4
Getting Negotiations off the Ground
Invariably when I give a talk about how to prepare to negotiate a lowercase n-negotiation, somebody in the audience will raise her hand and let me know that it's all well and good to talk about the importance of preparation, but how do you get the negotiations off the ground?1 We are always told to prepare, prepare, prepare—get good information, position ourselves to negotiate, come up with creative options, and be mindful of the other person's situation. Yet despite all this preparation, getting people to the table to negotiate with you can still be a challenge. This is especially true at work where there are no clear-cut occasions to negotiate, with the possible exceptions of budgets and salaries. Getting negotiations off the ground is often a challenge in these contexts. Yet with a few exceptions, most treatments on negotiation begin with the parties already at the table.2 The challenge, then, is to explore the determinants and obstacles to getting n-negotiations off the ground.
Prenegotiation Techniques Depend on the Context
The actions required to launch negotiations differ by context. In some situations, both parties enter primed to negotiate. If we find a car we like, we are ready to bargain. We see an antique vase in the marketplace and start the process with an offer. These are uppercase N-negotiations where buyers and sellers come together to see if they can reach a deal. In these situations, we generally assume that these negotiations actually get under way when one or the other party makes an opening offer.
In other contexts, the process of getting negotiations off the ground is more ambiguous.
Getting n-Negotiations off the Ground
International scholars describe a formal prenegotiation phase of defining the problem and developing a commitment to negotiate. As William Zartman defines it, prenegotiation begins when one or more parties consider negotiation a potential option and ends when there is either a formal commitment to negotiate or a decision not to negotiate.3
A Range of Contexts—from Hostage Taking to Major Deal Making.
It is more difficult in certain settings to separate the starting point from the process itself. For example, getting the negotiations off the ground in hostage-taking negotiations—in the sense of building the relationship—is a fundamental component.4 Parties bargaining in the shadow of the law, in divorce or business relationships, might require time and estimates of what a court might decide to initiate negotiations. Serious labor negotiations often do not begin until a contract expiration looms, even if the parties are officially meeting.5 Finally, we know from large-scale deal making that there may be a longer period of planning, even what often appears to be a seduction, to establish conditions for negotiators to start serious bargaining. Star Wars fans might have been surprised when they learned in October 2012 that Disney was the new owner of the franchise; what they didn't know is that the deal had been over a year in the making. Disney CEO Robert Iger and Star Wars creator George Lucas had been slowly building trust in each other since May 2011, when Iger first broached the acquisition with Lucas.6
Similarly, the 2013 merger between US Airways and American Airlines came only after US Airways CEO Doug Parker went to great lengths to get his counterpart at American, Tom Horton, to the table after originally being rebuffed. Horton refused to talk to Parker about a merger after American first declared bankruptcy. Parker went on to talk up the benefits of a merger on Wall Street and to court American's pilots and other unions. Once it was clear that so many of his stakeholders were in favor of the merger, Horton had no choice but to negotiate.7 These are clear examples of how getting negotiations off the ground will differ from one scenario to the next.
In n-Negotiations: Asymmetrical Incentives to Negotiate
Getting n-negotiations off the ground presents special challenges. As we've already discussed, these negotiations are not as readily obvious or identifiable as a potential negotiation in the same way as buyer-seller or labor-management are. One party or the other will need to launch the process. Furthermore, the fact that n-negotiations often occur in organizations means that lower members of the hierarchy may be reluctant to raise issues.8
As we've discussed, power differentials and status expectations can discourage members of lower-status groups—women, people of color—from raising issues or for pressing the matter once they're raised.9 Adding to the complexity of negotiating within a hierarchy, new research suggests that men and women negotiate differently depending on the issues being addressed.10 Certainly there are situations in which women have been shown to negotiate more effectively than men, such as when negotiating on behalf of others.11 Likewise, women are just as likely as men to initiate negotiation when they perceive injustice.12 So it's important to remember that n-negotiations take place in a context of power differentials and that the issue being negotiated can make a difference.
Getting the Other Side to See Negotiation as a Possibility.
