‘Women must negotiate on their own behalf’

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

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Ne­go­ti­a­tions are of­ten framed as a con­test of lever­age: who holds it; who push­es hard­er and who ul­ti­mate­ly walks away with the bet­ter deal.

Yet for many women nav­i­gat­ing cor­po­rate board­rooms, salary dis­cus­sions and lead­er­ship con­ver­sa­tions, the rules of that con­test can shift in sub­tle but per­sis­tent ways.

Those re­al­i­ties were the fo­cus of a pan­el dis­cus­sion at the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of Trinidad and To­ba­go ‘Women in Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence’ last Fri­day, where ex­ec­u­tives, aca­d­e­mics and HR lead­ers ex­am­ined how gen­der dy­nam­ics still shape the way ne­go­ti­a­tions un­fold in the work­place.

The ses­sion, ti­tled “Re-defin­ing the pow­er of gen­der dy­nam­ics,” ex­plored the bar­ri­ers women en­counter when ad­vo­cat­ing for them­selves, the strate­gies that help them move for­ward and the cul­tur­al shifts or­gan­i­sa­tions must make if they are se­ri­ous about ex­pand­ing fe­male lead­er­ship.

Pow­er ver­sus in­flu­ence at the ta­ble

For Roslan Schofield, gen­er­al man­ag­er of Non-Op­er­at­ed Ven­tures and Risk Man­age­ment and LNG di­rec­tor at Shell TT Ltd, ne­go­ti­a­tion is of­ten mis­un­der­stood.

Too many peo­ple as­so­ciate it with con­fronta­tion or the need for one side to dom­i­nate the oth­er. In prac­tice, the strongest out­comes usu­al­ly emerge when both par­ties recog­nise the pres­sures and ex­pec­ta­tions on each side of the ta­ble.

“The most ef­fec­tive ne­go­ti­a­tions aren’t loud or com­bat­ive,” he said. “They’re the ones where some­one has done the work to un­der­stand what mat­ters to both sides and frames the con­ver­sa­tion around a shared out­come.”

From that per­spec­tive, ne­go­ti­a­tions be­come less about au­thor­i­ty and more about in­flu­ence. Ti­tles and hi­er­ar­chy may es­tab­lish pow­er, but in­flu­ence is built through prepa­ra­tion, cred­i­bil­i­ty and re­la­tion­ships.

When ne­go­tia­tors take time to un­der­stand the con­straints and mo­ti­va­tions fac­ing the oth­er side, dis­cus­sions tend to move more quick­ly to­ward work­able so­lu­tions. The fo­cus shifts from win­ning to align­ing in­ter­ests.

That dis­tinc­tion be­comes im­por­tant in pro­fes­sion­al en­vi­ron­ments where dif­fer­ent ne­go­ti­a­tion styles can be in­ter­pret­ed in very dif­fer­ent ways.

Bias that still shapes the room

For Pro­fes­sor Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine, and Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor, the ques­tion of ne­go­ti­a­tion can­not be sep­a­rat­ed from deep­er pow­er struc­tures.

As the first woman to lead the cam­pus, she high­light­ed the on­go­ing im­bal­ance in how as­sertive­ness is per­ceived.
“I think it’s pret­ty clear that the bias still ex­ists,” she said, not­ing that women ask­ing for bet­ter pay, au­thor­i­ty or work­ing con­di­tions are still some­times la­belled ag­gres­sive or dif­fi­cult. Men dis­play­ing sim­i­lar be­hav­iour are of­ten re­ward­ed for de­ci­sive­ness.

That dif­fer­ence may ap­pear small, but it can shape how women ap­proach ne­go­ti­a­tions through­out their ca­reers. Many learn to tem­per their de­mands or soft­en their tone to avoid neg­a­tive re­ac­tions.

The re­sult is a ne­go­ti­a­tion dy­nam­ic where women of­ten ar­rive at the ta­ble aware that their be­hav­iour may be judged dif­fer­ent­ly.

