Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [80]
My friend Stephanie Cook, senior VP, Bloom FCA, a New York ad agency, says that she lives by the principle that “people want to know what side of the boat to row on.”
Be straight with them and don't make them wait endlessly for the facts. If you do, they may find ways to go around you.
Consider the Old “Two to Tango” Principle
Sometimes when people feel threatened by you, it is not simply because of your brilliance and energy. Rather, it's because you are doing something to scare the bejesus out of them.
Take for example the boss who seems bothered by your successes. He sends a curt note reminding you to get all your memos approved by him before sending them out. Or he sees you lunching with his counterpart in another department and gives you the icy treatment for the next two days. You need to ask yourself. Can I blame him? Why, for instance, would you not have bothered to get his okay on memos? Why would you have lunch with a possible rival of his without telling him? It's time to start acting as if you're part of his team.
Reshape the Situation to Your Advantage
Sometimes—not always, but sometimes—you can recast a relationship with someone so that it doesn't become adversarial. It takes a fair amount of guts to do this. That's because you must always take the initiative—it won't happen on its own and the other person isn't likely to do it. And you must practice a little humility. It's amazing who you can turn a potential adversary into: a confidante, an adviser, a team member.
Consider the silly sofa shenanigans in my own past. What I should have done was to imagine what the dynamics might be at the first meeting I attended. Because I knew that my peer had a tendency to be overly sensitive to anyone on her turf, I would have realized that she might react in a defensive, threatened way. What I could have done is drop by her office several days before the meeting and attempt to shape the situation differently. She was a very nurturing person, so I might have said something like. “As you know, I'm going to be attending the planning meetings, and I'd really appreciate your help. Can you tell me a little bit about how they work?” She would have been flattered to have been asked and I would have thanked her generously for filling me in. Then, at the meeting, there's every chance she would have gone out of her way to make me feel included—and she would have certainly given me more than two inches of fanny space.
Someone once said to me that even the most Machiavellian people have fears, and if you can get to that fear first and allay it, you may short-circuit bad behavior.
If there's any time when you must attempt to shape a relationship, it's when you get handed a new boss A new boss is almost always going to approach you with caution, even skepticism. Because of her mind-set, she may even misinterpret innocent behavior on your part. There may, for instance, be certain tasks your old boss allowed you to handle autonomously but when you continue following that procedure, the new boss assumes you're going behind her back. That's why you must set the tone of the relationship as much as possible as soon as possible. Offer to help and to share information so she sees you as her ally rather than an enemy.
WHEN IT'S TIME TO TUSSLE
Of course, all the preventative work in the world doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to avoid having someone try to sabotage you at some point. If that's clearly happening, it's time to take action.
Yes, I know the idea of confronting another person at the office is a dreadful proposition, and yet if you approach it in the