Ditching the rules to claim your value (part 2)

February 5, 2015

"Women need to learn not just to risk, but to risk reputation, to barrel through - as most are petrified to do." - Broad Experience listener

In part one of this post I told you about a listener of mine and how she'd found out to her delight that she could pull off a well paying project for a client - a client who didn't know she was relatively inexperienced.

There's a twist. You know her husband, the man who urged her on? My friend was undoubtedly under-confident. But here's a story about her spouse's over-confidence and the aftermath.

My listener says her husband, "like many men, is willing to risk big for the possibility of winning big." He took on a huge project last year, one he knew was outside his scope. "He thought he could pull it off by hiring a small team and charging the client a very large sum," she says. But it turns out he couldn't. He wasn't competent enough to do the job, even with the team, and the project "unraveled...totally exposing his lack of knowledge in the area."

Just reading that part of her email made me squirm. This is my worst nightmare: taking on something I'm not good enough to do and having it all end in guilt and recriminations. This is why so many women say no to projects they consider too risky and why we end up working for free to 'prove ourselves' - we're afraid to price ourselves too high in case we screw up. But although this sounded like a hideous situation - a duped, angry client, a stressed project lead having to spend a few thousand dollars of his own money to try to clean things up - things did not end in tears. 

The client didn't pull the project, perhaps because doing so at that late stage wouldn't have made sense. But meanwhile my listener's husband came clean, admitting he'd bitten off more than he could chew. He hired, at his own expense, outside experts who could take care of all the stuff his team couldn't, and the project will soon be finished. 

"The end result is that my husband quadrupled his skills overnight and actually could complete this project perfectly next time around for the same very high sum, precisely because of all the potholes he went through on this project. The risk in the end, even after falling on his face, is totally worth it. His reputation takes a small hit, but he keeps on moving and most future clients aren't fazed by this snafu." 

She adds that she believes these are traits women need to learn. "Not just to risk, but to risk reputation, to barrel through, as most are petrified to do. I suspect that successful female CEOs have done exactly this on their way up. Battled through gritty moments, pushed through and developed that incredible confidence in capabilities and accurate judgement of scenarios that most men are capable of, seemingly almost naturally."

To me, what her husband did was a huge risk that I'd never have taken, and the aftermath would have been excruciating for me. Yet he seems to have come out on the other side OK, as far as we know (the project after all is not quite finished).

What do you think? Should more women force themselves to take more risks for the chance of increasing their skills and reaping a great reward?  

Communication problems in your twenties

January 23, 2015

"Men get feedback more easily than women. Everyone's afraid of hurting women's feelings." - Joanna Barsh

I'm about to release a new show focusing on the careers of women in their twenties. I did it because a listener asked. But at the time I admit I wasnt that interested in the topic. How different could navigating the work world be from when I was that age?

A lot, as it happens. Much of the stuff that comes up in the show, which will be out next week, is about communication. I've learned it can be incredibly exasperating for millennials of either sex when they try to communicate with older colleagues (insert your own joke here about how Gen Xers and others cope with being on the end of those attempts). They have their own shortand for connecting with eachother, but two of my guests talked about how tough it is to translate that to the office, with its weird rules and roundabout ways of getting things done. 

But there's a gender thing I want to write about. The person I interviewed gets to be anonymous because, well, she likes her job and doesn't want to stir up any trouble. She's new to the workplace. She and her boyfriend work at the same place, on the same team. Recently there was a big decision the team was asked to contribute to - it had to send an idea to the two top brass, via a direct manager, a young man.

The team's idea was ultimately rejected. My interviewee wanted to clarify why, so first she wrote to the higher-ups and asked if they could meet to discuss it. She heard back that she had to go through the interim manager first. So that was her first frustration, that she couldn't speak directly with the ultimate decision-makers, she had to go through their deputy (to her, an absurdly indirect way of doing things, and inefficient). But then came the reaction of the deputy manager to her emailed request. She wrote to him saying she thought there had been some communication problems in getting across the team's idea, and could they meet to talk about it?

His reply came: "It’s OK, we can figure out something to do with this later, I don’t want anyone to be upset."

Her boyfriend wrote an almost identical email, but the reply he got from the guy was quite different.

"I completely agree with you, I take responsibility for the communication problems. Let's figure out a time to talk."

This surprised her.

"His response to me was more placating than anything else," she says. "'It’s OK, everything’s fine, don’t be sad. Don’t be upset. Don’t cry.' And I feel like the tone of our emails [hers and her boyfriend's] was very similar. It was, 'I have some concerns, can you talk about these concerns?'" 

This incident tallies with research that shows men are uncomfortable giving women feedback. When I spoke to former McKinsey partner Joanna Barsh in 2012, this was one of the things she talked about: that men will often assume that a woman will crumble on hearing something difficult. So they end up soft-peddling whatever it is they want to say. As a result, the woman often doesn't get the honest feedback she needs to progress at work. 

But in this case, the young male manager was getting ahead of himself. He already seemed to assume a request to 'talk' from a female co-worker meant she was upset about something. When a man wrote to him about the same thing, he met the request with equanimity. It's just another example of how a small act of communication is often deceptively tricky, especially when you throw gender into the mix. 

