AMY GALLO: You’re listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Gallo. Have you ever had one of those aha moments where you realize that the way you’ve been thinking about an important concept has been all wrong? I had one of those recently, thanks to Alison Fragale. She completely shifted my perspective on what it takes for women to get power, more money, greater authority, the opportunity to influence decisions.
Alison studies organizational behavior, how employees act and interact, which she teaches at the University of North Carolina. She recently published a book called Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve. Here’s the line from that book that changed my thinking: “Women are not penalized for the presence of assertiveness. They’re penalized for the absence of warmth.” I had always believed that these two qualities, assertiveness and warmth, were in conflict, especially for women. It’s what’s known as the double bind, the idea that you have to make a trade-off. You can either be seen as competent, by demonstrating your expertise, giving tough feedback, or claiming your authority, or as likable, by validating other people’s feelings, being personable, and making others feel seen. But you couldn’t be both at the same time.
Alison argues that’s not true. In fact, these qualities aren’t at odds. We can and should combine them, because that’s how we build status, by showing we’re capable of getting along and getting things done. And once we have high status, that’s how we gain power, the control over resources. So, Alison’s advice is to start by building your status, by being courteous and firm, agreeable and self-confident, appreciative and ambitious. In every interaction, Alison writes, ask yourself, “What can I do to show up as both assertive and warm?” Trust me, it’s not as daunting as it sounds. She’ll explain. Alison, thanks so much for joining us on the show.
ALISON FRAGALE: I am so happy to be here.
AMY GALLO: I can think of so many times in my career where I have made the choice, I’m going to be incredibly warm and likable, and have downplayed my expertise or my authority or my power in a way to appear more warm and likable. I mean, I’m thinking of this project I worked on when I was a management consultant in Korea, where given especially the gender dynamics in Korean workplaces, I was like, the best thing for me to do is to be as warm and likable as possible, as nonthreatening… It really did not serve me. And in fact, I can remember a particular meeting in which I got talked over so many times that, out of frustration, I burst into tears and had to leave the room. And then I can also think of times I’ve occasionally been accused of being a know-it-all, where I have been so intent on proving my expertise that I have eliminated any element of warmth. And I think I’ve gotten better, especially, I would say, in the last five, six years of combining the two, but there are so many times in which I’ve made the choice. It honestly wasn’t till I read your book that I was like, Oh, that’s why that did not work at all.
ALISON FRAGALE: Yeah. And I think it does start with awareness of, Oh, status is a thing. We’ve all experienced it, but it has a name, and now I can start to recognize it. And then once I recognize it, I can then start to see these ways of, I didn’t realize I was making a choice in this moment, or this choice may or may not have been serving me, but now I can see it. And when it comes to what people decide to do with their lives, I’m really agnostic about choices they make. But I’m a huge believer in conscious awareness of, if I can see it and I can label it, you could choose. And if you said, “I’m going all in on the warm and likable, and I’m just letting the showing-my-capability go,” that is for you to do. But at least you’re doing it with an awareness rather than a faulty theory that what I was doing was going to get me rewarded by my audience, and then it didn’t happen, and now I feel confused as to what did I do wrong, and also frustrated that I’m not getting rewarded, because I was working really hard to get a good outcome from these people.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. It’s interesting to hear you say you’re agnostic about that choice, because I am increasingly not, meaning that – for myself – in that I find those moments where I’m able to strike the balance, and not even strike the balance, dial up the one that I’m weaker at, at the moment. When I “dial it up,” to use your language from the book, I just feel so much more in the zone, and I feel like the response to me is so much better. I just got back from taking some time off for the summer and I put a post on LinkedIn yesterday that basically admitted I didn’t achieve anything I expected to this summer: warmth, I’m not perfect, right? But then also said, Hey, sign up for my newsletter, I’ll tell you what I learned from it, I’m an expert. Right? And it was like, I had such a wonderful response to that, and I could have easily left it as, I didn’t achieve anything, Look how likable I am, Relate to me, Relate to me. Or I could have just been like, Sign up for my newsletter. I’m sure I would not have gotten many sign-ups, because it didn’t have that combination.
