Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead... But Gutsy Girls Do (25 page)

Part of covering your bases is not doing anything without telling the right people. If you take a risk without informing your boss, and it works, the success may be overshadowed by her annoyance at being left out of the loop. If you don't tell people and you fail, you will be all alone in the wilderness, with the lions licking their chops.

4. Give Yourself a Safety Net

A risk, by its very definition, is something that could fail. That's why you need, if possible, a safety net, something to break the fall.

There are all kinds of safety nets. There's the cushion you leave in your budget, for instance, to cover your loss. But the nice tight net I see gutsy girls use is their allies. When you have allies, they will support your risks, give you the help you need, and may even assist you in cleaning up any mess. If you sense you are without enough allies, return to Chapter 7.

HOW TO CONVINCE YOUR BOSS OR CLIENT TO GO ALONG

No matter how good a job you've done convincing yourself that a risk is worth taking, unless you're the head of your company, you're now going to have to convince someone else of the same thing. Of course, a major part of convincing your boss or upper management or a client to go along with your plan is to brief them as thoroughly as possible and be able to answer any questions. But that's not enough. Though management consultants stress these days that American business is in dire need of smart risk taking, many senior managers are scaredy cats. They are likely to balk at plans that will cost money, violate the usual way of doing things, and possibly make them look reckless. You may have to try some fancy stuff to get them to go along.

I think I'm pretty good at convincing bosses to take risky leaps, though it's something I've learned by trial and error. I remember being twenty-five and trying to convince Ruth Whitney, the editor-in-chief of
Glamour,
to let me go with a team of scientists on a sonar search for the Loch Ness monster and write about my experiences. Now, the primary reason I wanted the assignment was so that I'd be on a boat with lots of hopefully single male scientists, but I was pitching the idea as if it would totally tantalize the
Glamour
reader. Ruth looked completely skeptical, and asked how I could make the piece newsy with
Glamour's
three-month lead time. “What if I sleep with the Loch Ness monster?” I replied. Needless to say, I wasn't in Scotland before ye.

It goes without saying that no one is going to back a risk of yours unless they think there's something in it for them. I'm pretty sure I knew that at twenty-five, but I thought I could get around an idea's obvious lack of merit with a little charm and a lot of BS. I'd never try that today because I know I'd pay for it down the road.

Let's say your idea is one that makes absolute sense for your boss to get behind. That's still no guarantee that she'll say yes. I've come to see that there are three things,
beyond
having a strong idea and the research to back it up, that can help convince the skeptical.

The first is to anticipate their objections and present them as your own. Sure you could wait for them to raise them and then sound brilliantly prepared as you counter, but that creates a you-versus-them situation. Don't let it get to that. Say something like “Now, of course, a major concern with this approach would be X, but as I investigated, I learned that it wasn't really a problem.”

The next is to whip out the visual aids. When I went to management consultant Judy Markus to learn how to give better presentations, she told me that her philosophy is to use visual tools any time you possibly can, even when you're pitching a small idea to your boss rather than giving a major presentation. The first time I tried this strategy with my boss I felt kind of silly, as if I'd asked him at lunch if he needed me to cut up his meat for him.

But I soon saw how effective it was. Most people, no matter how smart, aren't capable of hearing your idea and then mentally conjuring up how fabulous it will be. The more you can help them along with visuals, the better. I don't mean lots of tedious black-and-white overheads, but rather nifty, colorful charts and pictures.

The third thing you've got to do is seem fiercely passionate—and unfortunately, that can be hard to do when you're nervous. I've found that fear tends to sit on the pan of the brain that produces enthusiasm, resulting in a monotone delivery and no spark.

Just last year, I learned a fabulous new trick for letting your passion through. An ad agency was making a presentation to us at
McCall's
on a possible campaign to solicit subscribers. Several people at the agency gave background information and then the senior copywriter, Karen Mischke, stood up to present the actual idea. The concept was strong, but what really helped hook us was her delivery. It was so good, in fact, that I called her later and asked her what her secret was.

She said that someone once had taught her that when presenting an idea you should always try to share with the listener the “process” you'd been through in developing the idea. It not only relaxes you to do so, because it's like telling a story, but it also adds credibility—you've obviously done your research and considered all the angles.

