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asking for it
Oct. 17th, 2011 10:35 pmThis weekend I had a lovely and enjoyable brunch with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laurenhat. We talked about the books we were reading: me, Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives (recommended to me years ago by Sumana Harihareswara); her, Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want.
It turned out to be an extremely well-timed conversation as I had been meaning to have a talk with my boss about various things and had really been not looking forward to it. I immediately bought Ask For It on the Kindle app, read it, and now feel as though I have strategies with which to approach the situation. In fact, the reason I am still awake is because I am, as the book discusses, doing my homework in preparation for my negotiation. While I must beware of procrastinating - it is a terrible weakness of mine - procrastination is different from taking the time to marshal my facts and think through options and decide what I want and what I am willing to accept and what I have to bargain with and so on. And it feels good to take my time and not feel rushed into trying to have conversations before I know what I want to say.
It is also good to remember that, negotiating from the wrong end of a power imbalance is never fun, but negotiating in itself is not evil. There are plenty of times in my relationship when We Have To Talk, not because things are awful, but because from time to time you have to check in and make course corrections to prevent things from becoming Awful. Ideally way before they are anywhere near Awful. It seems reasonable that this sort of thing might be necessary at work, too!
laurenhat. We talked about the books we were reading: me, Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives (recommended to me years ago by Sumana Harihareswara); her, Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want.It turned out to be an extremely well-timed conversation as I had been meaning to have a talk with my boss about various things and had really been not looking forward to it. I immediately bought Ask For It on the Kindle app, read it, and now feel as though I have strategies with which to approach the situation. In fact, the reason I am still awake is because I am, as the book discusses, doing my homework in preparation for my negotiation. While I must beware of procrastinating - it is a terrible weakness of mine - procrastination is different from taking the time to marshal my facts and think through options and decide what I want and what I am willing to accept and what I have to bargain with and so on. And it feels good to take my time and not feel rushed into trying to have conversations before I know what I want to say.
It is also good to remember that, negotiating from the wrong end of a power imbalance is never fun, but negotiating in itself is not evil. There are plenty of times in my relationship when We Have To Talk, not because things are awful, but because from time to time you have to check in and make course corrections to prevent things from becoming Awful. Ideally way before they are anywhere near Awful. It seems reasonable that this sort of thing might be necessary at work, too!