ALISON FRAGALE: Oh, absolutely. I’m 100% with you. If you want my best advice, I would say, at any opportunity, you should look for ways that you can show up as very capable and very caring and authentic. Absolutely.
AMY GALLO: Yeah.
ALISON FRAGALE: There’s a lot of ways, once you start to think about it, that you realize it is a false trade-off, that I could with small tweaks that feel equally authentic to the thing I was already doing, maybe even more authentic, because I felt like I was holding some of my natural self back. I can actually get both.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. Yeah. So, the dialing up the warmth, particularly in a negotiation, let’s call it a salary negotiation, a promotion negotiation. How does that actually work? Like, why does that help in the negotiation?
ALISON FRAGALE: Yeah. So, a couple things. The dimension of warmth is not just, Am I likable, Am I friendly? But, Do I care about people other than myself? And we respect that. We don’t want to deal with people who are very self-interested. And so, conveying the warmth of, This person cares about me. I want to give things to you, because I think you’re going to give things back to me. So, it’s trust building, for one.
And two, liking is up there of the most important things that convince somebody to say yes, particularly when the thing that they’re saying yes to isn’t particularly good for them. So, liking is a component of warmth, and people do things for people they like, and I feel this in myself all the time. So, anytime I find myself feeling a natural warmth to somebody or really liking them when there was just a tiny interaction, I pause for a second. I think, What just happened there that got me to really like them in this tiny moment, and how can I bottle that and repeat that with other people? Or if I find myself turned off by somebody, What did they just do so that I’m not intentionally doing that? Because when you have those moments of like, Oh, I really like you, you think about what you would give.
My son went to a summer camp, and I had to write the camp director, because my son hurt his back. So, I just had to see how he was doing. And the camp director, who I’d never met, wrote me back, “He’s fine.” But then he just went on a couple sentences, “And I cannot tell you how much I’ve enjoyed meeting your son. What a leader he is among his peers. He is just such a star of this camp. We are so fortunate to have him,” whatever it is. And in that moment, I just thought, If that camp director sent an email the next day saying, ‘Our camp needs funds,’ will you write a check? I would have gotten on my checkbook and written a check for this camp. And I didn’t not like them before then, but I thought, You took this moment to compliment, even better than me, compliment my kid. That’s even more important. And now, think about how much I like you. And if you wanted to ask me for something, I would be so much more inclined to give you more in this moment.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well, and it makes me think about your point, which is research-based, that assertiveness is countered and warmth is mimicked.
ALISON FRAGALE: Yes. The idea is that when somebody is very dominant, is very controlling, we studied – Lara Tiedens and I – what is the natural human response when someone is very dominant? A lot of behaviors in life are mimicked. So, if we sit across from each other face-to-face, and I cross my legs, you cross your legs, I lean in, you lean in. There is a mimicry, and mimicry tends to build affiliation and warmth and bonding. So, we wondered, Are we going to get into dominance contests with people because we mimic dominance? If you’re dominant, I’m more dominant, and then we’re both going to try to be outdoing each other. And we found, no, it’s not what people do. They complement it. So, if I’m more assertive in an interaction, you will naturally become, or people, on average, will naturally become more submissive. You’ll be more likely to do what I say because I’ve asserted myself, and vice versa. If you’re more submissive, I’m more likely to act in an assertive fashion.
And I think about this when I think about, I am a generally very assertive person. But as I go across certain relationships, like with my husband, who is a very accommodating individual, I’m the more assertive person. But I have a couple friendships with very assertive people, and I have found that I take on a very submissive role. And I’m happy. I’m okay with it, but I almost don’t recognize myself, and people in that role would not recognize me in it. And it’s because I’m reacting to the assertiveness. So, if we are more assertive, people are more likely to do what we want them to do.
But then with warmth, we copy it. When someone’s nice to us, we’re nice back. If someone smiles at you, you smile back. If someone’s rude to you or snippy, you get snippy back. It means that when we show up as assertive and warm, it is going to, on average, result in an audience that is submissive and warm, because if I show up as very confident and capable and also very giving, you’re going to be more submissive in response to my assertiveness, but equally warm in response to my warmth, and I thought, What’s more fun than an audience of submissive, warm people? So that’s why, if we can cultivate that assertiveness and warmth, we end up having these easier human interactions, because people are naturally playing their role. It’s this nonconscious dance that we’re doing of, Okay, you’ve established yourself as the more alpha person in this, I’ll be more submissive, but I’ll be equally nice to you because you’re nice to me.
