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CATHY CHEN: Hi, everyone. I'm Cathy Chen, and I am a product manager here in Cambridge. I just wanted to kind of express how excited I am to bring Debbie here to Cambridge to talk to all of us. I'm actually a grad student at Columbia University full time in a masters degree program in something called organizational psychology. And one of the things that we cover there is leadership and a lot of things around gender, also negotiations. So I've had the privilege of having Debbie as a lecturer for my course. And so my class actually ranges from people who are politicians, like there's a mayor of a small town in Connecticut, all the way through like a chief of staff to a senator. And then there's other people who are like chief of IT for a hospital, that kind of thing. And even then in that class, like of very experienced people, everybody learned something about negotiations when Debbie was there. So another day during class, Debbie actually talked a little bit more about diversity and leadership training. And so I'm really pleased to have her here to talk a little bit about both. Debbie is a Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Professor for Women in Leadership Emerita-- she doesn't look retired, but she is-- and a distinguished research fellow at the Center for Gender in Organizations at Simmons School of Management. And for those of you who don't know much about Simmons, the center is actually funded by the Ford Foundation. From 1991 to '94, Debbie was executive director of the Program on Negotiations at Harvard Law School. And she currently is a senior fellow of that program, where she co-directs the negotiations at the Workplace Project. She's also an adjunct professor at INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France. Debbie runs women's executive leadership programs for places like Time Warner and Deloitte and Deutsche Bank. And using what she's observed about executives there in these leadership programs, Debbie has integrated those stories into this book. So the book is based on women's real-life examples. She's also written many books and articles about conflict and mediation and is an authority on negotiation. So today, she's here to talk about her fourth book on negotiations and gender. And if you want more any information about those other books that she's written, you can find her bio and the website link on Go Negotiating at Work. There's also a Dory there if you have questions, and she's going to talk for about half an hour and then take questions at the end. So with no further ado, here's Debbie Kolb. [APPLAUSE] DEBORAH KOLB: Thank you, Cathy. Can you hear me? God, this is hard. The light is right in my eyes. I'm delighted, actually, to be here. In preparation, I read the book about Google by your former CEO and Jonathan Rosenberg. And I can tell you, negotiation is an important part of work there, it seemed to me. So let me just place this book in context before I sort of talk about some of the principles of negotiation that are in the book. So I've written a lot of books about negotiation. The one that was most well known was something called "The Shadow Negotiation." And in that book, what I did was I looked at-- we know about getting to yes, about principles of mutual gains negotiation. In "The Shadow Negotiation," I talked about building relationships and how you advocate for yourself and connect with others. And so that book has done quite well. It came out in paperback with a different title. But through my leadership development activities, both leadership programs for women, but also more generally-- so Cathy's program is obviously a mixed group-- I really started to see how experienced leaders manage some of the challenges of internal negotiation. And the actual motivation for this book came from-- I run a program in Chicago that brings people from different companies for several module program on the academic advisor, and I teach in it. And at the end of one of these programs when you're saying goodbye to everybody, and everybody is hugging and kissing, this woman came up to me and she said, the negotiation module change my life. I'm thinking, wow, that's really pretty terrific. There must be a story here. And so she told me her story, and from her setting this idea in motion about stories, I started to collect stories from experienced practitioners. So this is a book about stories from experienced practitioners. I've done a lot of work on this topic before when I've interviewed. But this is a different book, because it's got these stories in it from practitioners. So let me ask you a question. How many of you would describe yourselves-- so this is a question that I always ask at the beginning of a leadership program that I teach in negotiation. I ask the question, how many have you would describe yourself as successful in dealing with clients, customers, suppliers, places where you are acting as an agent, either for your group or for Google? How many of you would describe yourself as successful in that? OK. And then I can ask-- I have no way of verifying this-- what makes you successful? So what makes you successful? Yeah? AUDIENCE: The ability to accomplish your original goal. DEBORAH KOLB: Yeah, so being positioned to accomplish your goals. And what makes you get into a position to accomplish that? AUDIENCE: Largely relationship. DEBORAH KOLB: OK, so you build relationships with people externally. What else makes you successful? What else makes you successful when you act as an agent? Yeah? AUDIENCE: I'm really nice. DEBORAH KOLB: You're nice. [LAUGHS] What does that mean, nice? You're collaborative? You're willing to make concessions? What does nice mean? AUDIENCE: I'm willing to talk to people. I like to listen to them. DEBORAH KOLB: OK, so you're a good listener. Right, you're trying to find some kind of agreement that both of you are happy with. So that means nice. What else makes you successful? ? Yeah AUDIENCE: Knowing who to go to [INAUDIBLE] person situation. DEBORAH KOLB: Right, so knowing the right people. People always say, I'm very well prepared. I know the right people. I know what they're likely to do. I'm very well prepared under those circumstances. I