Two Simple Reminders That Improve Negotiation Outcomes: Dr. Julia Bear
According to research, women's monetary negotiation outcomes improved when they did two things before negotiating:
1. Recalling the last three times they were assertive
2. Imagining that they are negotiating for a friend.
In this episode, I interview one of the co-authors of this research, Julia Bear.
We explored this research, why what and how we think impact our negotiation results, and how we can apply research like this to improve our negotiation outcomes.
Julia Bear is an Associate Professor in the College of Business at Stony Brook University. Dr. Bear’s research focuses on the influence of gender on negotiation outcomes, as well as conflict management in organizations. In her research, she investigates what factors, both individual and situational, influence the gender gap typically seen in negotiation outcomes, and how an understanding of these factors can help to reduce this gender gap in both initiation of negotiation and negotiation performance.
Other resources mentioned include:
HBR article: 10 Myths about Negotiating Your First Salary
Book: Women Don't Ask
According to research, women's monetary negotiation outcomes improved when they did two things before negotiating:
1. Recalling the last three times they were assertive
2. Imagining that they are negotiating for a friend.
In this episode, I interview one of the co-authors of this research, Julia Bear.
We explored this research, why what and how we think impact our negotiation results, and how we can apply research like this to improve our negotiation outcomes.
Julia Bear is an Associate Professor in the College of Business at Stony Brook University. Dr. Bear’s research focuses on the influence of gender on negotiation outcomes, as well as conflict management in organizations. In her research, she investigates what factors, both individual and situational, influence the gender gap typically seen in negotiation outcomes, and how an understanding of these factors can help to reduce this gender gap in both initiation of negotiation and negotiation performance.
Link to the research: Negotiating Femininity
Other resources mentioned include:
HBR article: 10 Myths about Negotiating Your First Salary
Book: Women Don't Ask
Full Episode Transcript
Hello! Welcome to Episode 60 of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach - now a certified coach, thank you very much! - Jamie Lee.
And today, I have a really special episode for you. I have an interview with Dr. Julia Bear of Stony Brook University, who published fascinating research along with Dr. Linda Babcock - the famous Dr. Linda Babcock who co-wrote Women Don’t Ask. And Dr. Julia and Dr. Linda - all these doctors. I love it - they found that it helps women to recall two particular things before they negotiate. And when women recall these two particular things, it helps their negotiation outcomes, literally, in terms of monetary outcomes.
The first is that you recall the last three times you’ve been assertive and the second is that you imagine that you are negotiating for a friend. And I think this research is so fascinating, I think it’s so helpful because it gives us practical tools that we can implement in our negotiations.
This helps us because a lot of us have this limiting belief that women are not good negotiators and that holds us back from becoming bolder, braver, and better paid. We also have the limiting belief that, oh, I don’t really need to prepare mentally for negotiation, so I really love this research.
So, without further ado, here is the interview with Dr. Julia Bear of Stoneybrook University.
Jamie: Yeah, we have Dr. Julia Bear on the podcast. Welcome to the podcast!
Julia: Thank you!
Jamie: Do you prefer that I call you Dr. Bear?
Julia: You can just call me Julia, that’s fine.
Jamie: Okay. Alright, Julia. Well, for those who don’t you, you’re an associate professor in the College of Business at Stony Brook University and Julia’s research focuses on the influence of gender on negotiation outcomes as well as conflict management in organizations. In her research, she investigates what factors, both individual and situational, influence the gender gap typically seen in negotiation outcomes and how an understanding of these factors can help to reduce this gender gap in both initiation of negotiation and negotiation performance, which we’re all about because this podcast is about helping ambitious people become bolder, braver, and better paid.
So, Julia, I’d love to hear what sparked your interest in the topic of gender and negotiation in the first place?
Julia: Yes, well, you know I’ve always been fascinated by gender issues and gender differences. I just think it’s a fascinating phenomenon, generally. And when I arrived at Carnegie Mellon University to start my PhD in Organizational Behavior, there was a professor there named Linda Babcock who had just published a book which some of your listeners may even be familiar with called Women Don’t Ask.
Jamie: Yeah.
Julia: And so that literally had just come out and that was really, in many ways, the blossoming and the beginning of research on gender and negotiation and I just found it fascinating, this notion that negotiation, which is a very specific type of behavior and interaction, really serves as an underlying mechanism for so many of the gender gaps that we see, whether we think of gender gaps in salaries, career advancement, etc.
So once I got there and met her and she had just published the book and given my interest in gender, it was really just a natural progression from there to start really digging into this work on gender and negotiation, which, again, was really in the very initial phases at that point.
Jamie: I remember reading Women Don’t Ask in 2013 and it changed my life.
Julia: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s a wonderful book. I would encourage your listeners if they’re...well, obviously they’re interested in this topic if they’re listening to the podcast. It’s a very well done book and it also couples...Linda wrote the book, actually, with a journalist, so it’s nice in the sense that it covers research on gender but it’s also written in a very engaging manner. It also incorporates really interesting stories from women’s lives as well.
Jamie: Yeah and they wrote a follow-up, which is Ask for It.
Julia: Yeah, mm-hmm. And Ask for It’s very nice too. It’s more of a how-to book but full of really, really good tips, many of which I actually teach in my classes in terms of how to go about negotiating, particularly if you find it anxiety-provoking or uncomfortable, etc. So, yeah, that was a nice follow-up as well. Mm-hmm.
Jamie: Nice, nice. And I know you co-wrote this article: Negotiating Femininity: Gender-Relevant Primes Improve Women’s Economic Performance in Gender Role Incongruent Situations.
Julia: Quite a mouthful, yeah.
Jamie: And you wrote that with Linda Babcock.
Julia: Yes, that’s right. Since then, we’ve co-authored papers. Of course I’ve also written many on my own or with other co-authors. But yes, Linda and I co-authored that paper and that was published, I believe, in 2017, yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, so I will link the pdf of this article in the show notes. I’d love for you to give a bit of background about how you and Linda Babcock got the idea for doing this particular article.
Julia: Sure, so yes, there is some background to that article. So, when I started working in this area of gender negotiation, there were plenty of studies showing that if you look in sort of a very narrow landscape of negotiation, let’s say negotiating starting salary or negotiating price in a financial transaction, we tend to see that men, on average, tend to negotiate better outcomes than women.
And I want to be very clear here that all of this social science research is based on averages. I mean, of course there are plenty of women who love to negotiate; there are plenty of men who hate to negotiate, so gender can be a blunt variable, in a sense, to investigate. But on average, we do see men outperforming women
But I started to question the narrowness of the issues that we were investigating, right? And I started to say, if we think theoretically about gender, given men and women’s gender role, men are socialized and expected to be breadwinners, assertive. Women are typically socialized, expected to be communal, helpful, caring. I started to think, you know, maybe it’s no surprise that we see men outperforming women when negotiating over, you know, let’s say, financial issues or types of negotiation issues that map very well onto their gender role.
So, I started to investigate a variety of different issues, not just, let’s say, starting salary or price. But I tried to really test this notion that context should influence whether we see these gender differences. And, indeed, that’s what we found. So I published several papers showing that finding that, gender differences do depend on the context, the negotiation context.
And so I offer that as background to this particular paper because, once we had those findings, we then subsequently said okay, well if we know that there are certain contexts in which we don’t have gender differences, then how can we use that knowledge to actually help people to negotiate better and help women to negotiate better?
And thus the idea for that paper was born, in a sense, because we said, you know, is there some way where we can basically prime women psychologically to make the context feel like it’s a better fit? And that’s what we did in that paper. So, in other words, we said, okay, yes, there are a variety of contexts in which gender differences disappear and that’s all well and good but the fact is many people are negotiating things like salary or financial transactions. We know those are less of a good fit for women, so how can we perhaps psychologically prime them and make it a better fit?
So that’s sort of the background, this notion that there’s always this person-situation fit and for women, especially, competitive negotiations about money may be a poorer fit for women and we found that empirically in our older papers.
And so then that was the motivation for the 2017 paper was basically to say can we make - we called them gender-relevant primes. Because we said okay, wonderful, for women to make it fit better, we either need to remind them, sort of give them almost like a reminder, yes, you can be assertive, you can do this or try to make the situation fit their gender role better.
So that’s why we had two primes. We had one prime in which women recalled being assertive in the past right before negotiating and then we had one prime in which women actually imagined that they were gonna be negotiating for someone else. But both of those primes, the idea was to make the women’s fit with the negotiation situation better, so that it would improve their performance and indeed it did. That’s actually what we found.
Jamie: Cool! So that explains the title Gender-Relevant Primes.
Julia: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jamie: You know, helping women to see the negotiation as a better fit to how they see themselves.
Julia: Exactly. Exactly! So if you recall that you were assertive in the past, it’s kind of like, you know, a reminder that yes, the situation, this fits you, you’ve done this, so trying to make it fit that way. Or, again, the other prime we tested was okay, let’s reframe the situation psychologically. Imagine you’re doing it for a close friend. Advocating for other people has been shown empirically as a situation in which women negotiate just as well as men and so, by priming that way, it’s to sort of, you know, have women reframe the situation in a way that’s a better fit. Yeah.
Jamie: I really appreciate that in the title it says Negotiating Femininity, so it implies that femininity itself is negotiable. It’s a concept, really, and we can always reframe how we see our femininity so that we can see ourselves as a better fit to any situation, including a negotiation.
Julia: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Jamie: Yeah. And I also appreciate the premise of the study and I’d love for you to tell us a bit more about that. And the premise is that what we think and how we think ahead of negotiating, particularly for money, impacts how we behave in the negotiation and, therefore, how we behave has an impact on our negotiating results.
Julia: Mm-hmm.
Jamie: And this fits perfectly to what I call the model, which is that even though circumstances are neutral, what we think about the circumstance is optional and what we think creates our feelings, therefore it creates our behavior, therefore it creates results.
So, tell us a little bit more about the behavioral impact that you observed. You discuss three different studies in this particular article so, tell us about the behavioral impact that you observed there.
Julia: Yeah, so basically, what we found is that across the three studies, when we compared women’s and men’s negotiation performance without the primes, men indeed outperformed women. Not a surprise. That’s what extent research has shown and, again, I just want to be clear on the effects, what we call the effect sizes in social science means sort of the magnitudes of the difference. It’s not huge, right? It’s not that men are incredible at negotiations and women are terrible but, on average, men were outperforming women.
But again, when we had women use one of the primes… so in the first study we studied the assertiveness prime and in the second study we tested the imagine it’s your close friend prime and then in the third study, we tested them both together and they actually worked equally well.
But, in any case, when women used these primes, in that case, their performance significantly improved in the negotiation and there was no gender difference. So, basically, men’s performance essentially stayed the same but women’s performance significantly improved and the gender difference was eliminated in negotiation performance.
Jamie: Yeah. And what I read from the article was the negotiation study participants had to do a mock negotiation where they were negotiating for the price of..was it an auto part? Engine?
Julia: Yes, yes. And we specifically chose that negotiation because in prior work - and that was the work I mentioned a few moments ago - in prior work, we have actually evaluated that particular negotiation and found that people generally rated this negotiation situation over the price of, actually, it’s the price of motorcycle headlights, people tended to evaluate this as a very masculine negotiation.
Jamie: Motorcycle headlights, yeah.
Julia: Yes. Well, it’s funny, is I have to tell you that negotiation exercise is widely used in negotiation training, which I actually find interesting and I wonder how that influences women in their training but that’s another issue. But in any case, yes, so we specifically chose that exercise to use in our study because we wanted to be sure that we were testing our primes in a situation, again, that was a poor fit for women. I mean that was the whole point of testing these primes, yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. So, my understanding of that prime was you were suggesting that women remember the last time they had to assert themselves and be forceful in defending…
Julia: Yes, exactly. Right. I believe it was recall three incidents, yes, and actually those characteristics that we chose, they actually are directly from an instrument called the Bem Sex Role Inventory and it’s directly from the measure of masculinity. So we actually chose those very intentionally from a theoretical perspective basically saying okay, let’s really test this notion that if we can, again, prime this masculinity for women, that will help mitigate the lack of fit and really help them improve their performance.
Jamie: Wow, fascinating! I didn’t know that there was a textbook about masculinity.
Julia: Oh, absolutely. There is very, very, very rich work on gender theory and this paper really was directly based off of that work. Yes.
Jamie: So it’s really theoretical. It doesn’t mean that, you know, men are this and women are that. It’s our concepts about gender.
Julia: Yeah, the concepts about gender that we tend to see in terms of the way boys and girls are socialized, the expectations for men and women’s behavior. And, again, it’s not that we’re saying all women are like this or all men are like that. Of course that would be sort of silly and simplistic but rather, from a big picture [indecipherable] perspective, we know that there are norms and expectations for behavior and we know that they differ for men and women. Yeah.
Jamie: Hmm. Okay. And I would like to just call out the distinction that it’s what we think about gender that impacts our behavior, so when we think that this is, you know, masculine behavior and because I am a woman I can’t behave that way, it hinders our willingness to participate in this sort of transactional conversation. That’s what I’m hearing. And so, I’m curious to know why do you think that recalling this perceived masculine behavior in the past had women improve their negotiation results in these mock negotiations?
Julia: You know, that’s a great question and I don’t have a good answer to that in the sense that we didn’t actually measure that. So, again, the question is what is the mechanism that’s explaining in the primes and we really didn’t get a good measure of that, so I can’t speak to that empirically so well.
You know, I do think, psychologically, it gives a sense, a greater sense, perhaps, of self-advocacy or a sense of feeling like, you know, yes, I’ve been in these situations before. I’ve done this. There’s also a great deal of research - and I see this in my research as well - that women do find negotiations much more aversive than men. They report much greater anxiety than men about negotiating, so it could also just be helpful in terms of quelling anxiety. It’s, you know, this is not a novel situation, so to speak, you know, reminding oneself I’ve done this before, I can do this again. You know, those are potential mechanisms. Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah, I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that, when women recall being assertive and being forceful in their communication, they feel confidence from having remembered that they’ve done it before.
Julia: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I think women have fewer opportunities as they grow up for social learning when it comes to negotiation, right? Social learning meaning learning through observing others’ behavior, similar others behavior. So I do think that having that reminder can be very helpful.
Jamie: Mmm, yeah. And that was one of the biggest takeaways for me from reading Women Don’t Ask about how men, young men, are often coached from an older male about how to play contact sports and that could be...and that sort of situation also plays out in negotiations because they get coached by other people and so I guess, long story short, when women are encouraged to recall the past behavior when they did defend and assert themselves, it’s kind of like you’re coaching yourself.
Julia: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I agree. I agree.
Jamie: Great! So, the second prime was that women were encouraged to prepare as if they’re preparing for this negotiation on behalf of a friend.
Julia: Mm-hmm.
Jamie: This is so fascinating and you call this gender-complementary, is that right?
Julia: That’s right. That’s right. It’s funny, it’s been a long time since I’ve looked at this paper, that’s right. So we called the assertive one that we were just talking about, we called it the supplementary prime, meaning it’s for supplementing and then this is the complementary, right, meaning that it’s trying to reinforce this notion that negotiation may in fact be complementary to aspects of women’s gender role.
Jamie: Yeah and so many of my clients and people that I’ve taught in workshops, they all have said...many and many of them say that they feel so comfortable negotiating on behalf of other people.
Julia: Mm-hmm. Yeah and this has definitely been shown empirically, that women in fact, when they negotiate for somebody else, they do significantly better than when they negotiate for themselves and they negotiate just as well as men do. And so this prime was really based off of those findings, right? It was saying okay, how can we harness, so to speak, the positive effects that we know happen for women when they negotiate for other people.
Jamie: Yeah. So what do you think was behind the psychological, you know, the underpinnings of that? When women negotiate as if they’re negotiating for a friend they actually get a better deal.