AMY GALLO: Right. Well, and it’s funny. You hear the word assertive and submissive. Of course, I think about my dog and dog training. And those words could be negative, but think about it as advocating and accommodating. Right?
ALISON FRAGALE: Sure.
AMY GALLO: So, I’m advocating, and the accommodation is giving me what I’m advocating for, listening to my messages, giving me respect, giving me status.
ALISON FRAGALE: Yes. Submissive is the psyche term for thinking about the accommodation. But yeah, I actually like your term better. So, if we had had this conversation-
AMY GALLO: Rewrite the book. Rewrite the book.
ALISON FRAGALE: If we had had this conversation before it had gone to print, you could have probably convinced me to change it. But yes, that’s the idea, is I want a person who wants to please me and is willing to accommodate my wishes, submit to my wishes, accommodate my wishes, and that’s another benefit that we get when we can hit that competence-likability combo. It’s also going to change how the audience reacts to us and behaves in exchange.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. I’m thinking about the Stacey Abrams quote you use in the book when she was interviewed on CBS Morning, and she’s asked, “Do you want to be president?” Right? And I think about answering a question like that, especially for someone like Stacey Abrams, who we’ve had on the show, is actually… It’s a negotiation. And her answer was just so brilliant, as you point out, which is like, yes. Absolutely yes. And I have to say yes, because young women, young women of color, people of color need to know that I’m capable of that. And therefore, they’re capable of that. That combination of, I’m assertive, I’m advocating, yes, I absolutely want to be president, but I’m also doing it on behalf of others, which is that warmth you talk about. It’s one of those powerful communication moments where you think that is, I think you even used the word in the book, a master class in how to answer what could be a very tough question, particularly for a woman who might have been penalized for just saying yes.
ALISON FRAGALE: Absolutely. And you could imagine another situation in which somebody was downplaying their ambition, and they’re like, “No, no, no. I’m just here to serve. Whatever happens, happens,” and they did that. And then you would think, “We don’t see this person as leader-like.” And her choice was really brilliant to say, These two things can coexist, I can be very confident in my capability, and I can also talk about how I care about that for what it means to other people.
AMY GALLO: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It reminds me of a tactic I was using when I started negotiating being paid to speak. Oftentimes, I would show up to an event and find out the man who’s speaking – same level of credentials, same time of speech, all of that – was getting paid more. And so, what I started saying is, “This is what I want to be paid, but what matters most to me is that I’m paid fairly.” And oftentimes, I was negotiating with women, and I would say, “You know what? What I hate to find out is that a man of equal status and experience is being paid more than I am.” I’m advocating for myself, I’m asking – that’s the assertive, right? But then the warmth is, we’re in this together.
ALISON FRAGALE: I love this. I know my worth, and I also care about you. There’s no shortage. There are infinite number of ways to do this, to show up and hit both of those. I learn something every time I talk to somebody about a different way they do it.
AMY GALLO: Can you give another example of using both that warmth and assertiveness in combination?
ALISON FRAGALE: Sure.
AMY GALLO: Actually, even better. You know what? Let me ask you a question about out-of-office message, because this was the part of the book where I was underlining… I was like, Okay, I just need to cut and paste all of this and remind myself of this, because the out-of-office message, you’d make such a good argument that it’s a great opportunity. And what I’d love to do… so I actually changed my out-of-office message after reading your book. I still don’t think it’s great. So, if it’s okay, I want to read it to you, and you critique it and tell me how I could dial up the warmth or dial back the assertiveness, or both. Okay. So, it says, “Hello!” Right? Exclamation point, symbol of warmth. “Thanks for your message. I do my best to stay on top of my inbox, but I don’t always succeed. So, if you need a response sooner rather than later, please reach out to Anna, my assistant. And if you’re inquiring about having me speak at your event or organization, please contact,” and I have my speaking agent’s info. Thoughts?
ALISON FRAGALE: Okay. You ready?
AMY GALLO: Yup.
