You've got a job offer, and now you have a
choice, negotiate or not.
If you decide not to, and your buddy who
got the same offer,
negotiates and gets a $7,000 increase.
By the end of 30 years, your buddy will be
making $100,000 more a year than you.
Think about that.
[MUSIC]
My husband's a trained chef.
Do you know that chefs don't have recipes
for all those sauces?
They know the structure of a sauce, and so
regardless of the ingredients they have,
they can make a great sauce.
And that's what I want for you.
I'm not gonna give you a recipe for a
particular negotiation.
Rather, what I wanna do is give you the
structure of a negotiation so
that you can be successful regardless of
what you face.
I wanna propose a new way of thinking
about negotiation and
what you're trying to achieve in that
negotiation.
And then what I wanna do,
is give you four steps to help you be more
effective in getting what you want.
Folks typically see negotiation as an
adversarial process, and
are uncomfortable.
Because they are concerned that other
folks will think of them as too demanding,
too greedy, not nice, or socially awkward.
What I wanna do today,
is get you to change the frame of how you
think about negotiation.
Moving it from an adversarial process to
one that is problem solving.
And problem solving is collaborative.
I wanna solve our problem, in a way that's
good for you but
also gives me more of what it is I want.
[MUSIC]
When we negotiate,
most of us view the goal of a negotiation
is to get an agreement.
This is wrong.
The goal of a negotiation is not to get a
deal.
The goal of a negotiation is to get a good
deal.
We need to be able to separate what a good
deal is, from what a bad deal is.
So, that means we need at least three
pieces of information.
The first thing we need to know is, what
is our alternative?
What happens to us if this negotiation
fails?
What are we left with?
What's the status quo or what alternatives
exist for us?
And the research is very clear.
He or she with a better alternative, does
better.
Secondly, we need to know what our
reservation price is.
What's the point at which we are
indifferent between saying yes, and
invoking our alternative.
And when you negotiate,
it's critical that you understand where
that reservation price is.
Because that's the point at which you are
indifferent.
Where a no looks as good as a yes.
And the third point, which is really
important, and one that
people often overlook, is that not only do
we have to think about our alternative and
our reservation price, we also need to
think about our aspiration.
What is an optimistic assessment of what
it is we can achieve in this negotiation?
[MUSIC]
So how do you get more of what you want?
Let me suggest that four steps will help
you.
The first step, is to assess the
situation.
Is this a situation where I can have
influence on the outcome?
To change that outcome in a way that makes
me better off.
And I need to weigh the potential benefits
from negotiating with the potential
costs for negotiating.
And will the benefits outweight the costs?
The second step is, I need to prepare.
And there are really two aspects of this
step.
Number one, I need to understand what my
interests are,
what I'm really trying to achieve in this
negotiation.
And the second component is, I need to
understand the interests and
preferences of my counterpart.
Many of us may understand what our
interests are,
but few of us actually understand at a
deep level what the preferences and
interests are of our counterparts.
Third, now comes the ask.
Engage with your counterpart.
Look at these disputed social situations
as opportunities to negotiate.
You have information that your
counterparts don't have.
And this is what you bring to the table.
If they knew all your information,
if they knew your perspective, they don't
need you.
Because you have unique information and
because they have unique information,
that's where the value is created.
Fourth, you need to package.
Now what do I mean by that?
Most of us, when we negotiate, negotiate
issue by issue.
This is a really bad strategy because when
you negotiate issue by issue,
every issue is adversarial.
You either win or loose.
When you're packaging issues, you now have
the opportunity to trade among the issues.
So, think about proposing solutions,
alternative solutions to your counterpart
in packages and to help you out
because your counterpart will probably
want to negotiate issue by issue.
Think about using if then language, if I
give you this, then I get that.
What you're doing is you're yoking various
issues together into a package.
To get more of what you want, there are
four
steps: assess, prepare, ask, package.
To give you an example, my Dean recently
sent me an email indicating that I
would have to going from five courses a
year to six courses a year.
