On occasion, my brother-in-law and I get to thinking about the same topic.  His venue is a weekly sermon often linked to the Torah portion, while mine is the classroom and the blog.  I had much fun talking with him last week as he wrote his sermon “Can You Grow From a No?”  and I am delighted to link to his full sermon from two weeks ago in which I am the obliquely-referenced sister-in-law.  As he said,

To be human is to be in constant negotiation with other people, and those negotiations will either end in “yesses” or in “no’s.” And because we have needs, because we know what we think we want, because we are vain and have egos, we want those exchanges to end with a “yes.” We want our cravings to be met, our opinions proven true and our positions affirmed. A “yes” brings satisfaction. Our will has prevailed, our efforts have paid off, our selves have been validated. A “yes” means we were right.

“No’s” are less fun. “No’s” signal defeat. When someone tells us “no,” we feel a little piece of us die. We are bruised and we are hurt, diminished in the eyes of others and in our own eyes.

Last week, the Washington Post had an article on its blog with this title reviewing the depressing research that women “don’t ask” at the same rate as men and exploring why this might be so.  After all, as the author notes, women are negotiating every day at home — why do we choose not to do this in the workplace?  Selena Rezvani notes that her own research on top executives shows that top women learned to negotiate through experience and that

Negotiating isn’t just one of several leadership competencies, it is the most important tool at women’s disposal.  A woman can work on being well networked or technically brilliant, but without the ability to ask, she has nothing.

I couldn’t agree more — we all need to be negotiating more effectively.