ALISON FRAGALE: I don’t love, “but I don’t always succeed,” staying on top of my inbox because you’re self-deprecating for no reason at all, and none of us succeed at staying on top of our inbox. So, no need to knock yourself down in that way. So, I would get rid of that.
AMY GALLO: Okay.
ALISON FRAGALE: I think your email is perfectly warm, and I think talking about what are you doing. So, I’m not just not responding to my messages. I’m doing something else. I mean, when you gave your “I’m going to be off social for the summer” that I saw on social, I remember thinking… you said you were going to think about another book and a couple other things you were going to do. And so, I would say, that’s what I’m off doing, and I’m excited to bring you the benefits of this good thing, because all of this is for the benefit of all the people who listen to you and read you. So, that would be just the tweak, and I think you could do that in one sentence, maybe two, and leave the rest of it just as it is.
AMY GALLO: Right. That was exactly the sentence I added. Right? “I do my best to stay on my inbox, but I don’t always succeed.” And actually, I stole it from a male colleague who had it and I really liked it, and I wondered if it worked better for him because he is a man. But that was the sentence I was worried about, because I do think there’s a way women, in particular, try to convey warmth by downplaying, deflecting the compliment, downplaying our successes, ways in which we’re socialized to do those things to appear not threatening. Can you talk about how those affect our status?
ALISON FRAGALE: Yeah. So, we knock ourselves down… we tend to knock ourselves down on the capability dimension. So, when we’re doing that, we’re telling people, “I’m not capable at something.” And the research is, we are considered experts of ourselves. So, if I tell you I’m not good at something, you believe me. So, if we look at when people say that they’re not particularly good-looking, they’re rated as less attractive, just simply because they said it. When they say they’re not smart, they’re rated as less intelligent. So, why do people do it? It can sometimes be funny. It’s disarming. It does build that warmth, but there’s other ways to build the warmth that are not at your own expense, other ways to get the same thing that don’t involve cutting down our own capability.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well, the sort of cousin of cutting down, what you talk about, is deflecting the compliment. And what I found so interesting, I think it was Chris Littlefield, he said, When someone gives you a compliment, they’re giving you their opinion, and when you say, “No, no, no,” you’re saying, “I disagree with your opinion.” It’s actually a disagreement. Instead of being a moment of connection, you’re actually creating a conflict in a way, which I found so fascinating.
ALISON FRAGALE: I know. They don’t want your opinion on their opinion.
AMY GALLO: Right. Yeah. So, let’s talk about another way in which we sort of undermine ourselves. You have a lot to say about why we shouldn’t say we’re busy when someone asks how we are. And I will tell you, I did it maybe four times today already. So, I desperately need this advice. What should we say instead?
ALISON FRAGALE: So, I think you have choice in what you say, but you’re interviewed a million times a day, because anytime somebody says, “What’s new? How’s it going? How’s work? What’s up?” they have given you an opening to tell your story, and you can choose what you’re going to do with it. But to say “busy” or “fine”… “Busy” is my least favorite, because “busy” implies that… I just think, every time I hear someone say busy, I just have this vision of the person running on a treadmill that’s like a half a mile too fast for their ability, and they’re just trying to sprint to keep up, which doesn’t seem very capable, and it doesn’t say anything warm. So, I think it’s a wasted opportunity with, with just a few more words, you could say something… So, I don’t have a script for what you should say when someone asks you, but here are some options.
Say something that builds warmth, like, “I’m great now that I’m talking to you.” Don’t say anything fake. But trust me, like, “If you heard the day ahead, you are the absolute best part of it. This is awesome.” Whatever it is, say something like that. Say something that celebrates a little bit of a win, like, “I’m having a great work day today.” And you don’t have to give them 45 sentences as to why it’s great, but it could spark a little curiosity, and they might say, “Oh, why is it great?” And then you could tell a little bit of your story. Anything that is truthful, that is still short, because no one wants a lecture, and inspires some curiosity and enables you to tell them that you’re either succeeding or you care about them is a good answer. So, when you were saying you were busy, did you think about what would have felt natural-ish instead?