Julia: Yeah. I think, again, a really good question and we don’t have the data to speak to that. You know I think that it may...you know, there are two potential mechanisms. I think similar to the other prime, the supplementary prime or the assertiveness prime, I think, you know, it may serve as sort of a psychological....the word is escaping me right now...sort of a psychological cue to basically reframe the situation a more positive way, kind of break through that anxiety or discomfort, right? And, you know, make people realize that they can, in fact, mentally reframe the negotiation as a more positive situation in which they can feel free to be more assertive.
Jamie: Yeah, and what I notice as a coach is that a lot of people, including myself, we have difficulty seeing ourselves from the most objective perspective. We’re often our own harshest critics.
Julia: Yes, yes.
Jamie: And it’s hard for...it’s really easy to give praise to other people and extremely hard to accept praise for ourselves, especially if you are ambitious, overachieving. I think that that tendency kind of is congruent to, correlates to how driven you are because you think you drive yourself by not saying the kindest things to yourself instead of being as kind and loving to yourself. And so when you think about negotiating for a friend, as opposed to for you, I think it kind of switches on this more compassionate, even kinder aspect of ourselves and it’s very powerful because it actually improves the results.
Julia: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. It was interesting that, because, again, you know, we went into this paper with a very empirical perspective, of course, and it was interesting that both frames...both primes, excuse me, they did indeed work and if I remember the data correctly, I believe that they worked...I believe that the results were pretty comparable for both primes, which was also interesting in and of itself. They both sort of served as these cues for women to really reframe the situation and negotiate more assertively, yeah.
Jamie: And when you say that, do you mean that the results were comparable, meaning the impact on the actual…?
Julia: Yes, on the actual outcome, yes. I’d have to double check that but I believe, if memory serves, it wasn’t like oh, one prime worked so much better than the other. In fact they both worked pretty comparably, if memory serves.
Jamie: Well I’m of course not coming from an empirical perspective, I’m coming from a coaching perspective, but I love this. This is really fascinating and also it’s the kind of work that I do with my clients. I help them on an individual basis, you know, recall how they were confident and assertive for themselves and how...This is really great. I appreciate this.
So, if we may, I’d like to switch gears a bit and I want to ask you a personal question.
Julia: Sure! Mm-hmm.
Jamie: This is a question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast. What was a negotiation - and I want to tell you that I define negotiation simply as a conversation with the intention of reaching agreement where everyone has the right to say no, so a very broad definition of negotiation - what was a negotiation in your life or career that had the biggest impact on you? And I’d love to hear, you know, what had happened and what you learned.
Julia: Ummm….yeah, that’s a good question. So, there really is not one specific negotiation that stands out. I can say, on a personal level, that - and perhaps that’s why I was interested in this research - that I think it was really when I started working in this area that I, first of all, A) realized that things were negotiable and B) realized that I should start negotiating them, right?
So, I don’t think...so for me, negotiation is not particularly intuitive but I think that working in this area has made me more likely to negotiate and I have had several negotiations at work that I realized in retrospect had I not been working in this area, I might not have negotiated them or even considered the issues negotiable, so to speak, over, you know, a variety of issues.
Jamie: Could you give us an example?
Julia: You know, there’s not sort of a really specific example that comes to mind but certainly there were issues that came up when I was relocating from...I had been living in Israel and I was relocating to the US and there were just a variety of issues that came up in that relocation and starting a job here that, in the past, I think I would have just taken them as a given, you know, like oh well of course the moving expenses aren’t going to cover an actual relocation, right? Or well, of course there are health insurance issues moving from another country that I actually thought twice about and thought well, wait a second, why can’t...you know, this is an exceptional situation, why don’t I try negotiating some of these issues, right?
It is a different move than the organization is used to accommodating but why not ask for some...you know, clearly moving from a different country there are different needs. So, things like that that I think in the past I would have just not...it wouldn’t have even occurred to me to negotiate. Many issues I didn’t even consider were even negotiable. And today, I just very much view...actually I like your definition of negotiation, I agree. I also view it as a conversation that, ideally, people can find a win-win solution and reach an agreement but as you said I like that very much as well, everybody has a right to disagree, to say no and you know, you try, you make your best attempt and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t, you know?
But there’s no harm in asking, there’s no harm in trying and going in with a very collaborative and mindset of trying to solve a problem together. I think that’s a great conceptualization of negotiation.
Jamie: Thank you! And so, I’m curious, have you ever used one of these two primes yourself?
Julia: Yes, I have. I have definitely used some version of the assertiveness prime, absolutely. When I’m going into a new situation or a situation that I find intimidating for whatever reason, I’ve absolutely used that sort of reminder prime because I find it puts things in perspective. And sort of reminding myself, well, wait a second, you’ve done x, y, z, a, b, c, d, so, you know, you can do this, too.
You know the other thing I find really helpful as well to get better with using that prime is also just reframing the situation as learning experiences. So, rather than being sort of so nervous about something new or something daunting, reframing it as well, this is gonna be a learning experience. It’s something new I’m here to learn and yes, in fact, I’ve done a, b, c, d, e, f in my life and so we’ll just go in there and do it, you know, so that’s...I do find that helpful actually, yeah.
Jamie: Love it! So, three very actionable tips you’ve shared: First, before you engage in a negotiation, remind yourself of three times in the past where you did defend yourself, assert yourself, prove yourself. And two is you can also think about the situation as if you’re preparing for a very good friend. I’ve done a version of this, a variation of this, where I ask my client to think about how their best friend would describe them, the three words they would use, right? So it’s not you describing you, it’s your best friend or mentor describing you.
Julia: Yeah.
Jamie: Great. And then number three is just to think of the situation as a learning opportunity. So, you know, what can you learn? What is the lesson here? I think that’s a great, great tip.
Julia: Mm-hmm.
Jamie: So, finally, I think people would love to learn more about the kind of research that you do. Where can people go to learn more about you and your research?
Julia: So, that’s a great question and so...I’m laughing at your question because I think it’s a great question, unfortunately in academia, many of the journals that we all publish in are not always easy to access, which is unfortunate. They sort of sit in libraries and they’re often read by other academics as opposed to the general public, which is why I think it’s wonderful also your efforts to really translate this research to a wider audience.
But to answer your question, in terms of learning more about the research, they can certainly Google my website at Stony Brook, Julia Bear at Stony Brook. They can certainly email me through my website. I’m happy to share articles or anything else that is not accessible because it is, again, copyrighted and in journals.
And I also have a fun piece actually written with Linda Babcock on the Harvard Business Review website. It’s hbr.org and it is about the myth and reality of negotiating one’s salary. And so that’s a fun piece as well if people want to look at that and that’s not published in a journal that doesn’t like to...they should just be able to get access to that.
Jamie: Great. I will look it up and I will link it into the show notes.
Julia: That would be fantastic.
Jamie: Julia, this has been such a pleasure and there’s so much value here for all of us. Thank you so much for your time and for your expertise.
Julia: Thank you! And good luck to all your listeners with their future negotiations.
Jamie: Alright, great.
Why It Feels Gross to Claim Value for Ourselves
Clients often tell me, “It feels gross to claim value for myself. It feels like bragging. It’s uncomfortable to assign dollar value to my accomplishments.”
In this episode, I dispel a persistent myth -- one that was ingrained in me by the patriarchy from a very young age -- that holds us back from generating real self-worth and authentic self-confidence.
Find out how to generate power, so you can claim value for yourself and become unstoppable as a negotiator.
Here's where you can access transcriptions of previous episodes and get in touch with me: https://www.jamieleecoach.com/podcast
Your review on iTunes would be super appreciated!
Clients often tell me, “It feels gross to claim value for myself. It feels like bragging. It’s uncomfortable to assign dollar value to my accomplishments.”
In this episode, I dispel a persistent myth -- one that was ingrained in me by the patriarchy from a very young age -- that holds us back from generating real self-worth and authentic self-confidence.
Find out how to generate power, so you can claim value for yourself and become unstoppable as a negotiator.
Here's where you can access transcriptions of previous episodes and get in touch with me: https://www.jamieleecoach.com/podcast
Your review on iTunes would be super appreciated!
Hello! Welcome to Episode 52 of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach, Jamie Lee.
First, I just want to say thank you for listening!
I really appreciate you.
I would love if you would go to iTunes and leave a review because that would help other people find and access this content.
I really appreciate that my listeners are coming back and listening every week, every time I produce content, and I intend to create more podcasts this year, marrying the best of coaching principles, leadership principles, and helping you negotiate so that you can lead, influence, and thrive.
I was away last week. I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia and delivered a negotiation workshop for women who work in the nuclear industry. That was phenomenal!
And today I want to talk to you about why it feels gross to claim value for ourselves at the negotiation table.
When clients come to me, they’re often struggling with speaking and articulating their unique value at the negotiation table, especially when it comes to asking for money.
They tell me, “I don’t want to come across as too aggressive.”
“I don’t want to be seen as arrogant.”
“I don’t want to be seen as selfish or greedy.”
Or the often say, “It feels gross to brag about my accomplishments. It feels gross to assign a dollar to the value I bring.”
Now, I think that this is because, from a very young age, we’ve been trained to seek external validation from others.
I was born in South Korea and I was really trained to seek external validation from authority figures like parents, teachers, basically, the patriarchy.
And we’ve been told that conforming to the expectations of other people will make them feel good about us.
And when they feel good, they reward us with acceptance, recognition, and reward which sometimes takes the form of money.
We’ve been taught this myth that how we do, how we behave, makes other people feel something inside that then causes them to give us what we want and that, basically, the power is in their hands to give us what we really want for ourselves which is acceptance, recognition, and reward.
Take for example this common phrase, “Be a good girl and make mom proud.”
It feels so innocent and yet there is this myth, this lie that when you do something it will make other people feel something.
And I’ll tell you why I think that is not true.
And this line of thinking extends into the workplace where I used to believe that if I work hard and if I keep my head down then my boss will love me, then my boss will reward me with recognition, money, promotions.
When it feels gross to claim value for ourselves, we’re not only experiencing the feeling of powerlessness but we’re experiencing the fear of social rejection and losing the approval of others.
When I was afraid of losing other people’s approval, it was because I was relying on external validation to make me feel good about me on the inside. It was because I was relying on external validation to make me feel that I am worthy and that I can ask for what I want.
I was waiting.
I badly, badly wanted my boss to approve of me so that I could feel good and worthy inside.
So this meant that even though I was a fully grown adult, I was really acting as an emotional child. Emotional child basically means that I was relying on other people to make me feel something good, something worthy, some sense of certainty that I deliver value, that I deliver value and am worth the money that I want.
I believed my boss was responsible for both my positive emotions and negative emotions. I believed he was responsible for my lack of motivation, which I didn’t have a lot of and therefore that he was responsible for my lack of career fulfillment, lack of growth, that I was stuck in my career, and it was all because my boss was not giving me what I wanted so I can feel good and feel certain of my value.
So instead of feeling what I wanted to feel, which was fulfillment and worthiness, I was full of blame, anger, and resentment. They were gross feelings. Those feelings felt really gross.
I was not a lot of fun to be around at this time. I was full of misery. And you know, as the saying goes, misery loves company. I would complain and whine and throw temper tantrums about my boss behind my boss’ back. This is how I behaved as an emotional child.
But here is the truth that I have learned since then. Here is the truth that I think can help us really become powerful from the inside out: It’s that we are 100% responsible for our feelings.
Every moment. In every situation.
Yes, even at work.
Yes, even when it comes to claiming value for ourselves.
And especially when we are negotiating for what we want, for money, for example.
We are 100% responsible for the confidence we bring. We are 100% responsible for the nervousness we feel. We are 100% responsible for the certainty that we want to generate so that we can claim value with confidence.
Now this is because there are only five things in the Universe.
Number one: Circumstances, which are neutral, factual, and provable.
And how we interpret those circumstances is number two: our thoughts, our judgments, our beliefs.
And number three is that our thoughts generate our feelings, our emotions, which is so important in a negotiation.
According to research by MIT professor Jared Curhan, our feelings are the number one factor that is most important to negotiators.
It is not because feelings are fluffy, not because we’re soft people.
It’s because feelings drive number four: our actions. At the root of all our behavior is how we feel, and how we feel drives what we do or don’t do.
And then finally number five: the sum of our actions or inactions creates the results we have.
So, let me give you an example of this.
Back then, when I was acting as an emotional child in the workplace and always blaming my boss and feeling unworthy and therefore I felt gross to claim value for myself, I had the thought that he (it was always a he for some reason) should give me recognition.
At work, which is the neutral circumstance, I want him to give me recognition so that I can feel good about me and my value.
And when I had the thought that he should give me recognition, I felt a lot of resentment. I felt a lot of just this yucky feeling. That’s the phrase I like to label resentment. It’s yucky, it feels yucky to feel resentment, right?
And I was feeling this yucky resentment, I was complaining and whining and throwing temper tantrums behind my boss’ back. I was not speaking up at work. I was not contributing my ideas. I was very passive. I was waiting for him to give me recognition.
In negotiation, this is sometimes called the tiara syndrome, where we’re waiting for people to anoint us with validation and recognition, as opposed to us actively seeking what we want right?
So that’s what I was doing. And the sum of my actions, the result that I was creating by thinking that he should give me recognition, feeling yucky resentment, and not taking any action was that I was not giving myself recognition and I was also not giving him any recognition.
So there was no recognition to go around and it felt even more gross when I thought about claiming my value. There was no sense of power and certainty in this model.
So here’s another model I’d like to suggest:
At work, which is the neutral circumstance, what if you had the thought: I create value?
What if you had the thought: What I do benefits others?
So, don’t make it about other people. Don’t create manuals in which other people have to do certain things to make you feel good. But what if you dropped those manuals, you drop the shoulds, and you came from a place of real authenticity and personal responsibility, emotional responsibility?
I am responsible for how I feel and I can create value at work.
I create value that benefits others.
So, what if you had the thought and you really believed that I create value and I benefit others?
What would that feel like for you?
And maybe at this point you’re hearing this and you’re thinking, “I don’t know, it’s kind of inconceivable for me to think that I just feel that I am creating value that benefits others, period.”
But what if you did?
Because it is a choice. It is a choice for you to think that.
For me, when I think I am creating value that benefits others, it makes me feel valued. It makes me feel like I am worthy. That what I’m doing is worthy.
And from this place of feeling valued, I am motivated to create even more value. I am motivated to step out of my comfort zone and try to learn how I can benefit others.
I would be more willing to listen. I’d be more willing to take action to create even more value, because I feel inspired to think that I create value that benefits others.
And as a result, because I am taking action, because I am taking action from this place of feeling valued and feeling inspired, I would create even more value. And you see how the thought will help support the result that you have.
And the result creates evidence for the thought.
So this is great news because, as I said, we can choose all our thoughts and we can choose all our beliefs. And when we choose empowering thoughts, when choose empowering beliefs without relying on external validation, without relying on other people to make us feel something inside of us, this puts power back in our hands. This gives us that real, authentic power.
And we then can create emotions that we need to drive the actions that we do want to take. For example, claiming value for ourselves at the negotiation table.
If you really believed in yourself and did not rely on other people to tell you that you are valuable, you would be unstoppable when it comes to claiming value for yourself, when it comes to asking for what you want and requesting what you want because not only are you feeling confident from the inside out, you’re not relying on other people’s responses to make you feel good.
Even when they don’t follow through, even when they don’t say yes, you have the choice to decide what that means.
Again, this puts power right back in your hands instead of disempowering you. Instead of losing the negotiation, you can reframe your thinking and you can come back and try again and again, right?
The best negotiators are persistent negotiators because they can generate their own confidence. They can generate their own self-approval. They can generate their own self-recognition.
So this requires breaking the habit of thinking on default or thinking the way society or patriarchy trained us to thing, which is again relying on external validation, relying on other people to make us feel good and giving them a long list - and sometimes we don’t even give them a long list - of manuals, by which I mean a long list of instructions for how they can make us feel good.