This is a critical step in starting n-negotiations. Interest in negotiation is not likely to be symmetrical: one person may have a higher incentive to negotiate and appreciate the need for it, while the other may see no need whatsoever. While this type of situation can also characterize negotiation in other contexts, these dynamics are more likely to become obvious only once the negotiations have started.
No Preexisting Structure.
What distinguishes n-negotiations is that there is no preexisting structure for the negotiation. One person sees the glimmer of an opportunity to negotiate about some facet of work, but the other party may be oblivious that anything is wrong or that it even requires negotiation to fix it. A boss asks you to take on a project, and she expects acquiescence, not negotiation. A manager asks for your advice about who could take on a new overseas role: he has assumed that family responsibilities prevent you from wanting the job but you do want the position. So you initiate a negotiation for an opportunity that your manager had not expected. Or, like Marisa in chapter 1, you're offered what a leader assumes is a great nonnegotiable opportunity.
These are the kinds of roles that can fall to women by default—the fixer, the party planner, the mediator. As one senior leader we interviewed said, “I'm one of the few women at my level, so I'm asked to do everything. I'm on four different diversity task forces, and it takes a lot of my time.” It's challenging to initiate negotiation on these issues. Even though you recognize the problem to be negotiated, your counterpart is often oblivious to it.
Initiating n-Negotiations in an Organizational Hierarchy.
It's not just that the other party might be surprised that you're raising issues she hadn't considered; it might also be that bosses and others more senior in an organization may feel no special need to negotiate at all. Their position in the hierarchy can make it difficult for them to see issues from different perspectives and make them less empathetic toward others.13 After all, as our examples suggest, the subjects of the negotiation will likely involve changes to the status quo—one with which they are likely quite comfortable.
Prenegotiation Challenges
Challenges to get negotiations off the ground can also take subtle forms:
- Challenge: The other party refuses to negotiate, likely in an understated way. You request a meeting to discuss a project or want to ask for something that implies a negotiation, and your boss says no to the meeting. Outright rejection to meet, however, is less common than a more typical indirect approach. Although she is trying to appear collaborative, the other party can evince interest but put up excuses. “Of course,” she might say, “I want to discuss the project or the resources you need; it's just that the timing is wrong. Wait until the busy season ends.”
- Challenge: The agenda is hijacked. The person agrees to meet, but before you can start the negotiation, you find that he is calling the shots and directing the conversation to where he wants it to go. That's what happened to Fran, a partner in a professional services firm. After she had attended a leadership development program, Fran planned to negotiate with her managing partner for her next role. She knew exactly how she was going to discuss the opportunity she sought and how her current responsibilities would be covered. After a greeting and a query about the program she had attended, her boss immediately shifted the discussion to problems with certain clients that had arisen in her absence. Despite her efforts, Fran could not get the negotiation going. Then the phone rang and her boss took the call, ending the meeting.
- Challenge: You are stonewalled. That's initially what happened when Charlotte from chapter 2 tried to start the negotiation with her boss over her promotion and bonus. When she pointed out that she deserved a bonus for bringing in new business, her boss diminished her contribution and told her that she had merely closed a deal that was already in the pipeline. When she tried to negotiate about the promotion, her boss told her he could easily hire a more experienced person from the outside. In order to launch these negotiations, Charlotte had to neutralize these claims and make it worth her boss's while to actually negotiate. His comments suggest that he sees no need at the moment.
Before we talk about strategies for kicking off negotiations, it's important to recognize that getting started is obviously not the end of the story. As we've noted, much of the research and writing on negotiations start with parties already at the table—yet still challenged to find ways to come to good agreements. But a perspective and discussion on getting negotiations off the ground makes it clear that already being at the table does not mean that negotiation has actually commenced or that any opening offer has been made.