AMY GALLO: I thought, Oh, Alison’s going to be so mad. That’s what I thought, actually, and I did… When you just described the treadmill that’s going too fast, I was like, Yeah, no, but that’s how I feel right now. So, that felt truthful to say busy, but it also has become a habit.
ALISON FRAGALE: It’s just a reflex. I mean, it’s accurate, but it’s just, you say it because everyone else has said it, and it just somehow feels like the thing that everyone says as opposed to, This is the most important thing that I want to reflect to you at this moment, is my busyness. It’s just like a knee-jerk response.
AMY GALLO: Yes. Well, and I think to your point, it has the potential to either come off as this humblebrag of, I’m so busy, I’m so important, or of conveying some inability to actually manage your time or manage your to-do list, which, let’s be fair, most of us have. That’s actually accurate for many of us, but I don’t think that’s the impression you think you’re giving when you say that.
ALISON FRAGALE: That’s right. At least tell them what you’re busy about. “I’m busy because the podcast is restarting again. I’m busy because my book launched.” Something, at least tell them what you’re busy doing, is a little bit better than “busy,” period.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. I love the sort of small tweaks that you can make. It doesn’t have to be this, Oh, I’m overhauling my entire style, I’m taking a public speaking course. It’s just small things, and I just want to talk about a few of those-
ALISON FRAGALE: Please.
AMY GALLO: … small things. One, you talk about this daily connection habit. Can you explain what that is?
ALISON FRAGALE: Yeah. Just, people cannot help you build your status if they don’t know you exist. So, when we teach people that they’re supposed to network, people know it. They’ve heard it a million times. They feel guilty if they don’t do it, but then they’re like, What am I supposed to be doing with this whole thing anyway? So, I think about broadening my network of people who know I exist.
So, I have a couple things that I do as consistently as I can. One is, my absolute favorite time is to get up at an ungodly early hour, where my house is dark, my kids are asleep, I make myself coffee, I sit in the almost-dark, and I will do a couple of things. I will first do all of The New York Times – like the Wordle, the mini-
AMY GALLO: Connections, Strands. Yup.
ALISON FRAGALE: … et cetera, priorities.
AMY GALLO: Yup.
ALISON FRAGALE: Okay. Strands has been a great new addition.
AMY GALLO: I love Strands.
ALISON FRAGALE: Okay. I do that. But then the other one is I’m often on my email and on my social media, and I will send either one new through… I’m on LinkedIn a lot, send a new connection of somebody that crossed my feed and I feel like I want to know, but I’m not connected to yet, one message, or one reconnection of somebody that I’ve seen come across the feed and I haven’t talked to in a while. And so, I just do one. And I try to do it every weekday, but I don’t always hit it, because sometimes life happens.
And the other one is, whenever I’m sitting in a car, waiting to pick up a child from an activity, I use that as an opportunity, because I’m often scrolling on my phone, to connect with somebody through email or text. Again, generally a reconnection of somebody. I keep a little list on my phone of people that, next time, I have a moment to reach out to, or when I don’t have anyone on the list that’s top of mind, I take my finger on my phone in my texts, and I swipe up 10 times so you get to the very bottom. And I think if you’re at the very bottom of my text, I haven’t talked to you in a while.
AMY GALLO: So, I actually highlighted this, because I was like, Oh, I want to do this. And then I have a lot of things that I highlighted because I wanted to do it. But I will tell you, I have not implemented it, because the introvert in me is so afraid of the consequences of like, Oh, I send this LinkedIn message, and now they’re going to ask for coffee, and I don’t want to have a coffee. And so, I think it’s such a good piece of advice to connect, but how do you rightsize it in your mind? To me, it feels like a spiral of like, Now I’m going to have 18 more unread messages that I haven’t been able to respond to.
ALISON FRAGALE: Well, again, this is where everybody has to decide for themselves. So, if it’s going to start creating stress, you’re not going to do it more than two days. So, then I think that’s not the strategy for you, but what I would say is, forget new connections. Go with reconnections, because there are so many relationships that we have had at some point where we just let them kind of wither on the vine – not out of intent, just we got busy. And I think if you just reconnected with people you already like, then there’s not going to be some massive new ask that’s going to come out of it, or if they do want to reengage with the coffee, you’re actually excited. And I would just start there with something that does feel authentic, or even limit it in a very specific way of, “I’m only going to reach out to people that I would want to have a coffee with.” But I also think you could do it if you wanted to reach out to new people and just make it a closed conversation. Don’t leave a super open door, like, “Would you like to meet?” But rather, “I’ve been following your content. I think it’s really impressive. I’ve learned a lot from it. I just wanted to let you know that it’s had a great impact. Thank you so much.”