Instead of doing that, we make honest requests, we make bold asks, and we don’t get disappointed, we don’t interpret it as a personal failure when people don’t follow through.
And when people don’t follow through, we can still move on.
And when we have this mastery over our thinking and therefore our own emotions, we create negotiation mastery. We become unstoppable. I really believe that.
And that is because when you lose the need for other people to make you feel comfortable, when you lose the need for other people to make you feel liked, or you lose the need to make you feel valuable, what could you not ask for?
There’s nothing that you couldn’t ask for.
We have full authority 100% of the time over how we feel, over how we think about ourselves, about other people and about the value we bring to the negotiation table.
We don’t have to wait for other people to give us acceptance, to give us recognition, to place a tiara on our head so that we can feel certain of our value, so that we don’t feel afraid of claiming value for ourselves.
We can generate that feeling of certainty within ourselves.
It’s not easy. It takes practice. It takes consistent effort. But it is possible.
We also don’t need to worry about what other people think.
Now, I know when people hear this, they will object and say “But, you know, it does matter because what other people think will impact how I rise or don’t rise through the ranks of this organization.”
But, ultimately, we are not what people think.
We are never limited by other people’s thoughts or judgments about us unless we believe them to be true.
And we are more than what people think of us. We are more than what we think of us.
And, in fact, one of the most powerful things that I do as a coach is I work with a client and I ask her to list all of her accomplishments and when I just play it back to her, the list of accomplishments that she has made, it’s always like, wow, you’ve done all of this. That’s amazing, right?
For a lot of us, it’s hard to feel that what we have done is worthwhile, worth the value that we’re asking for because we tend to be perfectionists, because we tend to wait for other people to give us validation.
But when we drop that need, we realize that what we have done is really valuable.
Who we are is uniquely valuable.
So, we have the power to decide who we are.
We have the power to decide who we will become in the future and that will give you a really powerful focus, a future focus, that will make you influential and make people inspired to change the status quo, which is basically the endgame of negotiation, right?
So, from this place of real and authentic power, we can generate self-acceptance. We can generate self-approval. We can generate real self-confidence.
And I just want to end this by sharing with you that this is the outcome I coach my clients to create for themselves so that they can lead, so that they can influence, so that they can negotiate, so that they can thrive on their own terms.
And I think that is a really beautiful outcome that is possible for everyone at any time because, again, we are 100% responsible for our feelings and we are capable of it.
So I hope that helps you think through why it feels gross to claim value for ourselves. I hope it helps you to put that power back in your hands.
I would love to hear from you: jamieleecoach.com/podcast. If you would leave a review, that would be fabulous.
Thank you so much and I will talk to you next week.
Interview with Vivian Giang: Six Common Negotiation Mistakes
If you're a pragmatic negotiation geek like me, or if you want to improve your negotiation skills so that you can thrive, you won't want to miss this interview with Vivian Giang.
Vivian is a business writer covering how the changing workplace has impacted the way we work and live, in areas related to automation, robotics, team dynamics, executive leadership, and management. She asks, "How do you navigate these waters while also creating credibility and relevance?" She writes about these topics for business publications, like Fast Company, Fortune, Quartz, Dealbreaker, and Marie Claire.
In this value-packed conversation, Vivian and I addressed each of the six common negotiation mistakes as highlighted in this Fast Company article: www.fastcompany.com/90225908/all-the-things-youre-doing-wrong-in-negotiations
We discussed:
- Why it's important to start with your why before asking for the what
- The impact of anchoring effect on the bargaining range
- How making assumptions creates negotiation pitfalls
- Why you may not want to accept the first offer
- How to differentiate between short-term and long-term wins
- How negotiators can prepare strategically to avoid these mistakes
You can find Vivian on Twitter at @vivian_giang.
You can learn more about my negotiation coaching and training services here www.jamieleecoach.com
If you're a pragmatic negotiation geek like me, or if you want to improve your negotiation skills so that you can thrive, you won't want to miss this interview with Vivian Giang.
Vivian is a business writer covering how the changing workplace has impacted the way we work and live, in areas related to automation, robotics, team dynamics, executive leadership, and management. She asks, "How do you navigate these waters while also creating credibility and relevance?" She writes about these topics for business publications, like Fast Company, Fortune, Quartz, Dealbreaker, and Marie Claire.
In this value-packed conversation, Vivian and I addressed each of the six common negotiation mistakes as highlighted in this Fast Company article: www.fastcompany.com/90225908/all-the-things-youre-doing-wrong-in-negotiations
We discussed:
- Why it's important to start with your why before asking for the what
- The impact of anchoring effect on the bargaining range
- How making assumptions creates negotiation pitfalls
- Why you may not want to accept the first offer
- How to differentiate between short-term and long-term wins
- How negotiators can prepare strategically to avoid these mistakes
You can find Vivian on Twitter at @vivian_giang.
You can learn more about my negotiation coaching and training services here www.jamieleecoach.com
Full Episode Transcript
Hello! Welcome to Episode 40 of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach, Jamie Lee.
I believe that negotiation skills are leadership skills and that through negotiation we can collaborate, unlock more value, and contribute in a bigger way.
And so, when we negotiate effectively, we can lead, we can influence, and we can thrive.
And if you’d like to learn more about who I am, what I do, and how you can work with me, come check out jamieleecoach.com.
I am launching a small group mastermind at the end of this year and into early 2019 to help you set some powerful intentions, goals, and build the negotiation skills to make those goals come true.
And thank you to those of you who have rated my podcast on iTunes. I want to say every single one of those ratings counts and they mean a lot to me.
Today, I have a must-listen episode. I consider myself a pragmatic negotiation geek. I love studying, I love reading about negotiation and thinking about how I can apply it to my life and how I can help my clients negotiate so that they can thrive.
And I read this wonderful article on Fast Company. It’s titled All the Things You’re Doing Wrong in Negotiations and each of the six points that the author brought up resonated with me and it’s something that I teach whenever I talk about and hold negotiation workshops for working women.
And so I reached out to the author, Vivian Giang, and she graciously agreed to come onto the podcast and expound, tell us a little bit more about each of these six common mistakes and how we can avoid them.
Vivian Giang is a business writer and journalist covering how the changing workplace has impacted the way we work and live. And she covers areas related to automation, robotics, team dynamics, executive leadership, and management. She asks the question: How do you navigate these waters while also creating credibility and relevance?
That’s a really good question.
She writes about these topics for business publications like Fast Company, Fortune, Quartz, Dealbreaker, and Marie Claire and I think you would really find a lot of value in this conversation. What I took away is that a lot of the common mistakes that we make are in our minds, in our assumptions. So, without further ado, please enjoy this podcast interview with Vivian Giang.
Jamie: Hello, Vivian?
Vivian: Hi, Jamie. Can you hear me?
Jamie: I can hear you now. How are you?
Vivian: I’m doing well, how are you?
Jamie: Third time’s the charm.
Vivian: Yes, that’s what they say.
Jamie: Yeah. Well, thanks so much for joining the podcast.
Vivian: Thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.
Jamie: I’m really excited for this conversation.
Vivian: Yeah, me too.
Jamie: And this is a question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast: Would you tell me about a negotiation in your life or career that had the biggest impact on you? And I want to preface that by saying I define negotiation simply as a conversation, not a confrontation, where you’re trying to reach agreement where everyone has the right to say no. So, it doesn’t matter what the outcome was as long as everyone had the right to say no and there was intention to reach an agreement, I would say that’s a negotiation. So, what do you think?
Vivian: Yes, so negotiations…I’ve been thinking about negotiations before I even knew that what I was thinking about was negotiations, I think. I graduated during the economic recession and I was trying to navigate the job market, trying to do something that I love, journalism - already a very low-paying profession. So, trying to convince someone to hire me at the time and pay me a living wage, that was something that I thought about in my first job, I believe. I just didn’t know that it was called negotiations at the time.
But I think, as dubious as this sounds, the negotiation that has impacted my life the most is probably the one that I have with myself. I think that we try to think about what the other party wants from a negotiation so often but we often forget to do that with ourselves because we think we know what we want and I have woken up unhappy before by the fence because I assumed that I knew what I wanted, I assumed I knew myself and what I valued but that’s not always the case.
So, one thing that I do - and I’ll give you an example - that is something that I learned from a professor of management at Stern at New York University, Batia Wiesenfeld, she told me this and it really stuck with me. It’s that you should always search for the why and ask yourself why you’re doing something and it allows you to see information from various different angles. It allows you to readily adjust when you need to. So, asking yourself when you make a decision, when you make a choice, why am I doing this? Which helps bring you closer to your goal.
So, let’s say you are teaching a workshop, right? If you asked yourself, “Why am I teaching this workshop?” and the answer is “To get paid,” then you ask yourself, “Why do I want higher pay?” And if the answer is so that you can have a better life, then you ask yourself a third time, “Why do I want a better life?” and if the answer here is “To be happy,” then maybe teaching that workshop isn’t going to lead you to happiness, maybe there’s something else that leads you to happiness.
So, I try to think about that often in the choices that I make and try to be thoughtful about the decisions that bring me the most value in my life and who else it affects - my decisions - who else it affects other than me.
Jamie: Beautiful and I’d also say that that’s an example of self-coaching because, as a coach myself, I ask my clients why all the time and, as a negotiator, not only do you ask that question to yourself, why and why and why, right? You asked it three times in a row. I think it is beneficial to ask of your negotiation counterpart. You might want to use different words because not everyone likes to be asked why. Ultimately, I think what your professor and what you’re trying to say is get clear on the ultimate interest, the why behind the what.
Vivian: Yes because, if you think about it, we go through life whenever we meet our loved ones, our friends, our colleagues, we always ask them about their lives and why they did certain things, right? Like, we push them to think about their actions and how it impacts their lives so that they can be better because we care about them. But we often don’t do that with ourselves because, like I mentioned earlier, we think that we know ourselves but we all change and sometimes we assume we know what we want and what we value but oftentimes we don’t.
Jamie: Yeah, that’s a really good point. Here’s another thing I learned from coaching, is that we have different aspects in ourselves, right? We have the sort of animal brain or I like to call it the Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee that’s pushing you to stay safe and small, not to take any sort of risk. Anything that is a change can be a threat to its identity. And then there’s the so-called higher self where that enables us to have a vision and take action and be courageous and show up, regardless of what that Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee says. So, yeah, that’s a great example. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I just want to reiterate, I asked you to come on the podcast, I’d love for you to share your insights from this wonderful article that you wrote for Fast Company. It’s called All the Things You’re Doing Wrong in Negotiations.
Vivian: Yes.
Jamie: Yeah, and that’s catchy and it definitely caught my attention because I think a lot of us worry that we’ve done something wrong. In any case, the article hits on so many of the key points that I teach in my workshops and so I’d love for you to take us point by point and share what did you really take away from capturing the six key things that people often do incorrectly. So, the first thing in your article is: Not making the first offer when it’s beneficial to do so.
Vivian: Yes, so the common mistakes in this article is from a course that I took. It’s a two-day negotiation course at MIT taught by Jared Curhan which is amazing and the knowledge that I gained from the class just completely blew my mind, so I figured I needed to share. But, yes, the first point is not making the first offer when it’s beneficial to do so.
I think we’ve all been at this place, right? Where we enter the negotiation room and I’m sure a lot of us have heard the piece of advice not to make the first offer, right? It puts you in a vulnerable position. You need to hear what the other person is coming from, where their head is at and, really, giving the first offer is providing information that you’re offering them information but you haven’t received any information in return so, ultimately, that’s giving someone else the leg up, right? However, there’s research that tells us, there’s actually numerous research that tells us that providing the first offer can actually greatly influence the rest of the negotiation so it’s a principle called the anchoring principle.
Jamie: Yep!
Vivian: And it shows that there’s a strong correlation between the first offer, what the other party counteroffers, and also the final results. And in this class, Jared Curhan mentioned that you should only make the first offer if you have a lot of market information, you have a lot of market research, you’ve done the preparation, so introducing that information makes a lot of sense, right? Otherwise, it’s really unwise to do so.
There’s a particular study that he had mentioned in the course from the University of Arizona that tested this anchoring principle on real estate agents who are trained to know property values and also trained not to be influenced by this anchoring principle but the research shows that every single one of them were impacted and this listed price in this study had an effect on all of their final decisions.
So we see that the anchoring principle is very powerful and you can definitely use it to your advantage and you can even do so without tying it to your offer. For instance, if you’re trying to sell something, you can bring up that number without...So, if you’re trying to sell a home, you can differentiate the anchor from the offer by saying, “Hey, there’s another home that I saw with a similar value,” without actually saying that, you know, that’s the offer on your home.
Jamie: So, for example, you could say, “Hey, you know, I know that a home like this will sell for $10 million.”
Vivian: Yes, exactly.
Jamie: “However, you get to buy it for $750,000. It’s a great deal!”
Vivian: Right, right. Or you can just, you know, let the other person infer what they want to infer after you’ve introduced that number. You can do this in a job negotiation by being similar salaries to the position that you’re interviewing for or just about anything. So, it’s introducing and using that anchoring principle but not actually tying into your offer, not saying that it’s your offer.
Jamie: Absolutely. So, you could say...I actually had a client who was responsible for about $13 million in digital sales for her company and so she prefaced her ask by saying, “I brought in $13 million in revenue and in comparison, my salary is less than 1% of that and all I’m asking is to be compensated according to the value I’m bringing.” And that was a very powerful anchoring effect that she had created by mentioning the amount of money that she had brought in for the company.
Vivian: Right, right. Yes. That’s smart.
Jamie: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. This is something that is so often overlooked because I think people kind of worry that if they anchor, they’ll encounter pushback and so the strategy that I advise is yes, in fact, prepare for the pushback. Know what you’re gonna say when the say, “Oh, it’s too much.”
So, tell us about point number two. The second mistake people make is: Focusing too much on ideal outcomes. What does that mean?
Vivian: Yeah, so, this actually goes back to the anchoring principle that we just mentioned. Since 90% of negotiations is in the planning, so, if you’re doing a good job of planning, of doing your research, of coming up with everything that you need to come up with to prepare you for this negotiation, oftentimes you’ll have specific anchors in your own brain before you walk in there. So, one of those numbers could be a walkaway point or what’s called the reservation value or number and the other one is what’s called your BATNO or your best alternative to negotiate offer. So, basically, your second choice, right? Your runner up.
But because we have those values so implemented into our brains, sometimes they end up affecting our negotiations because we’re so focused on them we can’t see outside of them. We have no peripheral vision anymore and often we end up rejecting even more profitable offers that could come in the process because we’re so deeply ingrained, we’re committed to these numbers. So, the second point is just to say don’t focus too much on what you consider your ideal outcome because you never know what the other person’s gonna bring to the table.
Jamie: Yeah. I guess, put another way, it’s don’t fixate on the dollar values.
Vivian: Right, right. Mm-hmm.
Jamie: The way a deal can become more profitable is that you expand the scope of agreement to include non-monetary items, things that really satisfy the deeper whys that you addressed at the top of this interview.
Vivian: Exactly. That’s exactly what I was gonna say, Jamie, actually, is it goes back to the why, right?
Jamie: Yeah.
Vivian: Like, if you have these numbers in your head, or they might not be number, they might be something else. Whatever value it is, if you have them there then why do you have them there? And tracing that back and making sure that you are getting the most value as well as giving the other person value, too [inaudible] at the bargaining table.
Jamie: Yeah. So, money is important. Absolutely. Money is awesome and at the same time we have to be clear on what this money means for us and what we want to accomplish with the money so that we don’t just fixate on this dollar value. This is a great point, thank you so much.
Number three is: Accepting the other party’s first offer too quickly. I’ve seen a lot of my clients make this mistake, so tell us more.
