1. Practice

• Experiment with low-risk negotiations by using social situations, meetings and interactions with providers such as phone or cable companies.

• Role-play a negotiation with a trusted friend or colleague to practice, receive feedback, strategize and challenge your assumptions and note any strong lines of argument.

2. Change your mindset

• Assume opportunities are open to negotiation unless explicitly told otherwise and ask for what you want, whether a raise or a promotion.

• Negotiate on behalf of someone else, even when advocating for yourself, whether for your team, your organization or women who will come after you.

• Be comfortable asking to negotiate, including reframing negotiations as “opportunities to ask” rather than “opportunities to negotiate.” 

• Believe in your negotiating abilities, because changing your expectations and self-perception can alter outcomes. Nonverbal cues and postures can be strategically deployed to adopt a powerful mindset and exert influence.

3. Do your research

• Perform due diligence on the other party and on the market, which will help you create innovative proposals and solutions that are in both parties’ interests.

• Understand what determines compensation, whether based on education or position, to develop an appropriate ask and highlight relevant credentials.

• Learn your market value from national wage data or data from professional associations and keep a weekly or monthly achievement log to justify your ask.

• Understand the motivations of players throughout the hiring process to build lasting relationships throughout your career.

• Complete the recruiting process even with a company that is not your first choice, as this is a way to practice negotiating and attain competitive offers.

4. Know your numbers and when to share them 

• Start to negotiate only once you get an offer you are ready to accept, since premature negotiation can harm your relationship with a person and/or the company.

• Remember your “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA), a walk-away option that increases your bargaining power.

• Remember your reservation price (derived from your BATNA) but aim significantly higher by thinking about your target or aspirational price. 

• Avoid giving a specific number if you have limited information and instead, express what is important to you, such as more equity in the company.

• Make a counteroffer, which can include equity, commissions and signing bonuses, training, telecommuting, moving allowances and tuition reimbursement.

5. Reframe the negotiation as collaborative, not confrontational

• Negotiate packages in which both sides make concessions, rather than conducting an item-by-item negotiation, which can be a long and, adversarial process.

• Establish your top priorities (e.g., cash, equity, flexibility, professional development, formal mentorship) before entering a negotiation and as you begin to negotiate in packets, stay focused on your top one to priorities..

• Invoke a communal orientation by examining why, how and for whom you are negotiating. 

• Focus on building the relationship and trust rather than being too aggressive, which can negatively impact how the other party perceives you.

• Treat negotiation as a collaborative endeavor offering a solution to a problem your counterpart is facing and maintain flexibility while pursuing your goals.

• Harness stereotypes when it feels authentic, since coming off as nice, smiling and using friendly gestures can benefit women.

• Come off as a team player and use relational accounts to reduce bias and potential social backlash.

• Demonstrate connection to others by invoking pay disparities and making group-oriented statements to increase your chances of successful negotiation.
  

Negotiation Best Practices for Company Leadership 

Companies are responsible for designing hiring, performance evaluation and promotion systems that are equitable and seek to close the gender-based compensation gap. Leaders can model more inclusive behavior and practices. Strategies include the following:

• Recognize unconscious bias by requiring hiring managers to take implicit bias tests and, more broadly, building a corporate culture of inclusion.

• Reduce the emphasis on working longer hours when evaluating performance, since reducing the penalty of working shorter hours can help reduce the gender wage gap. 

• Increase pay transparency, which helps remedy racial and gender pay inequities and creates a culture where peers feel comfortable talking about compensation.

• Audit negotiating behavior and standards to reduce bias and promote healthier negotiations and decision-making.

• Educate and mentor negotiators to increase awareness and address biases in the negotiation process.

• Proactively close gaps by routinely reviewing compensation and checking that people in the same roles are fairly compensated.

Using the tips and best practices in this toolkit will help ensure that your negotiation skills help advance your career and create opportunities for those who follow you.