Women Don't Ask

by Linda Babcock

  in an integrative approach to bargaining.

  Women Are Better

  If integrative bargaining methods produce superior results in many

  types of negotiations, and women are more likely than men to use these

  methods, this should mean that women actually make better negotiators

  than men. Actually, this appears to be true—at least in situations in

  which women’s cooperative overtures are reciprocated. In one of Lin-

  da’s negotiation experiments, she and her colleague Hannah Riley asked

  pairs of MBAs to conduct a multi-issue negotiation that possessed inte-

  grative potential. Some possible negotiated agreements could be terrific

  for both parties and other possible agreements could be terrible for both

  parties, with a wide range of alternatives in between. Linda and Hannah

  Riley had chosen the issues to be negotiated so that finding the better

  outcomes required the negotiators to share information, and when they

  compared outcomes they discovered that the all-female pairs had out-

  performed the all-male pairs. The agreements reached by the all-female

  pairs were better for both negotiators than those reached by the all-

  male pairs on average.12 This strongly suggests that the female pairs

  shared more information and that the male and female pairs used differ-

  ent techniques and behaviors to achieve their results.

  Our interviews revealed that many women recognize the differences

  between their approach and that of the men around them and believe

  that their less-competitive approach is superior. Ingrid, the city coun-

  cilwoman, explained why she thinks she’s a better negotiator than

  many men:

  I don’t think it’s about me. I can listen, and I have an ability to meet

  people where they’re at, and to negotiate with a diverse set of person-

  alities and I think this can sometimes hold men back. I sort of lack

  the ego that it’s about me and it’s about winning. It’s about the

  goal. . . . It’s about figuring out very pointedly where I need to go

  and how to work with this person to get there. Men I know who are

  even good negotiators often can’t check their ego at the door and that

  can limit their effectiveness.

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  Angela, the community development bank marketing director, said:

  I think I have a less aggressive negotiating style, or less abrasive. . . .

  So, when I was lobbying lots of times I would go on visits with various

  people who wanted the same things. . . . I know that in some cases

  my style was more attractive to who we were trying to persuade than

  others. . . . I think that I’m more genuine in thinking, “you’ve got

  something to contribute, I’ve got something to contribute, let’s get to

  where we need to get here,” rather than, “let me tell you how this is

  going to go.”. . . If it’s somebody who wants to know what we can

  provide, what we can give them, and what we want, and go from

  there . . . that’s more my style, my style is better.

  Looked at from this angle, an aggressively distributive approach to

  negotiating can actually put men at a disadvantage. David, the hedge

  fund manager, told us:

  When I was younger I was a classic male, aggressive, dominant, type-

  A personality. That worked to my detriment many times, not only

  because a lot of people don’t want to deal with you, but people can

  take advantage of that—push your buttons a little bit. Over time and

  with the people I’ve worked with and for, they said, you know, you

  really ought to think about doing this a different way. You can’t be a

  bull in a china shop all of the time. You’ve got to really think about

  what you want, and the best way to get it. You know, all of those silly

  clicheś play in—you draw more flies with honey than vinegar.

  Even when a man takes a competitive approach to negotiation and

  essentially “wins” by setting aggressive goals and resisting concessions,

  he may suffer in the long run. Many men recognize this problem. Rich-

  ard, a microbiologist and the vice president of a pharmaceutical com-

  pany, said: “Men tend to get aggressive faster and they tend to be more

  outwardly assertive, more impatient. It is all sort of this cowboy kind

  of approach. Whereas, women will tend to stay low-key. . . . I think in

  terms of the long term and being a successful negotiator, the man is at

  a disadvantage because of that behavior. . . . The approach that females

  take in general is superior and will get better results over time.”

  As one set of scholars explains, “Seeking to maximize one’s own

  profit in any one bargaining episode may result in short-term gain, but

  may eventually prove harmful to a negotiator’s bargaining position in

  future episodes. Thus, cooperation may be a superior bargaining tactic

  because it offers a long-term perspective.”13 In this, women also have

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  an advantage. Research shows that women are more likely to see a nego-

  tiation as one event in a long-term relationship whereas men are more

  likely to think of it as a “one-shot” deal.14 Heather, the pastor, gave an

  example of how an aggressive, short-term perspective can backfire:

  In a lot of negotiations, there is this sense that someone’s going to

  put a claim out there and that they’re actually willing to negotiate,

  but because it’s put in such an angry, sort of bullying kind of way, I

  find it really hard to engage with that. I just want to have nothing to

  do with that person, if they look like they’re trying to intimidate me

  or shame me. . . . I’m very conscious about how when you negotiate,

  you’re setting up patterns of communication that the person will use

  again with you.