Vivian: Yes. As frustrating as this sounds, when someone else accepts your offer too quickly, and when you accept someone else’s offer too quickly, that will decrease the satisfaction. So…
Jamie: That’s counterintuitive, isn’t it?
Vivian: Yes, definitely. I think that happens because negotiation is not something that comes natural to a lot of us. Once we think that we’re getting a good deal or getting something that we want, we immediately agree because we want it to end, right? But research actually tells us that if we accept too quickly, it does not make the other party feel great about what just happened and research also tells us that how we feel, which is a subjective value, actually is worth much more than the objective or economic value that we get from the negotiation.
Jamie: That is so fascinating to me and I know that Professor Curhan also said the four most important factors in a negotiation is how people feel about themselves, about their counterpart, about the process, about the outcome. So, that’s really fascinating and I’ve heard that there needs to be about one or two...going back and forth in a negotiation in order for people to feel like, okay, this is probably the best deal.
Vivian: Yes. It almost feels kind of like a game, right? But, you know, it’s just how you feel that you fared after you walk away from something is going to make a more lasting impression and research also tells us that it actually keeps someone more satisfied if they’re entering a new job, a new position, that economic value is not going to be something that really ties them, right? It’s going to be how they feel. How they feel they fared, how they feel that they are getting the most value for themselves. That’s the most important part, that’s the satisfaction that’s gonna last.
Jamie: I just saw somebody ask this question this morning: I already got an offer. It’s already at the high end of the market range. It’s already more than I was making before. Should I just accept it or should I ask for more? And the advice from career experts is to yeah, ask for more, because it signals to the hiring people that this person is very confident and that...the hiring people would also have the satisfaction that, oh, we really did the utmost we could to get this best talent. And for the talent, it’s also satisfying to know that she did the best that she could and got the most value.
Vivian: Exactly. Because at the end of the day, we all want to feel appreciated and respected when we walk away from that interaction.
Jamie: Yeah and I worked briefly in HR for these little tech startups in New York and people would intentionally create wiggle room because they anticipated candidates to ask for more.
Vivian: Right. Mm-hmm.
Jamie: Right, so this is a really great point that you’re making. I absolutely love it. So, number four is: Using the same tactics in both short-term and long-term negotiations. This is really interesting. Tell us more about that.
Vivian: Right. So, this idea comes from when we’re thinking about how we’re dealing with something in the short term and the long term, there are two different tactics to that, right? And so often we leave that at the door when we’re going into a negotiation room because we think that we should just follow all the same rules but in reality, rational behavior in the short term is not so rational in the long term. This goes back to the prisoner’s dilemma which is a game theory that says it doesn’t make sense for people to act against their self-interest, right? So, the faster they act in their self-interest then the better off they’ll be and whoever acts first has the greatest advantage, right?
Jamie: In the short-term.
Vivian: In the short term, yes. But that doesn’t always work in the long term. So, for instance, if in the short term your best interest is always to choose Option A and it always hurts your opponent to choose Option A, that’s the game theory, right? That’s the Prisoner's’ Dilemma. That might work in the short term, but if in the long term your strategy is to prevent your opponent from choosing Option A because if you choose Option A it hurts them, if they choose Option A, it hurts you. So, if your strategy is to prevent them from choosing Option A, then maybe the best way to encourage that behavior is not to choose Option A for yourself so you might want to choose another option to prevent them from choosing something that will hurt you if that makes sense.
Jamie: In the long term or in the short term?
Vivian: In the long term.
Jamie: In the long term. So, in the long term, even though you’re acting not in your best self-interest, for the long-term picture it actually makes more sense, even if you don’t choose Option A, you’re going to gain more value over the long term. Is that what you’re saying?
Vivian: Yes. Kind of think about it like, I hate this word, but winning, right? In the short term, winning means something different than winning in the long term.
Jamie: Oh, right.
Vivian: So, winning in the long term could mean that you’re all faring well off compared to everyone else, right? So that’s not you winning by yourself, right? You need people around you to help you do that. So, maybe an option is more beneficial for you in the short term but in the long term, that same option isn’t going to be beneficial for you because you’re just burning everyone else along the way.
Jamie: I think for...again, this is a really beautiful example of people who want to grow their careers in a conscious way and there is the conflict in the short term of oh, I need to make money! I need to make a lot of money! I need to pay off my student loans! And in the long term you also want to be creating a body of work, a reputation, a really strong and healthy network and in the long term you may actually want to, for the benefit of the long-term growth, you may want to take a pay cut.
Vivian: Right, right. Or you want to be creating value, right?
Jamie: Right. You want to be focused on creating value instead of gaining value for yourself immediately. So, yeah, I think that’s the dilemma that a lot of people would experience in their lives. I mean, I have, too. I once took an unpaid internship after leaving a hedge fund because I wanted, in the long term, to make a career pivot out of finance and into entrepreneurship and even though I wasn’t gonna be paid, but in the long term I gained a lot of value because I made some really valuable connections in this new industry.
Vivian: Exactly, yes. What’s the saying? If you want to go fast you go alone, if you want to go far, you go with others, right?
Jamie: Mm-hmm.
Vivian: So, yes, so it’s thinking about how to choose and negotiate and being thoughtful about those tactics depending on the negotiation terms.
Jamie: Right, and where you are in your career as well.
Vivian: Exactly. I mean what you want out of the negotiation, right? If the negotiation is so that both of you leave feeling very respected, high subjective value, then that might mean that you’re using specific tactics that you wouldn’t be using for a one-off type of interaction.
Jamie: Yeah. I’m thinking about the book Give and Take by Adam Grant and he talks about how very successful people are givers and at the same time, very unsuccessful people can also be givers. So, givers who are very successful, they know how to give in a way that is strategic and also mindful, they’re not always just blindly giving away resources and information and contacts. They’re able to set boundaries around that mindfully, so yeah, I think that’s a really important point for a lot of people as well as me. Thank you. So, number five: Judging others based on their actions. This is a big one! How is this a pitfall?
Vivian: Right. So, this often happens because, and I feel like we’ve all dealt with this situation at one time or another, where we’ve asked someone for something and they say no, right? And, in turn, we come up with a dialogue in our head as to why they said no, right? And so, for instance, if you asked your boss for a raise and she says no, despite the fact that you prepared, despite the fact that you brough tin market research, despite the fact that you’re very persuasive, you’ve been working really hard, you know you deserve this raise. You might automatically think that her action makes her a jerk.
Jamie: Yeah. Yup.
Vivian: And, you know, you can go on with your day and never think about that again. But instead, if you dig into why this person said no or what could have led her to say no, the situation that she might be in that might result in her no, that could actually help you get what you want. So, for instance, if your boss is saying no to you, could it be budget restraints? Could it be your boss answering to her boss? If you are able to identify all the potential parties that are involved in that no, even the ones that weren’t there in the negotiation room, right, then you can get to the yes. So, not always judging others based on their actions that you can see but trying to link it back, farther back, as to how they came to that answer.
Jamie: I love this so much. I think it’s one of the most important things in negotiation because we are so easily clouded by our judgment of other people and don’t always make the best kinds of decisions in a negotiation and the trigger word, no, is involved and that is why in all of my workshops, I have people practice hearing no and doing exactly as you say. Not getting defensive but just getting more curious and asking an open-ended question: Okay, tell me more about that. What’s behind your no? Who else do we need to have involved in this conversation? And from there, you can take that information and reframe and re-ask and you can come up with creative solutions that really satisfy their reasons as well as your why.
Another thing that I love about this is I really appreciate how you pointed out we really shouldn’t judge people based on their actions because we don’t know why they’re behaving that way. We don’t know how they really, really feel and what are they thinking that makes them do that?
Vivian: Right, right. Exactly, Jamie. They say that we judge others based on their actions but we judge ourselves based on our situation. So when you are explaining to a friend or a colleague why you made a specific decision, you can say, “Well, I did that because of this. I took that job because I really needed to pay off that student loan,” or whatever it is. But we don’t think about that when it comes to others. So if we’re able to do that, if we’re able to just push ourselves a little bit to be a little bit more thoughtful, we can actually help people help us. We can help people get to that yes by thinking about all of these other factors that come into play when they are sitting right in front of you.
Jamie: Beautiful. So good. This is so good. So the last point is assuming you know what’s most valuable to the other party.
Vivian: Right.
Jamie: So this is tied to number five where we judge people by their actions and then we also assume we know what’s most important to the other people. Tell us more about that.
Vivian: When I learned this, it just blew my mind, like, my mind just exploded. I feel like I can never explain it well enough but it’s...what happens to all of us when we are coming to a negotiation table with someone, we think that in order to get something it comes at the expense of someone else, right? It’s this win-lose mentality. If I win, you lose.
But thinking about it from a different lens - a win-win - so, you can’t assume you know what’s valuable to the other party. You can only assume, when you assume this, then it actually affects what you’re also giving, so it can affect...you might think that if you accept a lower offer that your boss will be happier, right? Or walk away with a higher subjective value, they don’t like pushing back with you. You think that you’re giving them something but you actually don’t know what’s most valuable to them.
Jamie: That’s true.
Vivian: So assuming that isn’t going to help you get anywhere, really. So, for instance, if you want to...you might assume that, in a job offer negotiation, your boss doesn’t want to give you flexibility, right? Or your boss or the other party doesn’t want to give you a higher salary. It’s only through clear and trustworthy communication can you actually determine what the other party’s preferences really are. So, one way to do that is ask open-ended questions. You mentioned earlier trying to really figure out what the other party values. If you ask a few questions based on their responses, you can determine what the patterns are, right? You can sort of guess what they may value most out of the negotiation but assuming you know actually is sort of a lose-lose type of situation because you have no idea what the other party wants coming into negotiations.
Jamie: This is so good because can we ever really know what is going through someone else’s head? And I think the answer is no.
Vivian: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly.
Jamie: The art of communication, it’s almost like we’re trying to do magic right? We have something that we want to say inside of us. We say it. People hear it. But people don’t always hear everything we say. Often they mishear what we say.
Vivian: Well, yes!
Jamie: And then they interpret that to mean something and what they interpret that to be can be something so different from what you originally intended. Yeah, so for you to assume that you know what’s going through other people’s head is such a fundamental mistake, I think, that we often make, pretty much on a constant basis, on default. I think about my most common miscommunication defaults that I have with my partner, right? And I always think I know what’s going through his head it’s like, “Does he mean to make me feel bad?” Of course, he never intends to make me feel bad and so this is such a good one.
Vivian: Yes and they say that if ten different people walk away from the same conversation, they all have different interpretations as to what was communicated, what was the message of the conversation takeaway, right?
Jamie: Yeah. Ten different interpretations.
Vivian: Exactly, right? So, when we assume that someone wants something before we even get there, we assume that we know what’s most valuable to them, that actually affects the way that we approach the negotiation with them, right? We go, we bee-line in, we think that we know exactly what’s going to be most valuable to them, what’s going to be most valuable to us and this actually hurts in the end. Especially if it’s negotiating for more a long-term relationship or something that’s a little bit more complex than choosing Option A, B, or C.
Jamie: Yeah. This is so good. The way I help my clients to get clear is that often we make assumptions, we don’t even realize we’re making assumptions because we feel that what we think is true.
Vivian: Mm-hmm.
Jamie: But the facts of the situation are usually very simple and facts are something that everyone will agree to be true. It can be proven in the court of law. But our thoughts, our opinions, our judgments, our assumptions are what is most often in our heads and cloud our judgment and how we perceive the situation. So, usually I have my clients just write down their thoughts on paper and then separate the facts and something really funny happens. It’s like they have a long list of thoughts. Oh, this person thinks I’m this. I am not good enough. Or It’s gonna all not go well, blah blah blah. You know, all the thoughts that we have so often and then we just write down the facts and the facts are like, there was a conversation. This person said x. I said y.
Vivian: Exactly, Jamie. Yeah, it happens so often. It really does and I think if we just think about negotiations as more of having both parties walk away feeling like they got the most value out of the conversation, out of the negotiation, I think that’s really important. Especially today, when it seems like we’re gridlocked over everything, right? Whether that’s business or social, political, whatever. I think it’s really important to think about how we approach these conversations and to ask open-ended questions so that we can have a better idea of how we can come out of it, both of us coming out of it feeling like we’re appreciated and valued and respected.
Jamie: I am so appreciative of this article. I’m appreciative of the research, the length you went to to gather this valuable information and how you made it succinct, relatable, useful to the audience. So thank you so much, Vivian. Where can people go to learn more about what you do?
Vivian: People can go...and thanks so much for saying that, I’m really happy that the article resonated with you. I had a lot of fun putting it together. So, People can learn more about me by either following me on Twitter. I’m @vivian_giang. Or they can read my stuff on Fast Company.
Jamie: Excellent! Well, thanks again, Vivian, for your valuable time and for this great article. I will be sharing it in the podcast notes as well as with my newsletter audience. Have a wonderful day!
Vivian: You too. Thanks so much for having me Jamie.
Jamie: Bye bye!
Vivian: Bye bye!
Three Key Principles for Negotiating as a Leader
It's no coincidence that the principles behind interest-based negotiation framework dovetail with time-proven leadership principles.
1. Success is 80% mindset and 20% tactics. My clients are applying this insight to reinvent their lives and careers from stifling to thriving. Success is an inside job.
2. Ask open questions to understand their why before seeking to be understood. Far from being "nice," this is a powerful strategy that enables my clients to win over a room of naysayers, flip no to yes, and turn transactions into transformational conversations.
3. Be ready to tell a new story. My career changed when I stopped telling myself, "I can't do it," and started saying, "I will walk the talk I give."
What new story will you tell? Come to www.jamieleecoach.comfor future webinar updates and more.
It's no coincidence that the principles behind interest-based negotiation framework dovetail with time-proven leadership principles.
1. Success is 80% mindset and 20% tactics. My clients are applying this insight to reinvent their lives and careers from stifling to thriving. Success is an inside job.
2. Ask open questions to understand their why before seeking to be understood. Far from being "nice," this is a powerful strategy that enables my clients to win over a room of naysayers, flip no to yes, and turn transactions into transformational conversations.
3. Be ready to tell a new story. My career changed when I stopped telling myself, "I can't do it," and started saying, "I will walk the talk I give."
What new story will you tell? Come to www.jamieleecoach.comfor future webinar updates and more.
Full Episode Transcript
Hello! Welcome to Episode 35 of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach, Jamie Lee.
I believe that we are all born to thrive.
I know that some people are rolling their eyes when they hear me say that but I really do.
I’m not religious. I do consider myself spiritual and I know that we are all created for a reason. For a really good reason which is to expand, to thrive, and to be happy.
And for me, I thrive when I get to help other people thrive and that’s why I feel like I have the best job in the world.
I work as a coach. I train and I teach people leadership and negotiation principles that can help them become more brave, bold, and better paid.
And, you know, I’m on a mission to help double women’s income.
Late last year, at the end of 2017, I was visualizing what would make the end of 2018 really awesome.
And here’s a lesson for you, if you are working towards a goal, start from the end. What would you like to have happened at the end? What would make whatever project or goal you’re working towards, what would make it super awesome for you? What would be the x, y, and z that you would want to see?
And for me, that was having made such an impact that I’ve helped double somebody’s income.
That’s really an exciting goal for me because I want to be part of the solution, not the problem, when it comes to the gender wage gap and I believe that we can make change happen one conversation - one really powerful and transformational conversation - at a time.
And that’s why I teach negotiation because negotiation is simply a conversation with the intention of reaching agreement. I don’t think of negotiation as confrontation, manipulation, or some sort of a trick or a game that you play.
And I also believe that money is awesome. Money itself is not the end-all, be-all of success but that money is a really great tool that can help solve problems, like money problems.
And when you have money you can save time and when you have more time you can do more good. You can make even more impact. So money is awesome.
And I believe that women who negotiate are to be celebrated, not judged, because women who negotiate are women who lead and we need women to lead.
So, I want to share with you three quick principles.
