Reviewed by Femflection

Cait Clarke is the Director of Public Interest Law Opportunities at Equal Justice Works in Washington, D.C. where she directs the largest legal fellowship program in the United States. She has been a corporate and non-profit negotiation consultant and was the founding director of the National Defender Leadership Institute. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School.

Neil Shister is a journalist who has been a correspondent for Time Magazine, television writer for the Miami Herald, editor of Atlanta Magazine and a marketing executive with Inc. Magazine. He is the author of the best seller 10 Minute Guide to Negotiating.

Some “DARE TO ASK” quotes:

• “Women are great negotiators and we don’t know it.”
• “You have to get the right people in the right seats and trust them.”
• “I had to learn early on, as “Dare to Ask”, teaches, that “no” isn’t the end of a conversation, but the beginning of a different conversation.”
• “The most important element in any negotiation is trust. Don’t be afraid to be transparent.”
• Our ‘Big Idea’ is that if you re-define negotiating as a win-win ‘Collaborative Conversation’ rather than ‘I win-you lose,’ women have natural negotiating skills—their empathy, their intuition, their ‘gift of gab,’ their talent for teamwork.
• “Words are tools, keep them sharp edged.”
• “There are no rules, so don’t be afraid to break them.”

“DARE TO ASK” – the book:

Research shows that negotiating has typically been a ‘boy’s game,’ done by men according to male rules.

The intention of this book is to empower women for the sake of more equity.

Personal empowerment starts with ‘daring to ask’.  Attorney Cait Clarke, author of “Dare to Ask! The Woman’s Guidebook to Successful Negotiating,” shows that women are actually great negotiators when they remain true to themselves and learn a few techniques. Her approach is spot-on for job and salary negotiations. The negotiating techniques themselves are appropriate for anybody—man or woman.

Most people dislike talking about money. Women especially tend to be at a disadvantage if the discussion is only about money. Cait Clarke, suggests that we reframe negotiations as collaborative conversations, striving to understand each other’s motivations, positions and interests, rather than stressful win-lose, high-stakes battles.

By creating a win-win situation, women become more comfortable within the negotiating process to get what they deserve. And Win-Win means that, the whole that gets divided up is greater than the sum of the parts that either side would get by itself.

The book contains a series of Power Tips aimed at giving women the tools necessary to a successful negotiation.

This book offers practical advice. It teaches us how to eliminate the boundaries we set up and move to a more fulfilling position.

Any woman will feel much more empowered after reading this. She will be more comfortable asking for what she wants, which is the most critical step to getting it.

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