423. Kathryn Valentine on Negotiation Strategies for Women

Hello and welcome to Unleashed, the show that explores how to thrive as an independent professional. I'm your host, Will Bachman, and I am so excited to have my friend on the show today, Kathryn Valentine. She runs Worth More Strategies, which helps teach negotiation strategies to women, uh, and I'm gonna let Kathryn explain why That's the case, what she does. Kathryn, welcome to the show.

Hey, Will, I'm excited to be here.

Kathryn, tell me about Worthmore and why it makes sense to have training specifically tailored to women on negotiation.

Worthmore is based on— it's a research-based company based on research that we've been doing for the past, gosh, 6 years. about how to negotiate effectively as a woman. And the big unlock that we got about a year ago was that this is a great strategy for companies to retain and promote women, right? So we know that diverse companies outperform their peers by 50%, right? That's from McKinsey, I think a year or two ago. We also know that one of the main roadblocks to being a diverse company is the leaky pipeline. It's the fact that companies have a really hard time retaining high-performing women. What is now kind of our new unlock is that teaching women to negotiate is a solution to that problem. Because a lot of the time that women leave— and I did sort of a series of interviews with HR officers— and a lot of times that women leave, they don't ask for anything before they leave. They are just so burnt out or so frustrated with the situation that they move on to something different. A lot of that is preventable, right, if we can give women the tools to negotiate. And when people hear negotiate, they think it's just salary, which is certainly part of it. But the number one reason that women leave these companies isn't actually even salary. It's the way that the role has been crafted and the leadership around that, which are negotiable items, right? So by empowering women to negotiate, we can sort of do our part in helping to fix that talent pipeline issue.

And that is a little bit counterintuitive for a company to, to retain employees is to teach them to do a better job of negotiating with the company, right?

Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, so there's actually kind of 2 parts to this. Part one is the financial part, which is that particularly at professional services firms and places with really well-educated and highly paid workforces, to replace somebody costs about 200% of what it would have cost to keep them, right? So it is financially beneficial for the company to keep you as opposed to replace you. The other thing is when they replace you, they're rolling the dice on someone who, you know, may or may not be as good of a fit and who certainly probably doesn't know the organization as well and can't get things done as quickly, at least not initially, right? Part 2, though, is that there are so many things around the job that are negotiable. And research has shown that women do not identify negotiable opportunities nearly as often as men do. So things like when that deadline is, or who's in charge of that high-profile assignment, or, you know, who's presenting to the executive team, all of those things are negotiable and can sort of change the trajectory of your career when added up.

So So you started answering this next question, but tell me a little bit more. So what is different, if anything, in negotiating style or strategies or preparation or inclination towards negotiation between men and women? Are there differences that you found?

Yes. So this is— this was kind of The aha moment that I had when I was in business school. So negotiation, even at the top business schools, is taught as if it's a gender-neutral skill, but it's actually a highly gendered skill. So if you really dive into the research, what you find is that there's sort of 2 main ways to negotiate, right? Men can be equally effective negotiating either of those ways. Women are significantly more effective if they negotiate collaboratively. And, and this is the part that kind of blew my mind even more so, when women negotiate competitively, it probably would have been better for us to not negotiate at all because there's such a high risk of backlash, whether that be, you know, at this point in time, it's much more all of a sudden you're not invited to that, those drinks where decisions are being made, or you're no longer part of that. You know, they're forming a new committee and you didn't get invited, and that's unusual, right? And so when women negotiate competitively, there's a high risk of backlash. But when we negotiate communally, we negotiate better outcomes, and all parties say that they're more satisfied. Sort of what surprised me about this one, I spent a year researching just this in business school. And what really surprised me is there's a lot of very good, very robust research around negotiating successfully as a woman. But I felt like it wasn't really being connected to the professional world, right? I had been in corporate America for 10 years before then, and I'd never heard or even knew of any of these things. And so that's what we try to do, is we try to just take the research that exists and show women how we can use it to be more successful at work.

