Promotions - Time to Start Asking For It

Wondering why you didn’t receive that promotion you’ve been working so hard for, or that raise you so richly deserve? The answer might be as simple as…you didn’t ask for it

That’s the assertion made by two must-read books by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation – and Positive Strategies for Change (2007) and its follow-up, Ask for It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want (2009). (Despite their titles, both books can be equally useful to men who feel their negotiating skills could use some strengthening.)

According to the authors:

• In surveys, 2.5 times more women than men said they feel “a great deal of apprehension” about negotiating.
• Men initiate negotiations about four times as often as women.
• When asked to pick metaphors for the process of negotiating, men picked “winning a ballgame” and a “wrestling match,” while women picked “going to the dentist.”
• Women will pay as much as