Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [23]
You have to be prepared for the fact that it could happen. Grace Joely Beatty, senior partner of the management consulting firm Gardner-Beatty in Rancho La Costa. California, says that despite the fact that there are many open-minded companies today, there are still plenty of good-old-boy operations that are immovable. You bring up one creative idea after another and they are shot down like clay pigeons. It just might not be worth your while to stay.
“Many companies want ‘maintenance managers’ who don't innovate.” says Beatty. “If you're the creative entrepreneur type, you won't do well there. IBM is such a company—look where it is now. Women, especially, think they can change such a climate through sheer willpower, but actually the smart move is to just get out and go to a more dynamic environment.”
If you stay and try to play by the rules, you'll be miserable If you buck the system, they'll do their best to make you miserable.
Use your rule breaking strategies to find your way out. Recently I had the chance to talk to Jeannie Boylan, the police sketch artist who helped solve the Polly Klaas abduction and murder. Unlike the majority of police sketch artists, who have witnesses pick out features from books, Boylan simply has witnesses describe suspects from memory—after she allows them lots of time to relax and feel comfortable. Though her sketches have consistently proven to be uncannily like the actual criminals, the police departments she worked in often made her life hell because she didn't do things the standard way. After many years of trying fruitlessly to work within the system, she told me that she's found career happiness working as a freelance consultant to law enforcement agencies.
GO FOR THE GUTSY MOMENT
There's one last thing I want to say about rule breaking, and it relates not to projects or assignments you're working on but to personal behavior. I feel I should begin with a warning similar to one of those you see on late night TV commercials that goes something like, “Do Not Attempt This in Your Own Home.” What I'm about to say is fairly provocative and risky advice and yet, it seems to have worked for many gutsy girls. When you need to get their attention, try something brash. You take what could be an ordinary moment and turn it into a gutsy one.
This story might help explain what I mean.
When I was in ninth grade, the nun who taught the honors English class always gave us the most remarkable assignments, like writing essays on current affairs and composing our own ballads. One week our project was to write and give a presentation on something the other kids in the class knew nothing about I decided to make my presentation on rats— don't ask me why—and I prepared a grisly talk on thirteen things about rats you'd never heard. My favorite was the fact that if left alone in your basement, two rats could turn into a million in just a three-year period.
I knew my talk would have the kids squirming and I decided to give it a twist Using an old fur coat from the attic and a piece of electric wire, I fashioned a life-size rat, which I hid in a paper bag behind the podium During my talk I could tell I had the class spellbound—a few students even looked nauseous. When I finished with my nasty rat facts, I told the class that I thought it would help if they had a first-hand look at what I'd been talking about. Then I pulled the lake rat out of the bag. Boys shrieked, girls squealed, and at least hall the class dived under their desks. And the nun? She sat there grinning from ear to ear.
That was the first time I saw the impact of delivering the unexpected.
One of my oldest friends is Merrie Spaeth, who runs Spaeth Communications, Inc., in Dallas and was formerly President Reagan's media adviser. She believes that rule breaking shouldn't be limited to how you handle the responsibilities of your job. Her philosophy: “I think there are some situations that call for doing something gutsy with your personal behavior.”
It's hard to give any specific advice here. You just