Well, not quick. They’re key principles behind collaborative, interest-based negotiation framework which is the framework that I teach my clients because they dovetail so beautifully with time-proven leadership principles.
So, the first one is that success is 80% mindset and only 20% tactics.
I know a lot of people get hung up on, “What do I say? What do I do? Tell me all the tactics you use!” and I think that’s a mistaken approach.
First, we have to get clear on what we are thinking and believing because what we think and believe get expressed through our emotions, our body language, our tone, things that we do unconsciously like self-sabotage. And it’s in the actions that are generated from our feelings that generate our results.
Let me say it one more time: What we think and believe are so powerful because they impact our emotions and our emotions impact our actions or inactions, and it’s our actions or inactions that generate the results we have in our life and career.
And I think the really powerful thing is that when you believe in your worthiness, no matter what the circumstances are in your life, that’s when you show up as a leader. That’s when you show up brave, willing to risk change, willing to risk a brave conversation and be engaged, willing to make change happen.
Now, when you hear me say that you’ll be like, “Ugh! Here’s another coach who’s telling me I gotta believe in myself. Okay, tell me, how is this new?”
It’s not.
But what I will tell you is that you don’t just believe in yourself after you just decide, you just snap a finger and it’s done.
No, no.
You really gotta practice. You gotta put in the work to believe in yourself and I’ll be honest with you, this is the biggest part of my coaching work with clients. It’s not so much the strategy and script. Yes, I mean, I do the strategy and scripts, but at the heart of it, we gotta believe in you.
You gotta believe in you before you can say the words and really mean it and have other people believe in it.
It takes consistent effort to have the thoughts that support the feeling of confidence, the feeling of bravery, the feeling of courage no matter what.
A lot of people, and I make this same mistake, we are waiting for the circumstances in our lives to line up with the results that we desire. We want to wait until the circumstances are lined up with the results that we want for us to think that we are worthy, for us to feel good and confident, for us to be able to take that confident action and get what we want.
It doesn’t work that way, right?
Think about it. The people who really believe in their vision, they take action, they sound confident, they stand tall, they engage, and they get what they want because they are thinking and feeling and acting from a place of worthiness, of self-respect, of self-appreciation.
So, this takes work, like I said. It sounds like, “What?! What do you mean success is an inside job? What do you mean success is 80% mindset? That’s so fluffy and soft and I don’t get it.”
Well, the truth of the matter is this is bloody hard work.
It takes a lot of effort to really believe in yourself, consistently, with practice.
The second thing I want to share with you, the second key principle of collaborative, interest-based negotiation that also happens to be a really powerful leadership principle, is that you want to ask open questions first to better understand your counterpart’s why before you seek to be understood.
I think I am quoting Stephen Covey and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
I did a webinar yesterday on the 7 Elements of Negotiation Framework and I had somebody ask me, “Okay, so when you know your position, when you know what you want, do you start by stating your position, stating what you want?” and my short answer is: No.
You don’t start with what you want. I mean, sure that can be effective in a very specific situation, if they’re asking, “Just tell me what you want!” Okay, you might want to start there, sure. There is a caveat that this advice should be taken with a grain of salt, depending on your situation, on the very specific context of your situation but in terms of overall principle and big picture strategy, first you want to better understand why the other side wants what they want.
So, let’s break it down. First, you want to understand what they want, right? Then you want to understand why they want it. And even better, you want to understand, okay, what are their preferences? What are their goals? What are their fears? What are their desires?
And you do that by asking them open-ended, diagnostic questions.
And this takes courage. It’s a powerful skill to ask really good, open-ended questions. It’s the strategy that the FBI hostage negotiators use, it’s the strategy of the most successful coaches and leaders.
It requires you to be bold and to lead with your ear.
It requires you to manager yourself so well that you can listen more deeply than anyone has ever done for your negotiation counterpart.
This is how you win people over.
And this is not a strategy of being nice. It’s not a strategy of being a pushover because just because you’re asking open-ended questions doesn’t mean that you’re just immediately gonna go do whatever they ask you to do. No. You are gaining really powerful insight and information which is power.
This is a powerful strategy and I’ve given some examples in this podcast and past webinars but asking open-ended, diagnostic questions has the power to turn transactions into transformational conversations.
To give you one example, when I worked as an operations person at a startup, there was a bit of a conflict with the Sales Director around some reporting procedure. And it was very tempting, I was in the meeting, the emotions were kind of running high, it’s a little tense, yeah? And I have the Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee in my head and it was very tempting to let my brain run off with the story that Oh, they are mad at me! It’s my fault! I didn’t do a good enough job! This is gonna reflect poorly on my performance review. Everyone thinks I’m a whatever, failure, not good enough, blah, blah, blah.
Boring, boring old story.
But I decided that I’m going to apply some of the strategies to myself, you know, the negotiation strategies I had learned over the years. And I decided, in an instant, that I’m not going to get defensive, I’m just going to get curious. I’m just going to open myself up. Maybe I don’t know what’s going on.
So, I asked, “Okay, Sales Director, I hear that this is the situation. What would be an ideal outcome for you?”
And this completely transformed the nature of the conversation. He visibly relaxed and he said, “Well, actually, the ideal outcome would be that the sales team own this process, end-to-end. That would be the ideal situation.” So I realized, okay, this wasn’t about me at all. And from there, we arrived at a collaborative solution to the problem that we were sharing.
So, ask open-ended questions. Ask them more than you ask leading questions.
Last week, I led a workshop for the Association of Corporate Counsels, and going in, I thought, “What can I teach a room full of high-flying lawyers who negotiate day-in and day-out, every day?”
And it turned out that the strategy of asking open-ended, diagnostic questions to get past impasse, to get past no, to better understand the underlying interests or the underlying why of the other side was something new to them. It was something that they hadn’t really thought about, so it’s a very powerful strategy and a very powerful leadership tool as well.
And finally, be ready to tell a new story.
For me, I started teaching negotiation six years ago because I needed to learn it so badly, and I realized the best way to learn is to teach it. And so, I started learning so that I can teach and apply it to myself.
And I had the story that oh, I can’t negotiate for myself. People will judge me, will call me a bitch - excuse my language - will call me names or think I’m aggressive.
I had the same stories, but then I stopped telling myself that I can’t do it and I started saying I will walk the talk I give.
And that story generated the feelings of bravery. That story generated the feelings of determination, commitment. And from there, I started making bold asks, and now I have the best career.
And so, start telling a new story.
What about you?
What is the story that you’re telling about you in regards to your negotiation and leadership skills?
And is that story serving you? And if not, what’s a better story to tell?
Again, we’re coming back to the mindset because it’s just so important. 80% of your success is mindset. The strategy, the tactics, that’s just 20%. That’s just details.
And so, I just want to wrap this up with: Please let me know. Feel free to reach out to me at jamie@jamieleecoach.com.
I will be hosting more webinars in the Fall. I will be doing more collaboration webinars with other women’s networks, as well. So, if you want to stay up to date, come to jamieleecoach.com and feel free to reach out to me.
I hope you have a wonderful week and I will talk to you next week. Bye bye!
Interview with Leadership and Negotiation Expert Selena Rezvani: How to Negotiate Meeting Culture
Selena Rezvani is a highly sought-after expert on leadership and negotiation who promotes a more female-friendly workplace culture through her award-winning writing and speaking engagements.
If you've ever been told no, if you've ever been cut off at a work meeting, and if you want to close the gender and racial wage gap, you won't want to miss this podcast interview.
We discussed:
- How you can leverage the power of cognitive dissonance to flip a “No” around
- How tiny, everyday way of negotiating meeting culture can have a huge impact on your career
- What remains the biggest barrier for women to be heard and respected at meetings
...and so much more.
Selena Rezvani is a highly sought-after expert on leadership and negotiation who promotes a more female-friendly workplace culture through her award-winning writing and speaking engagements.
If you've ever been told no, if you've ever been cut off at a work meeting, and if you want to close the gender and racial wage gap, you won't want to miss this podcast interview.
We discussed:
- How you can leverage the power of cognitive dissonance to flip a “No” around
- How tiny, everyday way of negotiating meeting culture can have a huge impact on your career
- What remains the biggest barrier for women to be heard and respected at meetings
...and so much more.
Full Episode Transcript
Jamie: Hello, Selena!
Selena: Hi, Jamie. How are you?
Jamie: I’m doing awesome. How are you doing?
Selena: Great, great! Are you having a good week?
Jamie: Yes, I’m having a really wonderful week. How about you?
Selena: Good! Yeah, we haven’t spoken since you’ve kind of branched off on your own, so congratulations!
Jamie: Thank you so much. I just want to say thank you for taking the time to share your wisdom and your expertise on my podcast.
Selena: My pleasure.
Jamie: I’m all about leadership, I’m all about negotiation and you’ve been doing this longer and you’ve written an award-winning book called Pushback that I and many of my peers have read, so again I really appreciate you taking the time on this beautiful day.
Selena: It is beautiful, isn’t it? Finally!
Jamie: Yeah, finally it is. Well, let’s get started.
Selena: Sure.
Jamie: I’d love to hear your personal experience. I’d love to hear about a negotiation in your life or career that had the biggest impact on you.
Selena: For sure. I’ll tell you about one that happened to me in early days. As a teenager, like a lot of kids, I dreamed about going to college, but I knew that was going to be kind of a hardship for my parents. I’m the youngest of four, after all, so I knew that was not gonna be an easy process, but I bounced along, optimistic that that would happen and life kind of had other plans.
I lost my father very suddenly in my teenage years, and aside from just the devastation of that, financially, it became really hard for us as a family and when it came time for college, my wonderful mom who made miracles happen, she said, “Honey, I can just swing everything with the financial aid package you’re getting this year,” (my first year), and I loved that year at college, that first year.
I received my financial aid package for the second year, and to my very shocked upset, it was almost like half as much, despite having a really strong year at school and my mom sat me down and she said, “Selena, I just can’t swing it this time.” And I knew in that moment that the only thing that was going to drive an outcome that might change the situation was gonna be me.
And so I wrote a very long, rambling appeal to the financial aid office at NYU and I was so delighted when they changed my financial aid package to make it doable for my family, not just for that sophomore year, but for the next three years, so that I could finish.
Jamie: Yeah, you asked. You made a bold and vulnerable ask, it sounds like.
Selena: Yeah, you know, so often I find with my clients and in my own life learning to become a more bold negotiator, you get even a whiff of no or here’s how it is, here’s what we can do, and it’s so, so easy to kind of slink away feeling like, well, that must be how it is. That is the final limit. That is the bottom line. And it’s so rare that it actually is the bottom line or the final word.
Jamie: That’s a really inspiring story and I love that you started with a no, right? They were like, “No, this is how much you’re gonna get,” and you were like, “Wait, no! Let’s negotiate. Let me ask you something.”
Selena: Yeah, and I mean there are so many nos you’re going to get in life, and that’s a lesson I wish I had learned earlier as a young person. It’s not if you’re gonna get the no, it’s when. So what are you gonna do? How will you be ready? How will you pivot or who will you engage? What will you do when that happens, not if it happens?
Jamie: Right, right. And what you shared with us is that there’s still room for conversation. You can still ask again.
Selena: Yeah, in fact, I would actually say that the odds are stacked in your favor. Often when you’ve been told no, there’s a cognitive dissonance, a psychological factor that makes it hard to say no to the same person over and over again. So, I would actually say when you’ve been told no, you can almost see it as A) corrective information to change your pitch a little bit or do something slightly different, but B) ask again. It’s very uncomfortable to say no to somebody three times in a row.
Jamie: That’s interesting. That leads me to my next question. I know that a lot of your work is centered around research, and I’m curious to know what are some of the most interesting research findings that you’ve come across on women’s leadership.
Selena: Yeah, well there are so many. This is one of my favorite arenas, I think you know, just to really see the future when it comes to the experience of working women. I’ll tell you one thing I’m really interested in right now, and it’s a tiny, everyday way that we negotiate at work, and it’s negotiating meeting culture.
So, this is an area I’m particularly interested in because you’re an expert at this Jamie, you know that so often people focus on the kind of major pitch or the once a year professional development meeting, but it really is this everyday skill, and you know, you think about meetings, many of us spend hours on end in meetings.
They signal what’s important to a company, what we meet about. Once we’re there, we’re negotiating to make a point in a meeting, we’re negotiating to stand up for our point or somebody else’s when it’s being attacked. We negotiate to try to change the minds of folks if there’s a popular direction we don’t agree with. I think one of the major things that’s almost rampant in workplace culture is around interrupting and I think women need to negotiate that. I think that is an everyday negotiation.
Jamie: Absolutely.
Selena: Yeah. You look at that research, and it almost, it really pains me to say this, but one research point that came out of Journal of Language and Social Psychology - that’s the kind of premier journal - said men and women are both likelier to interrupt when they’re talking to a woman than when they’re talking to a man, so the sex of the interrupter is less of a strong force on interruptions but it’s more the sex of who’s being interrupted.
We are all more likely to interrupt a woman and that’s really a shame because there’s other data that when it comes to groups being most productive and strong, they are most likely to share airtime equally. This is kind of the kindergarten lesson all of us learned, which is take your turn, you know, wait your turn. So, that conversational turn-taking serves teams better and yet interruptions happen to the point where there’s multiple apps, things like Gender Timer.
Jamie: Really?
Selena: Yeah, just to promote this awareness in workplaces. It shows who’s speaking the most, who’s dominating the airspace. There’s even an app, a newer one, called Woman Interrupted. Really! There’s an app for that. It shows that it happens more than we think.
Jamie: It’s almost painful, because it brings back, for me, memories of being an analyst at this financial firm and my manager would ask me to prepare documents to present at the meeting and whenever I would get one word in, I would say, “Okay, this shows…” and then he would immediately cut me off and he would just run the meeting. And I remember it was like that every single time. I would put together the documents, I would say, “Okay, this is…” and then he would cut me off every single time.
Selena: Wow. At least you can say he’s predictable, but wow. I would go so far as to say it can feel dehumanizing, it can feel almost humiliating to be cut off. And it’s even worse, I think when you find your own self saying by default, “Oh, please, go ahead,” without even thinking. I know I’ve done that myself without even noticing I’m doing it. I yield at points and will say, “Oh, please, go ahead.”
Jamie: Yeah. I’ve done it many times.
Selena: Right. And there’s solutions to this and I talk to women about it and men alike because I think they’re part of this just as much, but I think one of the first things is, first of all, having allies in the room who will say something like, “So and so just said that,” or, “The way you’re speaking is making me uncomfortable.” Or encouraging women to say, “Stop interrupting me.” If you are the woman interrupted, I think negotiating that is quite an art. You can keep talking. So one method is keep talking as if you didn’t hear the interruption.
Jamie: Right.
Selena: Truly. Another is to do what I do with my 5-year-old twins, which is just as you would with a child, say to the interrupter “One moment,” while you continue talking or, “I’m not done,” and continue the point you were making. You can kind of shift in your chair. I have done this and seen it have an effect. You’re kind of making your body bigger or showing some physical discomfort and a change and continue speaking a little bit louder. Whatever you do, don’t ask, “Can I finish speaking?”
Jamie: Yeah. So don’t look for permission. Don’t yield. Have your say.
Selena: Have your say. Absolutely. I mean, there is something so programmed and so deep in many of us that women should really accommodate and avoid things that feel escalating or somehow less communal behaviors and it’s up to each of us to kind of change that programming by disrupting it. I think that’s one of the best ways.
Jamie. Yeah, my mentor, Lisa Gates, she says you have to interrupt interruption.
Selena: Absolutely. That’s a perfect way to think of it. Because what will keep it going is that polite dance, the polite but frustrated dance of, “Sure, go ahead,” “Sure, jump in here. What I was saying wasn’t that important anyway.”
