6 ms·

I don't think it's just a problem for women. Most of us enter adulthood with terrible negotiation skills, especially in engineering. I certainly did. The percen

I don't think it's just a problem for women. Most of us enter adulthood with terrible negotiation skills, especially in engineering. I certainly did. The percentage of people who are decent negotiators is small and, empirically, most of them seem to be men. Successful people negotiate everything: job title, compensation, authority in hierarchical companies, project allocation. If turned down for a raise, they get a better project or a "meaningless" title that improves the CV. They're resilient against rejection (an inevitable outcome of negotiation) but they keep trying and working to improve. The rest, who don't, get mediocre results-- male or female. In software, there are a lot of people who don't know how to negotiate-- at all. In school, we live in an artificial environment where everyone is assessed on similar projects and grades are fairly objective. So negotiating for a better result-- a B rather than a C-- is seen as dishonorable and weak. You should have studied harder. This no-negotiation zone is reasonable in a world where grades are (in comparison to workplace performance reviews) exceedingly fair and 90-95% get passing grades. If you're on the threshold (a 'D' student) it means you were a weak performer who managed to squeak by. But in the real world, for promotions and favors and work autonomy and VC funding, pass rates are << 50% and if you don't have it in you to negotiate for a better outcome, you're screwed.

theorique 14y ago
In software, there are a lot of people who don't know how to negotiate-- at all. Excellent points. Many "computer people" are really good at what they do because they leveraged their introversion into uncommonly high levels of programming skill. In such an environment, the interpreter is "fair", the compiler is "fair" (although often uncompromising and unforgiving). Once you get the "right" answer, it stays right and doesn't change unless external circumstances change (e.g. new compiler, new hardware, something breaks). On the other hand, the human world is not always "fair", and it's often possible to push back against a judgment, using only high confidence and a loose but passionate argument. Belief that the human world operates with the same exact logic and precision as the computer world is a source of many misunderstandings.
- nradov 14y ago
  I don't know about that. What I've learned is that compilers and interpreters are often ridden with defects, and you have to negotiate hard with suppliers to get them fixed.
- Surio 14y ago
  In software, there are a lot of people who don't know how to negotiate-- at all. I've seen that. But I've also seen some very very hard negotiators in software as well. So, I don't agree with your generalisation. It's something else, but it is late and I am already depressed after reading some of the excellent comments. I am going to get some sleep and do the soul-searching bit on this with a fresh mind tomorrow. This topic has been food for thought!
  - theorique 14y ago
    Oh yeah, no question that the opposite is also true - the big-ego computer geek who will argue over every last little $100 in annual salary and benefits because he believes that he's God's gift to programming. (And everything in between - my post was a generalization of one side...)
    - Surio 14y ago
      > he believes that he's God's gift to programming. Had to lol at that one!
simonsarris 14y ago
> Successful people negotiate everything I agree with most of what you're saying, but I also think you're kind-of side stepping the issue that the paper sought to quantify. Yes its not just a problem for women, but there's a lot more pressure on women to avoid confrontational negotiation[1] because they'll be branded much more negatively (ie "Bitchiness" or some other term), and if they are, then they risk being taken less seriously. Men don't have the same problem, as culturally strong/pushy personalities (that might fare better in negotiation or negotiate more) are seen as less of a cultural negative. It's something explicitly expected of one gender and seen as more repulsive in the other, and that becomes a big deal for things like salary negotiation. [1] See Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553383876/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553383876/
- cjbprime 14y ago
  > See Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553383876/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553383876/ For what it's worth, there's what looks to be a strong rebuttal of most of the things this book says here: http://fdiv.net/2012/01/20/pseudo-science-and-pseudo-feminism-women-dont-ask http://fdiv.net/2012/01/20/pseudo-science-and-pseudo-feminis... (I'd tend to think that your point stands anyway as being obviously true, but after reading the rebuttal again along with the link to this article I'm not sure anymore.)
  - ditonal 14y ago
    I'm surprised you found that rebuttal strong, I found it exceedingly weak. She complains that the original author used a few of her own unreviewed studies, fair criticism, but doesn't present any evidence that it was wrong. She complains that the original author painted the research as one-sided that men negotiate better, then reviews the research and show that it is in fact pretty one-sided. Then, having done nothing to really dispute the accuracy of the research evidence being presented, she goes into an unsubstantiated rant about privilege and minorities, which is largely unrelated to the book. It's true maybe the original book failed to address some of these issues, but it doesn't make the book wrong as much as incomplete. As she completely fails to hide her overarching political bias going into the rebuttal, her rebuttal made no striking critique on the book's research nor presents much conflicting research, and half the rebuttal was spent rehashing third wave feminism talking points rather than making scientific arguments, only to summarize by saying that book was shoddy science and sexist, I would not consider this a strong rebuttal at all.
jvm 14y ago