listen. I look for mutual gains, agreements. I assume that's what's behind nice. And so then I ask the question-- that's negotiating as an agent, what I call this capital letter N Negotiation. And then I ask the question, what's different when you're negotiating for yourself? You're not an agent. You're what we call a principle. So what's different when you negotiate for yourself? What's different? Nothing? It's the same? AUDIENCE: It's not usually as mutually beneficial. DEBORAH KOLB: Sorry? AUDIENCE: It's not usually as mutually beneficial. DEBORAH KOLB: It's not so clear how you can discover what's mutually beneficial. It might depend on the situation. What else is different? Yeah? AUDIENCE: I think people react differently when they see someone asking for something on behalf of others versus for themselves. DEBORAH KOLB: Right, because what do they see? So what do they see and then what do you feel? AUDIENCE: Even if you don't feel it, it's easy to feel like, oh, I shouldn't be asking [INAUDIBLE]. Even if you don't, people just see it differently. DEBORAH KOLB: And so they see it differently and you sort of incorporate that a little bit. You can feel a little bit greedy asking, right? And so it might make negotiation a little bit more emotional. What else? AUDIENCE: All the emotions can run higher if you feel like a personal attack, if you feel like an imposition. DEBORAH KOLB: We're bothering people. It's just sort of much harder in negotiating with this what I call this sort of lowercase n negotiations. It's hard to get negotiations started. We don't have a structure for doing it. It's often hard to figure out what you want in this context. When you're capital letter N Negotiating, it's pretty clear about what you're going after. You might change your ideas. But when you're negotiating for yourself, sometimes it's hard to do that. It might be hard to stay in the negotiation. Yeah? AUDIENCE: I have a question. When you say lowercase n negotiation, are you referring to both parties being individuals, or are you referring to where one of them is an individual or principle and the other one is actually an organization? DEBORAH KOLB: I'm actually thinking about-- you could be negotiating-- what's an example of you as a little n negotiation negotiating with an organization? AUDIENCE: Well, one, for example, say you're negotiating a salary increase. It's an example of where you're not really negotiating with your superior as an individual. You're negotiating with them as a representative of the larger-- DEBORAH KOLB: But it manifests itself as an individual negotiation, right? The position they take is they are representing the total organization, and when they respond to what you ask for, that's what they're representing. But it actually is two individuals actually sitting down and negotiating. Is that right? AUDIENCE: But how would that be any different from an uppercase N Negotiation, where it's still two individuals negotiating. DEBORAH KOLB: Well, that's what I'm asking you. Is it different? AUDIENCE: Well, I would think so. Because-- DEBORAH KOLB: Because in the first situation, in capital N Negotiation, you are representative negotiating with a representative. In lowercase n negotiation, you're negotiating on behalf of yourself as an individual. And you might negotiate with somebody who's representing something else, but you're the agent. And so, is it different? AUDIENCE: Right. I guess what I'm trying to ask is that are you distinguishing the two cases where you as an individual and negotiating with an organization versus you as an individual-- DEBORAH KOLB: I'm distinguishing when you are negotiating on behalf of yourself. I don't care who you're negotiating with. AUDIENCE: All right, got it. DEBORAH KOLB: It could actually be buying a car, could be a little n negotiation. You're negotiating with a car dealership, but you want the best price, and it's you, unless you're negotiating on behalf of your parents, your children, your spouse, or somebody. You're negotiating as a principle. So the thing that's important to me is who you are in those negotiations. We'll also talk about who the other person is as well. So let me ask you some questions about what kinds of little n negotiations do you have at Google? What do you negotiate about when you're negotiating for yourself at Google? What kinds do you have? AUDIENCE: Who gets assigned a bug. DEBORAH KOLB: Who gets assigned a bug. [LAUGHS] So work, right? What else? And you have a preference about that or not, right? AUDIENCE: Not me. [LAUGHING] DEBORAH KOLB: What? What did you say? AUDIENCE: Not me. DEBORAH KOLB: You don't want to get it, right? OK, what else do you negotiate about, little n negotiations at Google? Yeah? AUDIENCE: Career development or growth opportunities. DEBORAH KOLB: Yeah, career development, growth opportunities. Those are negotiations. You're trying to get things that you can do. That's a little a negotiation. You're negotiating on behalf of yourself. What else do you negotiate for? AUDIENCE: A desk where you sit. DEBORAH KOLB: A desk to sit, OK. I didn't really think about that, but I guess that that would be true, a desk, where to sit. What else? AUDIENCE: Also flexible work arrangements. DEBORAH KOLB: Flexible work arrangements can be that as well. So I think as we go through this, it would be useful for you to have in your mind a little n negotiation that you might be struggling with. So that as we talk about it, you might be able to think about it. So what I want to do is add gender to our story of little n negotiations. And I want to say a few things. So we have a class here. Gender is not just about women. And when I talk about gender, I'm not talking about the differences between men and women. I'm talking about what we call second-generation gender issues, that is, policies and practices and culture that on its face looks natural and neutral but can have differential impacts on men and women and different groups of men and women. And I always like to say when we talk about women and these issues, I always like to say it's like the canary in the mine, that we sort of understand some of the issues that might be affecting a minority group, which is true at Google, might have