AMY GALLO: Yeah. You’re making me think that I have a list of people mentally, and I haven’t brought it to my Notes app, of people who I saw speak, who I read an article by, who I just wanted to say, “Thanks for doing that.” Right? I love getting those messages. Why wouldn’t I do that for someone else? And it doesn’t have to be a big, like, “I’d love to learn more about what you’re doing,” or “I want to ask you a zillion questions about this.” And I love when people say this in a message to me, so I can even add, “There’s no need to respond. I just wanted you to know that I was thinking of you.”
ALISON FRAGALE: Absolutely. Right? So, at least it’s a point of connection that you build the warmth, and you’ve complimented them. So, they already think you’re smart, because they think they’re amazing. And so, if you’ve told them that you also think they’re amazing, you get even a little bump on your intelligence as well. It’s also status building for you because when someone has said something nice to you, you’re much more likely, I want to say something nice to them, or say something nice about them to other people.
AMY GALLO: Right. Right. Right.
ALISON FRAGALE: And so, if you are complimenting them, you did a really great job. The next time they’re in a conversation that you’re not part of and you didn’t even know existed – “That Amy Gallo, she’s amazing. I love her, too.” And now, they’re out there complimenting you and building your status just by you doing something really authentic, which was you telling them what you really appreciated about them. So, it’s like authenticity and strategy. They can sit side by side.
AMY GALLO: All right. Let’s talk about another exercise I haven’t had the courage to actually start, which is your collecting nos exercise. Can you explain what this is?
ALISON FRAGALE: It’s something that I started using in my negotiation/influence classes when I was teaching MBA students to get them to go out and push the boundaries of their skills in the real world. And we often think, negotiation… try to get a yes, but this assignment is trying to get nos. So, the goal is, make 10 different asks of 10 different people. So, don’t just go to the same one person and ask them 10 times. 10 different people until you get 10 nos. And it doesn’t have to be the word no, but it has to be the person is essentially saying to you, in some way, shape, or form, “This is not happening.” Every time you get a no, you can put it on the list. If you get a yes, it doesn’t count. It’s good for you, because you got a yes, but you can’t use it for the assignment.
AMY GALLO: Yeah.
ALISON FRAGALE: Most of the time, people think, “I will be done with this exercise by noon, because people tell me no all the time. It’s going to be really easy.” And I tell them, “Ask for anything you want, if it’s big or small, because then you can’t lose. If they say yes to you, you got a yes. Great. And if they say no, you’re one step closer to being done with the exercise.”
It takes people a lot longer than they expect, because they get a lot more yeses. And one of the things they start to realize is that the boundary between where people will say yes and no is not exactly where they had drawn it in their head. And in many cases, it’s further out. I like it that it helps people realize that they can be advocating for more things in their life than they had previously.
AMY GALLO: Okay. So, what are some of the work nos that you’ve heard women collect? What are some examples of the-
ALISON FRAGALE: Of things they’re asking for?
AMY GALLO: Yeah.
ALISON FRAGALE: Extra resources for projects. Sometimes people, if they’re doing them at work, will negotiate for their own promotion or pay or things like that. But it is actually interesting you asked me the question that way, because the ones I always remember are the ones where people get the yeses, that, “I wanted to change the role that I had. I wanted to do more of this work and less of this work.” And people said yes. “I wanted more of visibility in presenting, because I wanted to actually be in front of the eyes.Oh, I wanted them to pay for extra resources that were going to be related to my professional development, send me to this program where I wanted to do this class,” things like that. So, those are the ones that always stick out for me.
And yes, there are people who ask for those things in their context, and they get a no too, but I’m always like, “This was harder than you thought for people to turn you down.” And then people feel much more confident of, “Oh, it was harder than I thought. People want to help me, and the things I’m asking for are not as unreasonable as perhaps I thought they were.”
