Marion M. who is a senior partner at a major business
consultancy, was brought up on the dictum that she
had to be twice as smart and work twice as hard as
her male colleagues. She always worked long hours,
and passed on many an invitation to join the guys at
the local bar while she stayed on at the office to run
the numbers on a pending deal. But she couldn’t help
but notice that while she worked harder, her more
social male colleagues seemed to be getting ahead
faster. This truly hit home when Tom, who headed up
Global Investments, postponed a meeting to go on a
trip to California. She assumed that he was traveling
on important business, but it turned out that he was
actually flying to the other end of the country to play
golf. For Marion, an excursion like this would have
been unthinkable. But for Tom, the opportunity to tee
off at the Riveria, one of California’s most exclusive
clubs, represented a priceless networking
opportunity. Indeed, socializing is as important a part
of Tom’s business persona as his facility with
structured financing, and it shows in his status and
paycheck.
“What I learned from that,” she says, “is that women
need to get over the idea that their effort and talent will
speak for themselves. We women think of ourselves
as having superior interpersonal skills. We have the
warmth and empathy, but in a business environment,
it’s actually the men who are instinctively comfortable
with the collegial aspects of getting ahead, like going
to lunch, leaving the office early to play golf, or chatting
about the latest football scores.”
Similarly, Amy Henry of Apprentice fame, writes that
early on in her career, she was always focused on the
work, confident that it was the single driver to boost
her up the career ladder. She quickly realized she
was wrong. Advancing your career is not just about
the work, she contends, but who you know, and who
knows what you are doing. Every successful woman
in business has connections, work associates with
whom business is the basis of the relationship, as
well as strategic relationships that are both helpful to
you and the other person. Women who want to
advance their careers need to develop a network of
smart, influential people who are familiar with their
knowledge, accomplishments and strengths. And if
you are one of very few women in the upper reaches
of a corporation, it means learning to network with
men.
I have been coaching, training and speaking around
the world on a variety of topics from Maximizing Your
Presence to Networking For Success, and the one
factor common to the many successful and high-
powered women I have coached is their ability to
network as effortlessly with men as with women. This
is an ability that has not always come easily. But it is
critical if you as a woman are going to become a
major player in whatever business you choose.
Developing a network requires developing an entirely
new attitude; it often means adjusting your
communication styles, looking carefully at how you
express yourself and to whom. You need to have an
impact on the most influential people who are in a
position to promote you, listen to you and act on your
suggestions.
The critical factor here is that you need to understand
your relationship with the concept of networking and
redefine it in your mind. It is a critical business tool
and it needs to be a natural and effortless part of your
personal skill set. Indeed, in situations where you
may be the only woman executive in a roomful of men,
you need to get yourself into a personal space where
networking with men feels as comfortable as
shopping with your girlfriends.
GET COMFORTABLE WITH GETTING AHEAD
Women pride themselves on their warmth and
sensitivity, but in the business world it is actually men
who are more comfortable with the interpersonal
aspects of getting ahead. Networking is critical to
career success because it gives you access to
information and to people who can enhance your
career and life in general in the short and long run.
But these kinds of relationships can take a conscious
effort to develop. Yaarit S. a senior partner in a male-
dominated business consulting firm, says that men
seem to instinctively know that merit alone is not the
key to success, while women find it harder to accept
because on so many levels it seems “unfair”.
LIGHT THE FIRE
What it really comes down to is overcoming an
aversion on the part of women to the kind of subtle
and sometimes overtly aggressive jockeying for
position that they perceive as a male prerogative.
Indeed, in my workshops on Networking For Success,
we spend a great deal of time looking at the “What
Stops me doing it better” obstacles. For many
women, it is both the problem of time in terms of
juggling family and career, but more often than not, it
is the “I don’t want to be political” or “I don’t want to be
pushy” or “I don’t want to have to ask for anything”. It
is vitally important to change this mindset, because if
you see networking as politicking, rather than
developing critical connections with people who you
can assist and who can assist you in your career, you
will never maximize your ability to do it better than you
are right now.