implications for the majority group as well. So one of the ways we like to talk about what it means to talk about second-generation gender issues, is to use the example of the US Capitol. So the US Capitol was built in the 1800s. 100 And of course when they built it, they had no ladies rooms, because they had no ladies, right? And in 1917, the first woman was elected to the US House of Representatives and in 1932, the first to the Senate. Prior to 1962, congresswomen shared a single bathroom far from the chamber, even though there were many in the House. In 1992, the women senators were given restrooms on the same floor as the Senate chamber. In 2011, four stall bathrooms were put in the House. And in 2013, they actually put women's restrooms in the Senate near the chamber when there were 20 women senators. And so the idea is that nobody was doing this explicitly to discriminate. It just was there were no women, and so there wasn't need for a women's restrooms. And that's sort of the idea about second-generation gender issues. That is, they come into existence because they fit the lives and the work styles of a certain majority group. And we don't think about how it works for people that aren't in that majority. So let me give you some examples about where negotiation comes in there. The first is people are offered jobs that they don't want to take, like fix the bug, right? And you're expected to say yes. And so what are some of those? Well, in financial service organizations, it is often the case that women get assigned managerial operational jobs, that is, run the office, run a country. And there's not a lot of value to that. Obviously the value is in sales in financial services. Or in a major manufacturing company I know of, women get channeled into human resource roles, because the idea, the belief is if they're in operations, which is really the privileged place, they won't be able to manage it because of work and family issues. Or in professional services firms, women often get put in chief of staff roles, right? And the key thing there is you're asked to do something, you might not want to do it, and so the key is how you negotiate to make it fit with what you want to do. The second is we have outdated job criteria. So often people aren't on the screen. So somebody mentioned negotiating for opportunities, and that's one of the things there. So in one organization, people say, hire like me. At a certain level in an organization, people don't know exactly what they're looking for in leadership. So the best thing is, let me find someone who looks just like me, right? And so if you don't fit that, if you don't look just like that, it's up to you to negotiate for that opportunity. I do a lot of work in Africa. And there is a story about this woman who lived in rural Nairobi. She's a PhD scientist. And all the important work was in Nairobi. But nobody ever offered her an opportunity because they assumed she wouldn't move, that she wouldn't leave her family that was in rural Kenya. Or another woman who picked up work when her boss left and was actually doing the work of a vice president, and she did it for three months, but nobody thought to offer her the actual role. So she had to negotiate it. Women often get asked to do more invisible work. There was just a column in the "New York Times" by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant about housework at work, being asked to do things like mentor other people. I think this happens for people who are different as well, diversity. Mentor other people, run a group, be on the diversity committee, all those kinds of things that are extra work and they are presumed that you will do it. It's invisible work. And so part of the challenge there is negotiate value. And one of the things that we know is that when people do invisible work, it actually has a benefit for organizations. And so we have to claim value for that. Integrating work and family, right? So somebody said flexible work arrangements. Well, it isn't just flexible work arrangements. We have this vision of the ideal worker, and boy, the ideal worker at Google is alive and well. I think you're supposed to be there all the time, right? The heroic stories in this book were about people who worked long weekends and long nights to do all the work. So if you have family responsibilities, that becomes sort of an issue. And the way is, how do you negotiate to make that work? One of my favorite stories is about this woman who was in procurement in and oil and gas. And to get promoted, you had to relocate, in this situation, to Ghana. And she had a family. She didn't want to live in Ghana for three years. But what she was able to negotiate was sort of a commuting relationship so that she was in Ghana for a few weeks at a time and then would come back to Dallas and go back, so negotiating to make work arrangements work in the face of expectations about the ideal worker. And the final thing is about mandate for change. So there's this research that's about the glass cliff. And here's the story. The story is that when organizations are not doing well, the likelihood that a woman is going to be put in a senior leadership role goes up, right? Think Marissa Mayer. Think Mary Barra at General Motors. Think Meg Whitman at Hewlett Packard. And so the glass cliff means that you're put in charge of these risky enterprises. And I guess the reason it's called a glass cliff is if you succeed, great, if not, you're off the cliff. But the idea is when you take on one of these risky roles, you need to negotiate for support so if it doesn't do all that well, you're sort of protected. So what I want to do is talk about three challenges. I've spent a lot of time talking about the context. So I want to talk about three things-- getting negotiations off the ground, because the structure doesn't look the same in little n negotiations; get their situation, that is, really trying to understand where they're coming from; and dealing with their resistance to change. So here's the challenge. "Excuse me, I'm here to talk about resources for my project." "Yeah, later." So little n negotiations don't have a structure, right? You have to construct them out of whole cloth. So what are some of the ways