In Mischke's case, she started off telling us that she was in many ways exactly like the women who would be getting the direct-mail campaign for
McCall's.
Her mother had read
McCall's
and she had assumed it was a magazine for older women. When she opened it she was surprised to discover that it was geared for women in their thirties and forties. She talked about the articles she liked and how she would use the advice in her own life.

Mischke laughingly told me that sharing the process was really what Melanie Griffith had done in one of the classic scenes in
Working Girl.
“Remember,” she said, “when Melanie's character, Tess, gets found out, but the head guy of Trask Industry gives her the chance to prove that the great idea was hers, not Sigourney Weaver's? Tess explains how she clipped a story from
Fortune
on how Trask was considering branching into broadcasting and then she saw the gossip columnist's story on the radio deejay and so she starts putting these ideas together in her mind until she thinks, What about Trask getting into radio? The guy is mesmerized listening to her and then thoroughly convinced. She took him through her thinking process and that made all the difference.”

HOW TO STAY COOL UNDER PRESSURE

You've set everything in motion and now you must wait for the results. Terrifying, isn't it?

When a good girl finally takes a risk, she is likely to project about the future, imagining the absolute worst that could happen. She might tell herself she's preparing for all possible outcomes and therefore it's a healthy exercise—but it's not.

Sandy Hill Pittman, an adventurer and mountaineer whose personal goal is to climb the highest mountain on every continent (only the Mount Everest summit has eluded her due to weather conditions), says that one of the most disruptive and dangerous things you can do on a risky climb is to let the mind “meander.” On her last Everest climb she practiced what she calls “walking meditation,” focusing on one step at a time “Without thinking,” she says, “I walked lighter, stumbled less, and found my center.” This same technique will work for you with any kind of business risk.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU FEEL IN OVER YOUR HEAD

Sometimes, no matter how prepared you are for a risk, you can end up feeling as if you've ended up with more than you bargained for. This is most likely to happen in a brand-new job. You're experienced, you're skilled, you're game, but the challenge is just, well, bigger and harder than you ever anticipated.

When a good girl finds herself in this kind of situation, she starts thinking in very drastic terms, like I'm in over my head, or, I've bitten off more than I can chew. Men, on the other hand, don't think of drowning or choking. Rather they view a tough new job as a
stretch.
Right now it's out of their grasp, but if they just reach a little farther, try a little harder, it soon can be theirs. Perhaps this way of thinking comes from years of listening to beer commercials stressing that you must grab for all the gusto you can get.

The fastest way to get over the sinking-fast feeling is to accelerate your learning curve. Critical information will not only help you make smart decisions and cope with what is coming your way, but the activity of information gathering has a way of distracting you from any terror at hand. However, that said, you don't want to look like you're scrambling. A couple of my favorite techniques for information gathering that don't make you look desperate: Ask questions of people as if you were soliciting their opinion rather than feeling needy for help. (“What do
you
think are the most critical issues facing the department right now?”.) or ask them to do the information gathering for you as part of a special project.

When I got to
Working Woman,
I had plenty to learn, but I certainly wasn't going to reveal my ignorance by asking questions like “Could someone please tell me what the hell the phrase ‘pancake management’ means?” What I did was have editors hand in special reports for me on a variety of topics. For instance, I asked for a list and critique of the best career writers in the country, theoretically so I could pick one as a columnist, but it also served as a manual for me, taking me up to speed on everything of importance being said on the subject.

HOW TO KEEP THE WOLVES AT BAY

No matter how much self-assurance you've demonstrated in a risky situation, particularly a new job, you may look up one day to see the wolves circling. I think that when you're in a new position it's best to do as much one-on-one work as possible and avoid group settings. People are less receptive and enthusiastic in a pack situation, because they're watching everyone else. They also can get mean.

The first time I had a job that involved managing seven or eight people, the woman I was replacing, who had accepted a new position at the magazine, kept recommending to me that I organize a “Get-to-know-Kate” breakfast for everybody who would be reporting to me. Absolutely nothing about the idea appealed to me, and yet I knew that I was going to annoy this woman if I didn't do as she suggested.

It still makes me cringe to think of that morning. There I sat next to a coffee urn the size of a silo and a platter of blueberry muffins, with seven women who looked like they would rather be anywhere else, even the International House of Pancakes, than sitting in a circle with me. No matter how
inclusive
I was trying to be in my talk, there was a them-versus-me feeling. Besides, I wasn't sounding very smart. I would have been much more effective and demonstrated far more clout if I'd met with people one at a time, to talk to them about my plans and ask them about their own needs and opinions.

