Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead... But Gutsy Girls Do (17 page)

This is often referred to in the world of sales as “finding the hot button,” but this tends to sound a little slick. I think it's easier for a good girl to get into the concept if she considers it on more of an emotional plane: discovering what the person wants and providing it. After all, we're trained to please, and we should use that instinct to look for the other person's needs.

A person's secret greed might seem obvious. But you should always do a little detective work to see if there's something operating on another level. Watch, ask questions, snoop around. Once, when I was going through the interview process for a job, I made a few discreet inquiries about the politics of the place and learned that the man I would be reporting to was new, an outsider, and was having trouble with one of the top people on his staff. In my follow-up letter to him I stressed how terrific it would be to be “on his team.” I was offered the job, and though I decided not to take it, I later heard through the grapevine that he had lapped up the “team” concept.

My favorite secret greed story involves Caroline Kennedy. Soon after I got to
McCall's,
we put together a special section on women who were making big strides in the nineties. On a long shot we called Caroline Kennedy, who had just coauthored a book on the Bill of Rights, and much to our surprise she agreed to a short interview on the subject. As the editor was leaving my office, I yelled out, “Would she be on the cover?” That, I knew, would be a major, major coup. Caroline Kennedy practically never gave interviews and she had
never
posed for the cover of a major women's magazine.

“No way,” she said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I just know.” she said. “It's clear from talking to her that she wants to keep a low profile.”

“So then why did she agree to the interview?”

“She wants to publicize her book.”

Ahhhhhh, there was the hot button. I told the editor to tell Kennedy that we would put the name of her book on the cover if she would pose for it. Two days later she agreed. We were the first woman's magazine ever to have an authorized picture of her on the cover (and it jumped off the newsstand).

Want to hear something amazing? The good girls who work for me usually do a lousy job of finding my secret greed. When they do ask for something, they often talk only in terms of their
own
needs. “I think I deserve this.” “I want this.” “I need this.”

This isn't just my observation. Nancy Hamlin, president of Hamlin Associates, which helps organizations deal with gender issues, says that over the years she's frequently seen women fail to put themselves in their boss's position when they're making a request. “They focus on
their
needs but not the needs of the other person,” she says. “Before you ask for something, you have to create a blackboard in your mind with your needs on one side and your boss's on the other. You must address each side—so both of you will feel satisfied.”

Why, if a good girl feels a compulsion to please, does she take a self-absorbed approach when asking? This used to baffle me, but I think I've finally come to understand the reason. Good girls feel uncomfortable acting as if the other person's needs are more important than their own when that really isn't the case. And they believe it's basically … well,
evil
to flatter, fawn, or tell a guy that it would be terrific to be on his team when he's really about as exciting as a Pendaflex folder.

If your conscience is preventing you from pushing some-one's hot button, keep this in mind: people generally find it delicious to be flattered and schmoozed, and they rarely hold it against you. Besides, if you end up meeting their needs or relieving their headaches, they will be very, very grateful.

Rule 2: Ask Fast

When you go in to make your request, quickly and clearly spell out what you want. In the height of my good-girl days I always fell a need to do a warm-up, to “prep” the listener with lots of background and explanation, as if doing so would protect me from a hasty no. But I've come to see that this kind of hemming and hawing only bores, irritates, or confuses the listener.

Before you go in to ask, crystallize everything you want into one clear statement of purpose. Then rehearse it. Stan with a hit to the secret greed and then make your point. (“Sandy, I know how disappointed you must be about Tom leaving. He did such a terrific job for you on the budget. I'd like you to consider me for the role of budget director because I believe I can be the kind of watchdog you need and also offer some innovative programs that would help you save even
more
money.”)

Rule 3: Sell Yourself Hard

This can be tough, even for gutsy girls. Adele Scheele says that over the years she's counseled people about their careers, she's seen that across the board women have a harder time than men selling themselves and talking up what they do. “Men talk about their jobs as if they own the company,” she says. “Women, on the other hand, will talk about their jobs as if they are several notches
below
where they actually are on the corporate ladder It's almost a taboo for women to brag about their work.”

And yet that's what you're going to have to do. You're going to have to give the reason or reasons you deserve what you're asking for.

Because talking about your accomplishments is awkward for you, you may end up sounding vague or unconvinced of your own worth. (I-think-I'm-really-good-at-what-I-do kind of statements.) A good strategy is to pick three or four succinct points about yourself and relate each directly to a criterion for the job or promotion.

Rule 4: Ask for the Business

This is an expression I'd always heard salespeople use. It sounds straightforward enough, but there's a little twist to it that I didn't get until I applied for the job of editor-in-chief of
Child.
The final in a series of interviews was with the two top people on the business side of the magazine, including the publisher After I'd talked to them for about forty-five minutes, the conversation began winding down and I was afraid it would end with a fizzle. The moment called for something creative and bold. As they shifted a little in their seats, I leaned forward and said that I wanted to add just a few words in closing I told them that I'd enjoyed the whole interview process, that I thought I would make a terrific editor based on A and B, and that I wanted the job very much. The publisher announced, somewhat briskly, “We hear you.” and that was it.

As I left the office, I was worried Perhaps I'd come across as too slick at the end, too much like an infomercial pitch for a $198 skin-care regimen. Was the “We hear you” remark a sign of annoyance, I wondered, or just the publisher's no-nonsense way of talking? A few weeks after I got the job, the publisher and I had lunch and we ended up chatting about the hiring process. “You know what sealed the deal for you?” she said. “You asked for the business.”

Asking for the business really means being absolutely sure you've asked. Too often salespeople do a lot of schmoozing and present a lot of facts, but never come right out and pop the question. So just to be safe, ask one final time—and do it with gusto.