Jamie: Yeah. That’s really important and I’m kind of pained to self-reflect and think about have there been times where I’ve thoughtlessly interrupted other women? And probably so, because I did have women reporting to me in my career and I probably did it unconsciously.
Selena: Yeah, I mean, listen, I think it takes a big person, to say that, first of all, and to do that kind of reflection but I think we all do it to an extent. I mentioned that I had twins earlier, they’re a boy and a girl and I’m in this line of work of trying to improve workplaces, to make them more gender equal, to empower women and I correct myself sometimes, too. I correct myself.
I notice if I say, “Can somebody come help me set the dinner table,” if my son kind of is dismissive or distracted, I’ve noticed in the past that I’m a little bit more lenient with that then when my daughter is like, “Well, I want to play more.” As though she should, for some reason, be more communal and be more helpful. I mean, we all have this programming to overcome and it’s so deep it’s almost invisible.
Jamie: Yes. So it takes a lot of mindfulness and practice.
Selena: It does, and sadly I think a lot of organizations today, like you can do the once a year training or the once a year town hall to raise awareness, but it’s not enough for any of us. None of us can have biases continually disrupted and to be reminded consistently if we’re just doing something very, very occasionally to interrupt it. So I think how you weave it into your culture, how you weave it into your life so that it’s an ongoing discussion item.
Jamie: Like a meeting, which happens on a recurring basis every week and so every week you have that opportunity to initiate a brief conversation, to have your say, to speak up, to ask for what you want. I think that’s what you’re saying and I think it’s so important.
Selena: If it’s not part of the company’s operating norms to divvy airtime, to not interrupt, it’s one of the most basic things all organizations can do, that all meeting organizers can do to change the status quo.
Jamie: Yeah. And I can see how that will have a spillover effect into how you are evaluated, how you are perceived by the leaders and the decision makers when they go to think about okay, who’s gonna get promoted, who’s gonna get that plum assignment. The person who speaks up, the person who takes up as much airtime during meetings is probably going to be top of mind, just because they’ve been seen and heard more often than the people who have not.
Selena: You’re a hundred percent right, and I’ll never forget a story that a CEO shared on a panel that I was on, and she said, “We were interviewing for a position. We had one candidate who we knew of but had a reservation or two about and another candidate who looked great on paper but that nobody knew, nobody had really heard them speak.” Who do you think got the job? The flawed but known person. Not the possibly incredible but quiet person and that’s very illustrative I think of the workplace today.
Jamie: Yeah. So, moving on, I’m curious to know what three pieces of advice you have for women who do want to close their wage gaps.
Selena: Yeah, that’s so important, and thank you for asking that question and the first thing I would say is talk to people who don’t look like you about what you make. At one of my first consulting jobs - I grew up in management consulting - I did this. I talked about what I made with my peers, but guess who I talked to. I talked to my two best friends, and they were an African American woman and a Chinese American woman. So, do you think that what the three of us made was really representative of the entire band or level where we sat? Heck no!
According to research, all three of us were probably underpaid, but I used their information as my anchors and to inform what I should be making. I shouldn’t have done that. I needed to talk to white men and men of color. I needed to really get out there, to diversify who I was seeking information from, and I think that’s so important.
I often will say to women, if you feel uncomfortable doing this, bring along a little give. So you can diffuse some of the tension by saying like, “Oh, I have an industry salary report. I’d love to send it to you and share what I learned.” Bring some sort of third party gift if you feel funny asking out of the blue.
You can also ask people things like, “Where do you hope to be?” You don’t even have to ask the question of, “What did you come in at when you joined the company?” but “Where do you hope to be at performance review time or bonus time?” A second thing I think is really important, and I just ran a workshop where some of the women said this made a difference, is shift your mindset from taker in a negotiation to giver.
Jamie: I like that. Tell me more.
Selena: So, this is kind of remembering the oxygen mask phenomenon in the plane. It’s realizing that the more you negotiate for yourself, the more responsibility you have, the more money you make, the more license you have to drive decisions within your organization, the more you can give opportunities to other people, for example. The more you can nominate that very worthy person to lead a division or lead a department. The more you can give to charity. There’s so many ways you can think about this. The more you can do for your family.
And I think that’s important. I think that resonates with a lot of women, that I’m not just like taking for the heck of it when I negotiate. I’m actually looking to make a bigger impact in the world and wow, I can do that if I have more say-so and more money in the bank.
A third thing I would say is, we all kind of know that if you make your ask more communal, it will help you in a negotiation and that’s certainly in line with gender stereotypes that we know.
But I would add one more thing that I think a lot of women have success with and it’s counterintuitive. It’s bringing some humor into negotiations. And I say that because I think a lot of the blowback we get is because of this trope of you’re a strident, demanding woman asking for whatever it is. I think when you have a sense of humor, even one playful, funny comment like, “Research shows that when I ask you for what I’m about to ask you, you’re gonna like me less.” I mean, really, like, diffuse the tension, even call out the absurdity that a woman asking is gonna make her a little less likable.
Jamie: It’s also calling out the elephant in the room at the same time. It kind of makes them step back and think, “Oh, hmm, interesting.”
Selena: Exactly! It does kind of undress and humanize the conversation a little bit and people have even done this in funny ways with contentious group negotiations.
I read one example where somebody started the meeting knowing this group had a kind of negative history by saying, “Look, I’m gonna be part Oprah, part Dr. Phil, part Jerry Springer today and I hope none of you throw any chairs.” It was a way to diffuse the tension, it was a way to inject some levity and maybe even remind people, is it worth it to get so carried away or so combative? So I think that was really effective. I do think it can help.
There’s also some newer research that shows humor is seen as a form of intelligence by people when they use it “appropriately” so not too extreme in form.
Jamie: Yeah, I love it, because it’s a way of strengthening the bond between you and the other side. We do know when there is a strong bond, you’re, I read, about four times more likely to get what you want.
Selena: Yeah, it makes complete sense that the same reasons you would do small talk or rapport build, you know that you would also have the occasional laugh.
Jamie: Right, and that makes people relax and just be at ease. If you’re more at ease, you’re being creative, you’re being more forthcoming and that will help you negotiate better, absolutely.
I want to add to your idea of coming to the negotiation table as a giver. I also think it’s helpful to think about how you can give more creative solutions, more value. If you are negotiating for a raise or a promotion, I think you do want to say, “I am committed to bringing more value, and this is how: X, Y, and Z.” So that way, you’re giving.
Selena: Yeah, I think that’s really smart. It’s really almost like reframing from “Can I have this?” to “Here’s a value proposition.”
Jamie: That’s right, yeah.
Selena: I like your point a lot. You know that that leads to more yes answers than just the “Can I have…?” for my own sake.
Jamie: Yeah, instead of “Can I have…?” be like, “Alright. I want to do more for you, how can we make this work?”
Selena: Exactly.
Jamie: Yeah.
Selena: You stole my line!
Jamie: It’s everyone’s line. So, I’m curious to know from you, you are an expert on negotiation, leadership, on creating more female-friendly workplaces and from that place, what does the word thrive mean to you? What does it look like?
Selena: You know I think it’s very simple. For me, it’s about having a voice. And maybe that’s why I’m so interested in meeting culture, what I was bringing up earlier about interruptions and being talked over or feeling shushed in life. I think a lot of women have felt shushed in their life in some way or another. I have.
And so, I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to write columns about the experience of working women, to write books, to have the agency to say my say-so, to have that self-expression. I tell my kids the same thing. I encourage them, “You can do whatever you want as a grown-up in your career but make sure you have a voice. Have a say in what matters to you. Steer the conversation. Use your articulation to shine a light on something that people aren’t seeing.” That is such a gift, and it’s one I will never stop appreciating.
I had a job early in my career and it was at the kind of firm where anything you said outside of the firm in a blog or in an interview like this needed to be checked by about twelve PR people and sometimes massaged before it could be put out there in the world. I could not stand that and I couldn’t live that way and so I think that’s really important to have a voice and use it.
Jamie: I love it. I have to say throughout all this time I’ve just been nodding my head. You just can’t see me, but I’m like, “Yep. Exactly!”
Selena: I love it. The vigorous nodding. I’m feeling it, Jamie, I’m feeling it.
Jamie: Yeah. So, just one quick personal question: What’s your favorite color and why?
Selena: Yeah. This has not changed in my entire life, but purple. And I really love the dark, kind of almost the color of an eggplant. That’s my favorite kind. Mysterious.
Jamie. Nice. Okay, cool. So where can people learn more about what you do and your work with Be Leaderly?
Selena: Yeah. Beleaderly.com is a great place to find us and we’re also on Facebook and Twitter, on Instagram, we have lots of lively dialogue and share as many super usable tips as we can, so please join us on those and we can continue the conversation!
Jamie: Yeah, this was a really valuable conversation. I love the tips about how to interrupt interruptions at a meeting so you can have your say and use your voice so you can thrive! I love that!
Selena: Well, thank you so much. I hope we get to do this again, Jamie, it was awesome.
Jamie: Same here. Thank you so much for your time, your expertise and your voice.
Selena: Thank you.
Jamie: Okay. Bye-bye.
Selena: Bye.
Questioning: It's Unfair I Bungled My Salary Negotiation
In the book The Prosperous Coach, Rich Litvin says, "One advantage of me spending so much of my own life feeling powerless is that I now quickly see how powerful people are."
Same here.
In this episode, I share my experience bungling a salary negotiation that left me feeling powerless and resentful.
I question my own negative beliefs that held me back from speaking up and asking for what I wanted.
If you've ever felt small, powerless, and resentful at work, you'll want to check this out.
In the book The Prosperous Coach, Rich Litvin says, "One advantage of me spending so much of my own life feeling powerless is that I now quickly see how powerful people are."
Same here.
In this episode, I share my experience bungling a salary negotiation that left me feeling powerless and resentful.
I question my own negative beliefs that held me back from speaking up and asking for what I wanted.
If you've ever felt small, powerless, and resentful at work, you'll want to check this out.
Full Episode Transcript
Hello! Welcome to the twenty-first episode of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. Twenty-first! I love that. It means we’re legal now!
My name is Jamie Lee. I work as a coach and you can learn more about my services on jamieleecoach.com.
I believe that we’re all born to thrive. I believe that negotiation skills are leadership skills, and I’m curious to know: How are you thriving today?
Today I’m thriving because books are magic.
This book that I’m reading right now, The Prosperous Coach by Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin, it’s rocking my world and if you are somebody who’s interested in becoming a coach or who is a coach who wants to become a prosperous coach, I highly, highly recommend it.
There is a quote in this book that really inspired me and resonated with me. The quote is:
“One advantage of me spending so much of my own life feeling powerless is that I now quickly see how powerful people are. This is something we can all do. Your client is the god of their world because they create their own world. They don’t even know it.”
I love this quote because it totally resonates. I think it’s 100% true. For me, I see that yeah, earlier in my life I had long periods where I felt very powerless.
One of those times when I felt powerless was definitely ten years ago when I bungled my salary negotiation and ended up earning fifty percent of the going market rate - fifty percent - as a hedge fund analyst.
Now when I think about it, I can’t help but laugh because of all the mistakes I made and I think this experience inspired me to do the work that I do now because I’m like, wow, how could I have made so many mistakes, so many obvious mistakes?
So, at that time I was pivoting from a career in procurement. I used to buy steel plates and copper plates for a heavy industries company and then after that, I was buying shipping boxes and cartons for a beauty company. And then one day a colleague of mine told me that if I post my resume on Craigslist, that could be another way to get a job.
It sounds pretty crazy now, I know. I mean, I would not do this. I would not advise anyone to do this.
But back then I was naïve and I thought, “Oh, let me give this a try.” So I did. I posted my resume on Craigslist and then I got a call from a hedge fund that was looking for somebody who was multilingual. I speak Japanese and Korean and English so they wanted me to come in for an interview for an analyst position. I was a qualitative analyst, meaning I was just reading a bunch of research and news and data all day long as a hedge fund analyst.
In any case, this is how I bungled my salary negotiation, okay?
Number one, I didn’t do any research.
I don’t know, I just didn’t think about it. I went to Wikipedia, I read one entry on what a hedge fund does and I’m like okay, that’s enough.
Number two, I didn’t ask anyone in my network. I didn’t reach out to the alums from my school who are in the finance industry to ask them for advice around how to negotiate my salary.
I was just ill-prepared. I was completely unprepared for this conversation and the hedge fund manager, basically, he came to me and he said, “Okay, well we’re ready to make an offer. What is your minimum salary requirement?”
And at that time I was making $43,000 as an entry-level buyer for a beauty startup, and I thought, “Well, I was making 43, so I should make at least 50, right, in the next job? But I’m sure they’re gonna offer me more. They’re a hedge fund, I mean, maybe my minimum is 50, but they’re gonna give me more.”
That was my unarticulated thought.
Oh, boy.
Can you guess what happened?
Yes, $50,000 became my starting salary and he said, “Take it or leave it. There is no room for negotiation. This is it.” And so, you know what I did? I took it.
And then a year into that job - a year into that job, that’s how long it took for me to realize how big a mistake I had made - I read a research report on the average going salaries for hedge fund analysts and I see that it’s $100,000.
When I found out that I was making 50% of the going market rate, I felt powerless.
I felt small.
I felt resentful.
And eventually, as a result of that and some other things, I ended up quitting after two years, and I ended up taking an unpaid internship with a women-focused angel investment fund and this internship eventually changed my life.
Since then, I’ve learned a few things and some of the key things that I’ve learned are:
Number one: That real power is inside of me not outside of me. I think so many of us, including me, we mistake that power lies in other people outside of us.
Number two: I abdicate that power when I blame other people for how I feel. I learned that I am responsible for my own feelings. That’s called emotional maturity.
Number three: I learned that feelings are not actually irrational. They don’t just come out of the ether. They’re not meaningless.
Because thinking generates feelings.
And feelings generate actions.
Actions generate results.
And I’m not just pulling this out of the air, there’s been a lot of research that shows that people make decisions based on how they feel. Everyone is biased in their thinking and that bias is your belief or your repeated thinking pattern.
So, thinking generates feelings. Feelings generate actions. Actions generate results.
So, what the hell was I thinking back then ten years ago when I completely bungled my salary negotiation?
And that question led me to revisit some old resentments that I harbored towards my former boss at the hedge fund. I’ve had many, many, countless thoughts - some very colorful - about him and that situation at the hedge fund, but two really stick out as the thorniest:
Number one: It’s unfair he paid me 50% of the going market rate.
Number two: I want him to pay me respect.
So when I entertain these thorny thoughts, I feel like a victim. I feel tightness in my gut and a collapsed feeling in my chest. If I just entertain that thought again right now, that feeling comes back. And the situation feels hopeless.
And the brain is hard-wired for stories, so it goes on overdrive making up stories about the past and future and then I see images of all the other times people treated me unfairly, how my life is so unfair. And I also see images of the future about how I’ll never succeed.
It’s madness.
And I recognize that I have the power to stop that thinking pattern.
I have the power to get back to reality as it really is, not as it should be or as I imagine that it was. To get back to this reality, I have to slow down.
My process is that I write my negative thoughts, my negative stories, my negative beliefs on paper and then I question them. I consider the facts that my hijacked brain completely overlooks.
For example, let’s consider the facts of this situation.
My starting salary was my minimum salary requirement. I pulled a number out of the air and it turned out that was 50% of the going market rate.
Here’s another fact: I took that job. I said yes. I consented to that salary even though I was disappointed with the offer because I was afraid I’d be even more disappointed if I didn’t take the job.
And here’s another fact: once I found out about the going market rate, I did not communicate. I did not try to negotiate for more because I was afraid of not having a job. Mind you, this was a year after the 2008 financial crisis.
Here’s one more fact: I didn’t respect my boss. Truth be told, I feared him and mostly I tried to avoid him.
So you might be thinking, “Jamie, don’t be so hard on yourself!” A lot of people have told me that, especially early in my life, and it might sound like I’m being harsh on me.