you get negotiations off the ground? There are two major ways that we write about in the book. There are others as well. The first one is to make your value visible. People negotiate with you because you have something they want. And you need to make it visible in what we call a currency that matters to them. So it isn't just that you work hard. It's what they think about that matters to them that makes a difference. Because you're trying to build in some kind of reciprocity. That is, you're trying to get them to the table. So let me tell you a story. This is about a woman. She was a director of external relations at a very large Midwest manufacturing company. And she was asked by people in another division-- they were the legislative division-- to help save a really important client that they had at the state level. They were about to lose the client, and it was going to be a very big-- this is a company that supplies resources, all kinds of equipment and stuff to companies and businesses and buildings, stuff for buildings. And so she did it. She helped. She saved this client. She got a huge amount of kudos, presented to the board, the CEO. It was terrific. But then they kept asking her to keep doing it. They would call her up, and they would say, we need your help again in another state. And she really liked to help, so she would help. But she found that she was spending a lot of time doing this work, and it was not her job. So the first thing that she did is she goes to her boss, and she tries to make her value visible in a currency that matters to him. So she costs her contribution, how much time she's spending and what it costs. And then she talks about what how she's really saved the client, what a benefit it has been. So she makes her value visible in what she thinks is a currency that has value. And he says, it's terrific, but the time isn't right. You need to be patient. So that's making her value visible. It didn't actually work. So the second is using your leverage. And what do we mean by your leverage? Well, there is a concept in negotiation. Probably many of you know it. I mean, I think a lot of you have taken negotiation courses here at Google. The concept of BATNA-- everybody know BATNA? Your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement-- you ask yourself, what happens if I can't reach agreement here? What am I can be forced to do? What are they going to be forced to do? So in her situation, her BATNA is what? What's her alternative if she can't get her boss to negotiate? What's her BATNA? It's actually to stop doing the work for this other group. But she does it in a way that we call smoothing out your BATNA so it isn't so abrupt or so threatening, maybe. So the first thing that she does is she uses questions. She goes to this other group the next time they ask her, and she says, this is really taking too much of my time. I'm really concerned. How will you handle this if I don't do it, right? So she's letting them know about her alternative, but she's doing it in a way that's very engaging. And so they say, well, there is somebody that's supposed to be handling it, but that person doesn't do a very good job. So I don't think it would really work for us. We really do need you. Then she says to them, let's focus on the purpose. I always like to say, you want to connect what's good for you to what's good for the organization. And so she talked to them about why it would be good for her to have this work as part of her job. And they say, right, it would be. And so they become her ally. And they go to her boss and they say, we really need-- this woman's name was Isabel-- we need Isabel to do this. And that gets her boss to the table. So she gets him to the table. They reorganize her job. She now has the legislative part as part of her work. And the key thing was is that she used her alternative with somebody else who could act as an ally for her. So I'm interested-- do you have problems getting people to the table? And what kinds of things have you used? What are some of the things you've used to get people to the table to negotiate with you? AUDIENCE: So in a salary negotiation, I used an offer from another company. DEBORAH KOLB: Right. So there's a really interesting way to do that. In the book we call it smoothing out your BATNA. So one of the things you can say is, I have this other offer, right? That's just letting them know your BATNA. Smoothing out your your BATNA is saying, I have this other offer, but I'd much rather stay at Google, right? So you let them know about you BATNA, you do it in a very engaging kind of way. And I think this idea about smoothing out your BATNA is a really nice concept. It lets people know you have alternatives, but you do it in a way that I think is consistent with a collaborative culture at Google. Any other things that people have used to get people to the table with them? Nothing else? No other hints? OK, well hopefully you'll use some of these. No? OK. So let me go to the next point that I want to make, which is the idea about getting who they are and what they want. So we had this sense that in negotiation, we want to focus on people's interest to come up with mutual gains agreements. But there's more behind what people want than just the issues that are on the table. The person you're negotiating with considers him or herself in the context of the larger organization. So for example, if you're negotiating salary, if somebody is going to give you a salary that you want, they want to think about, what's the implication of this to other people, right? So this notion of how they think about themselves in relation to the things that they might give you. And so I usually like to put this slide up, because one the things we think about is we tend to see ourselves as the heroes and heroines of our stories. So we like to say we're strategic, we take the long-term perspective, we see the big picture, we act in the organization's best interest, we're flexible and collaborative. They, on the other hand, are opportunistic. They're short-term thinkers. They have narrow vision. They're out for themselves, rigid and uncooperative. And I have to tell you, nobody wakes up in the morning, looks at him or herself in the