And I mean gusto. A friend of mine called me recently to say that she was one of two finalists for a major editor-in-chief job. She should have been happy, but she had a bad, nagging feeling. Because she was already the editor-in-chief of another magazine, she hadn't thought it behooved someone in her position to act like an eager beaver, so she'd played things cool. Now she was worried she'd been
too
cool. The next week the job went to the other candidate, who my friend later heard had pitched herself as if the fate of Western civilization depended on it. People want you to seem passionate about what they are passionate about.

NOW THAT YOU'VE ASKED, DON'T SAY ANOTHER WORD

This is a trick I learned from Cheryl Brown, a friend of mine who is associate vice president for university development at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Brown has spent twenty years at schools like UCLA asking people to donate major philanthropic gifts, and she taught me that as hard as it is, you have to ask and then “let them say the next thing.” Too often, she points out, we ask and then immediately feel the need to apologize for asking or to modify our request.

I think good girls, in particular, feel the urge to jump in and save the person from what they're asking for. You say you want an assistant of your own, but before your boss can answer, you announce that you would settle for a college intern twice a week. Though it may seem like a millennium, let the silence work for you.

Of course, if you pause and the other person begins squirming as if you've backed him into a corner, switch gears and give the experience some closure. You can say, “I know you'll probably need some time to think about this,” and depart gracefully.

THE SINGLE BEST THING TO ASK YOUR BOSS FOR: MORE RESPONSIBILITY

Yes, you want more money and yes, you want certain perks. But one of the most important things you should be asking for on a regular basis is more responsibility.

In Chapter 3, I mentioned that one of the most effective rule-breaking strategies is to expand the parameters of your job description/title. There are bosses who will notice your talent and reward you with job-expanding opportunities, but much of the time you have to come right out and ask for them.

Please notice that I've been using the word
responsibility
rather than
work.
That's because it's easy for good girls to fall into the trap of simply taking on lots of extra maintenance work, not unlike cleaning the backboards. What you want are projects that provide you with more experience, more knowledge, more skill, more clout, more exposure to key executives. These will dramatically bolster your value.

In a recent study, top executives were asked, “What do you feel is the single best way for employees to earn a promotion and/or raise?” Eighty-two percent said asking for more work and responsibility, compared to 11 percent for publicizing achievements and 2 percent for working longer hours. (Good girls, please take note of the very last part!)

What you really want is enough additional responsibility to provide you with a whole new specialty or area of expertise that you can leverage. It's far easier to go from VP of nuts to VP of nuts and bolts if you've already taken over the bolts. In the Korn Ferry study of executive women, over half of the respondents said that taking on “different functional responsibility” was one of the factors in a particular breakthrough or turning point that put them on the path to success. Consider this story that happened to an acquaintance of mine:

She was the articles editor of a women's magazine. Her job entailed overseeing every article that ran in the magazine, with the exception of short lifestyle articles on fashion, food, and beauty. These were the province of her counterpart, the lifestyle editor, a shrewd, ambitious woman. Each month the lifestyle editor would send my friend, as a courtesy, an updated list of features she'd assigned, things like “How to Get Rid of Stubborn Stains” and “Sponge Painting for Beginners.” My friend would give it a cursory glance, sometimes letting out a hoot as she saw the topics. Over time, however, she began to notice that the list was not only growing in length, but the subject mailer was also expanding. There were now pieces on investing and budgeting, as well as self-help articles on building self-esteem. This was a clear invasion of turf.

“I suddenly could see that she was like an amoeba,” says my friend. “She was swallowing more and more of my responsibility.”

By the time my friend went to the editor-in-chief to complain, it was too late. The editor-in-chief wasn't going to curb the lifestyle editor's new specialty because she was happy with the results. Shortly thereafter the lifestyle editor got a bigger job, leveraging her new area of expertise.

I tried to sympathize with my friend. But the truth is that I couldn't help but secretly admire the Amoeba Woman's style.

One nice little bonus about asking for more responsibility: it's one thing bosses
really like
giving because it doesn't make them feel they've been depleted in any way.

THE SECOND-BEST THING TO ASK YOUR BOSS FOR: AN UNPLEASANT TASK YOUR BOSS IS STUCK WITH

Though you don't want a diet of go-nowhere projects, you should occasionally volunteer to take a crummy job from your boss. Like the slide show he must put together on trends in refrigeration. This will score big points for you.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ASKING FOR WHAT ISN'T AVAILABLE

One of the most fascinating things I've noticed about gutsy girls is that they're good at not only asking for the obvious, but also at going after what others might assume isn't up for grabs. They ask for a company car even though no one else has gotten one. They ask to create an interdepartmental task force even though there's never been one before. And to and behold, they get what they ask for.

Whereas good girls are programmed to think, Oh, they'd never do
that,
a gutsy girl knows that it never hurts to ask.

THE YUCKY PROBLEM OF ASKING FOR MONEY

There's asking for what you want, and then there's asking for money To a good girl, the first seems tough but the second is positively excruciating. As a good girl, what you may do to avoid having to talk raw numbers is to convince yourself that good bosses pay you what you deserve. Wrong. They pay you what they can get away with. As a friend of mine in human resources says, “When we get someone cheap, we think how
lucky
we are.”

A gutsy girl knows that the only way to guarantee that she'll earn the money she wants and deserves is to go after it aggressively. When she starts a new job or gets a promotion, she negotiates for as much as she possibly can.
But that's not all.
She also realizes that getting the money she wants isn't a once-a-year experience at salary review time. A gusty girl thinks of her salary as a living, breathing thing that she must constantly manage—almost as if it were a stock portfolio. She must, for instance, keep her eye on the market (if she's been at a company for a while, she may not be keeping pace with the industry—even though she's getting decent raises). And she must find innovative ways to grow it (by asking for bonuses, perks, etc.).