Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [53]
THE SIX MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE TO CULTIVATE (BESIDES YOUR BOSS)
It's not enough to have a bond with those you work with directly. You must also work constantly to forge alliances with all sorts of people in the organization who may at one point be in a position to help you. These will include people far below your level (mail room, accounts receivable, etc.), people of your rank in other departments, and even major players to whom you don't report directly but whom you may need to consult for information. As a gutsy girl I know says, “You never know when the guys in the print room will be in a position to save your hide.”
It's funny that even though women have a knack for forming relationships, they aren't as quick as men are to build these kinds of alliances. “Women have better skills at developing relationships than men, but less understanding of how crucial it is to have them with all sorts of people in the organization.” says University of West Florida assistant professor of management Gayle Baugh. “Women take an almost legalistic view of the workplace and feel that informal networks are improper.”
In fact, forming these alliances may be more important to your success than having a mentor. It's not that a mentor isn't of great value, but good luck getting one today, or at least getting one who's going to be around tomorrow. In these crazy times you can easily find that your mentor has been lured away by a headhunter, become the victim of a coup, or has finally decided to fulfill her dream of owning her own guest lodge in the Great Smoky Mountains. A gutsy girl knows she can't put all her eggs in one basket. Here are a few of the people you should be forming your alliances with:
• The gatekeepers to power: secretaries. If they like you they will squeeze you into the schedule, keep you posted, even make remarks about your skill that will leave an impression on their boss.
• The keepers of information. In every company there are people in middle or low rank who possess critical information. They are more likely to be forthcoming if they like you. A friend of mine realized recently that someone in her department was leaking valuable information to another company. The man in charge of the company's phone system did a search for her of office telephones that had made calls to that number.
• People who perform basic services that one day you may need urgently. Like the print shop, the mail room, and computer services.
• Cross-departmental employees whose work directly or indirectly affects yours. When I got to McCall's I knew it was critical to get as much information as possible about the reader, and I began to develop a nice relationship with the guy who was in charge of company research. Though some consumer research was done through his office, the magazine was “scored” each month using a questionnaire compiled, mailed, and tabulated by an outside firm many major magazines relied on. Once at a company party I complained to the researcher about how long it took to get the results, and how difficult it was to change the magazine when you didn't know until March how a September issue did. He looked at me with a twinkle and asked, “What if we did it by phone?” He created a whole system that allowed us to get results within three weeks of when the magazine arrived in someone's home.
• Bosses in other departments. You might someday want to work for one of them. Just be careful that you don't develop a buddy-buddiness that threatens your boss.
• Any smart, talented person who once worked with you and is now in another company or business.
How do you get all these various people to form alliances with you? Schmoozing works, so occasionally do boxes of sticky buns and tickets to ball games. But I think the best advice I ever heard on this subject came from Adele Scheele, when she was my career columnist at Working Woman: “Ask their opinion of something you're thinking