mirror, and says, I'm opportunistic, I'm a short-term thinker, I have narrow vision, I'm out for myself and are rigid. Everybody thinks they're operating on that left-hand side, that what they're doing and responding to you is legitimate and strategic in their view. So what I like to say is when you think about getting their perspective, is to think about their good reasons for saying no to you, good reasons on that left-hand side. What were their good reasons for saying no to you? Because that's the hidden agenda of any of these negotiations, right? It's their reasons for saying no. So let me tell you the story actually about the women I told you about right in the beginning. So she's a vice president, chief financial officer of a division of an energy company. And the condition of taking this job was that she move to Texas. And she moved to Texas, and she was there for two years. And her family said at the end of two years, we're going back to Pennsylvania, which is where they were from, with or without you. And that's what she said to me, the negotiation changed my life. Because what she recognized, first of all, was that she had leverage. And her leverage was that the chief financial officer of the company relied on her to have a relationship with people in the field. So that made her feel like she had value to negotiate. The second thing that she did, and I think this is really important-- when you raise an issue in a little n negotiation, chances are you're raising a problem. And when you raise a problem, you're the problem. And so it really makes sense to come in with good options. We call it in the book anchor with options. Because if you anchor with options, you come in, and it frames the negotiation. So let me tell you what this woman did. Her name is Cheryl. So Cheryl negotiated with the chief financial officer. And she came up with this idea of something she called the tri-office, which was some time in corporate headquarters, some time in the field, and some time in Pennsylvania. But then she thought about, what are his good reasons for saying no? By the way, when we tell people about negotiation, we always say, prepare, prepare, prepare. And when you prepare, prepare, prepare, you often can't hear what the good reasons are. So it's really important to-- we call it being mindful. So when she thought about his good reasons, first she thought he might think she wouldn't be able to do the job, if she wasn't in corporate headquarters, she wouldn't really be able to do the job. So she built into her offer performance criteria. They would look at performance criteria. The second thing is, she thought he might think it was too costly. He paid for a move already, and he might not want to do it again. So she built in a cost-sharing provision. The third thing was, he was afraid if she left, he would lose his connection to the field. So they built in a way that she could deal with the field. He thought that she would get tired of the commute. So they had periodic check-ins. And the final thing was he wouldn't want to change precedent. There's nothing she could do about that. But what she did was think about his good reasons for saying no. And in the negotiations, I always like to say, if you know a good reason that people are going to say no, it's great to start there. So she was saying, I think you're worried about my performance, that this is going to jeopardize it. He said, right. And once they're able to talk about it, it sort of can lower the resistance a little bit. It's a nice story. They did a pilot. It worked. And now she's vice president and general manager of that division. So the final thing I want to talk about is what we call dealing with resistance. That is, you raise something, so here it is. You put out an idea. The persons says, "This will never work." You say, "Yes, it will." And he says, "You're wrong." And she says, "No, no, I'm right." And what happens in these kinds of things, I talk about this as moves and counter moves. So when people don't want to give you what you want, they say things that can put you on the defensive. They're resistant, and so they defend. They question your competence. They say, this budget is way out of line. Everybody else can do this. Why can't you? Or they criticize your style. You're being unreasonable. Or, don't get so upset. They demean your ideas. Where did you ever get these numbers from? This will never work. Or they appeal for sympathy. This is really the killer, I think. I really need your help on this. I'm very stretched, so please just hold. It's what the boss did in Isabel's case. Or they flatter you, another killer. You're so good at this. Why wouldn't you want to keep doing it, all 80 hours of it? And so what happens is, we get into this move and counter move like this, as opposed to thinking about what we call turns. And turns change the dynamics. So the first turn you can always use is interruption. Silence-- it's very heavy, right? You take a break. You interrupt. Because you never come back to exactly the same place. Or you can ask a question. You can correct it, or you can solve a problem. So let me give you an example. This is a story about a woman. This is again from Africa. She is a PhD economist, works for a large NGO. The coin of the realm is doing research but also having your work make a difference on the ground. So her name is Rosalie, and she's coming to talk-- you can tell this organization-- to the assistant director general. You can get a sense of what this organization must be like with an assistant director general. And she comes and she says, I've come to talk to you about funding to present to the next International Congress. I just published an important article in "The Journal of Agricultural Economics," and I want to present it. And he says, I'm not familiar with that journal, but as you know, we need senior people to come and present at these conferences. That's where we meet with donors, and you're not ready. And she says, I can't believe you're saying that. I am ready to present. And he says, look, I really need you to support the work here. You're best at helping me and the director general get ready for the conference. And she says, no way am I just going to help you present my data. I