What successful negotiators do differently | Kathryn Valentine

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0:35Learn more at Toyota.com, the new all-electric family. Toyota, let's go places. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. Hey, it's Paige from Giggly Squad, and I want to let you know that if you want the newest and hottest beauty products, you have to go to Sephora.

1:18I'm obsessed with the One Size Liquid Blotting Paper Spray. It's the first of its kind blotting spray that mattifies for up to eight hours. It's unreal. There's also the Summer Friday Shade Drops SPF 50, which basically lives in my bag at this point. Oh, and the Kay Alley Eden Plush Pear smells so good. It's sweet, warm, and addictive. Like, people literally stop me and ask what perfume I'm wearing, which you know I love. So if you want the makeup, skincare, hair, and fragrance products everyone's about to be obsessed with, shop only at Sephora. Sometimes I can be an intense auntie with my nieces and nephew.

1:57I'll give them a small task, organize or make a photo album from a family gathering, help me around the house, inventory something for their grandparents, you know, chores where they can earn a little pocket cash. And the important part is not the money they get. It's the lesson I teach them when I tell them what I want to pay them. If they automatically say yes to my rate, I ask, so you're not going to negotiate? They're usually surprised. And then that starts a conversation that hopefully will extend into the rest of their professional lives. I'm particularly mindful to do this with my nieces.

2:34I know women often feel a ton of different negative emotions associated with negotiation, and the fear of backlash is real. I want to normalize the idea that you can negotiate early on. I want them to know there's nothing wrong with asking for more. And in fact, there might be a better way to do it.

2:57I'm Madhupak and Ola. This is TED Business, a podcast from TED. Our speaker today, business consultant Catherine Valentine, has a clear perspective on how gendered expectations factor into the art of negotiation. Here she uses both her own personal experience and academic research to develop strategies for women combating gender bias in the workplace. One such strategy? The relational ask. Then after the talk, I'll clarify a common misperception. But first, a quick break. This episode is brought to you by PACA. The best pieces are effortless. the ones that just feel right every time you put them on, the layer you reach for whether you're heading out the door or settling in for the night.

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4:27Both made with the same thoughtfulness and that signature alpaca softness. To grab your PACA hoodie, go to www.pacaapparel.com. That's www.pakaapparel.com. Support for today's episode comes from Square. If you've ever been to a local business, a farmer's market vendor, a boutique, even a food truck, where everything just feels seamless from ordering to checkout, there's a good chance Square is behind it. Square brings payments, POS, inventory, staffing, and online sales together in one system so owners aren't juggling a dozen tools just to get through the day. And it scales with you. Whether you're just starting out or expanding to multiple locations, Square adapts to how your business actually works, not the other way around.

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6:01And now, Katherine Valentine takes the TED stage. I love negotiating. I love negotiating. Anyone else? More people! As women, we have a negotiation problem. When we negotiate, we are less likely than men are to be successful, and we're at a higher risk of backlash. This causes us to miss out on opportunities, earn less, and frankly, messes around with our mental well-being. Fun, right? We've all been there. There's something you want to ask for. So we stress about it for weeks. We prepare, we take all of the expert advice, and yet it never feels like we're coming from a position of strength. What if I told you that's because we've been given the wrong advice our whole lives?

7:05What if I told you there's another way, a better way, a more authentic way designed especially for women that will make you much more likely to get what you're asking for? I want to share a story. Ten years ago, I was an MBA intern with an opportunity at a Fortune 50 company, a company that I had had my eye on for years. I was doing really well in the internship. I actually finished my summer project in under a month. And I decided that my best bet would be to negotiate to be placed on another team halfway through the summer because that's how I thought twice as many people would vouch for me and I would get that job.

7:49So I made an appointment with the intern coordinator for Monday morning and spent all weekend preparing for one of the biggest conversations of my life. Monday morning arrives and I walk into the coordinator's office at 10 a.m. sharp, ready to negotiate just like the experts told me to. I was creased, pleated, and pressed to perfection. By 10.05, I had managed to accidentally offend the coordinator. By 10-10, I was being told I was no longer a culture fit, which meant I wasn't getting that job. As an added bonus per company protocol, I was then escorted out of the building by security and deposited on the sidewalk.

8:41My head was spinning. What just happened? It turns out I had accidentally violated the gender norms of negotiation and derailed my career in less time than it takes to get a latte. That set me on a path to research the role of gender in negotiations because I don't want any other woman to be blindsided by the secret impact gender has. Why? Because we continue to use strategies built for men. In fact, that's what most expert advice is. That's what I did, and it earned me a VIP seat on the sidewalk. Instead, you want to use what's called a relational ask. A relational ask is easily the most well-hidden secret in negotiation until now.

