132: You've Been Negotiating With the Wrong Person This Whole Time

Okay. So you've spent weeks preparing. You documented your contributions. You researched the market.

You practiced what you were going to say, right? Because as introverts, that's what we ought to do. We ought to practice. You walked into your manager's office so confident and prepared.

You made your case. Your manager nodded, said they appreciated you, said they'd look into it, said they'd see what they could do. And then weeks went by, maybe months, maybe even all the way through your performance review conversation. But nothing happened.

Not because your case wasn't strong, not because your skills and your contributions weren't worth more, but because the person sitting in front of you didn't have the authority to say yes. And nobody told you that. On today's episode, we're talking about one of the most common and one of the most costly mistakes women make in salary negotiations. Going to the wrong person, making the ask of the wrong person.

Hi, I'm Dr. Nicole Bryan, and I am your host of the Leading Her Introvert Way podcast. I'm an executive leadership coach and a former Fortune 500 executive. And I created this podcast specifically for you, the ambitious, introverted black woman who knows she's meant for more.

Here on this podcast, we talk about getting you promoted to the executive level, growing into the leader your title requires, and building a team that actually performs. And we do all of it without you having to shrink yourself, fake being extroverted, or overwork yourself into the ground. So if any of that sounds like what you need, stay tuned because you are in the right place. Now, before we dive into today's topic, I want to give a quick shout out to the sponsor of before we dive into today's topic, I want to tell you about the sponsor of today's episode.

And lady leader, this one is near and dear to my heart because I put it together just for you. On June 6th and June 7th, I'm hosting a two-day live leadership intensive called Name Your Number: How to Negotiate Your Salary with Confidence, even in an uncertain economy. Because let's be real, too many of us are leaving money on the table. And that ends now.

During those two days, we're going to build your personal roadmap so you can know exactly what to ask for, how to ask for it, and how to walk into that conversation without second guessing yourself, no matter what's happening in the economy, and no matter what is happening in your company. Spots are limited, so head to the link in the show notes and let's get you paid for the value that you bring. Okay, so let's jump in. Let's start with one of the most common assumptions that exist.

My manager controls my salary. So my manager is who I need to convince that I deserve a raise. On the surface, it makes sense. Your manager is the one who evaluates your performance.

Your manager submits your performance review. Your manager knows your work better than almost anyone else in the organization. But here's what you probably don't understand about how compensation decisions actually get made inside companies, inside nonprofits, inside organizations. Your manager is almost never the final decision maker.

They may be the recommender, they could be an advocate, a first step in a much longer chain. In most organizations, your manager can advocate for you, and having a strong advocate definitely matters. But they usually cannot unilaterally approve a salary increase above a certain threshold. That decision moves up the chain to HR, to finance, to a compensation committee, sometimes all the way to the executive team, which means that if you are only focused on convincing your manager, you are winning one battle while ignoring the war.

Your manager is your advocate, not your decision maker. And there is a very big difference between the two. One of the second most common mistakes is that you may go directly to human resources, assuming that they hold the decision keys. And human resources is not your adversary.

Now I say that as someone who has spent my entire career in HR leadership. But HR is also usually not the final decision maker. Human resources may consult, human resources may advise, and human resources definitely ensures that the process that is followed and that compensation decisions align with internal equity and legal requirements. But in most organizations, HR does not have unilateral authority to approve your salary increase either.

What HR does have is significant influence over the process. For example, they know the salary bans, they know the budget, they know the timing of compensation review cycles inside your company. They know what documentation is needed to move a request forward, which means human resources is not who you negotiate with, but human resources is who you need to understand and ideally have in your corner. There is a difference between negotiating with someone and educating yourself about how they operate.

One puts you in an adversarial position, the other gives you a strategic advantage. Human resources is not your opponent and not your decision maker, but they are the architects of the process, and understanding that process is your competitive advantage. Now, here's something that surprises even the most senior leaders that I encounter. The higher you go in an organization, the less likely the compensation decisions are unilateral, not more.

Now, I don't care if you're a senior vice president reporting directly to the CEO, right? The chief executive officer. In most organizations, even the chief executive officer doesn't have unilateral decision-making authority over your compensation either. Now, I know that probably sounds weird, but it is absolutely true because at the executive level, compensation decisions typically have to involve multiple people or multiple departments, like human resources, the chief financial officer, a compensation committee, and in some cases, even the board of directors.