I was confused by your comment > I don't think it's just a problem for women. Since the paper provided clear evidence that this problem is worse for women. But then I kept reading and learned that you believe > The percentage of people who are decent negotiators is small and, empirically, most of them seem to be men. So that clarified to me that actually you a) believe women are inferior and b) that you did not read even the article's abstract which clearly stated that > We observe interesting data patterns. For example, we find that when there is no explicit statement that wages are negotiable, men are more likely to negotiate than women. However, when we explicitly mention the possibility that wages are negotiable, this difference disappears, and even tends to reverse. Implying that women's failure to negotiate arises from being socialized not to raise a fuss about wages rather than a difference in intrinsic ability. All in all pretty standard for a top comment about gender issues on HN.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Sorry, I was talking about "fear of negotiating" topic. I don't claim to know why there are gendered pay disparities, and there's certainly some injustice going on. Lack of desire to negotiate can't explain all of it. I certainly don't believe that "women are inferior". I was talking about negotiation skill. It can be learned, and there are plenty of women who are excellent at it.
  - jvm 14y ago
    I actually want to apologize. I misread your comment as contradicting the article: Saying basically that there is no gender disparity, or if there is it's women's intrinsic shortcomings, so I apologize about that. I still think it sort of reads that way but it's obviously not what you meant and I clearly see now how you meant it to be read.
- stcredzero 14y ago
  > So that clarified to me that actually you a) believe women are inferior It does not do that for me. The existence of a gender role or a population bias in current society says nothing about men or women being superior or inferior. It most likely says something about society. The percentage of people who are serial killers is small, and empirically, most of them are men.
Surio 14y ago
That entire comment read like an internal monologue that I frequently have with myself. :-(. I couldn't have worded it any better or differently. And, no I don't think you sidestepped anything or claimed that A is inferior to B or some such thing either. But in the real world, for promotions and favors and work autonomy and VC funding, pass rates are << 50% and if you don't have it in you to negotiate for a better outcome, you're screwed. I already had a bad day and shouldn't have read that line in the end. I am going to go and crawl into a foetal position until daybreak! :-(
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  I already had a bad day and shouldn't have read that line in the end. I am going to go and crawl into a foetal position until daybreak! Don't be depressed about it. Three words: parallel vs. serial. Build redundancy in your system. That's what "networking" is really about. Redundancy and parallel support. In a typical corporation, unless you're savvy enough to devote serious effort toward internal networking, you have serial dependency: you need to get along with your boss, who needs to get along with his, and so on... up to the company itself performing well in the market. It's a chain of dependencies up to the top. If one link breaks, it disrupts your career. Parallelism is what you need to aim for. If you have 20 1-in-5 chances, then your odds are overwhelmingly good of getting at least one hit: 98.9%. What you have to do is string together a set of these low-probability, high-impact opportunities... and be resilient against the inevitable rejections. As much as I loathe the "Game" worldview, don't get "one-itis".
  - Surio 14y ago
    Hi Michael, Thanks for reaching out. I know I shouldn't be depressed but it is extremely frustrating thinking about the situation, but not being able to do anything about it -- something like being able to hum Mozart or Beethoven or Wagner in your mouth clearly enough but totally sucking at it while playing it on an instrument! I think I got what you are pointing out, but then again, maybe I didn't. Firstly, the serial dependency bit clicked instantly (Well, it's easy because you can see that's all you've been doing all along!). But the parallelism bit flew past my head. Are you recommending that : 1. be savvy enough to devote serious effort toward internal networking? 2. Try to work on multiple teams/areas/domains? 3. Keep your contacts in outside organisations well primed and ready to help? Or was it something more obvious that ended up getting missed? Some more details would be helpful. Thank you.
SatvikBeri 14y ago
"Everyone sucks at negotiating, though men are slightly more likely to try" is supported by the study. See page 10. When salaries weren't explicitly listed as negotiable, only 10.6% of men and 8.2% of women even tried to negotiate. Even when they were explicitly negotiable, only about 22% of men and 23.9% of women tried. This is definitely cultural, by the way. Where I grew up in India, everyone negotiates for everything, even very cheap trinkets.
- Surio 14y ago
  >> This is definitely cultural, by the way. Actually, I also thought about this one. I was actually thinking of the market scene from "Life of Brian": "What? You don't want to haggle on price?"! But I did not pursue this thought as this is less of culture and more of context. In cheap trinkets or some other shop, the one thing on the back of your mind is that you can always walk away from it and there is no harm done. Moreover, in this case it is a buyer's market, as in, you simply try your luck with another shop/keeper if it didn't work out with a previous shop. And in the end, humans are loss averse, so there is still a lot of satisfaction if you came away without spending a single penny/rupee/roubles/etc. OTOH, a job negotiation is anything but that. More often than not, a job market can be a seller's market (depends on your situation as well). You have invested a lot of time and effort in a particular interview (remember humans being loss averse? Now the tables are stacked against you), and if the negotiation scenario is lined against you (no other competing offers at the same time, the company is doing work that you would love to get into and the company knows that for sure, etc.) then it is not as clear cut as a trinket price negotiation.

