Women Don't Ask
Here are notes - >Thanks all who could make it.
Notes from Dr. Linda Babcock's talk:
Linda has a great new book coming out this spring! YAY
We start the talk
Intro’ing Dr. Linda Babcock, our speaker.
– Intro to Dr. Babcock
Key take-aways from Dr. Babcock:
2003: Women Don’t Ask is published.
Linda talks about in her book and in this podcast she will cover:
- How much is cost women when we don’t ask/negotiate
- The research that documents why women don’t ask
- How they can learn to ask
How much we lose when we don’t negotiate.
Out of undergrad, if women do not negotiate their starting salary, women can lose about $568,000 over the course of her career in lost income, because her base salary is lower than it might have been. That’s a one-time negotiation at the beginning of your career.
The number is a lot higher if you think of someone entering with a graduate degree, say a Masters of Science or Masters of Business Administration. The lost income over the course of a woman’s career could be as much as $1,600,000.
This is money that people, men and women, leave on the table when they don’t negotiate their starting salary. These numbers are truly astounding. Of course, these numbers would be even bigger if we consider negotiating for raises.
Linda tells us about how she got interested in this topic. This is the case of women graduate students not getting as choice assignments or pay as their male counterparts.
Linda is the manager of the PhD students.
Three graduate female students went in to talk to Linda, and they wanted to know why all the male graduate students had been assigned to teach courses, and they were not given the same opportunities. The female students had been assigned as teaching assistants, not given classes to teach. There is a big status difference between given a course to teach and being a teaching assistant, as well as a big income difference. They didn’t think it was fair, and neither did Linda.
When Linda talked to the Dean of her school, Mark Wessel, he looked over the list of students that had requested teaching courses, and realized that the students that had asked to teach were all men. None of the women had come to ask to teach. Turns out, the women students thought that if there were teaching opportunities, some one would have sent around an email, giving information on how to volunteer for teaching assignments. The women students were waiting for an opportunity to be offered to them.
The male students, as a result, got better positions after graduating. Men tend to, in Linda’s research, ask more than women.
Linda mentions some of her studies, in and out of the laboratory.
Men negotiate about three times as much as women.
It’s a broad phenomenon, and it’s not just about money or your salary. Women are less likely to negotiate lots of things in your organization, like asking directly for a promotion, or asking for a type of experience in your organization that will put you in line for your next promotion. It’s a lot of little things that help men rise up the corporate ladder a little faster than women, because their out there, negotiating more.
Linda talks about her “Boggle” Negotiating Experiment
Negotiating for Pay
8x times as many men negotiated their pay, versus women.
Linda talks about her surveying new Carnegie Mellon grads.
Who negotiated their new jobs?
12.5% women negotiated their new salaries after graduation.
51.5% of men negotiated new salaries after graduation.
4 times as many men negotiated, versus their female classmates.
Why are women not negotiating?
- Socialization
- Fear of Backlash
- Access to Networks
1. Socialization
People treat children differently, based on their gender. Mentions studies of infants and how parents describe their children. Boys are sturdy, girls are weaker, fragile. Researchers cannot find objective difference. We have an idea of how little girls and boys are supposed to be, and we are seeing them through those lenses, and we treat them differently.
If you look at Saturday morning cartoons, 82% of cartoon main characters are male. Only 18% of characters are female. Female characters are generally secondary characters. So what children are learning through watching TV is that boys are out having adventures, and girls are kind of secondary.
Socialization also happens through assignment of chores. Girls are given chores that are every-day sorts of activities (tidying, setting the table, folding clothes, etc.) and give boys chores like wash the car, shovel the snow. Because girls chores are very frequent, they often don’t get paid for their chores. Boys chores are more likely to be rewarded with money, whereas little girls learn that work is for love and family, and shouldn’t be expected to be paid.
Boys are learning they are the major characters in life, they get paid what their worth, and they are more assertive, and rewarded for that. Girls grow up learning they are secondary creatures, that they should do work for love.
Boys are rewarded for assertiveness, whereas women are called and considered derogatory things (bitch, ice queen, etc) if they are perceived of as assertive or aggressive.
“2. Negative Backlash” Study on videotaping of men and women negotiating (or not negotiating) their salaries.
(Respondents) People really liked the woman when she did not negotiate, but did not like her at all when she did negotiate. For men, there was virtually no difference (negotiation or not).
Women understand that this commonly happens, and so often hold back when negotiating jobs or similar scenarios, where they fear a potential negative backlash. That’s one reason women don’t negotiate.
3. Access to networks.
Men spend more time networking with the people that they work with. Networking in a formal way, at work, or in an informal way – golf, going to clubs together, etc. It might seem like fun and games, but at the same time they are learning a lot of information about how to advance in an organization. A lot of information of how you get from point A to point B, and a lot of this information is about what you can negotiate. How can I get to this next level? A guy will learn that it’s about asking for an opportunity, or a certain type of experience or training that will put you in line for the next promotion or position. Women are often excluded from these formal and informal networks.
These three elements are what leads to women not asking: socialization (how we treat our kids), fear of Negative Backlash, and access to networks.
Next Linda talks about how to overcome these barriers, and how to learn how to use negotiation more effectively.
Linda pauses for questions. She mentions resources, will pass along via the list.
Gender and the employer. Linda has found that both men and women discriminate against a women more harshly when the woman negotiates versus if she does not. It’s subtle and we may not even be aware of it.