Which means that at the very level where the stakes are highest, where we're talking about base salary, bonuses, stock options, long-term incentives, the decision making is the most distributed. And the woman who walks into that environment thinking she only needs to convince one person is walking in without a complete roadmap. The higher the role, the more stakeholders are involved in the yes. So knowing who they are before you walk in is not optional.

It is essential. So at this point, you're probably thinking, well, who the hell is the right person, Nicole? The honest answer is it depends on your organization. Every organization has a different culture and a different decision-making architecture around compensation.

Some organizations have formal compensation committees that meet on a quarterly basis. Some organizations give significant authority over to the chief human resources officer and the HR team. Others require the chief financial officer to sign off above a certain salary threshold. Some organizations are driven almost entirely by the CEO's relationships and preferences.

Part of your role before you ever have a compensation conversation is to understand the specific power structure in your organization. So here are some of the questions you need to answer. Who ultimately approves salary decisions at my level? Who in the company influences that decision maker?

What does my manager need to have in order to advocate effectively for me in the rooms that I'm not in? What is the timeline and process for compensation decisions in my company? Once you can answer those questions, your entire strategy shifts. You're no longer just having one conversation.

You're orchestrating a campaign. Knowing who to talk to is not enough. You need to know who talks to whom and in what order. As always, I can't give you the full roadmap here today.

I can't, we can't go down the road of exactly how in the step-by-step process. We simply don't have enough time in a 10, 15-minute podcast episode. So that's actually what we're building together in the upcoming workshop on June 6th and 7th. But here's what you can start thinking about.

Number one, map your organization's decision-making architecture. Who approves compensation decisions at your level? So if you're a manager or a director or a senior director or vice president, who approves the compensation decisions at your level? Ask discreetly if you don't know.

Pay attention to how decisions get made around you. Trust me when I say the information is there, and it is usually available if you know what you're looking for. The second thing that you can do is invest in your manager as your advocate. Now, one of the things that always frustrates the hell out of me is when I hear leaders say that they don't like their manager.

I get it. We don't have to like them in order to make sure that we get what we need from them and not only give them what they need from us. So when I say that the second thing is investing in your manager as your advocate, what I'm saying there is even though your manager might not be the ultimate decision maker, they are one of your most important allies. So make sure they have everything they need to go to bat for you effectively.

Their advocacy in those compensation conversations that you are not in, it can actually make or break you. The third thing that you can start doing now is building a relationship with human resources that isn't just transactional. As a leader in your organization, you already have interaction with human resources, whether it's for recruiting purposes, whether it's around performance reviews, whether it, whether it's around salaries for your team members, you already have a relationship.

But instead of just leveraging them as support for you in your role as a leader, you could also be building a relationship and having conversations with them so that they too can be advocates for you. Because the truth is that HR professionals talk to each other and to leadership all the time. So being known as a strategic, professional, high-value leader in those conversations costs you nothing and benefits you tremendously. The fourth thing that you can start doing right now is know the timing.

Compensation decisions happen on a cycle. Are there exceptions to that cycle? Yes. But you are likely going to quadruple your chances of getting a yes when you time your task around the compensation cycle.

Find out when it happens in your company. Making your case three months before that cycle closes is completely different from making it after budgets have already been set. Strategy without intelligence is just hope. So you gotta know the landscape before you step onto it.

The women who win compensation negotiations at the senior level are not necessarily the ones with the strongest case all the time. They are the ones who understand the game well enough to play it strategically. They know who to talk to. They know who influences whom.

They know when to move and how to prepare the people who will advocate for them. That is not manipulation, lady leader. That's sophistication. And it's exactly what we're building together in my free two-day intensive on June 6th and June 7th.

Name your number, how to negotiate your salary with confidence, even in an uncertain economy. Again, that's happening on June 6th and June 7th, two hours each day, and it's completely free to you for now. Your link is in the show notes, so come ready to work. As one of my friends always says, you've been playing checkers when the game is actually chess, and it's time to learn the board.

Until next time, Lady Leader, keep leading your introvert way.