Welcome to the broad experience, the show about women, the workplace and success. I'm Ashley

Milne tight. This time on the show, the art of negotiation, why it matters and how to do it well.

Agility is really the skill of the negotiator, not turning into something that you are not

and trying to be a man because, you know, we're women, we're not.

Coming up on the broad experience. A couple of months ago during those shows I did on pay, I asked you if you'd like me to do a show on negotiation.

A lot of you said yes. So here it is. Actually, there's so much to say about this that again, I'm dividing the topic into two shows, each with a different guest.

As a business journalist, I've done a lot of reporting on women and salary negotiation over the last 10 years or so.

It's always fascinated me, probably partly because I've never considered myself to be a great negotiator.

Past studies have shown that women negotiate less than men,

that young men right out of college are likelyer than women to negotiate that first job offer,

meaning their salaries get a bump right out of the gate.

There's also evidence that women who negotiate hard, they get backlash for it,

that they're perceived as just not very nice, and that hurts them in the negotiation.

All this sounds so negative, but there's plenty of other evidence to show women are not worse negotiators than men,

especially when they negotiate on behalf of someone else.

We just tend to find negotiating for ourselves awkward and unpleasant.

And maybe it'll always be a bit awkward. But that doesn't mean it can't work in our favor.

Today's guest is Natalie Reynolds. She's the founder and CEO of Advantage Spring. They're based in England, but they trained teams and individuals all over the world to be better negotiators. And she's the author of a book called We Have a Deal, How to Negotiate with Intelligence, Flexibility and Power. Natalie trained as a lawyer, but she ended up having a career in public service

in the UK, and her role's always involved a lot of negotiation. But she found public service to be

really agist. She was told she'd be brilliant for a job, but was too young to be considered. So she

left and joined a big negotiation training firm.

But very quickly became disillusion there because they did teach the ball breaker style of negotiation.

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