Negotiation is a Skill, Not a Secondary Sexual Characteristic

secondary sexual characteristics

Breasts are considered secondary sexual characteristics under the law; genitalia are considered primary. Negotiation is not related to either of them.

Let’s just clear the air here for a minute.

Men are not better negotiators than women. Need proof? In all of recorded history, the world has experienced fewer than 500 years of peace.

Negotiation is a skill. There are, of course, gender biases that prevent women from negotiating. We’ve all been swatted down for asking for something for ourselves - most of us so many times that we can’t count them. Those are the internal obstacles. The external obstacles are the agressions, micro and macro, that result when we step outside our gender boundary of being other-serving.

I’m not starting a new gender war here. We all need to practice “asking” and experience success. and the culture will just have to get used to us negotiating.

Want to do so successfully? Here are a few key practices to up your asking game.

• Keep a Journal

  • You’d be amazed by how much you learn about the negotiation dynamic and your own strengths and weaknesses when you are willing to sit down and “tell the story” of the mediation yourself.

• Learn from the People with Whom You Negotiate

  • Ask yourself whether there’s anything in your bargaining partner’s style, technique or process (preparation, investigation, tactics, strategy or problem solving processes) that you could stow in your own negotiation tool chest.

• Practice, Practice, Practice

  • Negotiation retail. This requires courage of course but it gets you used to the idea that you can get what you want at a price lower than is “anchored” by the price tag (compare car sales if you dare).

  • Practice also inures you to the inevitable disappointments that prevent most people from asking for a better deal than the one offered.

• Ask your bargaining partner about her interests

  • Everyone is serving unknown interests every minute of every day - what they need, desire, fear, prefer or prioritize. We often assume, for instance, that everyone wants more money but that is often not true. They may prefer more time, better opportunities to develop their own business, flexible schedules, bigger bonuses or equity in the business they’re forwarding.

  • Ask. Don’t assume.

• Learn about the constraints under which your bargaining partner is operating.

  • The classic constraint (true or false) is “I don’t have the authority to do that.” Good. Even if it’s not true. Then you simply ask to speak to the person who does have the authority.

  • Other classic constraints include “it’s not in the budget.” But the budget didn’t come down Mt. Sinai on stone tablets and even if it did, the invention of papyrus allowed business people to shift money from one line item to another. Ask about that.

Women are every bit as good as men and often better at the most effective negotiation strategy - interest-based bargaining. That’s because women do tend to ask more questions in conversation than men typically do and asking questions is the end of the rainbow for all negotiators, male and female. Men have proven themselves superior in claiming the biggest share of a single pie. But women have proven themselves as good or better at baking more pies.

Go, do, prosper.