This year we've run seminars for professional women in New
Zealand on the topics of "How to Own Your Career" and "The Good
Girl's Career Guide". One of the group exercises is about self
promotion and I've been thinking that in future we might start it
with a quick round of the old "Word Association" game to make it
clear how much baggage many of us carry on the subject. It would go
something like this:
What's the first word you associate with "Hierarchy"?
Possible audience answer - Boss
What about "Manager"? Busy
"Colleagues"? Coffee
"Self-promotion"? Chest beating, trumpet
blowing, in your face, inappropriate, pushy, crass…
We've heard those last phrases so often at Professionelle
networking seminars and workshops! The profound and nearly
universal distaste among highly-educated and capable professional
women for the notion of self promotion is striking.
Backlash
To explain why this is the case would take a whole article on
its own, but the brief version is:
Nice girls don't.
And before you beat yourself up for still being a nice girl even
though you're now in your 20s, 30s or even 40s, do note that
society reinforces our tendencies. Corinne Moss-Racusin has
researched the "backlash effect" which refers to how women who
demonstrate too-strong, too-assertive behaviour can be penalised in
a variety of ways, not least being labelled as 'unlikeable'. Men
are not subject to the same constraints because society has
different expectations and norms for men's behaviour.
Responsibility
From a career building perspective, self promotion is a
necessary tool. They don't tell you this when you start work, but
employment isn't like school and college where your performance is
easily tracked in grade point averages, and where, if you clear the
hurdles, you naturally progress to the next level. At work, your
bosses have plenty of other things to do besides closely monitoring
your performance, passing on regular bulletins about your progress
to their bosses, and trying to mind read what your career plans
are…
The person who needs to take responsibility for making sure your
successes are known, your aspirations are shared, and your name is
familiar (for good reasons!) with those who have the power to hand
out opportunities and promotions, is you. Prince
Charming won't be riding by any time soon to rescue your career
and make it all work out!
PIE
The PIE career framework, developed by General Electric, does
seem to resonate with women in our seminars and it speaks directly
to the issue of self promotion as part of career development:
P = performance. Everyone who is promotable
performs. It's a necessary but insufficient condition for career
success. Professional women tend to expect their excellent work to
be its own advertising, but, as we've seen, there are powerful
reasons why it isn't.
I = image. This is about your personal brand.
It's about what you are known for, from your skills and interests
to your attire and demeanour. It's about what you stand for, and
what people know you will and won't do (because you don't say yes
to everything, do you?)
E= exposure. This is about being known. We all
gravitate to names we know - reflect on what you do when you open
your local council voting papers and find forty or fifty names to
choose from. It's much easier to get into decision-makers' list of
'possibles' if they have heard your name, even if they can't quite
remember why, and as long as their somewhat vague associations of
you are positive.
Does this material interest you? We're planning to run more of
our "How to Own Your Career/ The Good Girl's Career Guide" seminars
in 2012 in the major NZ centres.
Authenticity
The difficulty with self promotion for professional women seems
to be getting past the immediate assumption that it means sounding
like Tarzan with his bull-ape victory yell. A recent report,
Personal Influence At Work - Diversity Perspectives, researched for
the Australia's Women on Boards, began with a 35-44 year old female
manager's answer to the question, what are your biggest obstacles
to career progression? Her words clearly show how men's ways of
doing things do not sit right with her, even though she senses
she's missing out:
I do not network the same as my male colleagues. They seem so
blatant in their 'sucking up'! I do not tell the world about my
successes. I need to sing my own praises higher and wider. I need
to call something done sooner… I need to call it a success at 80%
and ride the wave in for the remaining 20%.
There are alternatives which can feel much more authentic and
"doable" than the stereotyped view that the only way is to state
loudly and repeatedly to everyone how marvellous you are. The ideas
that follow are drawn from suggestions at our recent How to Own
Your Career/ Good Girl's Career Guide seminars, as well from our
own experiences and wider reading.
Promoting Your Performance (the P)
Idea #1: Email Power
When a customer, internal or external, sends you an appreciative
or complimentary email, forward it to key stakeholders so they know
your performance has been impressive. An extra tip for those of you
who fear this is little short of the Tarzan yell: if co-workers
contributed, cc them and mention their role in cover note. And a
further tip: save the email in a folder with other such messages so
you can read them and build yourself back up on the not-so-good
days!
