Monday, March 28, 2005

Ask and You Shall Receive ...

Thank you, Nina, for sharing your thoughts on the gender earnings gap.

I wanted to bring to the forefront the Harvard Business Review findings you shared on career and salary negotiation -- if we don't ask for something, how can we legitimately expect to receive it?

Relevant to your comment "the squeaky wheel gets oiled, and the ones doing the squeaking are not women:"

In the Competent Advantage workshop, we help people identify ways to document, promote and leverage their accomplishments.
  • Documenting accomplishments is important -- how will you know what (or how much) to ask for during a performance management meeting if you don't have a full sense of what you've achieved?
  • Promoting accomplishments is crucial -- you can't presume that your manager knows all that you've accomplished in a given month or quarter (let alone a full year!). Use the documentation you gather to provide him/her a regular "heads-up" on what you're doing.
  • Leveraging accomplishments pulls it all together. Once you've documented what you've done and told others about it, how can you use these accomplishments to your advantage?
  1. Asking for a role with more visibility?
  2. Bidding for a new project or committee?
  3. Developing a new relationship with a key stakeholder?

I'd suggest that these strategies are relevant for both genders. However, the reasons you mentioned from the Babcock study ("socialization, penalization and frustration") could erode a woman's confidence to make the request.

Thoughts? Experiences?

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