Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead... But Gutsy Girls Do (20 page)

PRACTICE PREVENTION POLITICS

Now at this point you may be starting to squirm. The idea of constantly having to confront and handle lots of sticky situations doesn't sound very appealing. But before you get into confrontational mode, I have some good news. There are several steps you can take to minimize the number of these situations you have to face. A gutsy girl knows that it's always best to curtail any sabotage before it occurs.

Take the Temperature

Because so many problems fester, the best strategy is to catch them at the very early stages—or, even better, before there's enough going on to create a flare-up.

A gutsy girl knows she routinely has to take the pulse of her department, even when everything looks perfectly normal. The gutsy girls I've talked to find excuses to pop into people's offices, chat with them, pick up subtle clues about what's going on.

Pepper Schwartz, who is professor of sociology at the University of Washington, says that she finds it helpful to develop a “theory” about each person she works with. “I know what makes them tick, what their needs are, what their weak points are. That makes it easier to pick up on nuances and spot when things aren't operating correctly.”

You've got to do this even with your boss. Good girls feel reluctant to “manage” their boss because they don't think that's their job. But so many bosses are bad people-managers that you have to take over the responsibility. You should be asking for input, setting up regular meetings. If you have one of those bosses who really docs want to give people a long rein and hales seeing your face constantly at his door, you must still set up a way to get regular feedback and exchange information—a bimonthly meeting, for instance.

If you do sense there's an itty-bitty problem brewing, don't follow the good-girl “wait and see” tack. I know it may seem foolish to draw too much attention to an issue when there's a chance it will blow over on its own, but over time I've learned that it's always best to act early. Say, “Something seems to be on your mind. Do you want to talk about it?”

Tell Them What They Want to Hear––Even the Bad Stuff

One almost sure way to cause co-workers to misbehave or turn on you is to deny them information they want and are entitled to. People experience a compelling urge to know anything that affects their fate, including the negative. When I was first working as an articles editor, one of the good-girl mistakes I made was holding back bad news from those who worked for me—for instance, that their idea had been turned down—because I felt uncomfortable telling them and I convinced myself that a few more days of ignorance was bliss for them. But I eventually learned that being in the dark made them cranky, irritable, sometimes borderline murderous.

My friend Stephanie Cook, senior VP, Bloom FCA, a New York ad agency, says that she lives by the principle that “people want to know what side of the boat to row on.”

Be straight with them and don't make them wait endlessly for the facts. If you do, they may find ways to go around you.

Consider the Old “Two to Tango” Principle

Sometimes when people feel threatened by you, it is not simply because of your brilliance and energy. Rather, it's because you are doing something to scare the bejesus out of them.

Take for example the boss who seems bothered by your successes. He sends a curt note reminding you to get all your memos approved by him before sending them out. Or he sees you lunching with his counterpart in another department and gives you the icy treatment for the next two days. You need to ask yourself. Can I blame him? Why, for instance, would you not have bothered to get his okay on memos? Why would you have lunch with a possible rival of his without telling him? It's time to start acting as if you're part of his team.

Reshape the Situation to Your Advantage

Sometimes—not always, but sometimes—you can recast a relationship with someone so that it doesn't become adversarial. It takes a fair amount of guts to do this. That's because you must always take the initiative—it won't happen on its own and the other person isn't likely to do it. And you must practice a little humility. It's amazing who you can turn a potential adversary into: a confidante, an adviser, a team member.

Consider the silly sofa shenanigans in my own past. What I should have done was to imagine what the dynamics might be at the first meeting I attended. Because I knew that my peer had a tendency to be overly sensitive to anyone on her turf, I would have realized that she might react in a defensive, threatened way. What I could have done is drop by her office several days before the meeting and attempt to
shape
the situation differently. She was a very nurturing person, so I might have said something like. “As you know, I'm going to be attending the planning meetings, and I'd really appreciate your help. Can you tell me a little bit about how they work?” She would have been flattered to have been asked and I would have thanked her generously for filling me in. Then, at the meeting, there's every chance she would have gone out of her way to make me feel included—and she would have certainly given me more than two inches of fanny space.

Someone once said to me that even the most Machiavellian people have fears, and if you can get to that fear first and allay it, you may short-circuit bad behavior.

If there's any time when you must attempt to shape a relationship, it's when you get handed a new boss A new boss is almost always going to approach you with caution, even skepticism. Because of her mind-set, she may even misinterpret innocent behavior on your part. There may, for instance, be certain tasks your old boss allowed you to handle autonomously but when you continue following that procedure, the new boss assumes you're going behind her back. That's why you must set the tone of the relationship as much as possible as soon as possible. Offer to help and to share information so she sees you as her ally rather than an enemy.

WHEN IT'S TIME TO TUSSLE

Of course, all the preventative work in the world doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to avoid having someone try to sabotage you at some point. If that's clearly happening, it's time to take action.

Yes, I know the idea of confronting another person at the office is a dreadful proposition, and yet if you approach it in the right way, it may not have to be so ugly. The best way to start, actually, is to get the word
confrontation
out of your brain. Yes, you warn to confront the situation, but with the individual involved you ideally want to have not a confrontation, but a
conversation.
You want to discuss the problem in a reasonable way and find a resolution.

Interestingly, that's not something women have been encouraged to do in recent years. In order to get out of the rut of being too nice, we've been told to assert ourselves, play hardball just like guys do. And yet what I've discovered over the years is that the most effective men in business play a form of Nerf ball instead of hardball. They take aim, they get their point across, and yet no one suffers a concussion.