  Of course, very few men behave this badly. But even for more mild-

  mannered men who still think every negotiation is a contest, focusing

  on a short-term perspective may “win the battle, but lose the war.”

  When Advantage Breaks Down

  Although we know that the more cooperative approach women bring

  to negotiation can produce superior results, a good outcome using this

  approach is not guaranteed. When both negotiators don’t share this

  view of a negotiation—if a man and a woman take different “scripts”

  into a negotiation, with the man approaching it as a win/lose situation

  and the woman seeing it as a search for outcomes to benefit both par-

  ties—the woman’s strategy, though potentially superior, can leave her

  vulnerable.

  Linda and Hannah Riley’s study mentioned above, in which the all-

  female pairs outperformed the all-male pairs, produced another inter-

  esting finding: The mixed female-male pairs produced agreements that

  were no better than those produced by the all-male pairs. Not only did

  the females fare much worse when they were negotiating against men

  than when they were negotiating with women, but the “pies” that the

  female/male pairs split up were smaller than the “pies” divided by the all-female pairs. In other words, by sharing information and working

  together, the all-female pairs were abl
e essentially to “enlarge the pie.”15

  By “logrolling” and together taking an integrative approach to the pro-

  cess, they were able to identify hidden benefits for both sides that went

  unnoticed by the pairs that took a more competitive approach. This

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  suggests that the best outcomes are produced in situations in which

  both negotiators take a cooperative rather than an adversarial approach

  to working out a solution—that it takes two women, in other words,

  or two people trained to “negotiate like women,” to produce a superior

  outcome.

  Unfortunately, this study also reveals that going into a negotiation

  with a cooperative approach can make it harder to withstand the on-

  slaught of a more competitive approach. Deborah Kolb and Judith Wil-

  liams, in The Shadow Negotiation, describe a conflict between two doc-

  tors (a male and a female) in the same practice.16 Both doctors wanted

  the same week off, but only the woman worried about the damage to

  their relationship if they could not agree. She thought hard about how

  to resolve their conflict and decided to try “logrolling”—she offered to

  let the other doctor have the week off in return for “first dibs” on the

  summer schedule. He accepted her concession but refused to make one

  in return, saying that the second issue had nothing to do with the first.

  She was expecting a give-and-take interaction in which they each gave

  up something to get something in return (which in her case, but not

  in his, included good working relations in the practice). He saw the

  interaction as “winner-take-all” and interpreted her flexibility not as a

  desire for a favorable outcome for both but as an indication that she

  was “weaker” and would give in to his will.

  We heard similar stories from women who said that they sometimes

  need to negotiate differently with men than with women. Louise, the

  power company executive, said:

  If you’re negotiating with a woman who is approaching it from a

  collaborative point of view, and you are, I think there tends to be

  more open disclosure about what you’re really interested in getting,

  maybe more trust earlier in the process, and so it tends to be sort of

  this process of give-and-take until you both get what you need. In

  negotiating with men, I think there is less willingness to disclose, and

  a lot less confidence that you’re in a situation where you can trust

  what you’re being told.

  Louise described an incident in which the man with whom she was

  negotiating was “very aggressive, very insistent, trying to force a conclu-

  sion as opposed to being willing to talk through the process and figure

  out what the gain was for both. And it was very uncomfortable. And I

  think to some degree I compromised my decision process as a result of

  feeling pressed to behave differently because of his style.”

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  Under these circumstances, the techniques of “negotiation jujitsu”

  described in chapter 5 can sometimes enable a woman to move all sides

  toward cooperation. By “stepping to their side”—acknowledging the

  opposing negotiators’ interests and communicating that she under-

  stands their points of view, asking questions that will draw out informa-

  tion about their needs, and revealing some information and trying to

  get them to reciprocate—she can often reframe the interaction.

  But sometimes these techniques don’t work. Louise said that if none

  of her more cooperative tactics are working, she will behave “more

  like a man” to get what she wants. “I may try the collaborative ap-

  proach,” she said, but if that doesn’t work, “then I may have to try

  something different—bluff, or, you know, grandstand, close my file and

  walk away.”

  Learning how and when to employ these tactics—and building the

  self-confidence to do so comfortably—can take time and experience,

  but women’s relationship skills and social good sense can often provide

  them with a significant advantage in this type of situation as well.