Okay, so this is fascinating. Now, I had a negotiation course in business school, and it was one of the best courses I took in business school. Anybody who hasn't gone to business school, if you go to business school, definitely take a negotiation class because it was one of the best courses I took. Now, it seemed to me that it was very much emphasizing collaboration and negotiation. It was very much about— it's not about trying to get the bigger slice of the pie. It's about looking to expand the pie and think about options that create value for everybody and all this kind of stuff. So it seemed, at least to me at the time, relatively focused on collaboration. But maybe not. So what are some of the things that, you know, when you talk about these 2 different styles, explain a little bit more how these 2 styles compare so we understand what it is you're talking about that's the more communal or collaborative style.

Right. So the 2 main— and there's actually 5 styles. There's done some research by Marks and Harold in 2009. But we're going to say that there's 2 sort of predominant ones, right? One is the competitive, which is very much the media portrayal of negotiation, right? So if you like Google the word negotiate and you click on the images button, you're going to see a lot of competitive negotiations. The second one is communal, which was, I think, really made popular with the book Getting to Yes, which you might have read in your negotiations course. This is Ury and Fisher. And this is the main way that sort of business schools are teaching negotiation, right? It's about us versus the problem. and how to grow the pie. And it's very, very good. And it does work better for women than the competitive style, right? However, if men, particularly men who, you know, or anyone that didn't take a negotiations course in business school, if you negotiate the way that the media really talks about it, which is competitively, it's not— chances are it's not going to go well for a woman, but it would go fine for a man. The second component, which I'm not sure about you, but my negotiation course did not go into as much, Is the communal ask. So if I'm going in to ask for more resources on my team, right? If I say, hey Bill, I need more resources on my team, that's not going to be interpreted quite the same as if a man says it, which, you know, we can argue whether or not that should be the way that it is, but because of gender perceptions, that is the way that it is. But if I go in as a woman and I say, hey, Bill, our team has been able to deliver 40% higher than our targets this year, and I actually think that we can do it again next year. But in order to do that, we're going to need a couple more FTEs because I need to be able to, you know, because we're generating more work right now. Can we talk about if that's possible? That ask, which is the communal ask, is kind of the key part that enables women to be both get better negotiated outcomes and be ranked as more likable and higher on leadership potential than before the negotiation. Okay.

I mean, that seems like it would come across better if a man did that as well, it seems to me.

I agree. However, if a man does it the other way, he's not necessarily going to suffer the backlash that a woman would. And you can see this in studies out of all kinds of different places.

Okay. So tell me a little bit more about— can you give me some more examples of sort of what differences you found? I'm really interested to hear kind of about what the research shows on this.

Absolutely. Differences in terms of how men and women negotiate?

Yeah. Or like if there's Like different tactics that, um, that, uh, you know, women either get better results from or that, uh, you know, that they, uh, or, or women will create a better impression, you know, using?

Yep. So there's the 2 main ones are a communal negotiation or a compa— sorry, a collaborative negotiation with a communal ask. That's kind of the the biggest sort of your high-level strategy, right? If you break down the research further, there's a couple other tips in there. One is that when women take a negotiation training, it completely eliminates the gender gap in negotiated outcomes. So if you took a man and a woman off the street and had a negotiation, like many researchers have, right, chances are that the man will do better. But if you train the woman on how to negotiate and then you have the negotiation, there's no longer any gender gap, right? And this part hasn't been proven. But the idea behind that is that the reason this may exist is that the sort of work world is— and the structures there are created by the predominant group, which are white men. And so all of those things are— have been built in ways that are just generally a little bit more natural to white men than necessarily to women, right? The second thing is data. So if a woman has access to good data, that also eliminates the gender gap in outcomes. So if a woman can actually have both of those, it's pretty interesting to argue that, you know, women in some ways are better negotiators than men, which is, you know, 84% of people think that men are better negotiators than women, which I think is something that women internalize. And when we start to feel like we aren't a good negotiator, then we don't necessarily perform at our best. Right.