Two Ways to Get Negotiations Started
There are two major ways to begin negotiations—much like the carrot and the stick. The first is to make it appealing for the other person to negotiate by showing her that it is worth her while to negotiate with you (the carrot), which you can do by making your value visible. A second approach, raising the costs of the status quo, shifts the focus from the value you contribute to the consequences of not coming to an agreement with you (the stick).14
Both of these strategic moves involve taking the information you've gathered as part of your preparation—figuring out your value and assessing relative BATNAs—and making it real to the other person. But whichever approach you choose, having allies to help you make the case is invaluable in getting negotiations off the ground.
Making Your Value Visible
Part of preparation is recognizing the value you bring to your work and capturing it in a way that will have value to the person you are negotiating with. Making that value visible to the other person creates an incentive for him or her to negotiate with you.
Tailor the Value Message to Its Recipient.
Claire, a senior executive at a major bank, described how she routinely lets her leadership know about her team's accomplishments instead of just discussing these matters when it's time for negotiation: “If they've done something great with one of our clients, I will send a message to the CEO; he really cares about the relationships we have with clients. My CFO, on the other hand, is really concerned about our expenses, so I let him know when we have had a success on this front. He could really care less about a new client relationship.” Claire does two smart things here: she tailors her value proposition to different executives so that when the time comes to negotiate with them, they are likely to be willing to sit down with her, and she makes her—and her team's—value visible on an ongoing basis.
Relay Value Messages from Other Stakeholders.
Gabriela is a senior manager at a global consulting firm who works with multiple clients. She got into the practice of printing out and posting in her office “thank-you” e-mails from clients. Promotions at the firm were largely based on one's ability to retain and recruit clients, and Gabriela saw the e-mails as a way to remind the partners that she had happy clients. This subtle approach worked well in Gabriela's firm, where there could be backlash for overt self-promotion.
Collect Records of Your Achievements.
It is important that you find ways, as Claire and Gabriela did, to make your value visible to potential negotiating partners on an ongoing basis. Keep records of your accomplishments. When you receive a compliment from people both inside and outside your organization, ask if you can share what they said. You can forward it on with a comment about what your client said about the work. Best-selling author Lois Frankel demonstrates that “nice girls” (the ones who don't get the corner office) don't do this enough. She suggests that you share your achievements, and to avoid the sense that you might be self-promoting, present them as a best practice that others might want to know about.15 Television host Mika Brzezinski recommends documenting your achievements and all the ways you have exceeded expectations, focusing especially on the market value of your contributions.16
Strategic Moves to Make Your Value Visible
As the time nears for a negotiation, you can also employ some strategic moves to make your value visible. Think explicitly about what the person with whom you are going to negotiate values most. That's what Janice, a controller in a manufacturing plant, did when she was tasked with getting the sales group to work more closely with operations to ensure that delivery promises did not exceed the capacity of the operations group to deliver. Her first move was to speed up the cycle for expense reimbursements; she knew they'd appreciate not having to wait the traditional thirty days for their checks. This made her value apparent to them, raising the odds that they would sit down with her. When she shortened the reimbursement turnaround time to four days, they saw her value and were willing at least to sit down and talk about possibilities.
Anticipate the Other Person's Power Moves.
Think too about what you can do in the moment—as the negotiation is actually happening. Consider the story of an evening news producer who was about to begin new contract negotiations with the station manager, who had a reputation for being a tough negotiator.17 He always sought the advantage, including how he used the furniture in his office. You would come in and he would have you sit on a very soft couch where you would sink down, and he would tower over you from behind his desk. Our producer took this into account and began the negotiation by bringing in her own stool so that she could sit facing him eye-to-eye. She had also scheduled the meeting at a time in the day when she knew her staff would need her input for the evening news. So during her negotiation with the station manager, there were frequent knocks on the door as her staff came in to ask her questions. If the manager did not appreciate her value prior to the meeting, he certainly did after a few interruptions.
Lisa's strategy to make her value visible during the negotiation had several components.
What Lisa's Case Teaches Us
Lisa's Strategic Moves.