Discussion of race, class? Does this break down by any segments?
The gender gap in negotiating, is similar along age and class status. Don’t have enough race data to make any conclusions, but hope to find it and hope to also spur international studies.
How do we fix it?
Linda talks about Six Steps to Learning to Ask.
- Working on identifying opportunities to negotiate.
- Make a Plan
- Managing Emotions
- Negotiating for Yourself like you would for Others
- Paying attention to how you ask
- Get yourself psyched up
- Working on identifying opportunities to negotiate.
There are never signs to tell us when to negotiation. Some are easy – like buying a house, or a car. You negotiated these costs. In all other situations, we have to decide for ourselves, if this is an opportunity to negotiate. You have to see all possibilities in life as negotiable. You should say “Yes, everything is negotiable, unless it is clearly not.” (i.e. cost of gas) Can negotiate all sorts of things, oil changes, coupons for restaurants, clothing. Think about the possibilities in life. Lots of opportunities can be negotiated, and you should go and try.
2. Making a Plan
You want to make a plan when negotiating. Preparation is key.
Establish an appropriate target or goal. Women tend to set lower goals. We have to be careful that we aren’t underselling ourselves. It’s important to understand what the market value is of your skills and abilities. Benchmark you skills and abilities, relative to your field, and it will help you establish targets and goals. Gather as much information as you can. Setting targets is key. Also know what issues are of interest to the other party you are negotiating with, so you can assuage their fears and get them on your side.
3. Managing Emotions
Positive emotions are really effective and contagious. And helpful to you when negotiating, to diffuse tension. Negative emotions are also similarly contagious, but can damage your relationship with the person you’re negotiating with.
The best way to manage your emotions is to rollplay as a method of practice. The reason this is effective in controlling emotions is that emotions effect us the most when they surprise us, and it’s better from a negotiating standpoint to block the emotion, rather than just dealing with it. In a rollplay, you can anticipate and deal with the harshest of outcomes, so that you experience the emotion in the rollplay, and it doesn’t happen to you or effect you when the actual negotiation is going on.
Also don’t be afraid to take a break from the negotiation to restore equilibrium, so you can attack the negotiation in a constructive way.
4. Negotiating for Yourself like you would for Others
Linda’s research shows that women are terrific negotiators… for other people. Great at negotiating for their family, their colleagues or organizations, or the causes they believe in, all of those things, when it concerns some thing or one. But when we negotiate for ourselves, is when the socialization kicks in and we revert to not negotiating. Try to think about “if this was my best friend’s negotiation, how would I feel?” You might feel more positively about it, and we need to change those emotions so we feel them for ourselves.
5. Paying attention to how you ask.
This is about reframing language.
Very direct and assertive language is difficult for women. Linda suggests using cooperative tactics, rather than competitive approaches. Competitive (I win, you lose) is often less effective. Cooperative tactics are more about problem solving, rather than a war. They are very effective at helping women getting what they want, without bumping up against certain norms that cause the negative backlash.
6. Getting yourself psyched up
Walk in to a negotiation with a very upbeat attitude. Some people exercise, listen to music, wear a great suit – whatever it is, get into the right, positive frame of mind.
Linda takes Questions from the Group
Cooperative tactics
Style and how you approach negotiations.
Ex. You have a job, and you get another offer from another employer. How do I negotiate with my current job to get what I want and not have to quit my current job.
There are a couple of ways to do this.
Scenario #1: You can go and plainly say: I want you to know I’ve received this other offer, and it’s for a lot more money. I’m going to take it unless you can match it.
That is a threatening framing. Very competitive and wouldn’t recommend anyone use it.
Scenario #2: Treat it as a problem-solving event for you and your employer. “I’ve gotten an offer from another organization, and it would pay a lot more money, but I really wanted to talk to you about it, because I’d really like to find a way to stay. I like my job here. Is there a way we can work this out? Can you match it so I can stay?” We’re in the together, how can we make this possibility work?
It’s more cooperative rather than a threat.
When you make it a problem solving situation rather than a competitive situation, it defused the negative emotion, and involves the other person.
Answers questions on how to set appropriate targets.
Leave your ego out of it, and not about your need, and more about what the market will pay for your skills and abilities. Look at salary.com, payscale.com, and different associations and what the appropriate salary is. Also geographic and other considerations should be taken in to consideration. And use your network to see what others are paid. Knowledge is power!
Talk to your network, talk directly to your employer if you have a strong relationship with your boss. Frame it as an information gathering exercise.
Mentorship is really helpful in any organization. What is the process for being promoted and similar ways to help figure out how to advance. A mentor can help you gather that information.
Other books and authors recommended by Linda:
Negotiation Genius, by two profs at Harvard.
Talks about good cooperative approaches. It is corporate-oriented but a good intro to negotiation.
Classic: Getting to Yes
Outlines the approach to “win-win” scenarios.
Get Paid What you’re Worth
Robin Pinkly
Negotiating Salary
Ask for it
By Linda Babcock, out this February 2008
How do you identify what you want, how do gather information, and avoid backlash.
Linda’s other organizations:
Progress (Program for Research and Outreach on Gender Equity in Society)
The mission of PROGRESS is:
To pursue gender equity and foster positive societal change for all women and girls through education, partnerships, and research.
There is also a Girl Scout badge on negotiation, called “Win-Win” for girls 8-10 years old.
Other websites:
http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/progress/
More about Linda:
http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/bio%5Cfaculty/lb2k.html