Smart Steps
Women business leaders and entrepreneurs from various industries share their tips and advice in a "quick read format" on a variety topics.
Topic: Find Your Voice at the Negotiation Table
June 2026
Susan Coleman
Photo Courtesy: Susan Coleman |
For over 35 years, Susan Coleman has worked from war zones to boardrooms teaching negotiation skills, mediating conflict, and supporting clients in collaborative initiatives through facilitation and coaching. She has worked with tens of thousands of people in 34 countries, on just about every continent, and with hundreds of organizations, governments, teams, and individuals, including the United Nations, NASA, Senior Women Leaders of the Government of Afghanistan, and Columbia University. Her initiative with the UN ultimately resulted in over 100,000 professionals being trained in collaborative, intercultural negotiation, one of the largest peacebuilding initiatives on the planet. She started her professional journey as a litigator in New York City but detoured to the negotiation and conflict resolution field after attending the Kennedy School at Harvard. Throughout her life, she has been an activist for evolutionary social change with a deep respect for diversity of humans and the natural world. |
Recently, there was a high-level international meeting that influenced the world’s future, and there were virtually no women there. You may think that has nothing to do with your own life — but it does.
Because what happens at the highest levels trickles down into our organizations, families, relationships and more. It shapes who feels entitled to speak, who gets interrupted, whose ideas are valued, and who quietly doubts themselves.
The absence of women from global negotiations reflects something deeper: how power is still imagined. And many women absorb that message more than we realize.
We’ve been conditioned to second-guess our instincts, hold back rather than risk sounding “too much,” and contribute less than we could.
But negotiation is not just about boardrooms or billion-dollar deals. Negotiation is any moment in which one person is trying to influence, persuade, navigate conflict, or create agreement with another human being.
It happens at work.
At home.
In families.
In intimate relationships.
Every single day.
And when women learn to negotiate with confidence, clarity and collaboration, it changes far more than individual outcomes. It changes culture.
The communication model my business partner and I developed and have taught around the world is called AEIOU: Attack. Evade. Inform. Open. Unite.©
Most dysfunctional communication falls into the first two categories: attack or avoidance (dominate, interrupt, win at all costs, withdraw).
We see this everywhere right now — in politics, media, workplaces, and personal relationships. But transformative negotiation depends on the last three:
Inform means clearly expressing your perspective without aggression. Letting people know what you want, which isn’t always easy for women.
Open means genuinely listening and becoming curious about another point of view without losing your own.
Unite means identifying common ground and working toward solutions that preserve dignity and relationship while still addressing difficult realities.
In other words: Collaborative negotiation is not weak. It is highly skilled. It is firm, fierce, and fair.
In Collaborative Hardball, I recount a story from a colleague describing negotiations that were deteriorating because participants — mostly men — were interrupting and overpowering one another. Then a woman entered the conversation and simply said, “May I repeat back what I think I heard you say?”
The atmosphere shifted immediately. That one act — slowing down the interaction, listening carefully, and creating understanding — changed the negotiation itself.
This is not softness. This is leadership.
So here are a few negotiation do’s and don’ts:
Do’s
Don’ts
The future is shaped by those willing to enter the room, trust their voice, and help create better agreements for all of us.
Because what happens at the highest levels trickles down into our organizations, families, relationships and more. It shapes who feels entitled to speak, who gets interrupted, whose ideas are valued, and who quietly doubts themselves.
The absence of women from global negotiations reflects something deeper: how power is still imagined. And many women absorb that message more than we realize.
We’ve been conditioned to second-guess our instincts, hold back rather than risk sounding “too much,” and contribute less than we could.
But negotiation is not just about boardrooms or billion-dollar deals. Negotiation is any moment in which one person is trying to influence, persuade, navigate conflict, or create agreement with another human being.
It happens at work.
At home.
In families.
In intimate relationships.
Every single day.
And when women learn to negotiate with confidence, clarity and collaboration, it changes far more than individual outcomes. It changes culture.
The communication model my business partner and I developed and have taught around the world is called AEIOU: Attack. Evade. Inform. Open. Unite.©
Most dysfunctional communication falls into the first two categories: attack or avoidance (dominate, interrupt, win at all costs, withdraw).
We see this everywhere right now — in politics, media, workplaces, and personal relationships. But transformative negotiation depends on the last three:
Inform means clearly expressing your perspective without aggression. Letting people know what you want, which isn’t always easy for women.
Open means genuinely listening and becoming curious about another point of view without losing your own.
Unite means identifying common ground and working toward solutions that preserve dignity and relationship while still addressing difficult realities.
In other words: Collaborative negotiation is not weak. It is highly skilled. It is firm, fierce, and fair.
In Collaborative Hardball, I recount a story from a colleague describing negotiations that were deteriorating because participants — mostly men — were interrupting and overpowering one another. Then a woman entered the conversation and simply said, “May I repeat back what I think I heard you say?”
The atmosphere shifted immediately. That one act — slowing down the interaction, listening carefully, and creating understanding — changed the negotiation itself.
This is not softness. This is leadership.
So here are a few negotiation do’s and don’ts:
Do’s
- Remember that you are not secondary. For most of humanity’s history, men and women lived in far more partnership-oriented cultures than we do today. The currently popular “power-over” paradigm is not inevitable. Don’t negotiate as though your voice matters less. It doesn’t.
- Prepare. Preparation reduces anxiety and increases clarity. Think through the dynamics, interests and outcomes you want before entering important conversations.
- Use Inform, Open and Unite. You do not need to mirror aggression in order to be powerful. Collaborative communication is often more effective than domination.
- Support other women. During the Obama administration, female staffers reportedly used a strategy called amplification: When one woman made an important point, other women intentionally repeated and reinforced it so the idea was heard and credited.
Don’ts
- Wait for permission to speak. Your perspective may be precisely what is missing from the conversation.
- Internalize interruption or dismissal. Many women are socialized to retreat when talked over. Stay present. Return calmly to your point. As my recent podcast guest Zoë Chance suggests: “I just notice. I don’t react.”
The future is shaped by those willing to enter the room, trust their voice, and help create better agreements for all of us.