First, Lisa was careful to assure the CEO of her commitment to the firm. She began by mentioning that of course headhunters had been in touch with her, but she was not interested in making a move. This was important to get on the table. Second, Lisa outlined her performance and contributions she'd made during the past months: “I knew that Joe [the CEO] knew about my work and what I had accomplished, but I felt I really needed to remind him. So we went over my results over the past six months.” And like Cheryl from chapter 3, Lisa also had a plan for how to manage her flexible schedule. She anchored on workable options: three days in the office and two working at home. She was convinced that this would work. Finally, she asked for a salary increase, mentioning that she had a good idea of her worth on the open market. She did not name a number but left it to the CEO to come back to her. Indeed, his offer was considerably more than she had anticipated.
Making Lisa's Value Visible.
There are important insights about making one's value visible that we can glean from Lisa's case. First, she knew her value based on the headhunter's external offers—information that made it easier to ask for a raise. Second, she knew that she had to make her value explicitly visible. Although the CEO generally knew of her performance—she'd kept him informed along the way—she wanted to preface her requests with clear indications of her value to the company. And third, Lisa's effort to make her value visible was not just a one-time shot; it was more like a campaign. She had made the CEO aware of her contributions to creating new business over time. Lisa's approach reinforces the idea that making your value visible is an ongoing activity.
What Isobel's Case Teaches Us
Making Isobel's Value Visible.
Isobel's goal in setting a conversation with her boss was to negotiate with him to restructure her role, and indirectly the department, so that she could more effectively deliver on her existing responsibilities but also incorporate the new demands that were being made on her time. She was not clear that her boss knew very much about the work she had been doing; she had failed to make this aspect of her work visible to him on an ongoing basis. So she pulled together a presentation that described her efforts with governmental operations and the extent of the extra work she had been doing. She also carefully delineated the results of her efforts—what she'd saved the company by her interventions—in the first case and in the ongoing work she had been doing. By focusing on the communication strategy she'd developed and how it had paid off, she tried to make her value visible in a currency that he valued. She wanted, she told him, to discuss her role as it was evolving. He was enormously flattering, telling her what a good job she was doing. But, unfortunately, he said, the timing was not right for any change.
Making your value visible has the potential to create the incentives for the other person to negotiate with you, but in Isobel's case, it was not enough to get her boss to negotiate. She knew she had to take stronger measures—and raising the costs of the status quo is one way to do that.
Raising the Costs of the Status Quo
The CEO in Lisa's situation was not such a reluctant negotiator. He knew Lisa and knew her value and clearly wanted to keep her with the company. If the arrangement she proposed could work, he would be for it. But sometimes negotiators are more reluctant.
Raising the Stakes with Reluctant Negotiators.
Occasionally you successfully make your value visible, yet the other person sees no incentive to negotiate with you. That's when it's time to raise the stakes and put more pressure on the other party to negotiate with you seriously—which requires that you make the status quo appear less promising. In negotiation terms, that can mean making each party's relative BATNAs—Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement—more obvious. Here, we consider how BATNAs are related to both parties' relative bargaining power.
Formal Power and Informal Power: An Interdependent Relationship.
Because n-negotiations occur within organizations, it's often assumed that bargaining power follows hierarchical lines—that is, a boss has more power and control over negotiating outcomes than her employee. We assume this is the case because as subordinates, we are more dependent on a boss than she might be on us. However, dependence on others during negotiations also has to do with alternatives outside the agreement. A good alternative allows us to accrue bargaining power, while a poor one loses bargaining power.
We have seen the BATNAs of some of our heroines in previous chapters. For Marisa in chapter 1, it was to not take the new role. In chapter 2 Charlotte had several BATNAs: she could stop performing the vice president's role and just stick with her director role, she could explore an opportunity with the client she'd just recruited, or she could quit. However, quitting without another option is generally not a great alternative! Lisa's BATNA was to pursue the headhunters' leads or just stay with her existing working arrangement. Our heroines had relatively good alternatives in each of these situations; as a result, they felt they were in a powerful bargaining position. The challenge, then, is to make one's BATNA real to the other side: they should be able to recognize some dependence—or at least interdependence—on you. That recognition will compel them to negotiate with you.
Raising the Cost: Isobel's Case.
