Negotiate This

From the blue-collar construction worker to the CEO, women in the workplace have a particular set of challenges. That's old news. But in Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever's new book, Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide, the authors go beyond the glass ceiling and hone in on one fact: When it comes time for negotiations, women aren't up to snuff. It's not that women are bad negotiators in general. On the contrary, they do very well when dealing on behalf of others. But when it comes time to negotiate for themselves, women go so far as to avoid the process altogether, thus forfeiting opportunities that could advance their careers.

The authors hit upon this idea from their own experiences. Babcock, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, noticed that an inordinate number of male graduate students taught their own courses, whereas females were mostly assistants. When Babcock inquired with the dean why this was the case, he said, "More men ask. The women just don't."

Babcock and Laschever had a hunch that the problem of sheepish women extended beyond the walls of academia to the corporate world. Sure enough, women aren't negotiating in business situations for themselves. The outcome is that females tend to receive less pay and are promoted less often, simply because they fear the process of negotiating.

There are many reasons why women don't ask, and the authors back up their thesis with extensive research and studies in a similar fashion to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. The need of many women to be liked and the value they place on personal relationships are just some of the reasons.

Some of the research we've heard before— like girls learning gender differences at an early age. But they also found that assert-iveness—a key trait for negotiations—is seen as desirable in men, while assertive women are often painted out to be harpies. There's even a program called Bully Broads, where companies send women with tough personal styles to be softened.

The book also explains that there's still a lot of sexism in the workforce. One woman, Sandy, recounts a situation when she worked at a bank as a commercial lending officer. She was trying to persuade one of her customers to borrow a large sum of money. But the client resented having to talk to a woman about his business needs, going so far as to say women were "not business material." He would give the bank his business only if he could deal with a man.

Sandy went back to her bosses, two men, and explained the situation. They supported Sandy and agreed to meet with the client to sort the matter out. In the end, both buckled and agreed to the client's request. In the book, she said "this experience fits into a general prejudice that I had against men in the workplace—that their attitudes and perceptions of women made it difficult to ask for what was fair and right."

It's not all bleak. Babcock and Laschever also explain how women can use certain traits to their advantage when negotiating. And that even though each person will have a different experience every time they sit down at the table, it's the trying that matters in the end. —Jennifer Saba