Smiles and power

December 19, 2014

"Higher power people smile when they're relaxed or happy but low power people...smile because they have to." - Marianne LaFrance

The latest show is all about power and body language at work. Something I couldn’t fit in was the subject of smiling. Most of us don’t think about this, except perhaps to notice when someone seems unusually grumpy. But smiling is social glue. It’s also linked to power.

Yale professor Marianne LaFrance, one of my guests on the podcast (left, smiling), told me that during her years of studying smiles she’s found a very quick smile from someone else has an immediate effect on the person who sees it.

“It’s a mini emotional high, an up in the day, although the person may not know where it came from,” she says.

If you’re female, chances are you smile a lot more than the men who surround you. Marianne says women not only smile more but “more intensely than do men”.

Women are expected to be pleasant and accommodating, and to make those around them feel comfortable. Smiling is a short cut to achieving this.

At work, it turns out those in lower-power roles smile more than people high up the food chain. Marianne says the smiliest employees are people – usually women – in roles that are all about making other people happy, such as executive assistant or paralegal. Smiling is their way of creating a harmonious environment. But they’re not necessarily content when they crack those smiles.

“The thing we’ve found in our studies is higher power people smile when they feel relaxed and happy….but they won’t smile because they have to, whereas low power people will report they will smile because they have to.” In short because it’s their job to please.

Broaden that and you’ve got women as a group. Our unofficial mandate is to please others. That’s why people of both sexes seem affronted when we don’t meet grinning expectations.

I was a reflective teenager, and on my way to school in London every day I’d be lost in my own thoughts (which, being a teenager, weren’t always particularly cheery). A loud voice in a Cockney accent would often erupt from a nearby building site with “Cheer up love – might never ‘appen!” or “Come on, smile!” accompanied by male laughter.

At the time I didn’t consider that complete strangers never seemed to do this to schoolboys, only schoolgirls. When I told Marianne LaFrance this story she reminded me that these days this kind of thing is considered street harassment.

“It’s not injurious but it is another way women are reminded they have to put out, and one of the ways they do that is by smiling and always appearing pleasant and agreeable.”

I don’t know that anyone’s ever done a study of the smiling patterns of male and female CEOs.  As is so often the case women tread a fine line between being viewed as cold and unfriendly and smiling too much, which can hurt their gravitas.

In an email, I asked Marianne LaFrance about female leaders’ body language, citing IBM CEO Ginny Rometty as an example. Marianne replied she didn’t know any details on Rometty’s body language as such, but “she is often photographed with a big smile.” 

Marianne is the author of Why Smile - The Science Behind Facial Expressions.

Yes, you can say no

October 20, 2014

Someone asks you to attend an event after work, speak on a panel, or become part of a book group.

You don't want to do it but you

a)    Feel you have to say yes because you want to be nice and being nice is incredibly important to you, plus you believe in the organization’s work. But then your heart sinks because you’ve added one more thing to your overwhelming list of tasks.

b)   Are determined to protect your time so you say no with lots of add-ons like, “So sorry, I’d love to do it but I’m totally swamped at work and my mother-in-law just had a hip replacement so my husband’s staying with her and I have to take care of three kids on my own, and walk the dog. Again, so sorry!”

I want to share these ‘how to say no’ tips I picked up on the online leadership course I’m doing with Gloria Feldt, because they’re too useful not to disseminate. They come from Victoria Pynchon and Lisa Gates of She Negotiates. 

They key to saying no is to say it firmly and to stop talking after that. Even when every fiber in your body is screaming that it’s not ‘nice’ to refuse and you simply have to churn out excuses to make up for it. No. Stop. Talking.

Vickie and Lisa offer simple lines like, “I’m really working at creating balance in my life right now. No thank you.” No further explanation needed.

There are alternatives depending on how much you care: “I’m sorry if you were counting on me. How can I make it up to you?”

So many women are afraid of feeling horrible - and being horrible - if they say no. I used to hate it, but I’m increasingly protective of my time and I say no quite a bit these days without a twinge of guilt. If you’re one of those people who still struggles with no, consider these responses.

7 ways to say no, from She Negotiates:

1)   No: “Yes, I’d love to take part, and I’m going to have to decline.”

2)   No with help: “I love that you thought of me, and I’m unable to participate. How can I help you find someone else?” (This technique is used by FT columnist Mrs. Moneypenny, who talked about this in episode 27 of The Broad Experience on dropping guilt from our lives.)

3)   No with appreciation: “I think your idea is fabulous, and I’m not able to participate at this time.”

4)   No and yes: “Yes, I’d love to participate, but at a later date. Can you ask me again in January?”

5)   No with specific yes: “I’d love to help you with your project, and I’m on a deadline until Tuesday. Can we meet on Wednesday?”

6)   No when you don’t know: “Sounds interesting. I need to sleep on that.” OR “I need to check with my boss/partner.”

7)   No with values: “If I take on another task right now I wouldn’t be honoring my commitment to my family/work/business.”

Note the use of the word ‘and’ in most of these sentences rather than ‘but’.  I suspect this is a subtle difference that frames the response in a more positive light, but - I mean and - I’m going to see if Vickie or Lisa can weigh in in the comments below.

I realize this is not exclusively a woman thing. My boyfriend hates saying no too, which is sometimes endearing, sometimes exasperating. Still, women are the ones who are are acculturated from birth to be sweet, pleasing and accommodating. Saying no clashes directly with that societal mandate.