March is Women’s History Month, and recently, I was reminded “mentoring” can take many forms. One is never too old to receive it or too young to give it.
My band, the Paula Boggs Band, is preparing to release its fifth studio album. Like most bands, we’ll have a show to celebrate the release. In our case, we will co-bill with another artist: a woman who, though a generation younger than me, has been in the music business longer.
When I shared with her the terms being offered by the venue, she asked why I wasn’t asking for a bigger cut. The venue was offering a 60/40 split despite our band having sold out the venue twice before. The other musician urged me to ask for more, informing me she too had sold out this venue and with this track record demanded and received a 70/30 split.
She also told me that “the worst that can happen is that they say no, nothing lost.” Emboldened by her suggestion that would never have occurred to me, I asked for more—and got it.
This episode took me back to being a candidate for the Starbucks general counsel job in 2002. I had a strong resume, good interviews, compelling references and was now a finalist negotiating a compensation package.
Though I had worked as an in-house counsel executive, the Starbucks Corp. job was my first C-suite job, with C-suite compensation design. I was in “DKDK” zone: I didn’t know what I didn’t know. During this process, I received crucial mentoring though from an unlikely source—the internal Starbucks executive recruiter, who happened to be female.
Starbucks had two searches underway. In addition to hiring a new general counsel, it was also hiring a new chief human resources officer. That search had progressed further; an offer had been accepted; that new executive had cut his deal; and if I also accepted, this person would be my C-suite peer.
The recruiter let me know my soon-to-be peer asked for and got more than I was asking for. Knowing this, I mustered courage to ask for more as well—and got it. Asking for more, and getting it, at the start of what became a decade as Starbucks general counsel boosted my compensation the entire time I was there.
Many things have changed for corporate executive women in the nearly quarter-century since I was negotiating a Starbucks compensation package. In 2003, a year after I joined Starbucks, Linda Babcock, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and Sara Laschever, an authority on pay equity, released their seminal book, “Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide.” Among other things, their groundbreaking research found:
- Men initiated and engaged in negotiations much more frequently than women.
- Because women asked less often, they missed out on increased pay and benefits that negotiation could secure.
- Societal and cultural forces taught girls and women to focus on others’ needs to be polite and avoid assertiveness—making negotiation feel uncomfortable or inappropriate. Women often feared backlash or negative judgments when they asserted their own interests, even when their requests were reasonable.
- When women don’t ask for what they want, organizations may unintentionally underutilize their talent, promote men faster, and exacerbate gender inequities.
Babcock’s and Laschever’s findings map to my personal experience not just as a candidate but also as a leader. Often enough, as I oversaw an organization that grew significantly in people, locations around the globe, and in overall complexity, men tended to be more comfortable asking for stretch assignments, promotions, and pay increases.
As a leader, I leaned heavily on HR professionals assigned to the law and corporate affairs departments to help me recognize and respond appropriately to cultural forces that were real, but immaterial to whether someone was worthy of more pay. These HR professionals were my mentors—experienced, trusted advisers offering wisdom, feedback, and encouragement.
In the ensuing near quarter-century, there’s been a lot more research and importantly, seismic cultural shifts. The “women don’t ask” theory, once a key explanation for pay inequities, has now largely been reversed.
Women now ask. A 2023 report found these days women are more likely to negotiate for a higher salary than men are.
This Women’s History Month, I’m excited to learn from more of my younger friends. My recent experience shows that those of us longer of tooth can learn from and be mentored by our younger colleagues, just like I was schooled by mine—and now will benefit financially from that mentoring.
US Army Airborne veteran Paula Boggs is now a musician, speaker, and writer after serving a decade as Starbucks Corporation’s chief legal officer. She writes about leadership, legal ethics, and the legal profession for Good Counsel.
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