‘Think About Negotiation As Relationship Management Rather Than A Dealmaking Skill’

It’s a busy month for Alison Fragale. The research psychologist, professor and consultant drops a new book this week, Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve, and on September 24 she will help lead Women Leaders Connect’s next online discussion, Mastering the Art of Negotiation (join us!).

Fragale took a few minutes ahead of the event to talk with us about what’s different for women in negotiations, what’s not—and what both women and men need to do to be top negotiators.

Do women face greater challenges when it comes to negotiating? If so, what are some of the ways they can be at a disadvantage and why?

Yes. To negotiate effectively, we have to balance these two concerns: Be a strong, assertive advocate for what we want, and care about what the other person wants. Doing either one feels easy. Doing both at the same time is what feels challenging for all negotiators, but it can feel uniquely challenging for women because there’s an internal and a societal expectation that you’re going to care about what other people value. And that can come at the expense of you getting what you need.

Has that changed at all in recent years?

Things are changing for the better for women. Twenty-plus years ago, we would see a lot of data that women were not initiating negotiations as much as men. A lot was written about that. And then a lot was actually done about that to bring that finding to people like me who teach people to negotiate for a living and to say, women aren’t asking.

And what’s encouraging, but still discouraging, is we look at very recent data and it shows that the disparity in asking has essentially gone away. Women are asking as much or more. So on one hand, that’s good. We’ve changed a behavior, right? Before, there was a reticence to ask. And we have basically gone through 20 years of repeating, “ladies, you need to ask.” That’s changed.

But they’re still not getting as much when it comes to their asks. So there is still an issue there.

And that’s across the board or is that about specific things like pay equity?

The answer is, I don’t know because it’s been studied generally in the context of this. But certainly pay.

So, whatever the subject, how can women best approach negations?

There are two different ways to approach it. One is thinking about tools and skills to be a really effective negotiator. The other is a more fundamental problem: status and being respected by other people. So women can have two challenges.

One is to have and to use negotiation tools that will allow them to push for what they want while still expressing enough concern for the relationship. But the other is to build their status. Because even if you are a really, really skilled negotiator, if the person you’re negotiating with does not respect you, it is going to be very hard for them to agree to anything you’re asking—no matter how ninja your negotiation skills are. Thinking about the problem from both of those angles is going to be most productive for women.

How critical is it to be a good negotiator today?

I’m biased, but I’m going to say it’s probably the most important skill. Why? Because negotiation is not just for cars, houses and salaries. Negotiation is a skill set. It’s the process we use when we have goals we want to achieve, and we can’t achieve them without someone else’s cooperation. That means that negotiation is not a toolkit just for sales or for contracts. It’s a toolkit for managing relationships.

I did not set out in my career to be a person who did a lot of negotiation and influence training. I ended up doing this because there is an insatiable demand from the world. Because no matter what room I walk into, no matter who I’m talking with, if and whether or not that person works for pay, that person has to get things done with and through other people. You can’t even serve a dinner or figure out where to go on vacation without the give and take of other people’s cooperation.

So if you can start to think about negotiation as just relationship management rather than a dealmaking skill, you start to realize how much of your day you can utilize these skills for your benefit. And also, importantly, the benefit of other people. Because what good negotiators know how to do is to solve their problem without bankrupting the other person, while solving the other person’s problem too. To build the relationship to leave it better than they found it. And so good negotiation skills also help you add more value, not just take more.

It sounds like this is about communication skills.

Ultimately, yes. I always use this one liner: In a negotiation, you are a detective; you are not a magician. A lot of people approach negotiation training as, you’re going to teach me some magic, Alison, and I will get people to do things they have no intention of doing.

No. You can’t do that. Your role in a negotiation is to be a detective. A detective says, can I convince you? And if I can convince you, I’m going to figure out what it’s going to take to convince you, and I’ll be able to do that thing. So as a detective, we are now trying to uncover information. We are trying to share information. So yes, communication then becomes the central task of a negotiator, not trickery, not magic. Not getting people to do things they’re not going to do because you wouldn’t do that. So no one else is going to do it either.

That’s a great tip. What are some other elements of getting good at this?

I’m a huge proponent of telling people to practice in low-risk situations. Negotiation is a practice skill. If you use the analogy of athletics, nobody is going to the Olympics to practice their skill. That’s where you showcase all the practice you’ve already done, right?