Because he had received information from
the provost that we needed to
be consistent in the amount of contact
hours and course credit.
I was not happy about that e-mail.
So my response was, I think I need to talk
to my Dean.
Let's negotiate.
But before I started the negotiation, I
thought hard about why was he doing this?
What was in his interest?
His interest was probably to make sure the
provost was happy.
What was my interest?
Not to move from five classes to six
classes.
And it turns out I teach two different
types of classes, MBA electives, and
then some specialty classes.
There are lots of folks that teach MBA
electives,
there are very few folks who teach
specialty classes.
So I thought, I should focus on the
specialty classes.
So then I went for the ask.
I set up a meeting, and part of that
meeting was to
verify the information that I had gathered
in my planning session.
And it did turn out to be true.
He was interested in making the provost
happy.
So then came the proposal that packaged
our interests.
He said he wanted consistency between
contact hours and credit.
So what he did, is he changed the credit
to match the contact hours.
I suggested, why not change the contact
hours to match the credit?
Because it turns out that in my courses,
in my specialty courses, we always went
over.
So while they were three hours, it was
common that we went, go for three and
a half to four hours.
So, let's make them four hours.
And keep me at five, rather than move me
into six.
He said to me, I never even thought of
that.
And why didn't he?
It wasn't that weird.
Because he didn't have the information
that I had.
That my classes routinely ran over.
And so when I gave him that information,
it created a solution,
that made him as well off as he was, and
made me a whole lot better.
By the way, I was the only faculty member
to get an exception.
And why did I get an exception?
Because everybody else had the same email.
For two reasons.
One, I decided to negotiate.
And number two, I provided him with a
solution that made us both better off.
[MUSIC]
So what are the unique opportunities and
challenges that women face when they
negotiate?
Let's start off with an example,
that's pretty far away from what most of
us think about as negotiations.
In 2006, the US Tennis Open's Grand Slam
tournament got some new technology.
And for the first time, they were able to
replay the calls.
And so they allow the players to challenge
the calls of the referees.
Now it turns out, that over the course of
the entire tournament,
about one third of the challenged calls
were given to the player.
But interestingly, if you divided up the
number of challenges by gender,
it turns out the men challenged 73 calls,
while the women challenged 28.
Now we can come up with all sorts of
stories about why men's tennis is
different from women's tennis.
Men's tennis is faster.
Maybe the judges make more mistakes.
Maybe the judges are paying more attention
to the women.
Maybe.
But three times' difference in the number
of challenges.
Women are simply uncomfortable with
asking.
Expectations drive behavior.
If we expect to do poorly.
We will behave in ways that ensure a poor
performance.
This was demonstrated in a piece of
research, that I think is very telling.
When women were told that people who are
like them negotiate poorly, they did
significantly worse in their negotiation
performance than their male colleagues.
When they were told that people like them
negotiate well,
they did significantly better than their
male colleagues.
Expectations drive behavior.
If you change your expectations, you will
change your outcomes.
As women, we need to be very cognizant of
three aspects of negotiation.
Why am I asking, how am I asking, and for
whom am I asking?
Let's first talk about why you are asking.
It turns out, that women are much more
effective in
negotiations when they pair their
competence with a communal orientation.
Women need to demonstrate their concern
for the other.
So how will my skills help you the
organization, my employer,
my team, to do better.
So let me give you an example.
A colleague of mine had gotten a wonderful
job offer from an east coast university.
So, she came to me and said, can you help
me figure out how to leverage this offer?
I really don't wanna move.
I said, no problem.
[LAUGH] We can do this.
So I said, make an appointment with the
Dean.
And take the offer with you.
Be very clear, Dean, we have a problem.
I love Stanford, but I just received this
offer.
And it's an attractive offer.
I need some help.
Can you help me figure out how to stay
here?
She wasn't making a demand, she wasn't
giving an ultimatum.
She was saying, can you help me?
Communal problem solving.
How are you asking?
Male evaluators penalize female
negotiators.