theorique 14y ago

In software, there are a lot of people who don't know how to negotiate-- at all. Excellent points. Many "computer people" are really good at what they do because they leveraged their introversion into uncommonly high levels of programming skill. In such an environment, the interpreter is "fair", the compiler is "fair" (although often uncompromising and unforgiving). Once you get the "right" answer, it stays right and doesn't change unless external circumstances change (e.g. new compiler, new hardware, something breaks). On the other hand, the human world is not always "fair", and it's often possible to push back against a judgment, using only high confidence and a loose but passionate argument. Belief that the human world operates with the same exact logic and precision as the computer world is a source of many misunderstandings.

nradov 14y ago
I don't know about that. What I've learned is that compilers and interpreters are often ridden with defects, and you have to negotiate hard with suppliers to get them fixed.
Surio 14y ago
In software, there are a lot of people who don't know how to negotiate-- at all. I've seen that. But I've also seen some very very hard negotiators in software as well. So, I don't agree with your generalisation. It's something else, but it is late and I am already depressed after reading some of the excellent comments. I am going to get some sleep and do the soul-searching bit on this with a fresh mind tomorrow. This topic has been food for thought!
- theorique 14y ago
  Oh yeah, no question that the opposite is also true - the big-ego computer geek who will argue over every last little $100 in annual salary and benefits because he believes that he's God's gift to programming. (And everything in between - my post was a generalization of one side...)
  - Surio 14y ago
    > he believes that he's God's gift to programming. Had to lol at that one!

simonsarris 14y ago

> Successful people negotiate everything I agree with most of what you're saying, but I also think you're kind-of side stepping the issue that the paper sought to quantify. Yes its not just a problem for women, but there's a lot more pressure on women to avoid confrontational negotiation[1] because they'll be branded much more negatively (ie "Bitchiness" or some other term), and if they are, then they risk being taken less seriously. Men don't have the same problem, as culturally strong/pushy personalities (that might fare better in negotiation or negotiate more) are seen as less of a cultural negative. It's something explicitly expected of one gender and seen as more repulsive in the other, and that becomes a big deal for things like salary negotiation. [1] See Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553383876/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553383876/

cjbprime 14y ago
> See Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553383876/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553383876/ For what it's worth, there's what looks to be a strong rebuttal of most of the things this book says here: http://fdiv.net/2012/01/20/pseudo-science-and-pseudo-feminism-women-dont-ask http://fdiv.net/2012/01/20/pseudo-science-and-pseudo-feminis... (I'd tend to think that your point stands anyway as being obviously true, but after reading the rebuttal again along with the link to this article I'm not sure anymore.)
- ditonal 14y ago
  I'm surprised you found that rebuttal strong, I found it exceedingly weak. She complains that the original author used a few of her own unreviewed studies, fair criticism, but doesn't present any evidence that it was wrong. She complains that the original author painted the research as one-sided that men negotiate better, then reviews the research and show that it is in fact pretty one-sided. Then, having done nothing to really dispute the accuracy of the research evidence being presented, she goes into an unsubstantiated rant about privilege and minorities, which is largely unrelated to the book. It's true maybe the original book failed to address some of these issues, but it doesn't make the book wrong as much as incomplete. As she completely fails to hide her overarching political bias going into the rebuttal, her rebuttal made no striking critique on the book's research nor presents much conflicting research, and half the rebuttal was spent rehashing third wave feminism talking points rather than making scientific arguments, only to summarize by saying that book was shoddy science and sexist, I would not consider this a strong rebuttal at all.

jvm 14y ago

I was confused by your comment > I don't think it's just a problem for women. Since the paper provided clear evidence that this problem is worse for women. But then I kept reading and learned that you believe > The percentage of people who are decent negotiators is small and, empirically, most of them seem to be men. So that clarified to me that actually you a) believe women are inferior and b) that you did not read even the article's abstract which clearly stated that > We observe interesting data patterns. For example, we find that when there is no explicit statement that wages are negotiable, men are more likely to negotiate than women. However, when we explicitly mention the possibility that wages are negotiable, this difference disappears, and even tends to reverse. Implying that women's failure to negotiate arises from being socialized not to raise a fuss about wages rather than a difference in intrinsic ability. All in all pretty standard for a top comment about gender issues on HN.