Isobel's mentor advised her to raise the costs of the status quo. He pointed out that she was preserving the status quo by continuing to do the extra work; her boss lacked any incentive to negotiate about her role. That's when Isobel realized that her BATNA was to stop doing the extra work. The operations group's BATNA was to find some other way to get their campaigns handled. Her boss's BATNA was to maintain the status quo—in essence, turning a blind eye to the extra work Isobel was doing.
So the next time the client asked for help, claiming that they were really in a pinch, Isobel forced herself to say no. It was not easy to do. She liked the work and liked to see herself as a team player. She told them that she was sorry, but her current assignments left her no time to do the extra work. Once she stopped doing the work, the clients approached her boss and told him they really needed Isobel on these cases. That tipped the balance—and he was then ready to negotiate with her.
Risks in Raising the Cost.
While making it real for the other party can bring a high payoff, it also entails risk, especially for women. Isobel had good reasons to stop doing the extra work: it could compromise her “real” job. Making the relative BATNAs visible gave her boss an incentive to negotiate with her. The negotiation resulted in a reorganization and promotion that made her side work official. That was the challenge that Isobel faced in getting her boss to negotiate about her role and staffing for it.
Raising the Cost: Katherine's Case.
Katherine, a senior vice president at a large bank, took an even more direct approach. She had worked in and developed the custodial business considerably, and she knew she was ready for a new opportunity. But while the men at her bank tended to have others put them forward for promotions, it fell to the women to do so themselves.18 So Katherine told her boss that she wanted another opportunity; he told her to be “patient.” Katherine knew her boss and knew that patience could mean several years. So Katherine told him that she was going to interview with other banks. Her boss told her not to rush and came up with a plan for her to interview throughout the company. This shocked the human resource department, since this had apparently never been done out in the open. Katherine received several offers and was promoted to executive vice president within a year. Her “threat” to exercise a BATNA and look outside brought her boss to the table to negotiate with her.
Choosing the Best Move.
There is a fine line between making your value visible and raising the costs of the status quo; the strategies can blend into each other. Lisa's disclosure that she was being recruited in some way raised the cost of the status quo. When Isobel stopped doing the extra work for the internal clients, she was surely raising the costs of the status quo, but that move also made her value visible. In my experience, people are more comfortable finding ways to make their value visible than they are raising the cost of the status quo. Charlotte (chapter 2) might make her value visible by talking about how she brought in a new client. Cheryl (chapter 3) made hers visible by explaining how she could ease her boss's relations with the field. There are times when making one's value visible is not enough—and that is where raising the costs of the status quo can become important. But there are caveats.
An Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove
Raising the costs of the status quo has two distinct but complementary requirements that I call using an “iron fist in a velvet glove.”19 The implication is that you must make these moves carefully. The first part is to strengthen your iron fist.
An Iron Fist: Prime Yourself to Feel Powerful
Some interesting research suggests useful tricks for “powering up” before using your iron fist. Psychologists have studied the impacts of priming—how exposing someone to a particular memory or stimulus can have an impact on his thoughts or actions. For instance, if I say the word hat, then ask you to mention a part of the body, you are likely to say head because you've been primed with the association between hat and head. Adam Galinsky, Deborah Gruenfeld, and their colleagues have explored how priming can influence one's psychological power and even influence their actions in negotiations. They've found that one can temporarily boost one's feeling of power by thinking about a situation or negotiation in which she has been powerful in the past.20 This can be a helpful technique to use just prior to initiating a move to raise the status quo. Feeling more powerful can help orient you to action and make you more likely to be optimistic and confident about a negotiation, such that you recognize that initiating a negotiation has the possibility to result in a positive outcome.21
Use Power Poses to Feel and Act More Confident.