Idea #2: Girlfriend Power
One of Moss-Racusin's experiments tested the persuasive power of
women to promote themselves compared to promoting their female
peers. It turns out that women are as highly effective at selling
the performance and potential of their peers as they are hopeless
at doing it for themselves! The tip, therefore, is to send your
CVs, applications and cover letters to your professional women
friends and ask them to critique your efforts. I guarantee most of
you will hear: "Stop underselling yourself!"
Idea #3: Advocate Power
If someone has been impressed enough with your performance to
write or to pay you a sincere compliment, ask them to formalise it.
For example, ask if they would write you a recommendation on
LinkedIn (you do have a LinkedIn profile, don't you?). Depending on
your industry, you could also ask them for a testimonial, or ask
them if they would be prepared to be your referee for a particular
type of assignment or service.
Promoting Your Image (the I)
Idea #4: Your Personal Brand
It's hard to promote something authentically when you don't know
and understand it deeply. That includes you. Take the time to
distil the key ways you add value in the organisation now, what
others regard you highly for, the kinds of work that bring you
'flow', your strengths, the key directions you'd like to develop,
the values you hold dear. This introspection, plus the feedback you
seek, will stand you in very good stead as you work on your I and
your E - it will guide you to what feels authentic to you. (By the
way, authentic does not necessarily mean comfortable and easy!)
Idea #5: Assignments and Opportunities
Your boss is not a mind reader. Not only does he or she not
always notice when you do a great job, your boss also does not know
what you hope for and what interests you. So this tip is to be
proactive and ask. If the "good girl" in you quails a little, tell
her that asking is not being greedy, it's a way of showing interest
and gumption.
Ask for projects and assignments that are coming up but also for
things that might happen, like potential transfers or office
exchanges. Check, too, if the opportunity will raise your profile
outside your immediate work area, and if it will increase your
responsibility or stretch you in some way.
Idea #6: The Way You Say It
'Image', let's face it, is partly about we look and sound and
small differences can quickly add up. Listen closely to your fellow
workers. When they start a sentence with, "this is probably a
stupid idea but…" how does it make you feel about what you are
about to hear? What about when they apologise for something that
isn't their fault, or when they add endless caveats and
qualifications to their ideas? Now take an inventory of your own
speech and if need be get a buddy to help you trim back those
phrases and tones that stop people hearing clearly and positively
what you want to say.
Promoting your Exposure (the E)
Idea #7: Write!
You know what your areas of expertise or deep interest are, so
write an article for an industry magazine or newsletter. Don't
think of this as arrogant self-promotion, think of it as sharing
what you know in the spirit of helping others who lack the time to
research the issue for themselves. Variations on this theme are to
write for your company newsletter about your team's recent
successful project, or to lead and contribute to LinkedIn
discussions in your subject matter area.
You could write for Professionelle, too. Your 600-1200 word
article on a topic relevant to other professional women, if
accepted by us, could secure you another page 1 Google NZ ranking
for searches on your name, along with your Linked In and Facebook
entries.
Idea #8 Network!
We couldn't miss this one. Suzanne Doyle-Morris talks about
'taking your 10%', in other words, investing a small part of your
time and energy while at work in developing your career and
profile. A really important lever is networking, both inside and
outside your organisation. Ladies, you can be sure the men don't
feel guilty taking time to have a coffee to build a new contact and
share information while you're sweating at your desk to perfect the
last details of your report. Take a look at the gender balance in
any café at 10.30am if you don't believe me…
And if you think networking is all about "sleazy selling" and
absolutely not something you could do authentically, please check
out our networking articles, written by professional
women, for professional women.
Idea #9 Talk!
There's no faster way to make yourself known to a large group of
people at once than to speak at a conference, or to participate in
a panel - or even to go on TV as an expert, as one of our members does! The
chances are that at first you will need to drive this ie to express
interest and offer topics to the organisers. However, if you have
been writing, networking and getting your name out there, then the
chances are they will come to you and it will be up to you to
decide if the fit is right.
A Final Thought
Idea #10: Aligned values
This tip came from our recent How to Own Your Career seminar.
It's much easier to feel comfortable and confident, and to gauge
what is appropriate and what will be effective, if your values
align well with your organisation's. We couldn't agree
more!
Do you have experiences of self-promotion that have worked well
for you, and felt authentic and "doable"? We would love to hear
them - please leave a comment in the box below.