An­toine high­light­ed that the is­sue ex­tends be­yond com­pa­ny poli­cies and in­to cul­tur­al ex­pec­ta­tions. Women have his­tor­i­cal­ly been en­cour­aged to pri­ori­tise co­op­er­a­tion and con­sen­sus, while men are fre­quent­ly re­ward­ed for com­pet­i­tive­ness and as­sertive­ness.

Those norms con­tin­ue to in­flu­ence pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­ac­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly when in­di­vid­u­als ad­vo­cate for pro­mo­tions, pay in­creas­es, or ex­pand­ed au­thor­i­ty.

Ne­go­ti­a­tion, she not­ed, ide­al­ly be­gins from a plat­form of equal­i­ty. In prac­tice, that start­ing point is not al­ways guar­an­teed.

When prepa­ra­tion meets hes­i­ta­tion

From a hu­man re­sources per­spec­tive, the ne­go­ti­a­tion gap of­ten ap­pears dur­ing re­cruit­ment and com­pen­sa­tion dis­cus­sions.
Stacey Dhanes­sar, di­rec­tor of HR Strate­gic En­able­ment for the Caribbean at Sco­tia­bank T&T Ltd, de­scribed a re­cur­ring pat­tern dur­ing in­ter­views.

Many women ar­rive ex­cep­tion­al­ly pre­pared. They un­der­stand the or­gan­i­sa­tion, re­search the role, and present clear ev­i­dence of their ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Yet when the con­ver­sa­tion shifts to salary ex­pec­ta­tions or ne­go­ti­at­ing terms, hes­i­ta­tion of­ten ap­pears.

Can­di­dates who clear­ly meet the re­quire­ments some­times strug­gle to state ex­act­ly what they be­lieve their skills are worth.

For HR lead­ers, that mo­ment re­veals how deeply cul­tur­al ex­pec­ta­tions can in­flu­ence be­hav­iour. Even high­ly qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als may pause when the dis­cus­sion turns to self-ad­vo­ca­cy.

Dhanes­sar em­pha­sised that or­gan­i­sa­tions al­so bear re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for cre­at­ing clear­er frame­works. Trans­par­ent pay struc­tures, de­fined pro­mo­tion path­ways, and open com­mu­ni­ca­tion around ex­pec­ta­tions help em­ploy­ees ap­proach ne­go­ti­a­tions with greater con­fi­dence.

When peo­ple un­der­stand what is re­al­is­ti­cal­ly on the ta­ble, dis­cus­sions be­come more ground­ed and less in­tim­i­dat­ing.

A mo­ment that changed the tra­jec­to­ry

Per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences of­ten shape how lead­ers ap­proach ne­go­ti­a­tion lat­er in their ca­reers.
For Si­mone Mar­tin-Sul­gan, vice-pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Flow T&T, one ear­ly pro­fes­sion­al mo­ment forced a clear de­ci­sion about am­bi­tion and self-ad­vo­ca­cy.

While work­ing in a pre­vi­ous role, she de­cid­ed to pur­sue a mas­ter’s de­gree at the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness. The pro­gramme re­quired leav­ing the of­fice slight­ly ear­li­er twice a week in or­der to trav­el from Port of Spain to evening class­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

The re­quest ap­peared man­age­able. She was will­ing to fund the pro­gramme her­self and con­tin­ued main­tain­ing long work hours. Her su­per­vi­sor re­fused the re­quest, in­di­cat­ing that the qual­i­fi­ca­tion was un­nec­es­sary for her role.

The con­ver­sa­tion crys­tallised some­thing im­por­tant. If the or­gan­i­sa­tion could not ac­com­mo­date her de­vel­op­ment, re­main­ing there would lim­it her fu­ture.

Mar­tin-Sul­gan even­tu­al­ly left the com­pa­ny, a de­ci­sion that re­shaped how she ap­proach­es lead­er­ship.
Ad­vo­cat­ing for one­self, she ex­plained, is not al­ways about per­suad­ing oth­ers. Some­times it in­volves recog­nis­ing when an en­vi­ron­ment no longer aligns with per­son­al goals.