In a single-issue distributive
negotiation, when I asked for
more money, in ways they do not penalize
her male counterparts.
Female evaluators penalize both males and
females for asking for more.
Why the women were penalized,
was because they were perceived as being
too demanding and not nice.
Now note I said a single issue.
They were negotiating issue by issue.
So, how can I help you?
With this pool of resources that I need to
do my job more effectively to
make you better off and packaging.
Communal packaging.
Next, for whom are you asking?
It turns out, that if we distill the
research and
negotiation, we have two big findings.
Number one, you're better off negotiating
for yourself if you're a man.
Number two, if you're negotiating for me,
I am much better off if you are a woman.
Women, out perform men in representational
negotiations between 14 and 23%.
This is huge.
So I use this all the time.
When I negotiate, I don't negotiate for
myself.
I negotiate for my husband, my 4 dogs, my
7 horses, and my 14 chickens.
That's a lot of mouths to feed [LAUGH]
[MUSIC]
And it works.
>> A client came to me asking for one of
our top consultants, who was busy working
on another project full time, so I wanted
to staff it with a different consultant.
But, the consultant that the client wanted
really wanted that project as well.
So she came up with the idea,
what if we hired a junior consultant to
work underneath her, and
give her the opportunity to work on both
projects with that leverage.
It worked for the client, it made the
consultant really happy.
And it really solved my problem.
>> Before coming to business school, for
me a negotiation was about preparing to
beat a price.
Or aim for a higher number.
Now I realize that preparation for a
negotiation is much more than that.
It's about identifying the issues that are
important to me, but
also the issues that are important to the
other parties that I'm interacting with.
And I think that allows us to be much more
creative and actually solve the problem.
>> One of the most important things you
can do in preparing for your compensation
negotiation, is to do your research and
find out your market value.
Sometimes people will go to websites and
enter in their current field and
title in order to find out what their
salary range is.
But I find that those websites aren't all
that accurate, and
they often compile an average salary.
It's safe to assume that if you've
performed strongly and
you're asking for a raise, you're above
average.
One of the other things you can do, is to
survey a membership group or
an association, either online or offline.
And ask those members what their salary
range is.
You can do so anonymously if that feels
more comfortable to you.
>> I worked for a fortune 50 company, I
got the promotion of my dreams,
best day of my life.
Went out to dinner with a mentor that
night to celebrate, learned that I
was getting paid substantially less than
my six males counter parts.
He said you have gotta go back in there
and renegotiate.
Had a lot of fear that I might lose that
job, but I did.
Showed up the next morning, and I
renegotiated.
The concern of my boss was, I was younger
and
had far less experience than all my
counterparts.
Yet I pointed out to him, that his
expectation of me was that I would
make the same goals as my six counterparts
for equally as large accounts.
We discussed it and he agreed and
at the end of the day, I got the raise
that I really deserved.
>> When you're considering negotiating,
you need to be very honest with yourself.
How much are you willing to pay to avoid
the discomfort of negotiating?
And if you decide that you're going to
negotiate,
you need to be strategic in how you ask.
And finally, negotiation is an
interdependent process.
Every bad deal you have gotten, you've
agreed to.
So you need to have the capacity to say
no.
And sometimes when you say no, the other
side comes back and
says don't go, let's talk.
How about this, is it good for you?
But you'll never know that, unless you're
willing to walk away.
>> Recently, I had a client enter
negotiation where the terms really
didn't work for me.
And so I told them, it's just not
economically rational for
me to take the deal.
And, it kept it objective and not
personal, which really worked for
me and allowed me to walk away from deal
but keep the door open.
>> When I got my first job, I didn't even
negotiate for salary.
I had no idea how to set a goal, had no
idea how to make the ask.
Now it's a little bit different.
I understand how to set an aspirational
goal,
and in that preparation, I get to the
point where I
understand how it benefits all the
different parties that are involved.
>> But you really do have to understand
how you feel, in order to understand what
it is that you want, cuz if you don't know
what you want, you can't negotiate for it.
