From Breakfast Table to Boardroom: Ask for What You Want
By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
Published today is a new book by communication expert Lois Frankel, PhD, and negotiation expert Carol Frohlinger, JD, entitled Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It: 99 Ways to Win the Respect You Deserve, the Success You’ve Earned, and the Life You Want.
The crux of the book is that if women are to lead fulfilling lives, they must know and ask for what they want – in the professional and personal space. “It doesn’t make sense to compartmentalize them,” Frohlinger said.
She explained, “The reality is… women tend to have more responsibilities outside work than men tend to. You can’t be successful at work without being able to negotiate for the things you want at home.”
“What we like to say is, ‘the path to the boardroom begins at the breakfast table,’” she added.
From Nice Girl to Winning Woman
At a recent NCRW event at American Express, Ruth J. Simmons, President, Brown University, discussed the “gold star phenomenon,” in which girls are praised and rewarded for being compliant from a very early age. As they grow up, women are socialized not to ask for what they want or need, while men are rewarded for being “disruptive” or “innovative” or “assertive.” Women, on the other hand, get called “pushy,” or worse for displaying the same behavior.
Frohlinger explained, “It absolutely begins in childhood. Girls are told, ‘take care of your brother,’ ‘don’t be loud,’ ‘be nice,’ ‘smile.’ Boys hear ‘win,’ ‘you can do it,’ ‘take what you want.’”
She continued, “Even as we grow up to be adult women, these vestiges stick with us. But I think it is empowering for women to recognize that it’s not just a personal issue. The messages we receive as girls are outside our control.”
It can be difficult to overcome these socializing factors, but women can become skilled negotiators at work and home. And that is what Frankel and Frohlinger’s book is about. It’s a collection of smart, practical tips on how to figure out what you want and ask for it.
Frohlinger said, “If you don’t ask you don’t get. Nice girls waiting for someone to notice everything they do and reward them by placing a tiara on their heads are still waiting.”
Why Workplace Parity Begins at Home
As Frohlinger pointed out, women traditionally do more of the “home” work than men do. According to February’s report on the status of women in the United States produced by the White House Council on Women and Girls, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Economics and Statistics Administration within the Department of Commerce:
“employed married women spent 1.6 hours in household activities and an additional hour caring for household members. In contrast, employed married men spent nearly one hour in household activities and about 40 minutes caring for household members.”
At the same time, the report continued, “employed husbands spent about 3.2 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities on workdays, and employed wives spent about 2.7 hours.”
If the majority of married women are spending significantly more time on the second shift at home than their partners, how can we realistically expect to achieve gender parity in the workplace?
Frohlinger said, “This is not about winning at the cost of other people. It is about being proactive in a way that enhances relationships.”
Frankel and Frohlinger’s point of view echos what many countries across Europe are quickly acknowledging. For example, last year, I was invited by the Norwegian Consulate General to learn about the country’s approach to gender equality. What people repeatedly expressed to me was that workplace equality must be mimicked in the home – that’s why the country’s gender quota legislation was accompanied by a dramatic hike in paternity leave. Legislation for workplace gender equality was simultaneously legislation for work/life balance.
Similarly, in the UK, paternity leave was recently increased significantly in an attempt destigmatize the idea of flex scheduling as a “women’s issue,” encourage men to take a more active role at home, empower women to get ahead at work. In a January speech to Demos, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said:
“Despite the fact fathers can request flexible working, many feel reluctant to do so. There is still a stigma attached. And, when a child is born, men are still only entitled to a paltry two weeks of paternity leave. These rules patronize women and marginalise men. They’re based on a view of life in which mothers stay at home and fathers are the only breadwinners. That’s an Edwardian system that has no place in 21st Century Britain.”
He continued:
“Women suffer. Mothers are expected to take on the vast bulk of childcare themselves. If they don’t, they very often feel judged. If they do, they worry about being penalised at work. So it’s no surprise that many working women feel that they can’t win.”
Know What You Want Before Negotiating at Home and Work
That’s not to say that government intervention is absolutely necessary for women to get ahead at work at home. Nice Girls provides a plethora of effective advice for women on how to negotiate for fair and reasonable outcomes.
But according to Frohlinger, one of the most important pieces of advice in the book is about determining what you really want. She said, “I think one of the biggest messages is the need to carefully examine your choices. Knowing what you want is a critical piece.”
Next, she said was about planning ahead. She said, “It’s the idea of anticipating the pushback you’re going to get and planning how to respond to it.” That way, she explained, you don’t walk away from a conversation thinking, “I should have said…”
Finally, and most importantly, women have to feel they deserve what they’re asking for and that they can get be successful in getting it. She explained, “The more I do this, the more I am convinced that you’ve got to want it, and you’ve got to believe you can do it. If you’ve got these two components, you’ll be successful.”
What a great article! The reference to “gold star phenomenon” really struck a chord with me. I talk a lot about socialization and the impact it has on career decision-making in my workshops on nontraditional careers which I present to secondary and postsecondary career & technical educators, counselors, and career center staff across the country. We’re taught at such an early age on how to behave according to our gender.
Definitely a great post. Knowing what you want is important, and sometimes hearing lessons learned from women who have encountered obstacles in trying to find a manageable work/life balance can be helpful in influencing what you want as well. The issue of workplace equality does begin at home with conscious parents willing to talk about these issues and bring them to family discussions. The resistance encountered around flexible work options (esp. for men) often intersects with unconscious perceptions about how things should work in a marriage (when raising a family), or what happens when a woman steps off the career track for a while to raise young children. A lot of men whose wives stay at home are more frequently traveling for business and participating in longer meetings over non-traditional hours or networking after hours. While this can be important for both men and women when advancing careers, it will be when we shift this perception about equality and what success means in life (not just income/prestige) will we see more progress happen in the real sharing of work, life and individual priorities for both partners in marriage.
I own my own business and my husband works as a technical contractor for Verizon. Neither of us can figure out where those 3.2 and 2.7 hours of leisure time cited can possibly fit into working parents’ lives.
Instead of the same old “ask for what you want” blah blah, I’d like to see a study or book about those of us women that broke all those social rules, flew military aircraft, worked globally and traveled alone and ultimately became entrepreneurs. If we as a society study those that didn’t socialize per the norm, perhaps then we might actually learn somehing new and useful that can be applied!
I really enjoyed reading this article. Bringing professional and personal space together, so they aren’t ‘compartmentalized’, is no easy task, particularly when you are doing a job that you don’t enjoy. It takes courage to begin to question what you want to do in your professional life. When motherhood and the responsibilities that this brings are added to this, knowing and asking for what you want can be overshadowed by deeper questions such as ‘How do I re-establish my work identity? What do I want to do at work as a result of having a new role as a mother? I get asked these and other questions a lot when I am coaching women who are returning to work.