It's been a busy month for Allison Fragar: The research psychologist, professor, and consultant released a new book this week. Likeable Strong: How Women Can Achieve the Success They DeserveOn September 24th, I will be leading the next online discussion for Women Leaders Connect, “Mastering the Art of Negotiation” (I hope you'll join me).
Hulagirl took a few minutes to talk with us before the event about the differences and nuances for women in negotiations, and what both women and men need to do to become top-notch negotiators.
Do women face greater challenges in negotiations? If so, in what ways are women likely to be at a disadvantage and why?
Yes. To negotiate effectively, you need to balance two concerns: being forceful about what you want and caring about what the other person wants. Doing one or the other is easy. Doing both at the same time is hard for all negotiators, but it can feel especially hard for women because we are internally and societally expected to care about what other people value. And it can come at the cost of not getting what you need.
Has that changed at all in recent years?
Things are changing for women. Over 20 years ago, there was a lot of data that said women weren't leading negotiations as much as men. A lot was written about it. And a lot was actually done to take that research to people like me who teach negotiation for a living and say that women aren't demanding it.
And what's encouraging, but still disheartening, is that if you look at the very recent data, the demand gap has essentially disappeared. Women are demanding as much as men, or even more. So, on the one hand, that's a good thing. We've changed our behavior. Before, we were hesitant to demand. And we basically spent 20 years repeating, “Women, you need to demand.” That's changed.
But their demands have yet to be fully answered, meaning the problem remains.
Is it in general or is it about something specific like pay equality?
The answer is, we don't know, as it has been studied in this context in general, but it certainly pays.
So, whatever the subject, how can women best deal with denial?
There are two ways to approach this problem. One is to think about the tools and skills that make you a really effective negotiator. The other is a more fundamental issue of status and respect. So there are two challenges for women.
“One is to have and use the negotiation tools that allow you to get ahead of what you want while still showing due consideration for the relationship. But the other is to position yourself. Because even if you're a really good negotiator, if the other person doesn't respect you, it's going to be very hard to get them to agree to what you want, no matter how good your negotiation skills are. Thinking about the problem from both angles is going to be the most productive for women.”
How important is it to be a good negotiator today?
I'm biased, but I'm going to say that negotiation is probably the most important skill. Why? Because negotiation isn't just about cars or houses or paychecks. Negotiation is a skillset. It's a process that you use when you have a goal that you want to achieve and you can't achieve it without the cooperation of others. So negotiation isn't just in your toolkit for selling or making deals. It's in your toolkit for managing relationships.
I never thought I'd be the kind of person in my career who gets a lot of training in negotiation and influence. I ended up doing it because there's an insatiable demand for it. Because no matter what room you walk into, no matter who you're talking to, whether that person is working for a salary or not, they have to get things done with and through other people. You can't serve dinner or decide where to go on vacation without other people's cooperation.
So if you can start thinking of negotiation not as a deal skill, but simply as relationship management, you will start to realize how much of your day you can use these skills to your advantage and, more importantly, to the advantage of others. What a good negotiator knows is how to solve your problem without bankrupting the other person and at the same time solve their problem; to leave the other person better off than they left them. So good negotiation skills help you not only get more value, but also add more value.
This seems to be about communication skills.
Ultimately, it's true. I use this phrase all the time: “In negotiation, you're a detective, not a magician.” A lot of people come into negotiation training thinking, “Allison, you're going to show me the magic so I can get the other person to do something they're not going to do.”
No, you can't. Your role in negotiation is to be a detective. The detective says, “Can I convince you?” And if I can convince you, I can figure out what it takes to convince you and then do that. So as detectives, we're now trying to find out information. We're trying to share information. So, yes, the core of being a negotiator is not trickery or magic, it's communication. Don't get the other person to do something they won't do, get them to do it because you won't do it, so that no one else will.
That's a great tip. What are the other elements to doing this well?
I'm a big proponent of telling people to practice in low-risk situations. Negotiation is a practiced skill. To use an athletics analogy, no one goes to the Olympics to practice a skill. The Olympics is a showcase for all the practice you've done, right?
