Girls facing tough situations can feel powerless, and it's easy to understand why. They're young and likely just beginning to find their voice. What's more, ?they may feel like they're at the will of the people around them.?
Enter: negotiation. Being able to negotiate can make all the difference for girls, both now and in the future. If they can learn to leverage these skills at a young age, it'll start to feel more natural as they grow older.?
"Whether girls are fighting to be in the classroom or the board room, to make informed choices about their futures, they need to be able to negotiate and effectively communicate," said Dr. Geetha Murali, CEO of the non-profit Room to Read.
Room to Read focuses on literacy, gender equality, and education for girls, and helps them get the skills they need to navigate school and beyond. One of those skills is negotiation.?
"Negotiation is a critical social relationship skill that any girl leader should have," said Andrea Bastiani, chief girl and family engagement officer for Girl Scouts of the USA.
Just like Room to Read, Girl Scouts views negotiation as a critical life skill. They weave these vital communication skills into all levels of their programming, and teach girls that negotiating can help them interact with peers, build healthy relationships, and successfully navigate school.?
Whether you're a parent, educator, or just a friend or mentor to a young girl, here are five negotiating tips that you can teach them to prepare for the brightest future possible.?
1. Do homework
Make sure girls know their worth — and know how to talk about it. They’re worth a lot, and it’s important that they know exactly why going into the negotiation. “Girls need to be firm in understanding their value, being able to articulate it, and letting other people know what that value is,” said Murali.?
The more you can help them prepare, the better. Doing their homework and knowing what they need and what the other person's motivations are will ultimately help them reach a compromise, said Murali. "In the case of girls, if [they] have not had the practice and you don’t feel as confident in those situations, preparation can be key to ensure that [they] are ready for whatever the other party has in store."?
To that end, make sure that girls can back up what they want with facts and concrete data. Because for girls just getting comfortable with negotiating, facts are here to help. Show girls that they can use these facts to let the other person know why they deserve this (and they do deserve this!).?
2. Practice makes perfect
The best way for girls to feel the most comfortable and confident during a negotiation is to plan what they're going to say beforehand. Girls will never feel empowered to stick up for themselves unless they keep trying. And you can be there to help them practice.?
Girl Scouts have developed something that they have dubbed "fishbowl role-play" to help girls navigate different hypothetical situations.?
"You might have two or three girls in the center, acting out a scenario," said Bastiani. "Then you freeze it, and you can ask everyone else around the circle, 'what could you have said there? What would you have done differently? Okay, you come in and you switch out the role that she’s playing and you take over.'"
Practicing like this can help girls get a feel for what it is like to negotiate in real life, because negotiating can feel abstract, especially for a young person.?
3. Negotiations should be framed as a win-win
Many of the girls Murali works with are fighting to stay in school. Parents might need extra income for the household and see their daughters dropping out to make money as advantageous. In reality, this short-term solution may seem like a good idea, but in the long run, staying in school is the way to go to increase household income.?
To stay in school, girls may need to start negotiating with their parents. For a young girl, this can sound intimidating, but assure her that there are ways to make both sides feel good about a negotiation.
Murali said it helps if girls explain that this could be a win-win for themselves and the family. Education is everything. Being more educated will not only lead to higher incomes, but also give girls new skills that help out in daily life. This means managing budgets and planning for savings ?— two invaluable life skills.?
No matter what the topic, finding a positive outcome for both sides helps to set girls up for success. Moreover, if everyone feels satisfied with the result, future negotiations will be much smoother.?
4. Eyes on the prize
Prepare girls to have their final goal in mind, and make sure they don't get distracted from reaching it.
So if, for example, you're helping a girl ask a teacher to raise her grade, tell her not to push for more and more. Set a realistic goal — like ways to get extra credit — and work on all the ways she can talk to her teacher to ultimately meet it.
If a girl is new to negotiating, know that it's not an intuitive process. She may have a hard time focusing on her main goal at first. "Sometimes [girls] start at the bottom of their wants and then they just keep pushing it to see all that they can get," said Bastiani. ?Instead, she explains, girls should go into a negotiating situation with their ultimate goal in mind and work backwards from there until they reach a compromise.
5. She's got this
At the end of the day, empower her to have faith in herself. “Remember that [girls are] constantly negotiating in life every day,” said Murali. “Girls do it a lot without even realizing they're doing it a lot.”
Murali said that in some of the communities she works with, "girls are deciding every day whether they walk a certain distance to get water, whether they will go to one market versus another to save money for their household."?
This kind of practical decision-making can transform girls into expert negotiators. Ask her if she's ever put herself in someone else's shoes to see their perspective before. She may not have realized it, but that's negotiating. Help her use these kinds of experiences to her advantage.?
And before everything else, trust in herself is key. Tell her that she's got this (because she does!).
