become a rushing, roaring torrent. For those of us who aren't HR
professionals or researchers one sign is the frequency of articles
in the general press on the subject! It's partly fuelled, of
course, by the rising interest in the persistent pay gap and the
enduring lack of senior women. That perspective perhaps explains
why some experimenters seem fixated on the deficit model, in other
words trying to identify what women don't do / don't think/ don't
aspire to / etc that men do.
Deficit model
The main messages on salary negotiations in the career advice
articles and blogs that flow from this research are
correspondingly:
- women don't ask for raises as often as men
- women don't ask for as much money in pay negotiations as men
do
- women don't perform as well in pay negotiations as men
- women let themselves be held back from asking for money by fear
of the backlash against 'unfeminine' behaviour
There's truth in all these points, of course... and as long as
many of us operate in organisations where norms and structures
reflect their masculine designers, we can't ignore them. What I
have been hunting for in the research, though, are authentic things
women can do to lift their pay negotiation effectiveness without
straying too far from what feels authentic.
Mindset
If I reflect on my own experiences, as well as what we hear
through Professionelle, I perceive a mindset among women when it
comes to salary negotiation. It includes seeing the situation
as:
- win-lose
- time-bounded (now or never!)
- stressful
- often ambiguous (where are the limits? what's OK?)
Negotiator Magazine citing Babcock and Laschever bears this out,
saying two and a half times as many women as men feel "a
great deal of apprehension" about negotiating and a full 20% say
they avoid it completely. Only 14% of successful women said that
negotiation made them feel powerful and assertive...
What can we do, then, to feel more relaxed and confident from
the start, which would be a much better jumping-off point for
asking for what we need? This was where I began to think about how
reframing our mental image of the negotiation could help us become
more effective while staying true to ourselves. I found three
reframes that you might find useful.
Reframe salary reviews in your mind to be collaborative
conversations that are about more than money and will benefit more
people than you alone.
1. It's all about collaborative communication
Cait Clarke, who has written "Dare to
Ask", suggests women feel better reframing negotiations as
collaborative conversations rather than win-lose, high-stakes
battles. Collaborative exploration of a situation draws on women's
gender strengths of empathy and communicating, and the element of
social bonding required in a conversation makes us more
relaxed. This approach also introduces the notion that the
conversation can continue, it doesn't have to be wrapped up in one
do-or-die session.
I believe Clarke is drawing on a top negotiating strategy taught
in business and law schools: 'interest-based, mutual benefit.' It's
not really headline news as the core of the concept was described
in "Getting to Yes" by Fisher and Ury over 30 years ago! It calls
for understanding the difference between your position (eg "I want
to sign the deal for this contract job at my going rate") and your
interest (eg "I want repeat business and this company could give me
that") - and understanding the other party's position and
interests.
Interests are about motivations, why something matters to
people. Interests aren't always obvious, either, you need to be
able to draw them out by listening and questioning. That's why
going into a negotiation with the mindset that it will be a
collaborative conversation is so much more effective than feeling
obliged to stake out a position and shout.
2. It's about more than money
Another useful mental reframe is to remember that the salary
negotiation can go beyond dollars and cents. Why does this
matter?
Back to the research. A wide review of negotiation research
found two things:
- women were less successful than men in negotiations that
focused on money
- women were less successful than men in 'distributive'
negotiations but were competent in 'integrative' situations
(Definitions: 'distributive' = about one issue, or a one-off
situation - exactly what a salary negotiation would be.
'Integrative' involves more issues, more stakeholders, a longer
timeframe).
So women show up better in negotiations where there are more
levers and issues to deal with than money alone. That suggests we
need to think carefully before the negotiation about what ELSE
would be of value to us.
Flex time? A laptop? A compressed week? As Clarke says,
these are not unreasonable requests, they are ways by which we can
show up at our most productive best at work, which is in the
employer's interests (and of course we should be seeking to
understand those interests during our conversations…).
3. It's about more than me
Reframe the negotiation in your mind to include more
stakeholders than just yourself, for example your family - or even,
potentially, your team if the negotiation could make you more
productive. Keep in mind that you are negotiating for their good,
not just your own. Why this broader view?
Back to the research! It's because there is ample evidence
(Moss-Racusin et al) that women negotiate more effectively than men
when they go in to bat for someone else's salary, promotion or
opportunity rather than their own. As women, we seem to bring
our A game as "agents", while men seem to bring their A game as
"principals", especially in ambiguous situations that amp up
competitiveness.
As I read recently,
Women are better able to expand the value of a negotiation, but
unfortunately fail to capture much of that value for
themselves.
More things to try
Beyond reframing, remember there are other things we can do to
lift our effectiveness in negotiations without having to morph into
someone we're not. We've written about them before at
Professionelle and spoken in the national media on them too.
They can be best be summed up as prepare and practise
(LINK /our-themes/pay-rise-tips-for-women) which draw on a common
female tendency to work hard, even to the point of
perfectionism.
Good luck with your own negotiations! If you have tips for
others in this situation, do please share them through the comments
below.