Negotiation Skills for WomenVictoria Pynchon, J.D., LL.M

She Negotiates Consulting and TrainingShenegotiates.com and blogs.forbes.com/shenegotiates

Get your partner to come to your side of the line

Contentious Dispute Resolution Tactics

• Yielding/Ingratiation• Shaming• Persuasive

argumentation• Promises of future action• Threats of future action• Physical force

Negotiation is Just a Conversation Leading

to Agreement

• Build trust – food, touch, similarity• Ask diagnostic questions• Identify needs, desires, constraints,

hidden stakeholders, priorities, preferences, attitudes toward the future

• Lead with benefit• Anchor first and high• Frame deal favorably• Log roll• Make hypothetical offers• Bracket• Offer contingencies• Close

Women are . . . • Kind• Nurturing• Emotional• Weak• Indecisive• Patient• Tolerant• Afraid of conflict

Analytic Emotional

Positions Interests

Self-interested Nurturing

Competitive Cooperative/relational

Direct Indirect

Hierarchical Non-hierarchal

High sense of entitlement Low Sense of Entitlement

More inclined to boast Underplays achievements

Dominant Submissive

Stereotype threat – anxiety when you believe you might confirm a negative stereotype about your

social group.

Gender Blow Back

EXERCISE

• Ask your negotiation partner for something you want and haven’t been able to get

• Tell her who she is; why she keeps saying “no” (or why you haven’t asked)

• Start the conversation by offering her something you know or believe she wants

• You asked that I leave something with your women that they could use after I was gone. I’d like to make my book available to them at a discount instead of may I sell my book to your women?

Male Bargaining AdvantagesFeel bargaining advantage

Feel entitled to more rewards

Less likely to back downUse more distributive

tacticsFeel entitled to informationSeen as stronger speakers

than women Seek more powerIntimidate

Female Bargaining Advantages• take a broad or 'collective' perspective

• view elements in a task as interconnected and interdependent

• see the big picture and come up with a systematic plan on how to solve it.

• work through steps by sharing experiences while figuring out what both sides can gain to achieve an integrated outcome.

• more concerned about how problems are solved than merely solving the problem itself

• Instead of concentrating on what they want or need to get out of the negotiation women focus on what both sides need and how both parties can get what they want

Within six months of taking top-flight negotiation courses, less than 40% of the women were using the skills they learned, compared to 98% of their male counterparts.

When asked why, they said they believed that many of the learned negotiation strategies, tactics and skills were inconsistent with who they believed they were as women, and specifically in conflict with their identity and how they saw themselves.

We work 22% longer and 10%

faster for the same reward

What the heck are we thinking?????

They’ll notice what I’m doing and reward me

If they don’t reward me, I don’t deserve it

I’ll offend someone and be punished

I’d rather be happy than rich

It’s selfish to ask for myself

• Cooperate with the group or betray

• Which has the evolutionary advantage – likely to pass genetic material into the future

Prisoners’ Dilemma

• Two suspects • Insufficient evidence to convict• Offer

– 1 confesses & implicates partner – 1 freed; partner gets 10-year sentence

– Both confess and implicate the other, each receive 5-year sentence.

– both remain silent, 6-months in jail.

• Optimal choice for both cooperate for six-month jail sentence.

• The optimal choice for individual suspect is to rat out his partner and secure his own freedom.

• What is the rational decision?

• If both play red card (uncooperative) each member of pair earns 2 points.

• If both play black card (cooperative), each member of pair earns 3 points.

• If one plays red card & partner plays black, red card earns 5 & black earns 0 points.

• The choice is cooperate or betray. Begin play by holding your card of choice up to your chest.

• On 1, 2, 3, play the card of your choice & record your score.

Most Effective Conflict Resolution Strategy: Tit for Tat

Interest Based Negotiation

A process in which we seek to expand the pie of benefits available to the parties in an attempt to satisfy as many of their needs, desires, preferences and priorities as possible (their interests).

recognize the opportunity to negotiate

Trade!!

Create Value

Identify Interests

Anchor

Frame

Log Roll

Exercise

• Trade something of value with your negotiation partner that is low cost to you but high value to her

• If you don’t know what she values, ask her

• 5 minutes each

Bracketing & Hypothetical Offers

Offer Contingencies

Competitive Distributive Bargaining

• Start high/low• Make small/grudging

concessions• Demand reciprocity• Share little information• Maintain high

aspirations• Make hypothetical

offers you can later disown

• Stress BATNA• Make multiple offers

with same benefit to you

Negotiating with Difficult People

• Are they difficult or simply uninformed – Educate them about their true

interests, consequences of their actions, our BATNA

– Help them understand what is in their best interest

– Determine whether they’ve misunderstood or ignored a crucial piece of information

Are they irrational or are they operating under hidden constraints– Institutional– Precedential– Promises to others

• Hidden stakeholders

– Deadlines

Are they liars, cheats and thieves or do they have hidden interests.– Personal (unrelated to

you or deal)– Relational (related to

you but not to deal, i.e., “face”)

– Political, social, cultural

• Reiterate terms • Or…recapture the main

points, what’s left to resolve, and what’s needed to do so.

• Set day/time to reconvene

• End on hopeful note/congratulate both for progress made

Close