So practice these skills in low-risk environments, even if you're meeting a stranger at the airport. If you wait to use these skills only when you're having an important conversation, number one, you're going to miss out on the tools, and number two, you're going to feel really scared. So one of the things I tell people is you should always try to practice these skills in low-risk situations.
One of the things that people do, especially women, because they want to be flexible, is if it's not a big deal, they just let it go. You return food at a restaurant not because you really have to, but because it exercises your argumentative and necessary muscles without making enemies. If you keep saying it's no big deal, it's no big deal, it's fine, your negotiation muscles will atrophy for no reason. And when it's no big deal, that's the time to do it. If it's a disaster, you're not going to let it go anyway.
What specific tools can help?
There are a couple of things that are really helpful. One is that there's a lot of evidence that in negotiations, being the first mover — the person who brings their ideas to the table first — gets you better results. This is science that goes against conventional wisdom. When you ask people to guess what the science predicts in negotiations, a lot of people think that the first person to speak usually loses. The science doesn't back that up.
Is this true at every level, from the CEO to the entry-level employee?
Overall, you need to be on the ball at all times. Negotiation tools are definitely helpful, but they're not appropriate at this time. I don't think they fit this situation.
Here's a good example: If you're a job seeker, there's a good chance you'll be asked what your salary expectations are. Someone has opened the door for you to be a trailblazer. I actually recommend you take it, based on the science. But I don't recommend you say to someone who asks you about your experience, “Tell me how much you'd like to make here.”
It's a first-mover speech, but it's also socially inappropriate. It doesn't work. You have to read the room. But if I'm in a meeting and someone calls for a speech, there's no reason why I can't be the first to speak just because I'm not the most senior person in the room. It's an open speech for anyone. Take the opportunity. The door is open.
These are all ways to help yourself, but aren't they also changing the general perception of women?
Absolutely. And if you have a position or a position where you can change the way everyone sees you, that's very powerful to be able to use. A lot of different things happen. People that you don't even know will look up to you and want to be you one day. That boosts their confidence. It also changes how successful people are viewed in an organization. Even in people's subconscious brains. I don't think that everyone should have the burden of cheering everyone up all the time. But certainly, in addition to helping yourself, there's a side benefit of boosting the confidence of other people that didn't even know that you were paying that much attention to you.
So much of what I've learned in my career has come from listening carefully to the women I worked with in graduate school, the people who mentored me. I watched as they told a room full of men they were wrong and still were well-liked. I analyzed what they said, when they said it, if they smiled, and how they smiled.
How important is the issue of overall appearance? People pay more attention to how women present themselves and there is more pressure to be nice and likeable. For example, women are often expected to say things in a high-pitched voice, whereas men are often expected to say the same things and be strong. So how do you get past all of that?
Social psychologist Bob Cialdini is one of the most important figures in the science of influence. He has written about six factors that drive influence. Likability is one of them.
Is it for men or women?
male and This is not a book for women. It is a book for humans. We are more likely to say yes to someone we like. This is 100% true. Liking is a superpower. It is the fundamental determinant of influence. We should not throw it away. Is it annoying that women have been told that they don't deserve to be liked, that they need to be liked more? Yes, but we always say we don't want to respond.
We like to think about the science of it. The more people want to interact with us, the more they give us, the more they reward us. That's the ultimate science. We are always attracted to people who we find other-oriented, likable, giving, and easy to interact with. The challenge for women is not that we expect only those things from them. The challenge, the reason why men find it easier, has to do with this fundamental thing that I talk about in my book, which is that there is a status to being a man, especially a white man. And what we know is that when we perceive someone as high-status, we see them as very competent and caring.
Women are very smart and very likable before they even open their mouths. So once someone has determined that you're very likable, it doesn't take much to maintain that perception, right? Women don't automatically start off with the assumption that they're smart and likable. They have to work for it. I mean, it's not weird for women to feel like they have to try harder. It is. So it's a bit of a different argument to say that it's only women that we want to be likable. No, we want everyone to be likable, but we preempt men by assuming that they are likable.
Is it infuriating? Yes. Is it rooted in prejudice? Yes. Is it something we should reject? No. It's a superpower, so let's use it. The most likeable people in the world, the warmest, most other-oriented people, are women.
