Tag Archives: corporate ladder

Successful Business Women Push Back

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It’s not through an easy breezy time do you learn the hard lessons. It’s through those challenging moments where it takes everything you’ve got….

And for many of us (stubborn folks like myself) the best way to learn is through trial and error. And I’ve had a lot of…you know…errors. There are so many things I would say if I could talk to the younger version of me. I hope that other women don’t have to wait around until they figure out the answers the hard way.

What I want to say to the younger version of myself about pushing back

There are so many roadblocks in the corporate world and in life. The most successful people are constantly figuring out ways to overcome those challenges, despite how uncomfortable that can be.

There will be no shortage of people who tell you 1. you can’t do that 2. here are all the hard rules why we won’t let you do that.

As a young woman at a job in a big city, when I did make leaps in my career–many times it was by throwing out the standard rules within the corporation. The biggest jumps in my career were through pushing back.

I asked for opportunities I wasn’t perfectly qualified for, I negotiated my salary when I found out about people with the same role making more than me, and I jumped departments to the chagrin of my bosses.

I didn’t have a fallback plan. I was alone in NYC. No trust fund, no husband, no desire to go live with my parents.

I’m currently reading the book Pushback by Selena Rezvani which talks about all the ways women shortchange themselves at work. It also provides some powerful tools for women on how to be better negotiators.

I’ve been listening to a lot of my female friends lately who complain about their situations at work.

They are very unhappy and can’t change the situation because of X, Y and Z. They tell me if they push back they could be fired. Their boss would be mad if they mentioned being disgruntled about salary…and so on and so forth.

I want to inspire women to get angry about the fact that is it possible these women wouldn’t be treated this way if they were male. I want to stress the point here that I don’t hate men, and I don’t believe men are without their share of challenges at work. However I see the stat that women make 77.8 cents to the dollar earned by men in the U.S. Then I hear my friends tell me how unhappy they are, and all the reasons they can’t make the change they want to see in their lives. So many rules, I don’t want to offend so and so, I don’t want to get fired….

Women have recently told me they don’t want to offend their bosses by questioning their pay although they know men with a similar role who get paid tens of thousands more than them. I don’t hear about a lot of men being told they need to be more likeable at work.

[Again I will emphasize that I don't hate men, and I don't think they don't have their own challenges. Just ask my boyfriend Jacob.]

The only thing that stops women from getting what they want are themselves.

We need to stop following these “hard rules.” These rules are not so hard once you start to scratch the surface. You reading this blog–you are talented, you are valuable, and you are worthy. So do your homework, keep track of your accomplishments and start telling yourself and the people around you a different story. One of worth.

Women don’t push back enough. Research in the book Pushback proves that a woman’s ability to push back has an astonishingly direct correlation to her success.

That means women who ask for what they want get what they want.

From experience I can tell you you’ll have to be prepared to leave, but most times if you ask for what you want you won’t have to leave. You’ll find that by figuring out your own negotiation style people will respect you more. Here’s what the book had to say:

“What caught my attention most in analyzing my data was the answer to a numerical question. I asked women leaders, “Assuming a woman’s career success equals 100 percent what percentage is accounted for by her effectiveness in negotiating and pushing back?….The executives I met with felt, on average, that a full 60 percent of a woman’s career success hinges on her pushback skills.”

I am telling you, THIS IS YOUR LIFE. We don’t know what happens after this life. As far as science tells us this is YOUR ONE KNOWN SHOT to design your life into the most amazing experience possible. Seize the day.

That means you (ladies) need to take the reins of your life. You are directing the show. This is YOUR time to take control of YOUR LIFE and make the changes you want to see.

Turn off that Disney reel in your head. A man will not come in on a horse and buggy and take you off to cindarella-land.

The higher-ups at work don’t go to sleep at night thinking of how they can improve your quality of life. This is up to YOU!

Go get it girl. Make it happen!

And if you want to join my community join other women who are navigating the same journey at Project Enough!

Choosing between my Ass and my Face: Why I will never become a CEO and why that is okay

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This is a guest post written by a law school student under the pen name Vicki P.

There is a popular expression that all women eventually have to choose between their ass and their face.

As I creep dangerously close to my 30s, this has certainly rung true! You can’t have a tiny tuchus without ending up with a bony face and vice versa. But as I was filling out my to-do list today—one that was too long to even fit in my daily planner—I started thinking about how this is applicable to more things than just my body.

