Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [62]
Though the same conditions don't exist, many of the speaking patterns remain, and they can undermine you in a business setting. They make you sound as if you're confused, unsure, or uncommitted. In your language you want to watch out for words that convey impreciseness, such as so and such, hedges like kind of, intonation patterns that make statements resemble questions, and excruciating politeness.
A FEW CANDID WORDS ABOUT HONESTY
While we're on the subject of talking, I'd like to say a few words about telling the truth.
Good girls learn very early that honesty is the best policy, and that principle will serve you well in your work. Beyond the morality issue, if you become known as untrustworthy, it will stymie many of your efforts. But on the other hand—how do I say this without having you think I'm a terrible person— there's such a thing as being too honest for your own good. Let me put that another way. It's important to tell the truth but you don't always have to tell the whole truth.
A good girl has a tendency to go overboard in her truth telling, offering up gory details that aren't required and could end up hurling her. Several months ago, for instance, I received a letter from two women, in business together, who wanted to talk to me about a line extension idea for the magazine. Intrigued, I invited them in for a meeting. One of the first questions I asked was how they came to Stan their own company, and they took turns talking about the work experience they had before they met. Each volunteered that she had been “let go” from a large corporation due to downsizing. Now, there's nothing wrong with that—lots of us get fired and lots of terrific entrepreneurial ventures are born that way. But “I was let go” is a loaded sentence, one capable of leaving even the most open-minded among us seeing a large FIRED sign above the person's head during the entire conversation. In certain instances these women might need to be forthcoming, but it wasn't necessary in this case. Each could have simply said, “I worked for so-and-so and then decided to go into business for myself,” which is exactly what a man would have said.
Resist the good-girl urge to confess when no one would expect you to anyway. And if it is essential for you to reveal something negative, remember that there's more than one way to tell the truth. The best lesson I ever learned about this is from Merrie Spaeth, president of Spaeth Communications, Inc., in Dallas and former media adviser to President Reagan. “When you speak, it doesn't matter to your listener whether you use a good word— one that reflects well on you—or a bad one,” she says. “However, if you give the listener a choice between good words and bad words, he is virtually certain to remember the bad ones.”
So instead of bad words like trouble, fail, disaster, and incomplete, use lots of good ones, like solution, fix, turnaround, and progress.
HOW A GUTSY GIRL TAKES A COMPLIMENT
Quite simply, she takes it. A good girl, on the other hand, always pooh-poohs compliments. You tell her she looks terrific and she says, “Oh, I don't. This suit is ancient.” You say she did a great job and she replies, “Well I wish I'd had more time.” She's afraid that if she accepts the compliment without question or qualification, she'll appear egotistical.
A few months ago I was seated at the same table as Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois at a luncheon in her honor. Midway through the meal she was asked to speak for a few moments about programs and legislation she was focusing on. What a speaker she was—eloquent, forceful, charming. Later over dessert she happened to mention that she was reading a book about oratory, and this overbearing guy at the table announced, “You're a fantastic speaker, you don't need to do one single thing differently.” Perhaps due to my residual good-girl tendencies, I sat there waiting for the senator to demur, to say something