So go into low-risk environments, even if it’s strangers in an airport, to practice these skills. If you only wait to try to use these skills when you have the big-deal conversation, one, you’re not going to be adept at using the different tools. And two, you’re going to feel really afraid. So that’s one thing I talk to people about, you should always be looking to practice these skills in low-risk situations.

One thing that people do, and particularly women because they want to be accommodating, is if something’s not a big deal, they just let it go. I say send your food back at a restaurant, not because it really needs to go back, but because it strengthens the muscle of, I can advocate for myself without making an enemy, I can say what I need. If you keep all the time saying, it’s not a big deal, it’s not a big deal, I can do without, you are letting that muscle of negotiation just atrophy for no reason. When it’s not important, that’s exactly the time to do it. Because if it’s a disaster, you weren’t going to let it go anyway.

What are some specific tools that can help?

There are a couple things that can be really useful. One is that in negotiation there’s a lot of evidence that being a first-mover, being the first person to put your idea out on the table is going to get you better results. It’s the piece of science that contradicts conventional wisdom. Most of the time when I ask people to guess what science would predict in negotiation, a lot of people think she who talks first loses. The science doesn’t support that.

Is this true at all different levels, from CEO to new employees?

Across the board. Now you always have to read the room. There are going to be negotiation tools that you’d say, this is definitely a useful tool, but right now it’s not a fit. It doesn’t feel right in this situation.

I’ll give you a good example. If you’re a job candidate, you very well might be asked, what are your salary expectations? Someone has opened the door for you to be a first-mover. I actually recommend you take it based on that science. But I wouldn’t advise someone who’s being asked about their experience to say, “And let me tell you how much I would like to make here.”

That’s a first-mover—but it’s also socially inappropriate. It’s not going to work. You have to read the room. But if we’re in a meeting and someone throws it open to the floor, there’s no reason I can’t speak first just because I’m not the most senior person in the room. It was open to everybody. Take the chance, the door’s been opened.

These are all ways you’re helping yourself, but you’re also changing the way women are perceived generally, right?

Absolutely. And if you have the status or the standing to be able to change the narrative for everybody, it’s very powerful to be able to use that. A variety of things are happening: People who you don’t even know look up to you and want to be you someday. It builds their confidence. It also can change the narrative of the organization about what a successful person looks like. Even in people’s non-conscious brains. I don’t think everybody always has to carry the burden of uplifting everybody. But yes, it’s a secondary benefit that, in addition to helping yourself, you are building the confidence of other people who you didn’t even know were paying as much attention to you.

A lot of the things I learned navigating my own career, I learned by paying careful attention to the senior women that I worked with when I was in graduate school, who were my mentors. I saw how they could tell a room full of men that they were wrong and still come out being really well liked. I would dissect, what did they say? When did they say it? Did they smile—how did they do it?

How important is that whole presentation issue? People pay more attention to how women present themselves and there’s more pressure to be nice, to be likable. Often men can say the same things and be considered strong when a woman would be considered shrill, for example. So how do you navigate all of that?

Social psychologist Bob Cialdini is one of the most important voices in the science of influence. He writes about the six things that drive influence. Liking is one of them.

For men or women?

Men and women. It’s not a book for women, it’s a book for people. We are more likely to say yes to a person we like. It’s 100 percent true. Liking is a superpower. It’s a fundamental determinant of influence. We shouldn’t throw it away. Is it maddening that women have been told that they’re not likable enough and they need to be more likable? Yes, but I always say we don’t want to react.

We want to think about the science of it. The more people want to interact with us, the more they will give us and the more they will reward us. That’s the ultimate science of it. We always gravitate toward the people that we see as other-oriented, likable, giving, easy to interact with. The challenge for women isn’t that we only expect those things from women. The challenge, the reason why it feels easier for men does relate to this fundamental thing I talk about in my book, which is, there’s a status in being a man, particularly being a white man. And what we know is that when we perceive a person to be high status, we will then assume that that person is very capable and very caring.

They’re very smart and they’re very likable before they even open their mouth. And so when someone assumes that you’re very likable, it doesn’t take much to maintain that perception, right? Women don’t automatically start with the presumption that they’re smart and likable. They have to earn those things, which means it’s not crazy that they feel like they have to work harder. They do. So it’s a slightly different argument of it’s only the women we want to be likable. No, we want everyone to be likable, but we are giving men a head start in just assuming and presuming their likability.

Is it infuriating? Yes. Is it rooted in bias? Yes. Is it something we should reject? No. Lean into it because it is a superpower. The most likable people in the world, the warmest, most other-oriented people, are women.