Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [81]
Interestingly, that's not something women have been encouraged to do in recent years. In order to get out of the rut of being too nice, we've been told to assert ourselves, play hardball just like guys do. And yet what I've discovered over the years is that the most effective men in business play a form of Nerf ball instead of hardball. They take aim, they get their point across, and yet no one suffers a concussion.
“One of the observations I've made about many of the career women I counsel,” says psychotherapist Marjorie Lapp, “is that they often lake a very forceful or shrill approach to expressing their anger or discontent because they've been told they ought to be more assertive. I call it the Attila the Hun syndrome. Yet in many situations, a diplomatic approach works much better. That's something many men seemed to have learned.”
Though it may run against the get-tough messages you've been told in recent years, it's always best to win without bloodshed. In The Art of War, written two and a half thousand years ago. Sun Tzu advised. “To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
If the problem is with a subordinate, you should call him into your office, close the door, and present the situation in a firm, direct way. If the infraction is grievous, you may be tempted to yell or even berate, but that won't get you what you want. It won't make an ignorant employee smarter and it certainly won't motivate anyone capable of doing better. A far more effective approach is to express your disappointment and let it hang in the air.
At this time your subordinate is likely to offer an explanation and you should listen carefully. Even the lamest excuses sometimes contain a nugget of information that points to action on your part that may be facilitating the problem. Insubordination, for instance, sometimes results from a lack of direction and feedback.
How you wrap up the conversation depends on how complex the problem is. If your assistant has been coming in late each day because of boyfriend problems, you simply remind her that the day starts at 9:00 and she must adhere to that schedule. In more complicated situations, you can get terrific results by challenging your employee to help you work out the solution himself. (“How do you think we should handle this situation?”)
With your boss, you must be much more delicate. Management consultant Kathy Strickland says that she finds that an excellent technique when confronting a boss is to express confusion. (“For the past month, I've noticed you've asked Sandra to sit in on the marketing meetings, but not me. Since that's my area of expertise, I'm a little confused. Can you clear this up for me?”) Confusion shows concern, and puts your boss on notice if has trying to pull a fast one, but it doesn't sound accusatory.
With peers it can be dicier. If the situation is black and white, it's easy to call a spade a spade. When someone once stole an idea of mine, I walked into his office and told him not to do it again. And he didn't. But you're often dealing with fuzzier stuff—perhaps you've heard that a co-worker has been complaining about your research, and yet there's no proof. Unlike a boss or a subordinate, a peer is under no obligation to play fair with you. If you bring up your grievance, there's every chance he will look at you incredulously, as if you've just accused him of being behind the JFK assassination.
A little confusion can work here, too. You can tell your peer what you've heard, indicate that such behavior isn't acceptable but give him the benefit of the doubt. (“Someone took me aside today and said you'd been complaining about