Okay. So talk to me so about a bit about what your, your firm does.

So Worthmore Strategies offers kind of— we have 2 things going on. One is for individuals. We do sort of a retainer coaching model. We actually had our biggest win Last week, we got a 74% increase in pay for a woman, which was huge for her and huge for the company because she'd been— she is an outperformer by far. And being able to have her is a really good thing for them. And then the second thing that we do is we do a program. It's a 4-part series for corporations. And they give, they give this to their women and it Really kind of unleashes— see what I did there— unleashes their potential in negotiating. And what we see with negotiating again is part of it is salary, but a lot of it is, you said the deadline was Friday. Friday is actually my kid's birthday. It means a lot to me if the deadline is on Monday, right? So being able to negotiate differences there can really enable a woman to be significantly more successful than she would have been.

Okay. Can you kind of give us a bit of a table of contents of what that program looks like?

Sure. So it first starts with sort of a mythbuster. So actually, one of our clients came up with this where she was like, here are the things I believed about negotiations before I took this course. One, it's all about salary. Not true. 2, I'm not good at it. Not true. 3, if I negotiate, people will think poorly of me and it won't be good for my career. Conditional, potentially if you negotiated competitively but not collaboratively, right? And then how long a negotiation should take and how you prepare for it are kind of the myths. So that's part 1. Part 2 is a presentation on the research behind all of this. Again, there are some amazing researchers. Bowles out of Harvard, Amana Tua out of Georgetown, Deborah Kolb, who is associated with Harvard's Program on Negotiation, are like just churning out amazing stuff. And so this presentation really connects what they're finding with how we can apply it in sort of corporate America. Then there's an online course, which is a step-by-step guide on how to prepare for a negotiation, right? So somebody could sit down with it. saying, I want to ask for a promotion. And by the time they finish the course, they will be equipped with, you know, how to structure that conversation, what exactly the words are they're going to use, you know, what objections they may hear, and how you continue that. And then part 4 is a facilitated small group to help connect sort of what we know research-wise with the culture of that company. So what has worked in this company, What maybe hasn't worked as well, and how can we create a high-performing cohort of women who can support each other really in going for and getting those promotions and in being able to stay at that company and continue contributing.

To what degree do you include interactive negotiation exercises as part of the course?

Love that. So right now they're in a small group. I'm actually talking to one client about breaking the small group out into 2 parts and doing a half-day workshop. And then a 1-hour small group discussion like 6 months later. Right now they're embedded in part 4.

Yeah, that's— that was some of the most memorable training that I had all of— all of business school was, was that negotiation course and those, those exercises, because that's when you really feel it in your gut when you actually are doing it. It's one thing to just listen to someone talking at you, but when you actually have to sit down and Even if it's just a fake scenario you've been handed, you kind of feel it so emotionally. And, you know, some people got the better of me. In some cases, you know, the negotiator and I, like, we came up with some good solution. And, or some cases we both failed to get what we want. And then you saw the trick afterwards and like, oh, I should have done that. And then you kind of remember that much, much longer. So that's good to hear. What do you think about— I've heard this one thing, this kind of a side question, but— Someone recommending what's called like rejection therapy, where you try to intentionally get rejected at something.

So that you're okay with it?

Yeah, like, no, and the idea is like you would intentionally every single day try to get rejected. Like you'll ask someone down the street, oh, can I have a bite of your sandwich? You know, like, no, you know, just so you get used to it. So it just, you know, becomes not a big deal to be rejected.

I love that. Thank you so much, because the fear of hearing no is one that I hear a lot. And actually, if you go back to the— I don't know if you're familiar, but if you go back to toy coding research, starting honestly in the 1970s, but then it's been updated every 10 years since. But if you look at toy coding, it very clearly shows, you know, researchers would go in and look at the toys that boys and girls played with. And from that, were able to deduce that boys were being taught that they controlled their environment. And girls were being taught that their environment controlled them. And part of that was that when someone says no to a girl, it's seen as an absolute, whereas when someone says no to a boy, it's seen as more relative, right? Well, you said no, but what about this? Or what about that? Maybe I'll come back to you later. And that clearly has pretty significant implications for how people negotiate, you know, 30 years down the road. And so a lot of what I do is— and I'm laughing because I had a client last week that like negotiated a margarita, right? And it's like, yeah, if you can just hear no and learn that it's okay, it is kind of a breakthrough.