I have found that a very effective approach to
networking with men is to “Light a F-I-R-E”, that is,
examine your Feelings; work on being
Interested,
Interesting and Informed; be Relaxed; and
Engage
with Energy and Enthusiasm.
F- For this reason, it is important to
first examine
how you feel about yourself. Women, and
particularly
those who were told to behave like ladies, often feel
reluctant to speak up. However, all of the highly
successful women I have spoken to say that in order
to make it in a man’s world, you have to get over this
reluctance. Lynn W. a senior executive at a national
building supply chain, emphasizes the importance of
non-verbal cues. “A good handshake and meeting of
eyes is a great way to set the stage as equals and
radiate self confidence, but not arrogance,” she
says.
I - If you can work on becoming
Interested,
Interesting and Informed, you will find socializing
in a
room full of men a much more enjoyable and
productive experience. People of both genders
respond very positively to someone who shows
genuine interest in what they are saying. Generally
speaking, women are better listeners than men,
mainly because we are taught early on to not be rude
and not interrupt others. However, whatever your
gender, it is critical to listen. People remember how
you make them feel, much more than what you
actually say, and listening makes people feel cared
for and understood.
As Lynne W. says, “being able to converse easily
with men and women has helped me build
relationships that have spanned continents and
careers. Men are also human. There is nothing wrong
with taking the initiative to start conversations.”
But what can you do to break an awkward
silence? Not all of us have the capacity to play golf or
learn the rules of football. I always suggest to my
female clients that they should work on becoming
more informed, by following current affairs, listening
to news programs, and watching the stock market. To
stay interested, Lynne W., who works in the male-
dominated industry of international logistics,
suggests picking up free local magazines to keep up
with local buzz/news, even if just to read
headlines. “You’ll be surprised at how those tidbits of
information can help break the ice in many situations
and transform you quickly as the go-to person in your
network, professionally and personally,” she says.
Lynelle G. the Director of Communications and
Marketing at a pharmaceutical company, who has
found herself the ONLY woman in the boardroom on
numerous occasions, says she talks about travel,
current events and investments. Having grown up in
Detroit, she can also talk about cars and firearms.
This way she not only reveals herself as worldly and
informed, but also reveals her business savvy.
“The men assume that I don’t know much about
science,” she says, “so I try to quickly reveal that I do
have expertise in the field. I prove it by being really
confident. I’ll talk about work, travel and current
events, but I am careful not to talk about shopping or
hair.” Like many other women who have penetrated
into a male-dominated world, Lynelle has developed
a sensitivity to gender differences in conversational
styles. “Men see themselves by job, while women see
themselves as mother, wife and then their career. I
generally avoid bringing up the topic of children, and
definitely stay away from hot-button political and
religious issues,” she said. “Good restaurants, good
food, and wine are much safer topics these days,
especially if you have been able to do some
traveling.”
In her conversations with men, Yaarit S. finds it
important to take the time to learn what their area of
passion is. She asks many questions and looks for
clues and leads, but never presumes anything. In
casual conversation she finds out their interests,
which by the way, do NOT always include golf (a total
assumption) but many times activities like sailing or
charity work, that they spend a great deal of their time
involved in. In general, when asking questions, it is
important that you leave the answer open-ended. If
the individual can answer with a simple Yes or Now,
you are going to find yourself with nowhere to go. For
many suggestions of questions with open-ended
answers, you should check in with my “The Little Book
of Big Networking Ideas.”
And what if the conversation doesn’t seem to be
taking off? Lynn Wong offers these words of
reassurance: “Don’t take it personally – men and
women have differing levels of sensitivity to
vocabulary. Remember to focus on the tangibles and
not read emotions between the lines. It’s easy to
mistake constructive feedback for criticism when
women let feelings get in the way.”
