Joyful Transformations LLC

Here’s how you can build your negotiation muscle as an Asian American woman (Part 1 of 2)

One of the challenges that Asian women come across on our way to building greater representation in higher leadership comes in the form of unpaid invisible work.

This work could be the administrative tasks that others won’t raise a hand for such as the printing of meeting agenda or ordering of everybody’s lunches. At times, it could be the DEI work that we could be trapped to accept—because there are only a few Asian women at senior leadership who can taken on the assignment.

While I hear the same challenge being mentioned by women across cultures and ethnicities, here are the underlying mindsets that make the experience unique to Asian American women:

MORE RESPONSIBILITIES MEAN MORE SUCCESS.

A mindset that is focused more on quantity, instead of the quality could be a pitfall to an Asian woman’s promotion prospects. Sometimes it could be rooted in the overachiever habits built in school where many Asian immigrant families equate well-roundedness to being involved in many things academically, musically or artistically, and socially.

While this mindset may have helped you succeed in school and in your early career, I call this the Asian woman’s middle management trap.

The way to overcome this is to negotiate for more strategic assignments that business finds valuable and gives you leadership visibility. I understand how DEI work is important so if it energizes you, go for it. Perhaps, the negotiation work for you involves getting the buy-in so this becomes a strategic contribution to your organization.

In the next series, I shall cover two other mindsets: “My immigrant elders taught me not to ruffle any feathers” and “This is a good enough opportunity; saying no makes me ungrateful.”

In the meantime, here’s an excellent resource that gives you more tactical ways to negotiate at work—
‘Negotiating as a Woman of Color’

https://hbr.org/2022/01/negotiating-as-a-woman-of-color