AMY GALLO: Well, two things came to mind right away when I thought about asking in a work context. One was asking someone to do something instead of me, side delegating. What do you call that? Peer delegating. And the second is asking, “Can we delay? Can we have this meeting next week instead of this week? Can I hand this thing in to you? Can I be a week late?”
And it’s funny, because the research, I think, shows on both those situations, people are more likely to say yes than we expect, as you found out from this exercise. But because I haven’t had the courage to try this, I actually want to ask our listeners who… For anyone who’s listening, going, Oh, I should do that too, but I’m afraid to, I’m going to say, can we do this together and report back? And maybe we’ll do a follow-up on the episode. Maybe we’ll figure out how to communicate. But email us. Let us know. If you intend to try it, you can tell us you’re going to do it. But here’s my question about this: does getting the no impact your status?
ALISON FRAGALE: No, I think it doesn’t, necessarily.
AMY GALLO: Okay.
ALISON FRAGALE: Now, if your ask is very egregious and you are very pushy about it, and someone has to say, “For the 83rd time, the answer is no,” then it probably has affected your status, because what you’re showing up is, is not very other-oriented or very caring. But I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about. I think you’re saying more of the, “Hey, would it work for you? It would really help me to have an extension of this. I’m going to suggest we do this two weeks from today rather than today.”
AMY GALLO: Yup.
ALISON FRAGALE: And they say, “Nope, we need to do it.” And you stop it there, and you say, “Okay. Heard. We’ll get it, or we’ll figure out another solution.” That kind of situation. No, I’m not worried about that impacting your status. You’ve advocated for yourself. But also, when you say, “I hear your concerns,” or “Could we talk it through even more?” If it is something that’s really important to you, and you really do want to push to a yes, maybe there’s a way you can get what you want and I can get what you want, and that’s the whole negotiation of being able to do it.
So, I wouldn’t have that as a fear. And in fact, one of the things that people also get from this is, Oh, was it that I have this story about how bad it’s going to be that I will lose status when I get a no, and that no one will like me again? And you realize, Oh, none of those things actually happened either, even in the ones where I got a no. It was, “No, it doesn’t work.” Fine. And then we moved on from it.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. Yeah, because there’s this… I think it’s Ashleigh Shelby Rosette who talks about negotiating against yourself. So, you are about to ask something, but then you come up with all the reasons why the person’s going to say no. And to me, the fear in that, to connect back to your work, is that I’m losing status if they’re saying, “No, you don’t deserve a raise,” or “No. Why are you asking this? This is totally off-cycle,” or “Who do you think you are?” And so, there is a concern. Sometimes it’s less about getting the no, and it’s more about the impact on my status that I’m concerned about.
ALISON FRAGALE: Yeah. So, let’s pause on this for a second, because I think this is really important, and I want to offer a couple of thoughts. Annie Duke, we both know.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. She is a professional poker player turned behavioral psychologist.
ALISON FRAGALE: Who is amazing and brilliant. And when I was talking with her one-on-one, she said, People assume that if you say, ‘This is better for me,’ that other people will be unhappy, and that’s not true. People want to know what’s better for you, because if they can do it, they are concerned about their status in your eyes as well. Status is something we all care about. So, if you say to me, “I prefer A to B,” people generally don’t want to make you take B, because it’s worse for you.
So, this idea of when we say what we actually need, it can be really helpful, because if we don’t get a no, normally, more than anything, people feel guilty. They don’t feel imposed. They feel bad they couldn’t say yes. And therefore, you get credit for a future negotiation, because they don’t want to say no twice. But more than anything, they think, Oh, if this is better for you and it makes me happy, and I could do it, I actually enjoy being able to do that.
AMY GALLO: Yeah.
ALISON FRAGALE: The other thing I’ll say about… this is the spotlight effect. We think people are paying a lot more attention to us than they are. And the fact that people are worried about their own lives is really problematic in some ways and beautiful news in other ways.
AMY GALLO: Yeah.