A second approach to empowering yourself is to use what social psychologist Amy Cuddy and her colleagues call power poses. It is relatively accepted that our body language can affect how others think and feel about us; some people seem more confident and powerful based on how they hold themselves. Cuddy and her colleagues have learned that body language can also influence our physiology and how we feel about ourselves. They found that holding certain poses—standing or sitting with open shoulders in a way that takes a lot of space—prompted individuals to increase the level of testosterone in their bodies. Increases in testosterone are associated with increased self-confidence and risk taking. Cuddy and her colleagues found that by holding a power pose for just two minutes before going into a negotiation or difficult situation, people feel more confident and are perceived as more confident and effective by others.22 When it comes to initiating a negotiation with a reluctant counterpart, feeling more confident may make it easier for you to raise the costs of the status quo.
The Power of a Positive Mood.
Another crucial move is to reduce anxiety before going into the negotiation. Researchers have found that mood can have a substantial impact on a negotiation: being in a positive mood has been linked to finding creative options and cooperative problem solving, while being in a negative mood is linked to decreased joint gains and an increase in competitive strategies.23 If you find yourself anxious before your negotiation, you can try listening to quiet music or breathing deeply to go into the negotiation in a more relaxed state.24 Like power priming and power posing, anxiety reduction can help shore up the iron fist.25
The Velvet Glove
The velvet glove is important for everybody, and especially so for women. We know from the popular press and from research that being too direct can have negative consequences for females. You'll recall the double bind we discussed in chapter 1: if a woman acts too assertive, she's not liked because she's deemed “not feminine enough.” If she acts too nice and feminine, her competence can be thrown into question.26 This is particularly so for African American women, who risk being thought of as overly aggressive when they assert themselves on their own behalf.27 In negotiating salaries, we know that women may face a social cost for asking if they too directly advocate for themselves. So raising the costs of the status quo, an assertive move, risks tripping the double bind. As we can see with Katherine and even Lisa, people might view their raising the issue as an implied threat to leave the company. And if they actually exercised their BATNA, that would be the case. Luckily, there are a number of velvet glove moves that can make tripping a double bind or encountering outright resistance less likely.
A Velvet Glove: Smooth Out Your BATNA.
It's easy to read a mention of a BATNA as a threat. By smoothing it out, you still make it known but suggest that it isn't an option you want to pursue. You make the other person aware of the reality but act in a reassuring way. For example, Lisa coupled her mention of outside headhunters with assurances that she wanted to stay in her firm. Isobel focused on the time requirements it was taking her to do two jobs as the legitimate reason that she needed to focus on her “day job.” You want to make these kinds of statements in reassuring ways. Author Anna Quindlen summed it up colorfully in describing Hillary Clinton and her ongoing double bind: “Hillary has soldiered on, damned if she does, damned if she doesn't, like most powerful women, expected to be tough as nails and warm as toast at the same time.”28
One of our favorite stories about smoothing out BATNA is that of Emily, who was promoted to run a major segment of a large bank. It was widely known and part of the bank shorthand that all of the senior executives at this bank had offices on the sixth floor. Just going to a “meeting on the sixth” elevated one's status. After her promotion, the head of human resources called Emily to congratulate her on the new role and offer her a very nice office on the fifth floor. Emily responded that she thought it made sense to stay in her current office, on the third floor. She could have accepted the office on the fifth floor and been complicit in signaling that she wasn't as important as the rest of the senior execs. Or she could have told the HR director outright that she thought she deserved an office with the rest of her peers. Of course, if she'd done this, she might very well have triggered a double bind and been perceived as too demanding. Instead, by refusing the fifth-floor office she caused the HR director to realize that a fifth-floor office would be a problem for the same reason a third-floor office was. She found Emily an office on the sixth floor.
Make the Consequences of No Agreement Obvious by Asking Questions.
Rather than assert your intention to take an action—which others might read as a threat and an action that can trip a double bind—asking questions takes the directness out. William Ury suggests using BATNA as a means to educate, not threaten, and he recommends asking questions to serve that purpose. Ury describes this approach as “reality testing,” with questions such as, “What do you think will happen if we don't agree?” “What do you think I will do?” “And what will you do?”29
When Faith, a partner in a major consulting company, wanted to arrange a reliable schedule, she worked with her managing partner to pare her portfolio of clients in order to keep her hours in bounds. The partner was outwardly supportive but kept postponing her final approval. Faith needed to get closure, so she decided to use what she called “indirect threats,” which were really questions she felt comfortable proposing. She asked the managing partner how she would cover Faith's clients when Faith's new schedule went into effect and what she would do if she were in Faith's situation and a decision had yet to be made. These kinds of questions raise the possibility of exercising a BATNA—but do not do so directly.