The truth is, when I question my thoughts, I feel liberated. And I see how powerful I really am in creating the results in my life by entertaining thoughts that generate feelings that generate actions that generate results. And I see that I have the choice of not believing negative thoughts, not having them.
And I can see that without this negative thought, the negative story that I need him to respect me and it was unfair, I see that I’m actually doing well. That I am free. I am free to make choices in my life, and in fact, I am grateful for the experience. It gave me a valuable lesson in life and work and negotiations. And in fact, truth be told, I have written about how I’ve bungled my salary on LinkedIn and it’s on the Muse and I’m talking about it again. The experience was instructive.
Ironically, the inversions of my negative thoughts are actually closer to the truth. The truth being I gave the fund 50% of my commitment and focus. I held back on expressing myself out of fear. I held back on speaking up. I held back on negotiating. That was my part.
Here’s another truth: I want me to give me respect. I want me to respect myself. I also want to earn people’s respect. I don’t want it handed to me by people that I don’t respect, like my boss.
When you consider the truth, it just makes me feel almost giddy and I feel compassion for my younger self.
Look, I’m not condoning the practice of underpaying people, no matter how inexperienced they are, as I was ten years ago. The point I’m making, again and again, is that I have the power to choose my thinking. I have the power to choose my action. Choices that generate results. We all do.
And this is what I see in my clients, as Rich Litvin said, I have experienced feeling powerless and that helps me see how powerful people really are. How powerful my clients are, especially when they feel that they don’t have power.
I work as a negotiation and leadership coach. This is really important because negotiating, leading the conversation, influencing people, these are all acts of power.
The power to question negative thoughts that hold you back.
The power to see yourself with agency to change perspectives and results.
The power to engage in conversation with other people as their colleagues, not adversaries.
You do have the power, so what will you do with it?
Yeah, I’m really asking you. What will you do with it?
This has been such a joy for me to revisit the feeling of powerlessness, revisit that feeling of resentment and see that no, actually, we are really powerful.
And on that note, I am leaving on vacation at the end of this week and in the meantime, I wish you a wonderful week, and if you want to learn more about my services, come check out jamieleecoach.com. Talk to you soon!
Why We Need to Talk About the "F" Word in Negotiation
“How you feel doesn’t matter.” “Women are emotional and therefore make terrible negotiators.” “Your feelings are a weakness.” These are all myths that undermine our humanity and undermine our potential for negotiation success.
To feel is to be human. To have emotional intelligence is to have a secret weapon in a negotiation.
I explain the importance of feelings in negotiation and invite you to join me for a free teleclass on using advanced emotional intelligence for negotiation success.
“How you feel doesn’t matter.” “Women are emotional and therefore make terrible negotiators.” “Your feelings are a weakness.” These are all myths that undermine our humanity and undermine our potential for negotiation success.
To feel is to be human. To have emotional intelligence is to have a secret weapon in a negotiation.
I explain the importance of feelings in negotiation and invite you to join me for a free teleclass on using advanced emotional intelligence for negotiation success.
Full Episode Transcript:
Hello, welcome to episode seventeen. This is Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I am your host Jamie Lee. I work as a leadership and negotiation coach for women on the rise. I believe that negotiation skills are leadership skills and that we need to talk about the "F" word in negotiation.
No, I'm not talking about the four-letter "F" word. I'm talking about feelings. Yes.
You all have heard this...
"How you feel doesn't matter. Be strong, and don't back down. No matter what."
"Whatever you do at the negotiation, don't get emotional. Just focus on the numbers."
Here's another one: "Women are emotional. Men are rational thinkers and make better negotiators."
Or how about this one: "Your feelings are a weakness."
These are all false. Every single one of them.
Pushing feelings away is like trying to swim underwater without taking breaths. You’ll go five minutes before drowning or popping out of the water, gasping for air.
Likewise, how you feel can make or break your negotiation. That's why, on Thursday April 26, I'm hosting a free tele-class on how to use advanced emotional intelligence for negotiation success. To register, go to this link.
Don’t take my word for it. Take MIT professor Jared R. Curhan’s.
In their research, he and his colleagues at MIT Sloan School of Management and UC Berkeley found that four things are most important to negotiators:
- Their feelings about potential outcomes
- Their feelings about themselves in the negotiation
- Their feelings about the negotiation process
- Their feelings about their relationship with the other negotiator
When you feel optimistic about outcomes, confident about yourself, happy about the process, and connected with the other negotiator, negotiating is like a walk in the park.
When you feel resentful that you don’t have more, insecure about your ability to negotiate, fearful of the process, or angry at the other negotiator, negotiating can be like chewing glass.
It can be painful.
It can feel like things are out of control.
It can be tempting to react by making demands, running out, or starting a fight, which I promise you will backfire.
Here’s what I want to offer.
Feelings are not irrational or irrelevant.
Feelings are generated by your thoughts.
You have the power to generate new thoughts.
That means you have the power to deal with negative emotions and generate positive emotions, so you can bring your full capacity for problem-solving, creativity, and leadership to the table.
So when it comes to negotiating, you have the choice. You can either chew glass or take a walk in the park.
So my question to you is: Which do you prefer?
In conclusion, contrary to popular misconception, emotions rule in negotiation.
Smart negotiators prepare a logical case. Masterful negotiators use advanced emotional intelligence to connect with their counterparts in a meaningful way to create durable agreements that unlock benefit for both sides of the table.
If you'd like to learn more, I invite you to join the free tele-class on Thursday, April 26. Click here to register.
Interview with Kathlyn Hart: Desire More. Earn More. Give More.
My special guest Kathlyn Hart is creator of Be Brave Get Paid, a salary negotiation bootcamp for women. In addition, she hosts The Big Leap Show podcast where she interviews badass women about the journey from dreaming to doing.
In this episode, she shares the biggest lesson she learned as an "aftermath of a terrible negotiation" in her freelance career and how the biggest hurdle to negotiation success is often our money beliefs.
My special guest Kathlyn Hart is creator of Be Brave Get Paid, a salary negotiation bootcamp for women. In addition, she hosts The Big Leap Show podcast where she interviews badass women about the journey from dreaming to doing.
In this episode, she shares the biggest lesson she learned as an "aftermath of a terrible negotiation" in her freelance career and how the biggest hurdle to negotiation success is often our money beliefs.
Episode Highlights:
Why do we hold ourselves back?
Kathlyn shares what she learned from "an aftermath of a terrible negotiation." As a business owner she was once reluctant to raise her rates from $150/hour to $300/hour. When her business partner suggested they negotiate with their clients for a rate increase, she wasn't on board at first. She later realized it was her money beliefs holding her back from feeling confident that she could earn more.
In the interview, she shares how doubling her consulting rate led to an "ah-ha" moment that eventually inspired her to start teaching women how to negotiate for what they want.
Why it's all about reframing
Why do women excel at negotiating on behalf of others, but not for themselves?
Kathlyn suggests reframing negotiation as simply a conversation, where two people with different agendas come together to try to make it work.
Negotiation is simply:
- Understanding what you want
- Having a conversation to find out what the other side wants
- Finding compromise or middle ground so you can work together with the other side
Leaders negotiate
Leading is not about commanding or controlling people without listening to their needs. Kathlyn says,
When we're being good human beings, we can become better negotiators, and better leaders, along the way.
Negotiation Advice for Women Who Want to Close Their Wage Gaps
1. Get clear on your money beliefs.
Do you believe that you have "enough money to get by" or that money won't make you happy? Kathlyn shares how this belief once held her back from desiring more and asking for more.
Truth is money itself won't make you happy. But when you don't have money, you may experience stress, anxiety, fear, and anger because of the money you don't have. When you do have money, you can experience freedom, happiness, growth, and contribution. Money can free you to make a bigger contribution towards the causes, nonprofits, or projects that you stand for.
2. Desire more.
You can desire more from a place of abundance. You can feel grateful for what you have and desire more at the same time. It's not gross or nasty or greedy or bad to desire more.
When you desire more, you'll be motivated to negotiate and ask for what you want. When you ask for what you want, you're 100% more likely to get what you want than when you don't ask.
3. Embrace your ambition.
Regardless of your culture or background, ultimately there's no shame in having ambition.
So embrace your ambition. Get clear on what your ambition is, and take action on your desires by asking for what you want.
4. Don't negotiate against yourself before you negotiate.
Sometimes we negotiate against ourselves by letting fear talk us out of applying for hot jobs, or stretch assignments that pay better. Kathlyn says,
What's the harm in reaching for the better paying job? The only risk is a bruised ego.
Remember that 80% of success is psychology. 20% is tactics.
Be Brave Get Paid
To learn more about Kathlyn's bootcamp, go to bebravegetpaid.com
To learn more about working with Kathlyn one-on-one, go to kathlynhart.com
Three Surprising Negotiation Insights From Women in Auto
What are the negotiation secrets of women leaders in the automobile industry?
I share inspiring insights from the Women in Automobile Networking Breakfast at the New York Auto Show and talk about how you can apply these insights to gain the upper hand in your career negotiations.
Click here to download the free script: How to Ask for a Big Pay Raise.
What are the negotiation secrets of women leaders in the automobile industry?
I share inspiring insights from the Women in Automobile Networking Breakfast at the New York Auto Show and talk about how you can apply these insights to gain the upper hand in your career negotiations.
Click here to download the free script: How to Ask for a Big Pay Raise.
Full Episode Transcript*:
(*This transcript has been edited for accuracy)
Hello! Welcome to the twelfth episode of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I am your host, Jamie Lee. I work as a negotiation and leadership coach for women on the rise.
Yesterday, I got to give a keynote at Women in Auto. This was a networking breakfast held at the Javits Center where the New York Auto Show is happening right now. I got to meet and hear from some really amazing, impressive women leaders in the auto industry, and to provide some context as to how impressive that really is, I’ll share some information with you.
In America, women influence 85% of car buying decisions, and that’s equivalent to $550 billion in car revenues. That’s a lot of money that women influence, and yet only 26% of the jobs in the auto industry are held by women. So, the women leaders, executives in the auto industry, they truly are pioneers in a male-dominated industry.
Something really interesting that I observed yesterday was that right before I got on the stage, the organizer asked the audience a question. She said, “How many of you enjoy negotiating?” And half of the room raised their hands. That’s admirable and also unusual.
Maybe it’s my stereotype, but a lot of women do say that they don’t like to negotiate, that they don’t enjoy it, but half of the room yesterday at Women in Auto said they do. I think this is indicative of their attitude toward negotiating.
So, women who say they do like negotiating, they are more likely to see it as a fun challenge that will help them grow their skills and help them gain value and engage, connect, collaborate.
Whereas women who say that they don’t like to negotiate, they see negotiation as a “rough” conversation. That it’s a game rigged against them, that they’re going to lose something. That they have to compromise, and they feel sort of let’s say, like they’re already at a disadvantage before they go into the conversation, because they see themselves not as somebody who’s going to learn and grow from the conversation, but somebody who has to give something up.
So, how do you see yourself? Do you enjoy negotiation or do you dread it? And if you dread it, maybe you can start thinking of it in different ways, so that you wouldn’t dread it as much.
So, let me share with you some of the really inspiring insights that I gained from listening to the leading women in auto. There were two speakers in particular who really touched me, who really moved me.
The first speaker, her name is Suzanne, and she is the GM, she is the General Manager at Helms Brothers Auto, which is one of the biggest Mercedes resellers in New York, and she said she started as a receptionist more than thirty years ago in the auto industry and she worked herself up to become the General Manager.
She emphasized two points. One is the importance of improving yourself every day. She said that she improves herself every day so that she can have a positive influence on others, and I thought that was really inspiring.
The second was the importance of being consistent. Being consistent even when there are so many changes in the industry, and every day there are unknowns and curveballs thrown her way, but every day she is consistent in her effort to add value. I thought that was really inspiring, too.
She was asked, “So, how do you negotiate? What is the secret to your negotiation success?” and that really got my ear and I jotted this down.
She shared three tidbits which I thought were all amazing.
The first is that knowledge is power. The more you know, the more confident you will be. I think that makes total sense because 80% of your negotiation success is your research, is how well you have prepared and what you know going into the conversation.
The second secret to her negotiation success was that she knows her value and she knows how to articulate it. If you’re curious about how to do that, again, you can check out the previous podcast episodes number 8 and number 9, as well as number 10, all around how to articulate your value and how to speak your value without fear and anxiety.
Number three, the third secret to her success, was that you get back what you give. I thought that was really powerful, and that also reminded me of another inspiring quote by motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, who said,
You can get everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.
And I think that is a really great definition of adding value. How do you gain value? You gain value when you have contributed value to others.
And, finally, there was a speaker, her name was Kathy Gilbert, and she is the Director of Sales and Business Development for this major organization called CDK Global, and she talked about how to define success for yourself, and the importance of integrity, diversity and culture.
She is a black woman, and she rose through the ranks as well to become Director of Sales and Business Development for this major organization that works with the automotive industry, including women dealers, manufacturers, vendor partners, and affiliate organizations. She was very authentic in her speech, and in the middle of the speech she said, “Here’s how I know I am a success. It’s because I am here. I am here with you on a Thursday morning at the Javits Center, celebrating my birthday. I’m speaking at the New York Auto Show, telling my story to women in the automotive industry, and that’s how I know that I am successful. Because I am here.”
I thought that was really powerful, and so did everyone else. We all applauded, because we realized: Oh, yeah! We’re here. We’re right here and we are successful with you, Kathy.
And what she showed us by her example was that you get to define success for yourself, and it’s so powerful to see people do it, because it gives us permission to do it for ourselves. And what that clued me into is that, like success, which we can define for ourselves, we can also define what is valuable or what is value.
Now when you hear me say that, you might be thinking, “No, Jamie, you don’t understand. It’s just about the money!” Yes, money is definitely a yardstick of success that a lot of people agree on.
If you contribute value, money will come your way. However, money is not necessarily success.
Money is not the definition of success, nor is it the definition of value.
So, what is value? We talk about value all the time in negotiation. How do you create value? How do you articulate value? Collaborate to gain value? I’ve been listening to The Life Coach School Podcast by Brooke Castillo and recently she did an episode about money, and it came to a really surprising conclusion that illuminated what value is and where it comes from.
Basically, she says, value is created in the mind. I’ll say it again. Value is created in the mind. That makes a lot of sense to me, because you can have the same object, let’s say a beautiful dress, and the same dress can be of different value to one person and completely no value to another. It’s how we define value in our minds, and even money.
I’m traveling to Asia in the spring, and the currency, the value of a dollar has changed over time because people have decided that a dollar is now less valuable than a Japanese yen. And again, that’s because we made that decision in our minds. Value is created in the mind.
So, I’ll wrap this up with a helpful tip. How can you apply all of this so that you can negotiate successfully in your life? I think two things.
First, really get clear on what you value. What is important to you? What is worth the effort, what is worth the aggravation of engaging in a negotiation for you? How do you define value?
And also, how will you define success for yourself? In other words, what do you want and why is it important to you?
Secondly, find out what your negotiation counterpart values. This will help you gain the upper hand. If you understand what they value, what this money or this contract or this deal or getting a yes, what it means to them and why it is valuable to them, you will be able to get through, you will be able to influence, and you will be able to get that yes.
So, I wish you great success in your negotiation and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.
Ding! 5 Minute Exercise for Negotiation Anxiety
Does the thought of negotiating for yourself make your hands go clammy, your throat dry and your heart beating fast?
I share the good news about negotiation anxiety, the tough news (not bad, just tough) and a five minute exercise for overcoming anxiety so you can take confident action towards your goals.
Does the thought of negotiating for yourself make your hands go clammy, your throat dry and your heart beating fast?
I share the good news about negotiation anxiety, the tough news (not bad, just tough) and a five minute exercise for overcoming anxiety so you can take confident action towards your goals.