ALISON FRAGALE: All you need to do when you make an ask is not be memorable, because the second you leave, that person is back to whatever problem it is that is consuming their own life. They’re not sitting around thinking about you. And so, if you can do it in a way that they’ll most likely forget by dinnertime, perfect. The no is gone, and you were able to figure out whether it was possible.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. We’ve got to wrap up, but there’s one thing I’ve been thinking about before we end here. You keep saying, “I’m agnostic if this isn’t your style, if this feels icky.” But you also said something really interesting about observing people when, Oh, I feel really warm toward them, or Oh, I really respect them right now, or Wow, I think they’re really capable. Noticing what they’re doing and sort of bottling that up to use later that, I think, is a really important tactic that I’m taking away here, which is to observe in others.
And while it may not feel authentic to me right now to do that same thing, to see if I could just try it out and see how it feels, because there are so many things I do now as 50-year-old Amy that 20-year-old Amy would have said she would never have done, ever. It would’ve never felt authentic. But that can change over time. And I think as we think about gaining status and then, therefore, power, we do have to do some things that are slightly uncomfortable to us in order to dial up that warmth or dial up the assertiveness, whichever one we’re trying to do.
ALISON FRAGALE: 100%. I mean, I take the perspective of an experimental scientist when I think about managing these things, which is, you have to vary something. You have to try something new, because if I said to you, “Amy, you’re as developed and you’re as great as you’re ever going to be. You’re just riding out the last years of your life. Don’t change a thing,” no one actually wants that. You want to grow and learn and change and develop, and that has to involve a little bit of trial and error, that didn’t work so well and now I know better, et cetera.
So, I always tell people, if it doesn’t feel just a little bit uncomfortable, then you’re wasting your time. It’s already something you know how to do. And I don’t care if whether it’s status or anything else. You got to push yourself a little bit. But it’s a judgment call between a little and forcing myself to do something that feels completely fake just because another person did it. That’s not useful. And then I think if it doesn’t work after a couple times, then it’s not for you, and you move on to something else.
AMY GALLO: Yeah. I love it. And I’m taking away a lot from this conversation, but one of the things is what seems like a really simple question, but I think is so fundamental to us achieving what we want to achieve, is to ask yourself, “What can I do to show up as both assertive and warm in this moment?” And I so appreciate you putting that out there in the world, because I think it’s changed the way I’m doing things, and I think it’s going to change the way a lot of women do. So, thank you.
ALISON FRAGALE: Well, thank you. And I consider, especially coming from you, that to be a lovely compliment, which I will graciously accept and not give you my opinion about your opinion, because, thank you, that made me feel very good. So, I appreciate it.
AMY GALLO: Well, and thank you for coming on the show. This has been a really fun conversation.
ALISON FRAGALE: Absolutely. Thank you.
AMY GALLO: Alison’s book is Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve. I hope you’ll join me in doing Alison’s nos exercise. Again, here are the rules. You want to ask 10 different people at work for anything that has value to you. You jot down each ask and whether you got a yes or no, also jot down how each person responded and how you felt about their response. And keep track of how many requests it took for you to reach 10 nos. I want to hear about how it goes. So, email our producer, Amanda, at womenatwork@hbr.org. Tell her you want in on the exercise, and she’ll reply with a reminder of the instructions. Once you finish, get back in touch with the results and let her know if you’d like to volunteer for a follow-up episode, where you and a few other listeners will tell me and Alison and one another, and, of course, this audience, what you accomplished and learned about yourself in doing the exercise.
Oh, and for those of you who are curious about that Stacey Abrams episode I mentioned, find it by scrolling through the podcast feed to February 21st, 2022, and you’ll hear our conversation with Stacey and her longtime business partner, Lara Hodgson. They share hard-won lessons from starting and running three companies together.
Women at Work’s editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Tina Tobey Mack, Rob Eckhardt, Erica Truxler, Ian Fox, and Hannah Bates. Robin Moore composed this theme music. One last thing, I just started writing our monthly Women at Work newsletter. I took over the reins from Amanda, who had been doing it for four years. If you don’t already receive that newsletter, please sign up. You can go to hbr.org/newsletters. Look for the Women at Work newsletter there. Click that checkbox, and you will get our monthly emails in your inbox. Okay. I’m Amy Gallo. Get in touch anytime by emailing womenatwork@hbr.org.
