Source: NYpost.com.
USA – Kasia Urbaniak, a 45-year-old author and former dominatrix, shared her advice on how women can ask for what they want whether it be a raise or promotion — and get it.
“In the workplace, women won’t ask for the resources they need to do the job well. They’ll make due,” Urbaniak, a New Yorker who spends much of her time traveling the world, told The Post. “I see women do this all the time. They don’t get enough sleep. They don’t ask for what they need.”
Urbaniak said this creates a “situation where a woman thinks she’s shining in the workplace if she makes due with little.” This is valuable to companies, she explained, “but it’s not going to be rewarded because that’s not the kind of culture we live in.”
More women are in the workforce than ever before, but the gender pay gap has stayed roughly the same for the past 20 years, according to the Pew Research Center. Women still only earn 82 cents for every dollar a man makes and women are still doing over 75% of the unpaid labor at home, according to Forbes.
However, Urbaniak said that what she calls “good girl conditioning” — or “being easy, being amenable, being low maintenance” — is a survival tactic that comes from women’s history of needing to be marriageable. Laws change, but women still pick up behaviors socially from other females around them.
She said many women are afraid of asking for what they need because they fear it will make them appear “demanding” or “a diva.”
“There’s a prohibition against desire. You can’t be selfish. You can’t want things,” she said.
Urbaniak, who is now a headmistress and CEO of a school for women’s empowerment called The Academy, explained most men on the other hand “get the training of a man” in their social conditioning, and don’t feel the same pressure to do a job with minimal resources.
And that’s where domming comes in.
The dominant state of attention
A big part of powerfully asking for something is honing in on where your attention and focus are going, explained Urbaniak.
“Power is expressed by where your attention is,” she said. This is something she learned as a dom and while practicing Taoist alchemy at one of the oldest female-led monasteries in China.
What makes someone dominant versus submissive in a situation is all about whether their focus is outwards — the dominant state of attention — or whether their attention is turned inwards, which is the submissive state of attention. Urbaniak noticed women tend to hold a submissive state of attention which can hurt them in a raise negotiation or interview. This inward state of attention can make someone appear “ineffectual.”
Employees who want to express power should focus outwards, not just on the person in front of them in the negotiation, but on the business as a whole.
A powerful raise negotiation is growth and future-focused
“One of the greatest things that, someone can do inside the actual interview is to talk less about, like, ‘I’ve been here for like five years and I’ve done this, and I got this value…other people are getting 5% more’” she explained. She called this submissive style of communication “the most childish unconvincing argument.”
Instead, you want to make the company feel as though “they’re getting something for this extra price.”
“Demonstrate to them with questions or comments, that you’re thinking about the whole company or the whole team in a future-focused way,” she explained. This could look like asking the boss ‘What do you need? What are the next steps’ or saying, ‘This is what I’ve noticed. This is what we could use.’”
Urbaniak advised people to do this during and in the time leading up to the salary discussion since this “puts you in a dominant position over the enterprise.”
After showing your boss that you’re paying attention to the company with your questions and comments, “then you can say I’d like a raise. I’d like to continue growing…I’d like to see all these things that I told you I noticed, I want to continue investing as I’ve been investing in this place,” she said.
She clarified that it’s not a barter where you tell them, “I see that this could be done, and I could if I could get 5% or 10% or 20% or 100% more.”
Roleplay with a friend
Urbaniak said most people, including the boss you’re asking for a raise from, have some kind of “money wound.” Money tends to make people uncomfortable, and people feel awkward asking for it. Not fully owning your desire is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.
“If you’re feeling like you hate it that you have to ask, they’ll feel like they hate it that they have to answer,” she said.
“You want to make this as wonderful an experience for everybody as possible. You want them to feel like they have the freedom to say no, knowing they might lose you,” she explained.
Roleplaying with a friend can help you settle your nervous system around wanting the raise, hearing a yes and hearing a no. She suggested people practice asking for three times the amount of the raise they desire, and once they feel comfortable asking for the bigger amount, to practice again with the smaller one.
“There’s no substitute for practicing saying it out loud to another human being,” she said. “If you can get over the cringe of asking a friend to listen to you, and hearing the first few tries where you’re sinking in social quicksand and sounding insecure…these are important milestones in a career.”
“If you practice for this, if you invest in this, if you clear out all of your weird mixed signals around this… you go in there, you feel good, you give them your best. You’re going to care far less whether they say yes or no. It’s going to be more of them revealing themselves. How available are they to receive how great you are?” she said.
Make a list of everything you want from your job (not just money)
“Money is shorthand for something but being clear on what it’s shorthand for is really important,” Urbaniak explained.
Urbaniak suggested making a list of what you hope to get out of your job in addition to money.
“Why you’re there, what you want to get out of this experience, what’s missing for you?” she said. This isn’t something you necessarily need to share in the meeting but it’ll leave you feeling more grounded.
“A lot of these high-pressure conversations can end up being dishonest because the people coming to the table aren’t standing in the full truth of the situation,” she explained.
Knowing what you want could open the door for growth.
“The conversation could go lots of places and you might end up getting something better than a raise if you already know what it is that you want. You know, like you get mentorship opportunities or like extra training or more work from home or less depending on travel opportunities,” she said.
Show up like a rockstar
“Do this well and you show up like a rock star. Whether they give you a raise or not, they’re going to be in a position to give you a lot more. If you do this correctly,” she said of showing up powerfully in the meeting.
And if you feel like a rockstar, you’ll also know when your high value is better utilized elsewhere.
“You’ll also see that maybe they don’t give a damn. It’s time for you to look for another job point blank,” she added.
