What you probably already know: Women negotiate as effectively as men and leave people happier afterward. In several studies involving more than 2,000 participants, researchers from Cornell University and the University of California, Berkeley found that “people consistently report better subjective outcomes when negotiating with women, even in anonymous negotiations where gender is unknown.” According to the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers Charolotte H. Townsend, Laura J. Kray and Solene Delecourt, people across the board show a strong preference to negotiate with women, even when financial outcomes are completely identical.
Why it matters: For decades, conventional corporate wisdom has suggested that effective negotiating techniques involve a brand of masculine, hard-charging aggression. Women have long been encouraged to speak louder or emulate their male peers, even though they’ve also been warned about the penalties for acting too aggressively or with authority. Townsend, a Future of Work Fellow in Cornell’s Industrial and Labor Relations School, told the Cornell Chronicle that negotiation research has typically focused on men’s advantages. “But if women are creating better relationship outcomes in negotiation,” she adds, “it makes a lot of sense that their partners would like to negotiate with them more than with men.”
What it means: Despite social perceptions and gender stereotypes, researchers note that prior work has long shown that women value the relational aspect of negotiation more than men, are more likely to reach a deal when they have weak alternatives, tend to be more cooperative and place a greater value on trust. Notably, Townsend, Kray and Delecourt find that interpersonal warmth has too often incorrectly been viewed as a soft luxury or even a weakness that invites exploitation. However, even though women are more adept at closing deals smoothly, they don’t accept lesser terms or compromise prematurely.
What happens next: By demonstrating that a collaborative approach is highly effective, the research suggests that companies looking to improve employee retention, close deals faster and create stronger client relationships should stop trying to retrain women to act like men. Researchers add that future studies should delve more deeply into the behavioral differences between women and men. “Women partners received higher ratings of subjective value in terms of building trust, demonstrating fairness, satisfying their partner’s needs, expanding the pie, communicating effectively, listening attentively and overall effectiveness,” the report adds. “These relational strengths, particularly trust building, fairness, and attention to partner interests, directly contributed to participants’ greater desire to negotiate with women again.”
