In less enlightened times, the best way to impress women was to own a hot car. But women wised up and realized it was better to buy their own hot cars so they wouldn’t have to ride around with jerks.
Scott Adams, American cartoonist
I am thrilled to be facilitating a workshop at the 21st Annual Conference for ADR Professionals: “Expanding Our Horizons” on August 9-10, 2013, at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes in Orlando, Florida. My Workshop is “Diversity: Delights and Downfalls”, a session that will explore in particular age and gender issues in mediation. In preparing for the session, I have been reading a lot of articles and research papers about women in negotiations.
One such article, published a while ago but that came back to my attention with this research is a story that ran on NPR in January 2012: Women’s Car-Shopping Tactics Steer Them Toward Better Deals by Dana Farrington. The main point of the story was that women were often getting better deals than men in the traditionally masculine realm of car buying. According to the article, the reason that women are doing so much better at getting good deals in the car dealership is because women over research the event before being approached by the salesman. Women had researched the details of the car, price, and financing terms and were in fact over prepared for the purchase. By the time they enter the dealership they are not “browsers” but rather well informed buyers. Because of this, they are prepared to negotiate a reasonable deal for this substantial purchase.
The reason I bring this up is not to further divide the genders. Rather, the lesson to be learned here is perhaps the most important lesson in any negotiation or mediation for everyone. The most critical time of every negotiation occurs before you enter the room. The most important investment is the time spent preparing. Every time you enter into a negotiation the importance of the outcome should be equal to the investment of your time in preparing. If you are negotiating what movie you will see with your spouse, you may want to investigate the basic synopsis and reviews of the latest blockbusters. If you are negotiating the terms of your divorce from your spouse you want to do a lot more research on parenting issues, values of assets and liabilities, income potentials of both of you and your partner. If you are negotiating an international trade agreement, the research will obviously be incredibly complex and detailed.
As a mediator, the greatest downfall I see in mediation conferences is the lack of preparation by the parties. You cannot expect favorable outcomes if you do not invest the time in detailed preparations. This is why you should be as well prepared for the informal mediation process as you would be for the formal litigation process.