To create credibility for herself, Yaarit S.
emphasizes the importance of taking advantage of
your feminine sensitivity and emotional intelligence to
sense where the individual is coming from. “I try not to
genderize, but often men are much more competitive
in conversation than women,” she says. She
personally chooses NOT to compete, but rather listen
carefully, identify with the experience, encapsulate
what they are saying, identify with it and then deflect it
back to them. “When a guy goes on and on about
how brilliant he has been, I try to paraphrase what he
has said, and turn it around and try to find common
ground. In this way, I can communicate my own
accomplishments.”
For example, she was recently in conversation
with a client who was going into great detail about
how successful he had been in turning around a
fortune 500 company. Rather than one up him, Yaarit
listened carefully then communicated that she
understood the challenges he had faced because
she herself had recently grown a company by 500%.
By saying, “I am interested in learning how you dealt
with a similar situation,” she ensured that he
understood her power, knowledge and achievement
in a non-threatening way.
R- Relax! In order to elicit the feeling of
safety we
have to be confident and relaxed about ourselves In
his book, “Influence, the Science and the Practice,”
Robert Cialdini writes about the very primitive need
we all have to be protected. He contends that people
will do business with people who make them feel
safe. Consequently, men will do business with
women they trust and who make them feel safe. For
this reason, dressing flamboyantly or sexy clothing is
a definite no-no. I often say to women that dressing
provocatively and flirting may get you a date, but it
won’t get you the business. Relaxed, confident
women who appear smart and authoritative are much
more likely to evoke that response.
Similarly, Yaarit S. attributes her success in
succeeding in a predominantly male world to being
herself. “I am more often than not the only woman at
meetings, and what works for me is to be totally
relaxed, and exude a sense of my right to be there. I
don’t work too hard at trying to overcompensate and
prove myself.” What she does, as John Kehoe says,
is "let success vibrate within you".
E- Negative personalities repel networks.
You
need to like yourself, warts and all, and
engage with a
level of energy, excitement and enthusiasm.
And what if you land up in a situation that can get
you into a flat panic? Try improvising. Lynne Wong
found herself in a situation like that, and this is what
she did:
I participated in an HR team building session where I
found myself the only female with a group of six other
(older) men. We were presented with a scenario
where we were stranded in the Cascade Mountain
ranges, after our rescue helicopter had crashed and
our pilot dead in the process. We were told to
prioritize a list of 12 items we had that could greatly
extend our ability to survive till rescue was on the way.
We had to undertake the exercise first as individuals,
and then come together as a group of seven to put
together our prioritized list. I don’t know anything
about outdoor survival tactics at all and most of the
men in the group were either avid campers or fans of
outdoor camping shows. One man in particular
served for several years in the military – I was clearly
out of my league. I dealt with that creeping sense of
helplessness by switching on my listening ears and
asking questions. That helped keep me engaged in
the discussion and contributing through another
perspective. Most of the men were eagerly sharing
suggestions – I was able to make mental notes about
how my list compares with theirs (had a few laughs at
my own expense), appreciate their perspective, and
assume the position of the mediator in leading our
group to consensus on our prioritized list. It was a
successful team building experience as I was able to
contribute to the team and get to know new
colleagues in the process, adding them to my
network of contacts.
NOW YOU ARE GETTING INTO THE SWING
OF IT!
As you can see, learning to play the social
networking game with the men who continue to
dominate the upper echelons of the business world
is as important an element of your career as your
skills and work ethic. This does not mean that you
have to go out and buy a set of clubs, learn to play
pool, or study the baseball box scores. Just don’t rush
home every night, even if you are planning to carry on
working when you get there. Rather, join the boys on
occasion. Extend the work day into the evening maybe
once or twice a month. As Amy Henry says: “You don’t
have to be part of every outing or industry soiree, but
don’t fall into the habit of perpetual absenteeism
either.”
