Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [71]
In Chapter 3, I mentioned that one of the most effective rule-breaking strategies is to expand the parameters of your job description/title. There are bosses who will notice your talent and reward you with job-expanding opportunities, but much of the time you have to come right out and ask for them.
Please notice that I've been using the word responsibility rather than work. That's because it's easy for good girls to fall into the trap of simply taking on lots of extra maintenance work, not unlike cleaning the backboards. What you want are projects that provide you with more experience, more knowledge, more skill, more clout, more exposure to key executives. These will dramatically bolster your value.
In a recent study, top executives were asked, “What do you feel is the single best way for employees to earn a promotion and/or raise?” Eighty-two percent said asking for more work and responsibility, compared to 11 percent for publicizing achievements and 2 percent for working longer hours. (Good girls, please take note of the very last part!)
What you really want is enough additional responsibility to provide you with a whole new specialty or area of expertise that you can leverage. It's far easier to go from VP of nuts to VP of nuts and bolts if you've already taken over the bolts. In the Korn Ferry study of executive women, over half of the respondents said that taking on “different functional responsibility” was one of the factors in a particular breakthrough or turning point that put them on the path to success. Consider this story that happened to an acquaintance of mine:
She was the articles editor of a women's magazine. Her job entailed overseeing every article that ran in the magazine, with the exception of short lifestyle articles on fashion, food, and beauty. These were the province of her counterpart, the lifestyle editor, a shrewd, ambitious woman. Each month the lifestyle editor would send my friend, as a courtesy, an updated list of features she'd assigned, things like “How to Get Rid of Stubborn Stains” and “Sponge Painting for Beginners.” My friend would give it a cursory glance, sometimes letting out a hoot as she saw the topics. Over time, however, she began to notice that the list was not only growing in length, but the subject mailer was also expanding. There were now pieces on investing and budgeting, as well as self-help articles on building self-esteem. This was a clear invasion of turf.
“I suddenly could see that she was like an amoeba,” says my friend. “She was swallowing more and more of my responsibility.”
By the time my friend went to the editor-in-chief to complain, it was too late. The editor-in-chief wasn't going to curb the lifestyle editor's new specialty because she was happy with the results. Shortly thereafter the lifestyle editor got a bigger job, leveraging her new area of expertise.
I tried to sympathize with my friend. But the truth is that I couldn't help but secretly admire the Amoeba Woman's style.
One nice little bonus about asking for more responsibility: it's one thing bosses really like giving because it doesn't make them feel they've been depleted in any way.
THE SECOND-BEST THING TO ASK YOUR BOSS FOR: AN UNPLEASANT TASK YOUR BOSS IS STUCK WITH
Though you don't want a diet of go-nowhere projects, you should occasionally volunteer to take a crummy job from your boss. Like the slide show he must put together on trends in refrigeration. This will score big points for you.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ASKING FOR WHAT ISN'T AVAILABLE
One of the most fascinating things I've noticed about gutsy girls is that they're good at not only asking for the obvious, but also at going after what others might assume isn't up for grabs. They ask for a company car even though no one else has gotten one. They ask to create an interdepartmental task force even though there's never been one before. And to and behold, they get what they ask for.
Whereas good girls are programmed to think, Oh, they'd never do that, a gutsy girl knows that it never hurts to ask.
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