>> Earlier in my career, I realized that
the types of projects I
was gonna get to work on and the people I
was gonna get to work with would be
invaluable experience for me to gain for
later on.
So, when I received a promotion,
I took that time not just to negotiate my
cash compensation, but my total package.
In this way, I was able to ensure that I
was able to focus on a particular industry
and also get to work with team members who
I knew would invest in my own development.
>> When I was hiring people, it struck me
that men negotiated quite frequently.
And women were not negotiating.
And when they did negotiate,
women would have a number in their mind of
what they wanted.
But they wouldn't be able to back into how
they got that.
They didn't explain to me that they did a
competitive assessment.
They didn't tie it to the results and
goals that I was hiring them for.
And why, based on their experience, they
were a perfect fit and
they were going to meet those goals for
me.
And therefore, they wanted a package that
would include x.
They needed to come in prepared.
And just persuade me that they could meet
my needs.
>> I've been on both sides of the
negotiation.
First, running compensation for
a large organization, and now as I place
people in jobs.
And where I've seen women be most
successful,
is when they frame their ask in terms of
how it reaches the business goals.
So, go ask.
Just always keep in mind how does it help
the company as well.
>> What I've noticed before, is candidates
negotiate their compensation package,
is that sometimes the negotiation process
can get so heated and
both parties can get so focused on what
they're looking to get out of it
that the candidates enthusiasm and hunger
for the job can get lost.
Therefore, remember when you enter this
process,
that you want your future employer and
your boss to know that you're not only
excited about the opportunity, but you're
hungry to get in there and start the job.
>> Let's start with baby steps.
Don't start off with a negotiation where
there's a big relationship risk.
Rather, start a negotiation where the
relationship is possibly not
even important.
Where, there's less risk to you to
experiment, to try.
So let me give you an example.
Think about going to a department store.
And I don't know about you but I am a
shoeaholic.
I love shoes.
Unfortunately with my job, I spend a lot
of time in boring black pumps.
But sometimes when I go to shoe sales,
there are shoes that sing to me.
You can't wear them.
You can't even walk very far in them.
But when you put them on, you're like, I
am good.
So, I go to this department store.
It's the sale.
They have a sale, like, once every six
months.
I'm there when the store opens.
And I find the boring pairs of black pumps
that I'm gonna have to buy.
And then there's a shoe, that from the
rack, was singing to me.
And I found them, and they were in my
size.
It was great.
I was so excited.
But then I looked at the price.
It was like, these were really expensive
shoes.
And they hadn't discounted them very much,
for the sale.
And I said to the guy, I said, I'm gonna
buy these shoes here.
These are beautiful.
I want them.
But they're too expensive.
Can you help me?
And he said, no problem ma'am.
Here's what you do.
Buy all four pairs.
But, don't wear these shoes.
And then bring them back in a week.
You return them, we discount 50%, and then
you can come and
buy them back immediately.
And I said, it's an hour and a half each
way from my home to the store.
It's not gonna happen.
Have you got any other options?
And he said let me go talk to my manager.
But when he came back he said we'll take
75 dollars off those shoes for you.
And I said, that works.
Thank you.
Now here's your assignment.
Go to your favorite department store.
Find something you want.
And then, negotiate for it.
Figure out how to solve a problem.
Here's what I want.
It's too expensive for me.
And ask for help.
Initiate the negotiation.
Not all of you will be successful, every
time,
but you will be surprised at how often you
are.
>> When I first learned about this
research,
it helped me understand why women
sometimes don't ask.
There is a social risk.
Women are judged differently.
And with Maggie's work, it gives us tools
to negotiate successfully in
a way that works for everyone.
>> Malcolm Gladwell suggests that you read
10,000 hours of practice to
become expert in anything.
Negotiation is the same way, you need to
practice.
But you need to learn from what you
experience.
You need to see social situations as an
opportunity to create value, so
that you and your counterparts can get
more of what you want.
[MUSIC]
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