Full Episode Transcript:
Hello! Welcome to the eleventh episode of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I am your host, Jamie Lee. We’ve been talking about the key practices for negotiation success on this podcast, and I shared my free script on how to ask for a big pay raise.
I got unexpected feedback that some people thought it doesn’t apply to them. That this wouldn’t work for them because they haven’t contributed as much value as Karina did in the example that I give in this book. That clued me into the fact that I’ve overlooked one of the most important negotiations that we ever have. It’s the one we have with ourselves.
What am I talking about? I’m talking about negotiation anxiety. I’m talking about that clammy feeling in your hands, when your mouth goes dry and your heart starts beating really fast before you negotiate, and for some, it’s so bad they just don’t negotiate.
They let that anxiety hold them back from initiating a conversation, engaging and asking for what they want. How do we overcome this? I have for you, the good news, the tough news - it’s not bad news, it’s just tough news that we can process - and then a quick, five-minute exercise for overcoming negotiation anxiety so that you can articulate your value, advocate for your value, ask and get what you want.
So, what’s the good news? The good news about negotiation anxiety is that really, when you boil it down to the essentials, it’s basically just a thought. A stressful thought that causes a vibration in your body.
That’s the good news, because number two: it’s true that you’re not your thoughts. You can have the thoughts. What you feel, what you experience when you have that thought, it’s not really you, it’s just the thought.
And then finally, the third good news is that you can have new thoughts. You can generate new thoughts. This is basically not unlike reframing, when you create new perspectives, new ideas in a negotiation. Just like that, you can have new thoughts in your head.
So, what’s the tough news?
Three key news. The first is that no one teaches us how to do this, really. I’ve read many, many negotiation books, but no one talks about how to overcome your negotiation anxiety so that you can show up with real confidence. They just tell you, don’t be emotional. It doesn’t really help, because emotions drive our actions and our decision-making process.
And number two: the tough news is that without overcoming negotiation anxiety, we’ll never actually feel good, even when we get what we want. In other words, without overcoming negotiation anxiety, we never feel successful, so that’s kind of tough.
The third news is that generating new thoughts and feeling successful, it takes practice.
So, what do we do? What are the four key steps? Think about a stressful conversation or a negotiation that’s causing you anxiety. I want you to hear a bell go off in your head when you feel that dread and anxiety. The clammy hands, the heart palpitating, your shoulders stiffening up, and you feel that negative emotion and the vibration in your body. Feel a DING go off. What is DING? It’s basically an acronym, D-I-N-G.
D - Deep breath. Relax. Try to relax. And you can do it by taking a deep breath in and a full breath out. I learned that when you are feeling anxious, you actually don’t exhale fully. You’re trying to take a breath in, you’re feeling anxious, and you’re going like this (hyperventilating), but you don’t ahhhhhh, exhale fully. So, breathe in for four, exhale for six. Something I learned in elementary school that still works. Take a deep breath. (I do this as part of my morning meditation every day)
I - Identify your feeling. What is that vibration? Where is it in your body? Do you feel it in your neck? In your shoulder? In your solar plexus? In your hands? Just feel it. Identify it. Be with it. Observe it. Own it, so that you can release it. And now, the N.
N - Name that thought. What is that sentence in your head that’s causing the vibration? Ask yourself: what am I thinking? What is the stressful thought? And for many people it’s a variation on: I’m not good enough. I haven’t done enough. I’m a hack. I’m not good enough. There’s something wrong with me. Okay, so once you have identified your emotions and have named that thought or that sentence, it’s the G.
G - Go change the thought. Now, if you’re thinking oh, she’s gonna be like oh, just turn it around, make it all positive, happy-go-lucky, you’re thriving! No. Actually, no. Don’t turn it around to the positive just yet. And that’s because we want to train our brain to think in a new way, and when we try to give it new, positive thoughts, it just does this reverse thing.
It’s just like: Ugh, it’s too positive, I can’t believe it. In fact, it’s so positive that it turns me off, and I’m just gonna go more negative because I feel I can’t believe it.
So we want to train our brains to have new thoughts by training it to think in increments or baby steps. And so, from having that thought I’m not good enough, go to a neutral place.
A positive change to that thought I’m not good enough might be something like, I’m amazing! I’m thriving! I’m so happy! But when you try to believe that thought, you just feel kind of more turned down, not turned up, so go neutral.
What’s in between the thought I’m not good enough and I am amazing? Completely neutral might be something like: I exist. I do the work that I have.
So from there, go find evidence to support that neutral thought. I do the work that I have. Did you have a task item on your list that you crossed off today? Do you carry the function that you’re assigned to do? What is the evidence that you do the work that you have? What is the evidence that you simply exist? And now that you have a neutral thought, and you have evidence to support this new thought, can you believe it? And how does it feel?
It might sound a little self-help-y. It might sound something like: Wait, why aren’t you giving me negotiation tips and tricks and strategies? I just want to make the money, I just want to go close my wage gap.
But the thing is, in order for us to close our wage gaps, in order for us to show up as leaders, the kind of leaders that we want to be in the world, we have to have confidence, right? And confidence comes from taking action, but we feel so much anxiety that we’re frozen and can’t take action, we don’t get confident. And where does action come from? Confident action comes from a feeling that you have. The conviction in your body. And the feeling comes from a thought that you have in your head, the belief inside of you that you are worth it. That there is something to take action for. That there is something worth taking a risk for.
So, I really want to encourage you to take time to feel the anxiety that you feel when you have a negotiation coming up, when you have a difficult conversation coming up. The good news is that you can turn it around, and you can start with neutral thoughts. When you have neutral thoughts you are feeling something different and taking a different action.
So, I hope that this podcast was helpful for you. I hope that I have helped you see negotiation anxiety in a different light, and that you take action on the things that you want, you take action on becoming the leader that you want to be.
Thank you, and talk to you soon!
Five Minute Exercise for Speaking Your Value
I share a quick and fun exercise for crafting your unique value statement so you can negotiate with power and poise. I also offer my free script “How To Ask For A Big Pay Raise”.
I share a quick and fun exercise for crafting your unique value statement so you can negotiate with power and poise. I also offer my free script “How To Ask For A Big Pay Raise”.
Click here to download the free script.
Full Podcast Transcript:
Hello! Welcome to the tenth episode of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I am your host, Jamie Lee. I work as a coach, speaker, trainer and I believe that we are all born to thrive. And I want to help you thrive. I want to help you close your wage gap.
If you write me an email at jamie@jamieleecoach.com, I will send you my script on how to ask for a big pay raise. This script is based on a real life scenario. I will call my client Karina for the purpose of this podcast. And Karina, she used this script, a version of this script, to ask and get a 44% increase in her salary with stock options. So this script worked for her, and if you are somebody who contributes undeniable value at work but is underpaid for the value you bring, I think this script can help you. So please write me at jamie@jamieleecoach.com (or click here to download the script).
Lately, I’ve been working on my own website. I was working with She Negotiates for the past year and a half, and I have decided to strike out on my own as a leadership and negotiation coach for ambitious women.
So, today I’ve been working on crafting my own unique value statements. If you listened to the previous episode, you would know that articulating your unique value is the first key practice for negotiation success.
What is your unique value?
Today I had to ask that to myself many times over, and I just come back to this over and over again: that I am here to help other people maximize their potential so that they can thrive. So that other people can thrive.
I really believe in serving others. I believe in making a contribution. I believe in doing work that has meaning, that is bigger than myself, and I’m really excited to do the work that I do, and I hope that you are excited, too. If you want to work on your unique value proposition statement, I have a really quick and fun exercise that I shared with Smith College alums on Monday night that I’d love to share with you.
So, here’s the exercise: Grab a piece of paper and pen. I’ll wait. If you have a piece of paper or if you are on your smartphone, if you can open your Notes app while you’re listening to this, do it. You’re going to make some very simple lists, and then at the end of it, you’re going to distill what you learn from this exercise into a succinct and cogent statement of your unique value.
So, here’s the first list: What are you most proud of? What are you most proud of accomplishing in the past year, past month, past quarter? Don’t think too hard about this, just whatever comes up, write it down. Write as many as you can fit. And try to be specific, and if you have facts and figures, all the better.
Then the second list is: What do you stand for? What are your values? And if you do have a specific negotiation conversation, and for the purpose of clarity, negotiation is simply a conversation where you’re trying to reach an agreement. So if you’re trying to get somebody to agree with you, and if you know them, what do they stand for? And what do they stand against? And what do you stand against? If you stand for something, then you’re definitely against some other things, right? So, just write those things, and compare your list against the things that you know the other side, your negotiation counterpart, also stands for or also stands against. In other words, find where you share values. So, that’s a list.
And then the third list is where you can go really crazy. Crazy imaginative. What are you capable of? What is your future potential?
In the last episode, we talked briefly about how us women, we don’t always get rewarded for our future potential as much as men do.
This is something that Dr. Johanna Barsh found out in her gender research, and something that Sheryl Sandberg also talked about in her book, Lean In.
What is your future potential? What are you capable of? What’s possible? Be as imaginative as you can be. Don’t hold yourself back by the voice of the Itty Bitty Shouldy Committee that tells you, “Who do you think you are?!” If you can quiet that voice down, and just let yourself imagine all the things that you can do, what’s possible?
Okay, so now you have three lists.
The first is things that you are proud of having accomplished.
Second is the list of your values, and if you have a negotiation counterpart, and you do know them, and if you do know what they stand for or what they stand against, then you also know where you share values with the other side. So this is really important and useful.
Third, you have a list of your potential, your future potential. What can you do? What kind of leader can you be?
And finally, now that you have drawn this exhaustive list, I want you to distill the common themes, the key themes, the things that just keep popping up over and over again in terms of your proud accomplishments, your values, and what you are capable of and want to achieve.
You’re going to distill this into one specific statement that goes like this: I _______________ , and this blank is an active verb, so that _____________________.
I drive partnerships so that we can exceed our goals.
I connect the dots for our donors so that they can see the tremendous value that we deliver to our constituents.
I teach negotiation skills so that women can lead, influence and thrive.
So those were three specific examples. I’d love to know what you come up with when you do this exercise. This was really fun to do in person earlier this week, when I led a negotiation workshop in Philadelphia. When people did this exercise and they got to share it with each other, there was this great sense of empowerment. They were like, “Yeah! This is what I’m capable of, and this is my unique value!”
And then, the second part to this is dovetailing it with your reasonably ambitious ask. So the unique value statement, if it is cogent, if it is to the point, if it is relevant to the listener, then what you accomplish by speaking your unique value statement is framing for mutual benefit. And then you can dovetail it with your ask by saying, “And that’s why I believe I deserve the high end of the going market rates, and that is $150,000.” Or whatever you want to ask for.
So to wrap this up, I hope that this quick and fun exercise helps you clarify your unique value, and helps you negotiate with confidence and power so that you can thrive. Thank you!
How to Listen with Respect So You Can Get Respect
Listening - true, heart-to-heart listening - is so rare these days. That's why when you master the three levels of listening, you'll become influential, respected and magnetic to the people you engage with.
Listening - true, heart-to-heart listening - is so rare these days.
That's why when you master the three levels of listening, you'll become influential, respected and magnetic to the people you engage with.
Transcript:
The three levels of listening is a transformational concept that really changed everything for me, as a coach, trainer and as a person who relates to other people. I learned this concept from Co-Active Coach Training, and you can read about it in their book Co-Active Coaching.
If you want to become an influential leader and if you want to create durable agreements as the outcome of your negotiations, you need to listen.
Listening - true, heart-to-heart listening - is so rare these days. Therefore it is highly valued. People will respect you. People will be drawn to you. People will come to agree with you if you listen well.
Level 1 - Me Me Me
You're probably very familiar with this level. We all are. Basically, it's when you listen while thinking, "How does this relate to ME?" "What smart thing can I say to impress the other person?" "How can I interrupt?" "How can I make MY point?"
"How can I talk about ME, ME, ME?"
It's when people are kinda listening - but not really - and really they're just waiting for their turn to speak.
I'd say about 95% of the time we're listening at level 1. I think it's because we all want to be heard so badly. The need to be heard keeps us at the most basic level of listening, at level 1.
The thing is, listening is like respect. You don't get listened to by forcing your point on other people. You get listened to when you listen to other people. Like how you get respect by giving respect.
Level 2 - Curious and Listening into the Heart of the Other
It's when you're not just listening to the words, but you're also curious about the emotion behind the words. You're curious about what's not being said. You're curious about the connection between what IS being said and HOW it is being said.
So you're not just listening with your ears. You're taking in the speaker with your senses, with your eyes.
I once read that 90% of the information that the brain processes is visual.
That's why when you communicate, you want to communicate in such a way that your facial expression and body language are dovetailing what you're saying.
Often we feel one way but say another. If someone asks me, "Will you go to the movies with me?" and I respond with reluctance in my voice, you can probably tell that I don't actually want to go to the movies.
So how do you engage the other side when you're listening at level two? It's really good to clarify and confirm what you're hearing and seeing. Is there a connection? Or is there a disconnect? What is the underlying emotion?
Start with sentences that start with "It seems that..." "I hear that..." or "It sounds like..." And then you invite the speaker to clarify or confirm by asking, "Where am I wrong?"
To go back to the movies scenario, if someone asks me, "Will you go to the movies with me?" and I respond, "Sure...," and if they were actually curious and listening at level two, they may respond by saying, "Hmm... It sounds like from the tone of your voice that you're not all that excited about the idea of going to the movies. Where am I wrong?"
To which, I might say, "You know, you're not wrong. I'm not all that excited about going to the movies, I'd much rather stay home and read my magazine." Now we have understanding.
Listening at level two and asking, "Where am I wrong?" is a powerful strategy that I recommend for both conflict resolution and negotiation.
Listening at level two is powerful, because it will help you gather information, understand the other side, and create a bond. When there is a bond and the other side feels they've actually been heard, transformations can happen.
Level 3 - Global Listening, Reading the Room
Influential people are adept at level three listening. Stand-up comedians, public speakers, CEOs - people who are in tune with what is going on in the room - listen at level three. They ask, "What is here right now, in this room?"
In the Co-Active Coaching book, the authors described level three listening as "listening to the radio waves."
That's a really cool metaphor. But how do you listen to the radio waves? I mean, they're silent.
I think what the authors are referring to is the ability to intuit what's going on. You feel the radio waves with your intuition.
How do you communicate this? How do you know that you're listening at level three?
It's not very hard, actually.
Let me give you a vivid example.
I've been watching "Queer Eye" on Netflix, and I notice that every episode starts with the Fab Five - the five gay guys who are going to transform and make over a straight guy - going into the straight guy's house. They have this rambunctious, high-energy interaction where they are going through the straight guy's closet, trying on his clothes, making funny comments, and being goofy.
So what's going on in that room? What is the level of energy in that room?
I'd say it's high energy. It's playful, funny, a little uncomfortable, and awkward for the straight guy. There's a bit of tension but it's also really fun to watch.
If you were in that room, how would you feel the energy and how would you articulate it?
Then at the end of the episode, the Fab Five do what coaches would call acknowledgement. They sit down with the straight guy. They say, "Okay, so this is the last conversation. We want you to know that you're beautiful inside. You are powerful. You can do this. You are capable of change."
Often what happens is that there is open vulnerability. There is real love in that room. I get the chills just thinking about it. Every time I watch that segment in the show, it brings me to tears.
What's going on in that room? There is love. There is this melting of the hearts. You can see it. You can feel it. You know it.
Today, I challenge you to check in with yourself when you're engaged in conversation or when you are in a room full of people. Are you engaged in level one or level two?
Then tap into your level three and into your intuition. Ask yourself, "What's going on in this room? Is there high energy? Is it low? Is it anxious? What's going on?"
You will realize that you are capable of listening at a higher level, and when you tap into that you'll become a more influential person. People will feel that they've been heard and that they've been respected. And when people feel that they've been respected, they will respect you.