THE ONE PHRASE YOU SHOULD NEVER UTTER EVEN IF YOU FEEL IT:

“I'm not sure.”

THE GUTSY GIRL'S GUIDE TO TAKING THE HEAT

When a good girl takes a risk that fails, her inclination is to assume all the blame, and wear a hair shirt for an indefinite period of time. Or, perhaps even worse, to hibernate in her office, hoping everything will blow over if she wishes hard enough. Though these approaches may make you feel better or safer, they are both extremely dangerous: They can create the impression that the situation—and your culpability—are far worse than they are.

Some of what I've learned about taking the heat has come from my friend Merrie Spaeth, president of Spaeth Communications, who specializes in helping companies talk to the public when they have a major crisis on their hands. There was a time when some companies in crisis would close ranks and keep their mouths shut, only making matters worse. Spaeth will coach an organization on how to tell the story so that management comes across as honest, responsible, and proactive.

Though coping with a bank failure is not exactly the same as dealing with a setback in your work, several of the same principles apply. You have to be gutsy enough to make a full disclosure and you also have to manage the communication effectively.

First, says Spaeth, put everything in writing. That's your protection against any rewriting of history a boss or co-worker might attempt down the road. It's also the opportunity to remind everybody of how many players endorsed the plan—also known as spreading the blame. It's not that you're trying to shirk responsibility But if you were headed in a direction that management encouraged and your game plan was given an enthusiastic go-ahead, you don't want to be holding all the blame And believe me, people will try to make that happen Use words like
we, our,
and
together
.

There are two other things you want to keep in mind when you're putting together your written documentation. Use as many positive words as possible, steering away from the negative ones. You also should offer a solution or damage control. “If the new branch in the northwest mall didn't work out,” says Spaeth, “offer a great plan for dealing with the inventory from there.”

In addition to putting things in writing, you should talk to as many of the key players as you can in person. Spaeth says that it's a way to make sure they're informed, but also to get a glimmer if anyone is trying to bad-mouth you over what's happened.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

A GUTSY GIRL'S GUIDE TO THE FUTURE

U
p until now, all the gutsy-girl strategies I've talked about relate to the job you have at this moment In time. But if you want long-term career success, it's not enough to be gutsy in your day-to-day work. You must also take a gutsy approach to plotting your career, aggressively using both your expertise and your contacts to get you better and better positions up the ladder.

Even if you currently love your job and you're a blazing success at it, you must be looking toward the future. A gutsy girl never rests on her laurels or allows herself to get too comfy in a job. In the Korn Perry study of executive women, 80 percent of the participants said they believe that strategic job changes are an important element in achieving success.

A gutsy girl, therefore, is always scouting, making contacts, and researching opportunities in her field—as well as other fields that pique her interest. It's quite likely that you could have two, perhaps even three careers in your lifetime.

A gutsy girl also knows that the best time to get a great new job is, surprisingly, not when she's discontent with her current position but when she's absolutely in love with it. That way she's operating from a position of strength, able to capitalize on both her reputation as a passionate worker and also her full-blown self-confidence. She realizes, as well, that sometimes she must grab hold of an opportunity even when she doesn't feel 100 percent ready to handle it.

Sounds scary, doesn't it? But all you have to do is take the nine strategies a gutsy girl uses in her job and apply them to growing your career
beyond
that job.

1. A Gutsy Girl Breaks the Rules

There seem to be hundreds of rules in existence about careers. If you want to get hired by a tony law firm, you have to have attended an Ivy League school. If you want to make it as a television reporter, you have to start at a small station “out of town.” If you want to work for such-and-such company, you should send your résumé directly to the human resources department.

Most of these rules exist for a reason. They reflect reality, the experiences countless people have had. But each rule is based on the odds. It may have been true for
most
people—but certainly not all of them. What a gutsy girl knows is that many of these rules will limit her if she chooses to follow them. To make as much headway as possible, she must break the rules or at least go around them.

The first thing you must do is question every rule you hear about the field you're in and what it takes to be a success in it. When I think back on my early career, I realize that I automatically bought into so many of them, as if I'd been brainwashed by the career control squad. I've come to believe that some of the rules actually are perpetuated because people in certain industries are extremely greedy and like to make their fields appear impenetrable. When I was thinking of making a career shift to the television industry in my twenties, I attended several seminars on the TV business, and every thirty-year-old producer began his or her presentation with this rule: “The TV business is almost
impossible
to break into.” It was as if they wanted to discourage anyone else from competing with them for the best jobs.