That is true. I will admit that I just embarrassed my son the other day. I was taking— I took my son to get his second vaccination. He's 16. And they did this thing where they shoot, you know, they shoot your head with like the, the temperature detector.

Oh yeah.

And they said like, oh, we can't give him his vaccine, it's 102 degrees, 100.2. I felt his head, there's like, there's no way he has a, there's no way he has a, you know, a fever today. Oh, I'm sorry, our little zap machine, you know, it says. And, and then they tried another one that they had behind the counter, and that one's always 100.2. I'm like, so there's— so I, I just, you know, I'm like, that the no is the beginning of a conversation, right? So, so I just bought like a thermometer in the store and went outside and tested him. He's like, oh, it's 98.4. So I went and showed the pharmacist, look, 98.4. And okay, you know, they gave him the shot. Um, so I think, I think you're right that for some people, they've— we've just been trained like no is the, the beginning of a conversation.

Like, oh, thank you, you've given me some information. So my favorite negotiations professor who did like the, the $2 billion Jim Beam acquisition and all that good stuff always said that if she didn't hear no, then she didn't do her job, right? Her job is to hear no and then back down because that's how she captures the most value for her client. Um, and I always thought that even if I don't do that, knowing that that's the gold standard was really helpful.

That's a good point. Good point. Yeah, the worst is when you tell a client your rate or something and they're like, oh, that's perfect.

You're like, ah, snap.

So, okay. And, you know, I think I'm also curious to hear a little meta question about just sort of how you got into this coaching on negotiations. I think that you, you know, there's some backstory behind that.

Yes. So I took the negotiations course in business school. Much like you, it kind of just transformed how I thought, right? I was one of those people who was raised to always care about others before myself. And if I heard no, that was the end of the conversation. And frankly, I probably shouldn't have even asked because that was rude, right? And so before business school, I had never negotiated anything, save one when my grandfather was sick, but like very rarely negotiated anything. And I went to business school, took this course, loved it. And then when I was sitting in the class, the guys next to me were telling all these stories of things they had negotiated that had just never occurred to me, right? For them, it was like their key skills were like networking, negotiating, blah, blah, blah. And I had never thought about it that way. And so I went into my MBA internship and I actually ended up a month in sort of finishing the assignment. And so I went back and said, like, in the wrong way, hey, I finished our assignment. I'd like to be moved to this department, period. That did not go well. It did not go well for a couple of reasons. One, because of how I asked, but two, because there were some political things going on behind the scenes that I wasn't necessarily aware of. That blew— ended up blowing up so big. That I, I still don't think I ever could have been successful in that organization. My current boss was pissed at me. The guy I wanted to work for was mad at me. Like, it just was not a good situation. And so I went back to business school sort of like with my tail tucked between my legs, trying to figure out what I'd done wrong. And I thought, I thought it was me. I thought that, you know, I wasn't good enough. Or I clearly hadn't understood the content or something. And when I went to meet with one of my professors, she was like, oh, here's what happened. And she kind of started to unlock the negotiating as a woman viewpoint for me, and then gave me some really good readings and referred me to another great professor who oversaw my research for the year. And I just really spent some time diving into it, and I was shocked at how much research there was on this. And had I known that, before I'd gone into the room, right? Like, it's possible I would still be at that company. And so what I wanted to do was figure out how to share this. So I wrote a paper, sent it to a few friends, and that paper just got forwarded and forwarded, and people I didn't even know would reach out to me on LinkedIn or find my email address and say, hey, I'm in this situation, what do you think? And so that was just kind of a side conversation that I would have here and there, and I always loved. COVID made my independent consulting business difficult enough, particularly because, well, because we had our 1 and our 3-year-olds home, that I just started taking their nap time to like post some of these resources online. And then Adweek and Forbes got wind of it. And then, you know, a couple other calls were made to me. And I realized that this might actually have a shot to be a real business that, you know, helps women and helps companies get the diverse workforce that they need to succeed in the future. Um, so I'm just really excited about it.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Um, if you only had just a, you know, a couple minutes to, to tell a woman the 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 kind of key points about negotiating as a woman, what's some of the highlights that you'd want to make sure that a listener takes away?