“One of the observations I've made about many of the career women I counsel,” says psychotherapist Marjorie Lapp, “is that they often lake a very forceful or shrill approach to expressing their anger or discontent because they've been told they ought to be more assertive. I call it the Attila the Hun syndrome. Yet in many situations, a diplomatic approach works much better. That's something many men seemed to have learned.”

Though it may run against the get-tough messages you've been told in recent years, it's always best to win without bloodshed. In The
Art of War,
written two and a half thousand years ago. Sun Tzu advised. “To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”

If the problem is with a subordinate, you should call him into your office, close the door, and present the situation in a firm, direct way. If the infraction is grievous, you may be tempted to yell or even berate, but that won't get you what you want. It won't make an ignorant employee smarter and it certainly won't motivate anyone capable of doing better. A far more effective approach is to express your disappointment and let it hang in the air.

At this time your subordinate is likely to offer an explanation and you should listen carefully. Even the lamest excuses sometimes contain a nugget of information that points to action on your part that may be facilitating the problem. Insubordination, for instance, sometimes results from a lack of direction and feedback.

How you wrap up the conversation depends on how complex the problem is. If your assistant has been coming in late each day because of boyfriend problems, you simply remind her that the day starts at 9:00 and she must adhere to that schedule. In more complicated situations, you can get terrific results by challenging your employee to help you work out the solution himself. (“How do you think we should handle this situation?”)

With your boss, you must be much more delicate. Management consultant Kathy Strickland says that she finds that an excellent technique when confronting a boss is to express confusion. (“For the past month, I've noticed you've asked Sandra to sit in on the marketing meetings, but not me. Since that's my area of expertise, I'm a little confused. Can you clear this up for me?”) Confusion shows concern, and puts your boss on notice if has trying to pull a fast one, but it doesn't sound accusatory.

With peers it can be dicier. If the situation is black and white, it's easy to call a spade a spade. When someone once stole an idea of mine, I walked into his office and told him not to do it again. And he didn't. But you're often dealing with fuzzier stuff—perhaps you've heard that a co-worker has been complaining about your research, and yet there's no proof. Unlike a boss or a subordinate, a peer is under no obligation to play fair with you. If you bring up your grievance, there's every chance he will look at you incredulously, as if you've just accused him of being behind the JFK assassination.

A little confusion can work here, too. You can tell your peer what you've heard, indicate that such behavior isn't acceptable but give him the benefit of the doubt. (“Someone took me aside today and said you'd been complaining about me. That doesn't sound like you. I hope that if you have any sort of grievance you would come directly to me.”) That not only opens the opportunity for discussion, but serves as a warning.

Career strategist Adele Scheele once gave me a wonderful tip about handling a peer who has been poaching or backstabbing. Take notes during your “discussion” with him. It's amazing how that prevents future problems.

AND ALWAYS GO ONE-ON-ONE

Always try to solve the situation directly with the person, rather than involving your boss, human resources, or six people you're friends with along the corridor. It's not simply that the person will respond better if you don't appear to be a tattletale. When you complain about someone, the person you're complaining to will always assume that you are partially responsible for the problem, and may even consider you a troublemaker. Years ago I had a problem handling a young woman who worked for me. I should have spoken to her directly, but we were the same age, and I felt awkward, so I went to my boss and complained about her. He waved his hand dismissively and announced, “I'm not going to get in the middle of the battle of the blondes.” At that moment in his eyes I was on about the same level as a female Jell-O wrestler.

SHOULD YOU EVER BLOW A GASKET?

The idea of being diplomatic doesn't offer much relief if someone has tried to take advantage of you or has damaged you because of their ineptness. What you really want to do at a time like that is let them have it. A ballistic approach certainly can be satisfying—at least during the moment and for the first five minutes afterwards. But then you're left to pick up the pieces.

What you have to decide ultimately is whether blowing a gasket will get you anywhere. Dr. Peggy Saylor, who helped conduct one of the largest studies of women and anger, says that she always advises women to ask themselves, Is it in my best interest? “It might make you feel good momentarily to call him an SOB,” she says. “But in the long run, going overboard with your anger may not serve you well.”

THE HIDDEN SABOTEUR

It's not just people who can sabotage you. There are also certain
things
that can act like land mines to your getting your job done—a confusing hierarchy, poor interdepartmental communications, a lack of back-up help, inadequate technology.

Good girls often are befuddled and immobilized by such things, even more so than by human saboteurs. But you must confront this kind of trouble as well. Assess the problem, consider the possible solutions and then ask for what you need.

MEN AT WORK

Just after my boss at
Family Weekly
left to become editor-in-chief of GQ, one of the top guys in the sales department sat down with me and another woman on the staff and discussed some fun things we might do for the going-away party. “Oh, I gotta great idea,” he suddenly announced. “You know how much he liked you two. You could both put on falsies and parade up and down in front of him.”

Rather than feel offended. I left the room laughing to myself. The times they were a-changing, and I knew that a guy like that was a dinosaur, on the road to extinction.

Every successful woman I've talked to admits how much more comfortable life is with men in the workplace compared to what it was like when they first started their careers.

And yet that doesn't mean there aren't still problems. Discrimination exists, hostility exists, harassment exists. According to a 1992 Korn Ferry study of executive women, 59 percent have experienced what they consider to be sexual harassment.

The most common situation I see these days isn't out-and-out hostility or harassment, but rather something I call guerrilla chauvinism, or what Mary Rowe, a labor economist at MIT, describes as “microinequities” and “microaggressions.” It's a very subtle form of discrimination, sometimes intentional, sometimes not, that's very tough to deal with because it's so subtle and slippery.