Form a posse

- One of the thing that I've learned from my mentors, Maggie Neale, who's a Professor of Negotiation at Stanford, is that woman can be great negotiators. It turns out, when we negotiate communally, that is, we negotiate on behalf of the project, of the team, of our organization, we're less likely to get pushed back and we're more likely to get more of what we want. In fact, when I negotiate, I not only think about being communal, I think I'm negotiating on behalf of something. It turns out woman are around 25% more effective when we negotiate on behalf of others. So I use that on myself saying, "Maybe I want a little bit more, maybe I want a raise, "maybe I want a promotion, maybe I want a more resources." Maybe I'm afraid to ask for myself, even though I know that's the right thing. But I'm not afraid to ask on behalf of my family, my team, woman more broadly. So I use this idea of negotiating on behalf of others to help embolden me and to make those asks and to do it communally on behalf of my team to get more of what I think is important in my organization. So an idea I often recommend is forming what you might call a posse. A group of people that loves to advocate for you. So when people doubt whether you're strategic, visionary, or game-changing, they can say it for you. "Remember, Laurie put together that proposal, "she had a vision for where we're going to go." So they can advocate for you even though it might be hard for you to do. And then you get to do it for them and make sure that all the women and people that you want to support in your organization are seen for their true value and contributions. That's something you can do through a posse or a group supporting one another. People often ask, "How do you find those people?" Sometimes they can be found through great groups like women in technology groups, going to Grace Hopper, finding people that you happen to have a lot of common interests in. It could be your starting class. For example, if you have a new employee orientation, those might be the people. Now, how do you get them to be part of our posse? That might be another question. Often if starts with just asking some questions. Being curious. "Have you noticed that sometimes there's research on bias, "and it shows that woman might experience "some of these disadvantages. "If that's the case, would you like to work with me on that, "and find more ways that we can support each other "so that bias doesn't affect "how we are seen in our organization."