If you can make it about other people, then you'll be fine. So that's kind of my— and I think to your point, that's probably true for a lot of men, right? There was this article written recently that the way to negotiate as a woman is about to become the way for us to all negotiate as sort of ideas of what leadership means changes. But as long as the woman makes it about the other party, how it's good for clients or the company or the customers or the team, Then she will be able to avoid backlash, which is really what most of my clients are worried about.

Interesting. Okay. And do you want to talk at all about what your— if someone's interested in like an individual coaching program, what does that look like with you? Is it like a just a one-off meeting, or is it an ongoing retainer? Is it something you do by the hour, or how do you structure that program?

It's now a retainer that we set up to last the amount of time that the client needs it, right? Some people are— need to get through a conversation. Some people actually are, you know, leaving big consulting firms and they have 6 offers and it's going to take a few weeks to figure it out and they don't know when that next offer is coming in, right? So they need something slightly different. I am experimenting with a new model where instead of charging an upfront fee, I charge 10% of the negotiated difference. And I'm really excited about that one because people can very clearly see what the value of that skill is.

Yeah, that's pretty powerful. Cool. And beyond, like you said, I mean, you've mentioned a couple times beyond just the salary, what are some of the other dimensions of the negotiation, particularly around kind of a new new contract, right? As opposed to just the daily life of being at a firm, but of a contract. What are some of the other dimensions of that that you help people open their eyes to or help them think about?

It's a great question. So a lot of women leaders negotiate not only getting into the role, but their ability to be successful in the role. So this is things like scope, scope of the role, title, what your team looks like, what your budget looks like any system upgrades you may need to be successful, so on and so forth. It's also things like meeting participation, right? There— I had one woman actually recently who negotiated. She got a job that was an hour away. She could not move her family of 4 at this point in time. So instead of wasting 2 hours in the car, she negotiated a driver, right? The company was thrilled with that because they get an extra 10 hours of work from her every week. And her family was excited because they're not losing time with her. Right. And they don't have to move. There's all kinds of things that you can. So if you go to my website, which is worthmorenegotiations.com, on the top bar, there's a list of the 60 things that I've seen women negotiate outside of just salary. And you can download it there. The other thing that I would encourage women to do is just ask, like, if you could wave a magic wand, what would you want in your role? And what are the daily irritants that make your role more difficult? And the answers to those questions can usually be negotiated.

When you're talking to your corporate clients, what's the sort of title of the executive that you're typically talking to when you negotiate— when you personally, Kathryn, negotiate your programs or your training programs?

Right now, I— that's actually a great question. It's a question that I'm looking to the— to find the answer. Right now, there isn't a commonality. So in one company, it's C-suite. In another company, it's the head of— the head of women, right? One thing that I have learned is that it needs— the program needs an executive sponsor to be as effective as it can be because it needs someone in the business who, you know, really is saying that this is important.

So listeners, if you know a company that, you know, might be interested in this kind of support for their women, let's definitely make an intro to Kathryn. Um, we'll include her LinkedIn profile in the, uh, in the show notes as well as the link to her website. You want to share the link to your website, Kathryn?

Sure, it's, um, worthmorenegotiations.com, and I'll send you a link, Will.

All right, fantastic. So Kathryn, thank you so much for joining today. What you're doing is fantastic work, and I'm excited about it. It's great having you on the show.

Thanks so much, Will. I appreciate the opportunity.