Five Tips for Women Navigating Workplace Success
Many women are smart, work hard, and have their own ideas about getting to the goal line at work, but are often turned off by the nuances of navigating the playing field. This can be a deterring factor in pursuing title changes, raises, new projects, and resources. By the way, I think this is the case for many men, too. The only difference is that the playing field is often designed by men, so their odds are somewhat better.
The women I’ve spoken to lately are aware of how their male coworkers navigate and achieve success— many get demotivated knowing they’ll never ‘be like’ the guys they work with. I often hear things like, “I know what I need to do to be successful at work because I saw the way he did it, but I just don’t think that’s me.” Or, “I don’t have the energy for the extra mile it takes for a woman to be successful where I work.”
According to a 2017 McKinsey study, although women are equally both interested in and pursue promotions, they are less likely than men to have executive aspirations — and those who do are significantly less likely to think they’ll become one than men who share the same dream.
So what can be done if you want to be successful, but are losing steam trying to see results? Before throwing up your hands, accept your environment — no matter where you work, you will most likely be in a similar situation again, and again. Also accept that if you are ambitious, giving up probably won’t make you happy. Lastly, I encourage you to be patient and thoughtful in spite of frustration. If you really care about your goals, a good audit of your playing field is the first step.
Here are five tips for navigating a route to success:
1. Audit the nature of your work.
According to a 2018 study by Hive, a productivity platform for large companies, women are assigned 10% more work than men and still achieve at the same completion rates men do — the implication being they are therefore ‘more productive.’ But the research also cites a big difference in the types of work women are assigned — namely more ‘non-promotable’ tasks, constituting work deemed beneficial to a company but not necessarily careeer-advancing for the employee.
Pause for a moment and look around — is the way you are setting yourself up to succeed in the workplace the way that others are succeeding? Is it work that management values or promotes? You may be surprised by what you find.
The other day, a friend who works for an early stage start-up was frustrated because the long hours she works don’t seem to be appreciated. When I asked her if the company holds ‘long hours’ as a value, she laughed and said ‘probably the opposite.’ She could actually identify the ways they’d deterred her from sticking around late. Paradoxically, she doesn’t have enough time in her day to work on the things that matter most in the long run. This equation doesn’t add up.
In my experience, here’s an equation that does:
(Too much time at work) x (addressing low importance things) < (less time at work) x (addressing more important things)
Unless the variable ‘time at work’ outweighs ‘more important things’ per the values of the company, I’d say a change is in order to benefit her both personally and professionally.
2. Expend energy wisely, then build confidence.
There’s another problem here, which a good friend really characterized — once you realize what it takes to be successful, it’s a question of energy. I’ve heard (and felt) this so many times from women and men alike — ’ah, I see what I need to do here, but do I really have the energy to do that?’ Often, I think this is where women opt out.
But what is that? It’s worth thinking through what your ‘energy’ really needs to go towards — and also how you will spend it to get there. In a nutshell, prioritize and then invest in those priorities. Spoiler alert, you can’t do it all and the lower half of your list many be in the camp of ‘non-promotable’ or ‘non-critical’ anyway.
For example, though not the case everywhere, I perceive that long and grueling hours — though sometimes a cultural hallmark — seldom cement advancement. I find that thoughtfulness, composure and a clear sense of priorities do. Most people, no matter how impassioned, feel a core desire to express themselves rationally — in fact, this is the root of a lot of workplace (and personal) frustration: the need to be understood.
So practice expressing your confident position (I do this in the car), and do the homework to set yourself up right (put in the work, and the work behind the work). That includes knowing your position and back-up evidence inside and out. It sounds simple, but we can all think of times when we attempt to express ourselves and end up misrepresenting our position because of the delivery or lack of preparation. Poke holes in your arguments. Practice in the bathroom if you don’t have a car. Ultimately, expend your energy investing in the important work and then get confident about it.
3. Make allies.
This is where men and women depend on each other, because at the end of the day this isn’t about women helping women nor men helping women — it’s about getting stuff done together.
If you have goals at work, having allies towards those goals will give you better odds of reaching them than going it alone. I’m not just talking mentors — in fact, I often find that for daily achievement, the value of three peer allies rivals that of one superior — and in the long run, peer consensus can be even more empowering. Ever known someone who has succeeded with the wind of their peers at their backs versus someone who had the acknowledgement of one superior? Reputationally, one of these is generally stronger than the other — but more than that, your ability to build consensus among peers builds more of a foundation for future successes. (Not to get political but…think dictatorship vs. grassroots movements.)
However, a cautionary note — don’t forget to depend on yourself, first and foremost. While allies may bolster your position, they are not responsible for your wins. Right-size your expectations of them and dependence on them accordingly.
4. Manage up.
The 2017 McKinsey study also discovered that women are less likely than men to report interacting with senior leaders. This discrepancy is problematic not only for what it represents, but also for the obvious daily barrier it puts between women and where they want to be.
I’m a big believer that direct managers in particular owe their employees at least two things — a clear set of goals, and the resources to achieve them. By this logic, anyone should be able to set their path to success. Of course, this can be easier said than done. Before you write off your manager as a viable partner in your success, think about what it is you’re missing from them and how you might be able to get it.
A friend of mine, whose manager is a bit junior, recently realized she didn’t have clear KPIs. Through her frustration with the dynamic, she decided to take control of their one-on-ones to establish a set of goals which she felt moved her towards a productive direction. The manager couldn’t deny her that request, it was completely rational. Now the ball is in her manager’s court to either syndicate or redirect those goals — in either case, it will clarify a path for my friend that her manager signs up to support. Next step, visibility to senior leadership — something her manager can also critically influence.
5. Test and learn.
Don’t be afraid to break the rules.
I’m a naturally reserved person who tends to wait until she is certain she has something to say before chiming in. But meetings often favor those who are fearlessly and vocally opinionated, and those who speak first hold the floor longest. At one point, I worked in an environment full of so many ex-consultants equipped with the same dominating communication skills, that I knew I’d never get a word in edgewise. I had one of those ‘well if that’s what it takes, I don’t think I’m going to be successful here’ moments. I was simply not going to be ‘like’ them. So without anything to lose, I tried something different.
Turns out, nonverbal cues can be quite loud. I learned not to underestimate the power of a well-placed head-shake when disagreeing (eyes turn your way), sitting back or forward when preparing to speak (same idea), and a genial hand in the air to signal ‘I’m not quite done’ (this seems bold, but if the tone of your voice is measured and you pair it with a shrug the effect is more like ‘I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that you probably want to hear what I have to say, but you just forgot to listen’).
This is especially reinforced over time as your well-chosen words frequently add value to your conversations. I actually had a boss who would look at me throughout whole meetings because he knew he’d see my opinion before hearing it. Once my colleagues learned how I communicated, most of them adapted to it because they grew to care about what I had to say. The nonverbals were just a leg-up to getting where I wanted to be — in that case, heard.
In reality, men and women really haven’t been together in workplaces for all that long (read Sapiens for a stunning dose of context). So, while daunting, derive some patience even inspiration from knowing that we’re actually still building the way we work as a society.
Bonus points for trying: your approach and your decisions as a woman contribute not only to the way you achieve success, but to the ways future women and men collectively achieve success. Future generations will look back at this period as a time when a new kind of workplace was being formed. If that sounds like added pressure, just remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day — neither was Google, the Statue of Liberty, Suffrage or indoor plumbing. There can be power in feeling small and working towards big things, if you take it one step at a time.
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