9:38Research by Hannah Riley Bowles out of Harvard and Linda Babcock out of Carnegie Mellon shows that when women use a relational ask, we are much more likely to be successful and we actually strengthen the relationship. Research out of Georgetown shows that this virtually eliminates the risk of backlash. That means that you can feel free to ask for whatever it is you want, and you don't have to worry about all of those things that maybe would have happened because of your gender. Like the nerd I am, I have now reviewed 13 ,000 pages of academic research on this topic, and I used it to create a formula you can use to ask for what you want.

10:21The formula is past performance plus future vision plus the ask and then a collaborative question. This formula has been field tested by hundreds of women over the past five years to get promoted make more money, and craft careers they love. Let me show you how it works. Past performance is what you've already done that matters. Future vision is something that everyone in the room wants. The ask is what you want. We're going to connect that to the vision. And then a collaborative question is really just how we get out of our own ways. Because after coaching women on this for years, what I found is that women are so wonderful that in order to avoid the possibility of someone else feeling uncomfortable, we'll negotiate against ourselves.

11:12But it's okay if it's not in your budget this year. Don't say that. Instead, you want to use what we call a collaborative question. This formula means that it will take you two minutes to create your ask using everything we know about how to negotiate successfully as a woman. Maybe give you a few examples of how this works, right? So instead of saying, I deserve to be promoted, you would use this formula to say something like, as you know, I exceeded my sales targets by 10 % last year. I think I can do it again this year. But in order to do that, I need the credibility that comes with a director title.

11:54What do you think? The woman who used those words was successfully promoted. Here's another one. instead of, I want to work less. You could use the formula to say something like, as you know, I piloted a new onboarding process this quarter and it's getting great results. We can roll it out across the company next year, but in order to do that, I need to work the hours when I'm most productive, which is typically earlier in the day. How can we make this work? That woman no longer works late into the evenings. Now, you might be thinking, this isn't fair. I shouldn't have to deal with gender bias at all.

12:33You're right. And we can wait for gender parity. Estimates are it will only take 191 years. In the meantime, there are 79 million women who need tools to be successful now. Another one I've been hearing recently is, well, won't AI fix this for me? I wish that were true, and for a while I thought it was. Unfortunately, it turns out AI's strength is in its ability to gobble up huge amounts of information, most of which on this particular topic is what researchers call crap.

13:14Did you know that we make 35 ,000 decisions every day? As women, so many of those decisions are made to optimize for other people. What does my boss need? My team? My kids? But we only get this one life, and you get to decide what yours looks like. Not your boss. Not your parents. Not your partner. Not your kids. You. So let's ditch the bad advice and instead use this formula to ask for what you want in your life. Share this with the other women that you care about, your family, your friends, your classmates, your colleagues, so that we can all have the tools we need to negotiate a life we love.

14:04Thank you.

14:09Hey, it's Paige from Giggly Squad, and I want to let you know that if you want the newest and hottest beauty products, you have to go to Sephora. I'm obsessed with the One Size Liquid Blotting Paper Spray. It's the first of its kind blotting spray that mattifies for up to eight hours. It's unreal. There's also the Summer Friday Shade Drops SPF 50, which basically lives in my bag at this point. Oh, and the Kay Alley Eden Plush Pear smells so good. It's sweet, warm, and addictive. Like, people literally stop me and ask what perfume I'm wearing, which you know I love. So if you want the makeup, skincare, hair, and fragrance products everyone's about to be obsessed with, shop only at Sephora.

14:47With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. Your team just added its 67th AI tool and also your 67th security blind spot. The good news? The Vanta agent works like a GRC engineer in the background, finding every app your team uses, scoring the risk, and drafting fixes for you.

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15:51That was Catherine Valentine at TEDxSugar Creek Women. I love this talk for a lot of reasons. One of them is that Catherine gives women a clear formula for how to approach future negotiations. The second is that she immediately debunks an outdated idea that always drives me crazy. It's that women don't negotiate as much as men. I've heard that a ton, and maybe it used to be true, but it isn't anymore. What Catherine says is right. It's not that women aren't asking. It's that our negotiations are less likely to be successful, which is maddening. My friend Laura Cray, a researcher at Berkeley, found that the idea that women aren't asking for higher pay is not only outdated, it's actually a harmful perception.

16:44It places unfair blame on women for not asking, when in reality, it's organizations that are treating employees differently when it comes to negotiations around compensation. I think that distinction matters and that Catherine is right to be frank about it. It's why I'm teaching my young nieces to negotiate now. I want them to be in the practice of doing so, so that when the time comes, they'll be ready. I just hope when that day arrives, enough progress will be made so that these gender-based strategies aren't necessary. But we still have a long way to go. That's it for today. TED Business is part of the TED Audio Collective.

17:31This episode was produced by Hannah Kingsley Ma, edited by Alejandra Salazar, and fact-checked by Julia Dickerson. Special thanks to Maria Ladias, Farrah DeGrange, Daniela Ballarezzo, Tansika Sangmanivang, and Roxanne Heilash. I'm Madupa Akinola. Thanks for listening.

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18:59Learn more at schwab.com slash team. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC.