Dixie Gillaspie dissects the false assumptions behind the idea that men are better negotiators, and why.
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The title was enough to suck me in; “Why Men Are Better Negotiators Than Women.”
Because I not only wanted to know why, I wanted to know why the author believed it to be true. Because I don’t.
But hey, my perceptions are based on my experiences. I thought maybe Ms. Breslin had some intel I’d been missing.
Nope. No intel, just perceptions based on her experiences. And interpreted in such a way that I could not decide which of the genders was most degraded by her conclusions.
I was so outraged at the assumptions presented in the article that I thought maybe I was overreacting.
To get a more expert perspective I fired the link off to my good friend, trusted mentor, and undeniable expert on successful negotiations, Bob Burg. He’s been writing and teaching on negotiation strategies for more than 20 years, and his most recent work, Adversaries Into Allies: Win People Over Without Manipulation or Coercion, is a definitive and powerful treatise on how to get what you want without resorting to coercion, manipulation, or intimidation. (You may also recognize him as the co-author, with John David Mann, of The Go-Giver and the two subsequent books in that series.)
I knew I could trust Bob to guide my outrage into something a little more focused and productive. He didn’t let me down, (he never does,) and in next week’s post I’m going to share the pearls of our discussion about what makes anyone, man or woman, a great negotiator, without resorting to lying, guilt-inducing diatribes, or intimidation. (Watch this space for that upcoming article.)
But first, because the Forbes article is based on the premise that some successful negotiation tactics come more naturally to men than to women, (especially those tactics that we would call “not nice”) let me expose the between-the-lines insults that this article deals out to both genders.
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To begin with, each of the three conclusions drawn are illustrated by only one example, and that example is a personal experience. From which the author has generalized that her strengths and weaknesses, her personal comfort zone, and her ability to control her reactions, are shared by other women.
To which I say, “Not me!” (And I’ll also add that her illustrations would not apply to most women I know.)
But let’s examine the three “reasons” she gives for believing that men are just naturally better at negotiating.
Men Lie
They not only lie, they “lie with impunity.”
In the next article we’ll talk about why lying has nothing to do with successful negotiation, but for now let’s just focus on this rendition of “All Men Are Liars.”
I’m pretty sure that when Nick Lowe wrote the lyrics to that song he had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. Ms. Breslin, as nearly as I can tell, is dead serious.
Her premise is that women lie, but they can’t really get away with it. Men lie, get away with it, and therefore get what they want in life.
Let’s be honest here at least. We all lie. We lie first to ourselves and then to each other. Sometimes we don’t even know we’re lying. Sometimes it gets us what we want (at least in the short term,) more often it doesn’t. Some men are really, really good at it. Some women are really, really good at it too.
Lying, and being good at lying, is about character. Not gender.
Getting away with lying is about culture and society, and if that is about gender it’s because of our cultural biases, not a prevalence of certain traits in either gender.
Women Feel Guilty
The implication, of course, is that men don’t.
Do I really have to break down this false premise for you? Probably not. You’re probably already thinking, “I know women who don’t have a ‘guilt gene,’ they’d have yelled and coerced their way into that contract exactly the way Ms. Breslin described, and felt perfectly justified in doing it.”
Or maybe you’re thinking that coercing someone into terms they don’t feel good about gives you a headache too, even if you’re male.
I’m with you. How you feel about making negotiation a win-lose “by any means necessary” interaction (with you on the winning side, of course) has nothing to do with gender, and everything to do with personal values and integrity.
Personal values are learned, so I will concede that as a society we may have instilled less of the “guilt gene” in our boys than we have our girls.
But personal values also have to align with our inner compass, or we suffer from cognitive dissonance and a loss of personal integrity. And men have an inner compass that is just as likely to point to respect for the other party and professionalism in their interactions. Which means they are just as likely to have that guilt-induced headache as Ms. Breslin or any of her female counterparts.
Of course, Ms. Breslin didn’t have to “rail angrily at the other person” to get what she wanted. That’s just the way it happened that time. (We’ll talk more about the other options Ms. Breslin, and all of us, have for really getting what we want in that next article I mentioned.)
To Negotiate Is To Intimidate
No. To intimidate is to intimidate. Sometimes that gets us what we want. Usually, even if it gets us what we think we want, it creates unnecessary enemies. At the very least, it makes another person feel small. So unless what you really want is to make another person feel small, and possibly create resentment, animosity or even an outright enemy, then you didn’t really get what you wanted, did you?
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To imply that men are better negotiators because these “strengths” of lying, showing their worst without guilt, and intimidating anyone who won’t let them have their way, just come naturally to them is an insult to men.
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Again Ms. Breslin implies that, if only she were a man, she could channel her inner Michael Clayton (who is a man, get it?) and scream, “DO I LOOK LIKE I’M NEGOTIATING?”
My guess is, were she a man, she would still sit, silent, fantasizing about being bold enough, (not a male-exclusive quality) or foolish enough (also not a male-exclusive quality) to scream out loud.
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The premise that women are weak negotiators, and paid less because of it, because they can’t lie with impunity, can’t show their negative emotions without feeling guilty about it, and can’t intimidate the other party by screaming “DO I LOOK LIKE I’M NEGOTIATING?” when they aren’t getting what they want, is an insult to women. Because I’m sure we could if we wanted to and I’m also sure that some women can do all that and more.
To imply that men are better negotiators because these “strengths” of lying, showing their worst without guilt, and intimidating anyone who won’t let them have their way, just come naturally to them is an insult to men. (And, I have to add, is at least as false as the idea that women do not and cannot master those “strengths.”)
But to assume that because in these three instances the behavior of lying, yelling, and intimidating resulted in “winning the negotiation,” that these tactics define “being better negotiators” is an insult to every human being.
Because really, which of us can resist resenting the person who trapped us into “losing” because we were lied to, yelled at, or intimated?
And if what they earned was our distrust and resentment, did they really win?
Photo:Flickr/Kevin Shine