need to be there, too. And he says, don't get so upset. And she says, I am not upset. So that's an example of resistance, counter resistance. So let's look at it from a perspective of turns. So she says the same thing. He says the same thing, But instead of responding in a counter move, she asks a question. Help me understand the criteria you use to determine whether people are ready. So she opens it up. And so he says pretty much the same thing, but she hears it differently, right? She asks a question, he gives a reason. Then knowing that, she can correct it. I understand what a priority this project is, and I want to support you and the director general so you can meet with donors. And he says, I'm glad you understand. OK, so now she's getting cooled out here. That doesn't work. So she jumps to the problem. And she says, since I am most familiar with the data, I think the best way to support the project is for me to do the presentations and be available to answer questions the donors have. That would help the donors have confidence in our junior researchers, right? So she expands the problem from just herself to something that's good for the organization. It's good for junior resources and for donors to know that junior researchers are doing important work. And so he says, actually, I think that will work. I'm going to run it by the DG. Now obviously, this is a very stylized kind of situation. But the idea about being prepared for when people are going to use these moves that put you on the defensive-- and what we like to say in the book, which I didn't talk about today, is knowing what you know about the person you're dealing with, what they do in these kinds of negotiations, so you can be prepared. So the final thing I'll just say is this book-- the subtitle of the book is called, "Turning Small Wins into Big Gains." And our notion about this is that these kinds of negotiations over these issues actually make some change. So if you think about Isabel that was doing this extra work, she becomes a role model for changing the idea that invisible work and just helping has no cost. It has a cost. And it should be built in to a job. Cheryl in this tri-office actually changes a precedent. It is no longer the case that it is expected that people will move to the corporate office as a condition of taking on a very senior leadership job. They might, but it's now negotiable. It's not just assumed. And Rosalie changes the role of the junior researchers. Now the leadership of the organization is open to the idea that it's actually a good thing for junior researchers to present. So negotiation becomes a way to change kind of cultural practices. So I think it's not just good for you. I think it could be good for the organization. So we have some time for questions. People have questions? CATHY CHEN: This one is from Becca. I'd love tips on helping a manager understand the value of work that is done outside of one's core role, for example, training or mentoring others. It's important for the greater good, Google or [INAUDIBLE], but can be hard to defend in the face of an ambitious team goal. DEBORAH KOLB: Right, so again, I think the most important thing there is how do you connect why it's good? What are the benefits? You have to be able to quantify those benefits in some way. Sometimes people say, when we mentor people, it means that they stay. In reading this book about Google, losing talent is something that Google isn't so happy about. So the idea if you're mentoring people to stay, especially if they're in a minority group, the idea that you're helping them stay would be putting this in a currency that has value, presumably, to the person you're dealing with. Other people have suggestions for how you do that as well? I don't think I have to be the one answering that question. How do you make invisible work that you do that isn't just generically valued because it doesn't contribute directly to the work you're doing, how do you claim value for it? Anybody have any other ideas? Have you done it? Yeah. AUDIENCE: Can you talk about [INAUDIBLE] reviews with your manager, and-- DEBORAH KOLB: Build it into your goals? AUDIENCE: Just be very explicit, talk about it in reviews, make it an explicit goal, and check in on [INAUDIBLE]. DEBORAH KOLB: Yeah, and I think the idea there is to connect what's good-- I always like to say there are a few principles that I have here that I had in my notes but I didn't say it, and one of them is connecting what's good for you to what's good for the organization. And you need to be able to talk about why it's good. And the degree to which you can do that I think makes a difference. AUDIENCE: I'm sorry. Can you please either repeat that or can you repeat [INAUDIBLE] microphone so that [INAUDIBLE] can also hear that? DEBORAH KOLB: So the answer was in reviews, bring it up and have it built into your goals. That's a good time, and I say, negotiation doesn't present itself as sort of clear opportunities. But reviews are often a place to do that. And in the book, we have a lot of examples about how you build in these kinds of things to ongoing conversations like reviews, like project reviews, how you stop that conversation and build something else in that you want to accomplish. Yes. AUDIENCE: So you started by talking about framing your value in a way that matters to the other party. But in my experience as a young professional, when I was negotiating for my first job prior to this one, I had no idea what my value was. I had grades, and I had no idea how to explain that grades would be useful. And I got a job, so somehow they thought I had value. But it was never clear to me what they saw or how I could highlight that. DEBORAH KOLB: Right, but when you're getting hired right out of school, you don't have value on the currency that has value yet. They have to determine what it is. But over time in working, you do have value in a currency that has value. I think the hiring is sort of different, right? I think Google looks for talent and good grades, right? So somebody thought you had talent, and you probably had good grades, and they thought, OK. I mean, what I gather from reading about Google, the interviewing process is a really important part. But I