Link Your Action to the Good of the Company.
If you can connect your issue to a larger organizational one, your fellow negotiator is less likely to perceive it as a threat and more as a concern you have about your company's well-being. Research by Hannah Bowles and Linda Babcock suggests framing an ask in terms that account for organizational relationships in order to avoid tripping a double bind.30 By linking your issue to the good of the organization, you are not only advocating for yourself—you are advocating for others as well, which is less likely to provoke a backlash.31 Robin Ely and Deborah Rhode suggest that focusing on purpose and collective goals—what is good for your group or your organization—allows women to escape the double bind.32 When asked about navigating the double bind that women in politics face, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren explained that she actively battles it by ignoring it and focusing on a larger purpose. “You try to get to…the issues that matter to you, to make sure that your voice gets heard on behalf of the people who sent you to Washington to work for them.”33
Our case heroines have carefully navigated these strategies as well. When Isobel stopped doing the extra work, she framed it as a situation where she had no choice: her real work was suffering, and the existing structure did not support the important government work that needed to be done. She knew that was not something her boss would support. And, of course, in trying to move her boss to reorganize, it would mean better results for her group, as well as the operations group. Katherine framed her intent in the context of opportunities at the bank and the challenges of finding them—something that was not good for her or for the bank.
No matter which approach you take, raising the costs of the status quo and making your value visible must always be done carefully. And it is in these situations that allies can be so helpful.
Enlisting Allies
Mika Brzezinski starts her book Knowing Your Value with a story about the role of allies. After working two years with Joe Scarborough on their MSNBC morning show, she sat with him at a café in Rockefeller Center and told him of her plans to leave the show. Over the two years, she had tried without success to negotiate with the network to increase her salary and indirect compensation (defeats she describes colorfully in the book).34 Scarborough, recognizing her critical role on the show, helped her directly from his own bonus and made her value known to the network so that she was emboldened the next time she tried to negotiate.
In some ways, this is a story of how Brzezinski raised the costs of the status quo with Scarborough by telling him that she would resign. However, it also shows the importance of the role of allies in making one's value visible. Allies can also help raise the costs of the status quo. Although we are not sure exactly how Scarborough handled the discussion with the network, he likely communicated Mika's threat to resign. In this section, we explore how allies help in making your value visible and in raising the costs of the status quo and why that is so critical, especially for women.
Allies Make Your Value Visible So You Don't Have To
Sally, a colleague of ours who is a dean at a major business school, described her surprise at the process some department chairs used when the time came for negotiations with faculty over salaries, course loads, research assistants, and other issues. Sally noticed that in certain departments, she would get a visit from that person's department chair prior to a review meeting with a faculty member. During this “premeeting,” the chair would extol the accomplishments of the faculty member about to be reviewed. Sally was surprised at this process because she knew this had not happened on her behalf when she was a faculty member being reviewed by the dean. But she acknowledged the practice had a significant effect on the upcoming review meeting. The faculty member had already been positioned as an asset by a leader in his department. This meant that the faculty member did not have to promote his own accomplishments, which was quite helpful given it was an organizational culture that did not appreciate self-promotion. Although Sally was aware of what was going on, she still knew that her opinion and the decisions she might make were heavily influenced by the visit from the department chair. Sally also noted that these premeetings had so far only been arranged on behalf of men.
Sponsors: More Than Networks or Mentors
Much has been written about how critical networks are in navigating organizations.35 Recent research suggests that women have good networks for advice and support—that is, mentors—but that they lack sponsors like Scarborough who have the position and authority that can ease negotiations.36 As Pat Fili-Krushel, now the chair of NBC News describes it, “Their authority allows them to speak to your strengths, make a case for your advancement, and be heard in your absence.”37 The faculty members in Sally's school played that role for the male faculty—but there didn't seem to be anyone doing it for female faculty members.