michaelochurch 14y ago
Sorry, I was talking about "fear of negotiating" topic. I don't claim to know why there are gendered pay disparities, and there's certainly some injustice going on. Lack of desire to negotiate can't explain all of it. I certainly don't believe that "women are inferior". I was talking about negotiation skill. It can be learned, and there are plenty of women who are excellent at it.
- jvm 14y ago
  I actually want to apologize. I misread your comment as contradicting the article: Saying basically that there is no gender disparity, or if there is it's women's intrinsic shortcomings, so I apologize about that. I still think it sort of reads that way but it's obviously not what you meant and I clearly see now how you meant it to be read.
stcredzero 14y ago
> So that clarified to me that actually you a) believe women are inferior It does not do that for me. The existence of a gender role or a population bias in current society says nothing about men or women being superior or inferior. It most likely says something about society. The percentage of people who are serial killers is small, and empirically, most of them are men.

Surio 14y ago

That entire comment read like an internal monologue that I frequently have with myself. :-(. I couldn't have worded it any better or differently. And, no I don't think you sidestepped anything or claimed that A is inferior to B or some such thing either. But in the real world, for promotions and favors and work autonomy and VC funding, pass rates are << 50% and if you don't have it in you to negotiate for a better outcome, you're screwed. I already had a bad day and shouldn't have read that line in the end. I am going to go and crawl into a foetal position until daybreak! :-(

michaelochurch 14y ago
I already had a bad day and shouldn't have read that line in the end. I am going to go and crawl into a foetal position until daybreak! Don't be depressed about it. Three words: parallel vs. serial. Build redundancy in your system. That's what "networking" is really about. Redundancy and parallel support. In a typical corporation, unless you're savvy enough to devote serious effort toward internal networking, you have serial dependency: you need to get along with your boss, who needs to get along with his, and so on... up to the company itself performing well in the market. It's a chain of dependencies up to the top. If one link breaks, it disrupts your career. Parallelism is what you need to aim for. If you have 20 1-in-5 chances, then your odds are overwhelmingly good of getting at least one hit: 98.9%. What you have to do is string together a set of these low-probability, high-impact opportunities... and be resilient against the inevitable rejections. As much as I loathe the "Game" worldview, don't get "one-itis".
- Surio 14y ago
  Hi Michael, Thanks for reaching out. I know I shouldn't be depressed but it is extremely frustrating thinking about the situation, but not being able to do anything about it -- something like being able to hum Mozart or Beethoven or Wagner in your mouth clearly enough but totally sucking at it while playing it on an instrument! I think I got what you are pointing out, but then again, maybe I didn't. Firstly, the serial dependency bit clicked instantly (Well, it's easy because you can see that's all you've been doing all along!). But the parallelism bit flew past my head. Are you recommending that : 1. be savvy enough to devote serious effort toward internal networking? 2. Try to work on multiple teams/areas/domains? 3. Keep your contacts in outside organisations well primed and ready to help? Or was it something more obvious that ended up getting missed? Some more details would be helpful. Thank you.

SatvikBeri 14y ago

"Everyone sucks at negotiating, though men are slightly more likely to try" is supported by the study. See page 10. When salaries weren't explicitly listed as negotiable, only 10.6% of men and 8.2% of women even tried to negotiate. Even when they were explicitly negotiable, only about 22% of men and 23.9% of women tried. This is definitely cultural, by the way. Where I grew up in India, everyone negotiates for everything, even very cheap trinkets.

Surio 14y ago
>> This is definitely cultural, by the way. Actually, I also thought about this one. I was actually thinking of the market scene from "Life of Brian": "What? You don't want to haggle on price?"! But I did not pursue this thought as this is less of culture and more of context. In cheap trinkets or some other shop, the one thing on the back of your mind is that you can always walk away from it and there is no harm done. Moreover, in this case it is a buyer's market, as in, you simply try your luck with another shop/keeper if it didn't work out with a previous shop. And in the end, humans are loss averse, so there is still a lot of satisfaction if you came away without spending a single penny/rupee/roubles/etc. OTOH, a job negotiation is anything but that. More often than not, a job market can be a seller's market (depends on your situation as well). You have invested a lot of time and effort in a particular interview (remember humans being loss averse? Now the tables are stacked against you), and if the negotiation scenario is lined against you (no other competing offers at the same time, the company is doing work that you would love to get into and the company knows that for sure, etc.) then it is not as clear cut as a trinket price negotiation.