think over time-- that's not a little n negotiation, actually. That's more you're negotiating to get hired. It is a little n in some ways, but it's not in terms of the ongoing work. So now you do have a value and want to change things or you want opportunities. That's when you really, I think, have to show your value. AUDIENCE: So then I guess what the persistent question is, how do you know your own value, especially as a younger professional? DEBORAH KOLB: Well, if you don't know your value, they won't know it, either. And also talk to people. So one of the things is we always think we're on our own in doing this. Talk to other people in your network. Get some advice from people who have done it before. How do they see their value? What are the kinds of things that matter? One of the things in the book that we talk about is knowing what you know about the person you're dealing with. How do they like to hear things? What do they value? So finding information about the person you're going to negotiate with can also help you do that. But you're not on your own, exactly. Do you have a comment about that? AUDIENCE: So I actually sit on our New Grad Hiring Committee. So I see this go by a lot. I tend not to see what the offers are, but I do see the candidates go by. And as far as knowing what your value is in that situation, shop yourself around, right? Often when I want to know the value of an old piece of electronics, I go to eBay and see what people are paying for it. Shop yourself around. See what Twitter will offer you. See what Facebook will offer you. See what any other company out there will offer you. And then come back to Google, because you wanted to work at Google even though you're interviewing at all these other places. But come back to them say, well, these guys are going to offer me this. I have a competing offer. Nothing gets the recruiters into action faster than having competing offers, and I think you'll find that true throughout your professional career, no matter what level you are applying to be hired into. DEBORAH KOLB: Getting anothher offer is a BATNA. The research suggests you need to be a little bit careful about how you use that directly. One of the things that I like to say is, when you have another offer, you know your value. And so therefore, what you're asking for feels defensible. You can stand behind it. Some of the research suggests, especially with women, when you drag out that other offer, people don't hear it so well. I think you're an experienced person on the hiring committee. Other people might sort of not do it. But it's-- AUDIENCE: I definitely want to mention I am not involved directly in negotiating people's salaries. I'm just involved [INAUDIBLE] -- DEBORAH KOLB: To sort of looking, do they look good? Right. AUDIENCE: And I was just going to say in terms of knowing your worth, talk to your peers, talk to people in peer reviews. DEBORAH KOLB: Exactly. When AUDIENCE: We have yearly perf, think that's a great place. And just get real-time feedback, right? You don't have to wait to go-- just don't go and get an offer, right? I'm from HR. But I think it's more than just-- there are a lot of other ways that just going out to see what Facebook would pay you. DEBORAH KOLB: Great. Other questions? CATHY CHEN: There's some more questions on the Dory. I think you can see them now. DEBORAH KOLB: Yeah, so in a collaborative, scrappy work culture, teams and individuals are pulled in many directions. Do you have tips for managing a wide range of requests and opportunities for multiple unique sources? Well again, it's a little bit about knowing what you want. You can't get what you want if you don't know what you want. And so if you're just being buffeted by requests and you can't anchor on something that matters to, I do think you need to get advice about that. Because if you keep getting pulled in all these different directions, that's what's going to happen. And so you're not going to be able to carve yourself out a career and a program, a program to progress. So I think yes, you need to have people that can help you think about that. That's why mentoring is so important, right? In a culture where this happens a lot, mentors are really key to be able to talk to people and get advice from them about what makes sense here for me and what doesn't make sense for me. So I think there is sort of anchoring and knowing what you want. Because you can't get it if you don't know it. And I think it is one of the things that there's so many opportunities, it's hard to focus on it. But I think if you don't, it's very hard to push, to negotiate for the thing. Then you can't really negotiate for the things you want, just been pushed back and forth. Now, you might want to narrow it down to a few things and use these things to trade off of each other so that it might help you get exactly what you want. I think there are a lot of choices here. And so I think focusing is really key. I think it this sounds like a theme here. There are sexy projects and grunt work projects on every team. How do I negotiate for the ones that will set me up for success, which are usually the sexy ones? So I guess I would say, again, knowing what you want. But doing a little of the grunt-- we call this if-then, right? So I'm willing to do this, if then I do that. So you connect these different parts of what you're being asked to do. And that way, you really do make it sort of a negotiation. So there's a cost for you doing the grunt work. But if you're the kind of person that always says no to that grunt work, I think it's going to be an issue. But if you're the kind of person that always says yes to the grunt work, all you do is get grunt work. So the issue is really to make it a negotiation. If-then, if I do this, then I want to do that. So always connect these tasks. We talk in the book about how to turn asks into negotiations. Because that's really key. You get asked all the time, and how do you make it into a negotiation? So if-then, which builds in reciprocity. I'm willing to do this, but then something else. And I think that's important. Yes? AUDIENCE: Can you talk a little bit about some of the basics, such anchoring, which you talked a little bit about, whether it's you starting