Though I took for granted many of the rules I heard, I soon spotted a few gutsy women who didn't. One of these women joined the articles department when I was at
Glamour
and had a profound effect on my thinking.

First, a little background on the rules of publishing. The main one I heard when I visited the personnel departments of magazine companies when I was twenty-two was that to break in you “absolutely have to start as a secretary slash editorial assistant.” I balked at the idea, but acquiesced when I saw that I wasn't going to get in the door without going that route.

Within several years I'd been promoted to a feature writer, working with a bunch of other young editors and writers who had paid their dues the way I had. One day we heard that a new writer was joining the staff. And you know what? She was fresh out of college. She was also the author of an article that would soon appear in the magazine.

She and I became fast friends and the first thing I wanted to know from Amy was how she'd pulled it off. It turned out that through a contact at journalism class, she had landed an interview with the managing editor rather than having to go through the personnel department, as everyone else had (Broken Rule Number One). Then, when the managing editor gave her the start-as-a-secretary spiel, she asked how someone got hired as a writer rather than a secretary. The editor explained that you had to have
written
something. Amy went home and wrote a charming article on how to survive living with your parents when you're just out of college and looking for a job. It had a youthful irreverence that made it different from traditional
Glamour
articles. I still remember this funny line about how she'd spend Saturday nights reading and picking at her pimples while her parents entertained downstairs (Broken Rule Number Two). They accepted the article and gave her a job as a writer rather than a secretary (Broken Rule Number Three).

Listening to her saga, my first thought was how naive I'd been never to challenge the conventional wisdom. My second thought was that I'd never do it again.

Once you've heard a rule and questioned it, ask yourself what are the possible ways to get around it. Be creative, be adventurous, be daring.

2. A Gutsy Girl Has One Clear Goal for the Future

One of the mistakes that's easy to make as a good girl is to expend so much energy doing your job that you never take time to think beyond it and plot a brilliant career for yourself. You may even assume that your company has a plan for you, one that you should allow to unfold. Be flattered if your boss says she has big things in mind for you, but never, ever sit around waiting for them to happen.

A gutsy girl has a gutsy career plan. She not only actively looks outside her present job for ways to facilitate that mission, but she also makes certain choices in her job to make sure the plan becomes a reality. She'll take advantage of opportunities to develop an expertise or specialty, raise her technology IQ, learn a foreign language, improve her public-speaking, and refine her leadership skills.

That's not to say you should have a
rigid
plan. Remember a few years ago when we were all supposed to have a response ready when an interviewer asked us, “Where do you see yourself in five years”? Maybe there are still a few moronic interviewers who would expect you to have an answer to that question, but you shouldn't have to know—nor should you want to.

I think what you need instead are a variety of possibilities—one of which is eventually having your
own
business. Think in broad strokes, but stay focused. Remember the trick of using three or four words to sum up your plan? That's what my friend Merrie Spaeth has done in plotting her career At fourteen she starred with Peter Sellers in
The World of Henry Orient.
She's been a newspaper columnist, TV host, magazine writer, businesswoman, political candidate, assistant to the head of the FBI, media adviser to President Reagan, and now she's the head of her own communications company (and that's only a partial list). At twenty-nine there's no way she could have told anyone what she would be doing in five years. But there are three terms, she says, that she considers as mission words for herself: “leadership, power, and high profitability.”

3. A Gutsy Girl Does Only What's Essential

Whenever a good-girl friend of mine is on a job quest and I ask her how she's doing, the reply I seem to get most often is, “I'm still working on my résumé.”

Just as a good, girl gets into the good-girl spin on the job, working harder than she has to and refusing to take shortcuts, so she approaches her job hunt. She spends weeks pulling together the “perfect” résumé, sends it to the “right” people, and dutifully waits to hear.

A gutsy girl knows, however, that she must cut through all the tape. Forget doing mounds of research on the organizational chart, trying to find out whom you should be talking to. Pick up the phone, call your friend whose cousin works there, and ask
her
. Forget composing a “perfect” résumé. Write a gutsy cover letter that tells exactly why you'd love to work at that company. Forget the human resources department. Go directly to the source.