Sponsorship can be particularly valuable for women, in part because promoting one's own accomplishments has the potential to trigger a double bind. Those cultural assumptions that expect a woman to act “feminine”—to be nice, collaborative, and warm—can sometimes cause self-promoting moves to undermine the value she is trying to make visible. Allies help with this. They helped when Charlotte was able to have the new client attest to her role in selling the deal in chapter 2. They surely helped Isobel when the leaders in the operations group went to her boss to tell him that they needed Isobel on the government work. When she made her value visible, it was to point out the outcomes of her work. The leaders in the operations group made her value clear by discussing how they could not succeed without Isobel.
So many of the women I have spoken to cite the help of others in enhancing their role in negotiations. One of the leaders I most admire likes to say that she is never the first or obvious choice for stretch senior leadership roles, but she is the ultimate one—because she has a network of sponsors who sing her praises.
Allies Can Raise the Costs of the Status Quo
If self-promotion can potentially trigger a double bind, raising the costs of the status quo presents an even bigger challenge—because doing so suggests an implied threat. This is what makes allies so helpful in bringing reluctant negotiators to the table; they can say things that you might not be able to say yourself. In Alicia's case from the Introduction, her mentor might tell the chairman—with whom Alicia wants to negotiate—that the candidate he's considering might not be up to the job but Alicia would do it well. In Cheryl's case from chapter 3, leaders in the field operation might tell her boss how relations between corporate and the field might be compromised if a deal could not be worked out. Similarly, in Faith's situation, a trusted ally might tell her managing partner that Faith is likely to leave the firm if the new schedule is not finalized.
Setting the Table
James Sebenius and David Lax, well-known leaders in the negotiation field, talk about an overlooked dimension in negotiation that they call setting the table. They consider this an essential part of negotiating: the moves taken before the negotiation to ensure the most favorable conditions once negotiating has begun.38 A big part of this during n-negotiations requires having allies who can help you get negotiations off the ground. Obviously not every member of a network is a potential ally; there seem to be two major attributes that are important. The first is the quality of the relationship you have with the potential ally. It should be someone with whom you have a good and trusting relationship—a mentor or a sponsor.
But a relationship can also be based on mutual need, as was the case with Isobel and the operations group. It was a combination of both for Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski: they seemed to have a close relationship, and Scarborough also recognized how critical Brzezinski was to the show. In addition to the relationship, an ally must be credible to the person you are trying to get to the negotiating table. In other words, they must have that person's ear. When these two attributes are present, allies can play a helpful role in getting negotiations off the ground.
Second-Generation Issues and Small Wins
The role of invisible work figures prominently in the experience of women leaders. Invisible work refers to the tasks that women often get asked to do or the ones they volunteer for. People typically attach invisible work to negative connotations: being asked to get the coffee or take the notes at a meeting. The advice given is to learn to say no more often. Yet the problem is not these kinds of situations in which it is logical to resent being asked to take up these traditional feminine roles.
We approach invisible work in a somewhat different way: it is work that is important to you and to your organization but not valued as such. Tasks might include mentoring other women, serving on diversity committees, helping others complete their work, and preventing crises. Joyce Fletcher writes about women engineers who do this work: though they anticipate and often prevent problems, this part of their work is “disappeared” in the sense that it is not credited as “real work”—but something women just “do.”39
Isobel was in such a situation. She didn't want to stop helping, as she enjoyed it: “I loved the rush of jumping in during a crisis and loved that they specifically wanted me and that we made a real difference to the company.” She said it was difficult not to continue doing the invisible work. Indeed, this kind of work is important. To tell people to stop because it is women's work fails to recognize the contributions that this type of work makes to an organization. It also fails to account for the projections that women may be experiencing as others continue to expect the same behavior from them even as they've moved into new roles.40 In this chapter, we can see how one can claim value for that work by initiating a negotiation about it.
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