In lat­er lead­er­ship roles, she has car­ried that les­son for­ward, of­ten ad­vo­cat­ing for em­ploy­ees who may not yet feel com­fort­able ne­go­ti­at­ing on their own be­half.

The long road to ad­vance­ment

Ne­go­ti­a­tion does not al­ways un­fold in a sin­gle con­ver­sa­tion.

For Vani­ta Bal­roop-Kublals­ingh, fi­nance di­rec­tor and com­pa­ny sec­re­tary at Rosco Pro­com, one of the most im­por­tant ne­go­ti­a­tions of her ca­reer stretched across two years.

While serv­ing on a lead­er­ship team, she ex­am­ined the typ­i­cal tra­jec­to­ry of ex­ec­u­tives with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Most reached di­rec­tor-lev­el po­si­tions af­ter about eight years.

As she ap­proached that mark, she ini­ti­at­ed a di­rect dis­cus­sion with the chief ex­ec­u­tive about the next step.

She out­lined her am­bi­tion clear­ly: be­com­ing a di­rec­tor.

The ex­ec­u­tive ac­knowl­edged her readi­ness, but the pro­mo­tion process moved slow­ly. Months turned in­to years.

Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, self-doubt crept in, rais­ing ques­tions about whether her ex­pec­ta­tions were re­al­is­tic.

Bal­roop-Kublals­ingh ex­plained that main­tain­ing con­fi­dence re­quired re­turn­ing to ev­i­dence — the teams she built, the crises she man­aged and the re­sults she de­liv­ered.

Those re­minders helped counter the in­ter­nal nar­ra­tives that can arise when progress ap­pears de­layed.

The ex­pe­ri­ence re­in­forced an­oth­er point raised dur­ing the pan­el: in­di­vid­ual de­ter­mi­na­tion can­not ful­ly com­pen­sate for un­clear or­gan­i­sa­tion­al sys­tems.

Com­pa­nies that out­line trans­par­ent pro­mo­tion path­ways and com­pe­ten­cies help em­ploy­ees un­der­stand how ad­vance­ment oc­curs. With­out that clar­i­ty, pro­fes­sion­als may hes­i­tate to ad­vo­cate for them­selves or mis­in­ter­pret de­lays as per­son­al fail­ure.

Re­think­ing the ne­go­ti­a­tion cul­ture

Schofield em­pha­sised that prepa­ra­tion and con­text are far more valu­able than ag­gres­sive tac­tics. Un­der­stand­ing com­pa­ny poli­cies, de­ci­sion-mak­ing struc­tures, and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al pri­or­i­ties al­lows ne­go­tia­tors to shape con­ver­sa­tions more strate­gi­cal­ly.

When both sides fo­cus on a shared out­come, re­tain­ing tal­ent, build­ing stronger teams or align­ing com­pen­sa­tion with per­for­mance ne­go­ti­a­tions be­come less ad­ver­sar­i­al and more con­struc­tive.

For women nav­i­gat­ing cor­po­rate en­vi­ron­ments, that shift car­ries par­tic­u­lar im­por­tance. Ne­go­ti­a­tion no longer re­quires adopt­ing a nar­row de­f­i­n­i­tion of as­sertive­ness.

In­stead, it al­lows pro­fes­sion­als to re­ly on a broad­er set of strengths: an­a­lyt­i­cal prepa­ra­tion, emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence, re­la­tion­ship-build­ing and strate­gic in­flu­ence.

The size of the au­di­ence un­der­scored how strong­ly the top­ic res­onates. Near­ly 700 women at­tend­ed the con­fer­ence, fill­ing the room with pro­fes­sion­als at dif­fer­ent stages of their ca­reers. For many, the dis­cus­sion echoed ex­pe­ri­ences al­ready fa­mil­iar in work­places across the re­gion.