the negotiations at a certain point then ratcheting back. How big do you make your initial ask? DEBORAH KOLB: Right, so anchoring comes from negotiations when you're tending to negotiate about a single issue, right? So you have an idea of a bargaining zone, and we make offers, and we move back and forth on that zone. It tends to be the case, if you have good information about the other side's alternatives, it pays you to make the opening offer. I don't think this is little n negotiation advice. This is external kind of advice, because I think there's consequences to doing what I'm about to say. It will end negotiations. So let me be clear. But when you have good information about the other person's alternatives, it behooves you to make an opening offer. That's what we call a large opening offer. Because you frame the negotiations and you anchor it in a way that's advantageous to you. If you don't have good information about the other side's BATNA, you run the risk of either anchoring too low, in which case you cut off a lot of the bargaining zone, or anchoring so much off the charts that people sort of walk away. The way I like to use anchoring in little n negotiation is anchoring with solutions. So you're asked to do grunt work, for example. Well, can you anchor with a solution about what you would do, some of it, or who else would do it? So anchoring becomes solutions to problems. Because you're always trying to make trades. I meant to tell my trade story, so I guess I'll tell my trade story now. You're always looking for making trades. In all negotiations, you never want to negotiate about a single issue. You always want to negotiate about more than one issue. Because you want to do if-thens. You want to have trades. So here's my story about trades. This is a story about an anthropologist who's studying the Navajo in Arizona. She finished her field work, and she's driving back to Phoenix. And she passes a Navajo woman on the road, and she asks her if she wants a ride back into Phoenix. And this woman says, sure. And this woman gets in the car and is totally silent for most of the ride. Except for when they're getting close to Phoenix, the Navajo woman notices that in between the two seats, there's a bag. And she asks the anthropologist what's in the bag. And the anthropologist says, it's a bottle of wine for my husband. And the Navajo woman says, good trade. [LAUGHING] So it's important to think about trades, right? Trades are important. It's always sort of if-then. I didn't really talk about that that much in this talk, but there's a lot of it in the book, always about if-then. And so anchoring in a single offer kind of situation, those are so rare. It's not what you're doing. Even when you're negotiating salary, that's not what you're doing. There are so many other pieces that are part of it. So anchor with solutions. Because I think it does the same thing. It frames the negotiation in a situation that's advantageous to you. Because you've sort of thought about how you frame it. OK, so suppliers-- I'm not really talking about that, suppliers, how you negotiate with supplies on a short timeline to pull in dates due to urgent demand. Again, I think it's an if-then kind of thing. Will they do it this time, and in return, you'll give them something else later. And then the then could be how we keep each other informed so that we know more what's happening. Yeah, so somebody is negotiating on behalf of you, and they don't negotiate well. How would you prepare them to negotiate? Well, I think that's a really important issue. When you are counting on people to negotiate for you, you want to have the first negotiation with them. What is it you want them to do? And sometimes they actually might need some help. When they have to negotiate on your behalf, there may be a consequence to negotiating on your behalf that they don't want to pick up. And so I think you have to find ways to sort of help them do that, help them figure out exactly how they would negotiate on your behalf. You may not have all the information that they have about options and policies. You want to ask them for that information. So this negotiation with your manager is actually the first negotiation. It's not something that you're just sort of talking to them. It is negotiating to get them to buy in to be your advocate. And that's what you're asking them to do. Sales teams-- that's an open-ended question that I don't actually have a lot of advice for. I would suggest you talk to other people on your sales team to get advice for that. All right, that's it. I interviewed some people before I came here to get some other information. And so one of the things I learned was the key scarce resource at Google is time. So one of the major things that you're negotiating about is really time. And so it's trying to think about creative ways to negotiate about time. And so we have some ideas in the book about that as well, especially in terms of negotiating about work and personal life issues. So are there any other questions? Well, thank you. It's been a real pleasure. I hope you like the book and you use it. And if you do have questions, Cathy has ways to get in touch with me. I'd be happy to sort of answer them online. I think there's sort of a theme here about the kind of questions. You're overwhelmed with choices. And you're having a hard time negotiating about those kinds of choices. And I think it really starts with you being clear about what it is you want. I guess the other thing that I didn't say, I said connect what's good for you to what's good for your organization and convert an ask into a negotiation. The way you do that is always, yes and. That's what builds [INAUDIBLE]. Yes, I'm willing to do this, and here's what I need. So you're always thinking about connecting it and making it a negotiation. People always say, I need more help saying no. I don't think that's right. I think you want to have help saying yes and. And when you put the and out, they may say, well, I can't do that. You say, well, then maybe it's not going to work, right? But at least you've had a negotiation about it. So I would encourage you in this negotiation culture to think about some of these principles. So thank you. [APPLAUSE]