A gutsy girl also knows that one of the best shortcuts is to do two things simultaneously. Whereas a good girl wrestles with the question, “Should I look for a new job or should I try to get more responsibility in this one?” a gutsy girl pursues both courses of action simultaneously and takes the first prize she gets.

4. A Gutsy Girl Doesn't Worry Whether People Like Her

A good girl's pleaser instincts can get in her way during her job hunt, just as they can in her work. You may be reluctant to pursue a new position because you don't want to leave your boss in the lurch during the budget process—or just after you've been given a nice new title and raise. You may feel guilty about leaving the people in your department, especially if you've hired them away from other companies. You may worry that people will be “mad” at you if you jump ship.

They probably will be mad, but they'll get over it.

Though there are certain circumstances in which you can't be worried about what people think, you must nonetheless be constantly building a network of people who will help you in your career pursuits. Stay in touch with former bosses and friendly colleagues. Do favors where possible. Ask for favors when you need them. Write lots of thank-you notes. Since
Glamour,
every job I've gotten has been a result of someone I know giving my name to the person who was looking.

5. A Gutsy Girl Walks and Talks Like a Winner

If you've always felt uncomfortable strutting your stuff in your job, you'll probably feel even more squeamish at the thought of doing it
outside
your company. In the thick of my good-girl days, I hesitated to toot my own horn on job interviews not only because it felt as foreign to me as playing the bagpipes, but also because I believed that it would be downright offensive. In the back of my mind I had this idea that modesty would actually work to my advantage. I'd speak of my accomplishments in a reserved manner and tell myself that once the interviewer heard via the grapevine or from my references that I was stronger than I'd indicated, I'd get extra points for not being a braggart.

I changed my entire viewpoint when, years ago, I interviewed a man for a position on my staff. This guy came into my office in an Armani suit and tie and spent forty-five minutes telling me what a fabulous job he'd done at the last place he'd worked (the other fifteen minutes he used to tell me what a fabulous job
I'd
done during my career) He made his current position sound as if it carried as much clout as Secretary of State. He'd recruited this writer and that writer and had brilliantly edited their copy. He even used certain words to describe himself, like
rainmaker.

As he displayed his feathers like the yellow-breasted bower bird, part of me was thinking, God, this guy is too slick for words. But you know what? Another part of me was thinking how fabulous it would be to have somebody on the staff with this much gumption and passion and panache.

Take everything you've learned about walking and talking like a winner in your job and apply it to your job hunt.

6. A Gutsy Girl Asks for What She Wants

Asking for what you want is tough no matter where you do it, but at least when you ask in your current job you know the lay of the land and you have a sense of how much someone has to give and how likely they are to give it. When you're up for a new job, you're working in almost total darkness. There are a couple of principles that should guide you:

•  Always, always ask for more. Good girls fear that if they push too hard, they'll end up losing everything. The key is to ask for more while sounding totally enthusiastic about the job and making a deal happen. Tell them, “I'm thrilled you're offering me the position and I'm very, very interested. However, I'm looking for X amount and I hope there's a way to make that happen.”

•  Ask now because you won't have nearly as much leverage later. What a good girl tells herself—as an excuse not to be too assertive—is, I can always get more once I get there. Well, once they have you, they are far, far less generous. Go for everything now.

•  Ask for what isn't there. In her job, a gutsy girl knows that just because no one else has it doesn't mean she can't get it. The same principle applies in your job campaign. After my boss left
Family Weekly
and I'd lost the editor-in-chief position to an outsider, I knew it was time to get my act in gear and go elsewhere. The new editor seemed happy with me and I didn't feel in any immediate danger, but it was time to capitalize on my position while I still could.

The ink on my résumé was barely dry (this was before the personal computer) when the editor-in-chief of
Mademoiselle,
whom I had written freelance articles for when she was at
Ladies’ Home Journal,
asked me to join the magazine as articles editor. It was a terrific position, with the opportunity to work with fabulous writers, and yet it didn't seem like the right next step for me. I turned down the job and she asked me to think about it some more. Finally I realized what was bothering me: the title, Even though
Family Weekly
didn't have the same stature as
Mademoiselle,
I would be going from a title of executive editor to a less prestigious one. I went for broke and said I would accept the job if the title was changed to executive editor. Though there was already an executive editor, they made me one, too.