  Beyond Negotiation

  When Sara interviewed Geri, the day care and preschool director, Geri

  talked a lot about her inferior negotiating skills, describing what she

  perceived to be her weaknesses and flaws (“my style is hesitant and

  unsure or more insecure”). She also said that she dislikes negotiation

  because she’s “not good at it.” A few weeks later, Sara interviewed Cece-

  lia, a 46-year-old preschool teacher who had worked for Geri for nine

  years. One of our standard interview questions was: “Is there anyone

  whose negotiating tactics you admire?” When Sara asked Cecilia this

  question, she instantly named Geri, her boss. “What about Geri’s negoti-

  ating tactics do you admire?” Sara asked. “Geri is a very easy person to

  talk to,” Cecilia said. “She’s a good listener. . . . She’s never raised her

  voice to me. And I’ve gotten really angry and she’s always really calm.

  I feel comfortable talking to her. I can go to Geri and talk to her about

  anything.” Cecilia was describing key integrative skills—good listening,

  interest in the other person’s needs, and openness to his or her point

  of view.

  A few days after Cecilia’s interview, Sara saw Geri (Sara’s son at-

  tended Geri’s school) and mentioned that one of her teachers had

  named her as a negotiations role model. Geri initially laughed with dis-

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  belief. But a few days later she called Sara to describe a situation in

  which she recognized that her style had been an advantage. She’d met

  with a representative of the church where the school rents space. The

  school was in the process of being accredited by the National Academy

  of Early Childhood Programs and needed some plumbing and electrical

  work done in order to meet the Academy’s safety standards. It was also

  time to renegotiate the school’s rental fee for the space. Geri was a little

  worried about the meeting because historically the church had been

  reluctant to make capital improvements to the school’s space. She also

  had to negotiate with a new church warden whom she’d never met. So

  rather than going in and laying out her demands, Geri decided to ap-

  proach the meeting simply as an opportunity to get to know the new

  warden and discuss the issues on both sides. She listened respectfully

  to the church’s complaints about the school (mostly regarding parents

  parking in church parking spaces), and instead of insisting on the

  changes she wanted, she asked how they could address the needs of

  both sides. At the end of the meeting, the new warden agreed to make

  the needed improvements and only raised the school’s rent a small

  amount. Geri felt sure that her nonconfrontational style had been a

  major factor in producing such a good outcome.

  Geri’s story is revealing in several ways. First, it illuminates the diffi-

  culty many women have in accurately judging their own skills—and

  th
e tendency of many women to judge themselves according to a male

  standard. Deborah Kolb argues that women often don’t see their negoti-

  ating skills as valuable because their negotiating style differs from the

  dominant style of conducting negotiations, which is a more competi-

  tive, win-or-lose male style.17 The male approach to negotiation (as in

  so many areas of life) was long seen as the right way and the female

  way was regarded as the deviant, inferior way.18 A lot of research in the

  past has suggested that the solution is to “fix the woman”—to teach

  women to do as men do. In more recent years, though, scholars have

  begun to look at women’s negotiation skills in another light—to “see

  difference and value it,” as Kolb writes, and to acknowledge that some-

  times “a woman’s point of view . . . brings theretofore unnoticed bene-

  fits to the negotiation process and the agreements it produces.”19

  Geri’s story also illustrates the ways in which the female advantage

  in negotiating can extend to other parts of life.20 As both Cecilia’s de-

  scription of her boss and Geri’s own interview made clear, Geri’s open,

  relationship-building approach colors her entire management style, and

  the positive results are easy to identify. In a field (early education) noto-

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  rious both for low wages and rapid turnover, Geri’s staff is distinguished

  by remarkable longevity (out of a teaching staff of nine, one teacher has

  worked there for 15 years, one 13, one 11, and one 9). Although you

  may think that Geri’s “feminine” management style is better suited to

  running a preschool than to running General Motors, new scholarship

  suggests that women’s styles may produce superior results even in the

  hard-core business world.

  Sources ranging from management gurus such as Peter Drucker to

  business analysts at consulting firms to self-styled “innovation theorists”

  have all predicted that new approaches will be required for creating

  value in the businesses of the future—approaches that correspond in

  many ways to women’s management and leadership styles. In a 1993

  Harvard Business Review interview, Drucker expressed the opinion that the jobs of managers have completely changed: “You no longer evaluate

  an executive in terms of how many people report to him or her. That