My to-do list for the day included about 18 hours worth of work: two articles to review for a University Journal that I edit; a canned food drive; a Junior League meeting; three classes; a report for work; looming deadlines for the two different scholarly articles I am writing (i.e., these 45 page monsters!); meetings; and I can’t forget to send my resume to the gentleman I met yesterday who has a job that I very much want. In addition to work, school, and community service, I want to celebrate with my good friend who got engaged yesterday. I don’t want to miss the swing dance lessons that I’ve been taking with my boyfriend. I want to call my friend who I have not spoken to in over two weeks. I don’t want to miss out on restaurant week. I want to do it all.

Something has to give.

There is a fine line between being well-rounded and stretched too thin. And while you may be able to pull it off for a while, there will come a point where you can no longer have both a great ass and a great face. It’s just not possible.

Of course, that story is a deceased horse that has been sufficiently beaten. And the point of this blog entry is not about the fact that we can’t have it all. That problem really isn’t unique to women although sometimes I think we tend to claim it as our own. The point of this entry is that you have to choose. And you need to know why you are making certain choices and then be happy with them. Of course those choices come with certain societal pressures and often frustrating outcomes.

Priorities

Although it is a constant battle, I made my choice several years ago. After seeing a good friend’s marriage slowly fall apart because both spouses were married to their job, I promised myself that I would always prioritize my relationships over my career. And for the most part, I have remained faithful to that promise. This does not mean I am all play and no work, but that I value the “play” in my life and work pretty hard to make sure it happens. I went swing dancing with my boyfriend last night even though I have deadlines the size of Mount Rushmore resting on my shoulders. Despite having a day full of meetings, I still set aside time to have a cupcake break with a good friend. And last week, even though I was up at 6am for work and then busted my tail non-stop until about 8:00 at night, I set aside time for a movie night with the boyfriend. And all of those decisions mean that I let some aspect of my work suffer over some aspect of a personal relationship.

And of course that choice has consequences. I won’t graduate at the top of my class (although, admittedly, that probably would not have happened regardless of my priorities), I will never be a CEO, and I will be fighting constantly to assert where my priorities lie. Making such choices also has another consequence—I must respect the choices that others make if I want them to respect mine. For example, (and I want to preface this with the fact that my boyfriend really is a great guy and has apologized for hurting my feelings), last week, as I wrote above, I made plans to watch a movie with my boyfriend. I worked really hard during the day to get everything done in time to see him. But then he never showed. He fell asleep and when I called him, he told me he was too tired to come over. Priorities.

Taking It Personal?

But while I was mad at him for standing me up, I do not know if I can necessarily be mad at him for how he has chosen to prioritize his life. That is the thing—we all have to decide what is most important to us and then live with those consequences, both the good and the bad. Being one to lean a little left politically, I often throw around the clichéd “uneven playing field” argument, so the one thing I especially appreciate about time is that everyone has the same amount of it. So when people say they are too busy for something, what they really mean is that it is not a priority. Maybe they want to do something, but ultimately, we all choose how we spend our waking hours.

And going back to the article Blake posted about women as CEOs, I know my choices mean I will never become one. And I am okay with that. But that does not mean that choice does not come with a lot of societal pressure. I have been fortunate to go to one of the top law schools in the country and the best in my state. So when I express to women that what would really make me happy is to marry and have children, they look at me as if I am a fool. Why would I waste my education? All that hard work? All that money wasted! I must be desperate. “Look at your boyfriend, he isn’t making that choice, so why should you?” they ask.

The Happiness Conundrum

And as women, I think we often make that argument. That it isn’t fair that women have the dual responsibility of family and work. I agree that that argument has merits. And I do not have children, so I will not expose my naivety by even beginning to try to address what that choice must feel like. But what I do want to address, and it is something that I think is often ignored, is that men make those choices, too. They, too, have to choose how they prioritize their time. They, too, face social pressures to prioritize certain area over others. We all are working with the same 24 hours.

And that is where I think we need to change the dialogue. I often find myself letting others dictate what should be my priorities. I allow myself to feel guilty about certain decisions I make regarding the allocation of my time. And I imagine I am not alone. And I suppose across different social circles, those pressures shift in one way or another, but the bottom line is that we are letting others tell us what should make us happy. But one of my favorite things about the true feminist movement is that it is all about choice.  You can choose to be a CEO. You can choose to be a stay-at-home mom. You can choose to be a working mom. You can choose to have no children at all, but still make personal relationships a priority. You can choose the life you want to live. Of course, going full circle, you cannot choose, at least not successfully, all of the above. That is where you ultimately have to decide what is most important to you. What will make you happiest?

Choose to be happy.