Rule Every Businesswoman Needs to Know, Part 3

She Wins, You Win: The Most Important Rule Every Businesswoman Needs to Know
by Gail Evans

(Page 3 of 3)

In the world of business, women have rarely operated as though supporting other women was an important part of the job. In fact, many of us have come to believe that another woman's gain is our own loss, and conversely that another woman's loss is our gain. Why? Because we are convinced that only a small number of executive slots are open to women. If that's really the case, then other women are the enemy-as anyone would feel while fighting for survival when resources are limited. A young friend puts it succinctly: "As a woman, when I play the game of business, I always operate out of scarcity."

It's true that in the past many women have fought hard, and fought alone, to advance into certain rarefied positions. Therefore many of us have felt that we made it on our own, and that's the only way success should be achieved.

Women have also traditionally believed that speaking up too loudly for another woman, or for women's issues, can hurt us. What if that woman you recommended so highly performs poorly in the new job? What if the men begin to suspect that you are a secret feminist-couldn't this mortally wound your career?

No. Men feel safer around women who speak up for what they believe in-when it's appropriate. There is a big difference between expressing support for someone or something and beating others over the head with diatribes. When you demonstrate that your general ideals are greater than your personal ambition, you usually gain the admiration of both men and women.

Women have also been hesitant to give special treatment to other women for fear of being seen as Someone Who Favors Women. Singling out one individual for special attention can fly in the face of our image of ourselves as fair, objective people who don't play favorites.

But the guys mentor young men all the time. We all know who the boss's favorite is, and that he'll do anything he can for him. In fact, it's considered somewhat unusual if the boss doesn't have a protégé.

Some women who resent the fact that no male authority figure helped them because they were females respond by saying, "I don't want to lower myself to play that game. I want to help anyone at all who is deserving of my support."

I don't want you to stop helping deserving guys. I don't want you to feel like a bad person. I just want you to be willing to take care of other women. The boys are doing a great job of taking care of themselves already.

We need to identify the women around us who are comers and become integral to their success-and not worry that the men will attack us for playing the same game they do. Not long ago a young friend of mine quit her job at a weekly newsmagazine because she saw no chance for advancement. The senior male editor routinely gave the best assignments to his three favorite male reporters, but the top woman refused to do the same for the female reporters. When confronted, she explained, "That would be wrong." Perhaps, but the result is a magazine that can't hang on to its women because no one is willing to stick up for them.

Another issue: Many women want to play the game as though there were no differences between us and them. "Aren't we all equal?" they ask. As the statistics discussed earlier show, the answer is no-we're not equal in the business world.

In a recently released survey of women in finance conducted by Catalyst (the leading not-for-profit organization for female professionals), 65 percent of the women reported that they have to work harder than men to get the same rewards. A third of the women surveyed described the workplace as a hostile environment where sexist comments are tolerated and women are subjected to unwanted sexual advances. And only a fifth said that the opportunities to advance have increased greatly in the last five years. Many women cited exclusion from important networks as a barrier to their moving up.

"Every broker but me got invited to certain events," one executive woman told Catalyst, "so they all got input as to what they might be doing wrong or how they could improve their business. But not me." And several executive recruiters said one effect of the sluggish economy has been the decline in the position and status of women in corporate America.

Corroborating this perception are the dire predictions I recently heard from the women who invited me to speak to the female employees at a major financial firm-when times get hard, they said, the first people let go are always the women. So although we are all just people, at work women are not as equal as men. As observed by George Orwell in Animal Farm, "Some animals are more equal than others."

Furthermore, too often women accept the fact that the men will give us only so many openings at the top. After all, you keep the minorities down by keeping them separated. Give a little here and there, but let them kill each other. How can you counterbalance that attitude? Every woman who gets that one-and-only-female top job must be aware that half of her job, once she gets there, is to get another woman there too.

A disproportionate number of women who have gotten close to the top have fallen in love with the idea of being that single special woman. There's no reason to abandon your team just because the other team has picked you out as an ally.

Rather than letting the men decide which woman gets the job, it makes more sense for the women to decide ahead of time whom to choose-and, once she gets there, to support her to make sure she does the job well.

When they wish to, women can and do work very well together. For example, Carol, a very successful friend, started receiving signals that her department was about to undergo significant budget cuts. Much of her staff, many of them women she had hired, would be let go. Carol herself was in jeopardy.

One day Carol called and asked for my advice. I knew her job was in danger, but I also knew she'd have no problem finding another great position. I told her that, given her talents, her next job should be running her own company. Since Carol was woman friendly and hired more women than her male counterparts, I knew this would benefit not only her, but all of us.

I had just heard that a CEO position was about to open up, and I, along with Carol's other allies, suspected she would be perfect for it. But we all knew that landing this job would require intense and careful politicking, so we had to plan carefully. First, we compiled a list of the most important women each of us knew who could influence the company's board, and we made sure that everyone on the list received a phone call. We then checked to see which search firm would be handling the position, and when we discovered it was one where we knew one of the female partners, we enlisted her in the battle too.

When Carol became one of three people being considered seriously, we increased the pressure, enlisting at least a dozen more women to help. The campaign worked. Carol landed the job, and today she is one of the most powerful women in her field. This isn't to say that sometimes these ideas don't backfire. They do. I once knew some women at a midsize Southern California company who began meeting regularly and sharing knowledge. They thought they had a powerful group going that would advance all their careers.

After two years, one of the women was laid off. The other women, knowing how smart she was, found the firing unfair and were incensed. Feeling their power as a group of successful executives, they thought they could right a wrong.

What they didn't do was stop to ask a million and one questions. Why had the woman been laid off? Was there trouble in her department? Were there financial pressures? What was the real story? These women didn't do the research. Instead, they organized a quick protest, they made their opinions known both inside and outside the company, and they received some bad media coverage the company did not want.

Soon these women were called in by their bosses, who told them they didn't understand the specifics of the situation, and then read them the riot act. If they couldn't do the appropriate fact-finding work, they should have gone to their bosses and asked them for the real story. In other words, true team players would have kept the company's concerns in mind.

None of the women was fired, but the incident put a damper on the group. Feeling humbled, the women returned to their corners to try to make up the territory they'd lost with their bosses.

When one of the women in this group told me of their woes, I urged her not to give up. Life isn't always fair, I said. The woman in question was good, the rest of you protested, you landed in trouble, and that's the way of the world. It doesn't mean you should stop organizing. It just means you need to do your homework next time. The moral: Being on the women's team isn't always about changing the world or righting all wrongs. It's about working with other women to become smarter and more successful. When you're smart, not only do you know the rules of the game, and the best strategies, but you keep in mind all the other games taking place around you.

Copyright © 2003 by Gail Evans, Published by Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., all rights reserved, reprinted with permission from the publisher.

About the Author

Gail Evans is the author of Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman, a phenomenal bestseller that has quickly become a classic in its field. CNN's first female executive vice president, Ms. Evans was responsible for creating many of CNN's most successful shows. She is the recipient of numerous awards and appointments. Ms. Evans has appeared on many major national television shows including the Today show, Larry King Live, and shows on CNBC. She currently lectures around the country, mentoring and teaching women of all ages and business backgrounds on how to get ahead in today's corporate world.