Obstacle #5: Confessions of a Work Wife

Every morning, I walked into Shane's office with two cups of coffee.

I handed one across the desk and sat down for 10-15 minutes… sometimes venting about another coworker, sometimes describing the weekend's events, sometimes vetting ideas for an upcoming campaign.  Some afternoons, we'd step out to grab lunch.  If something ridiculous was happening in the hallway, an IM from Shane, only two doors down, immediately popped up, "Did we just hear what I think we heard?"  When one of my presentations went horribly awry, he was first to hear me lament and relive the pain. When a big sales deal fell through, he'd slump in the chair across my desk and walk through what went sideways and when.

Was I a work wife?  I didn't think about it until recently - long after I had left that job, and Shane.

Work spouse: A significant other you work with, whom you connect, share, and spend time with exclusively and intimately in the workplace. Both parties are mere acquaintances outside of the workplace and are completely unknown to each other's true and respective domestic spouses. (Urban Dictionary)

So, let's talk about the "work wife."

You're in a tight knit environment, sharing the same peer group, the same bosses, the same projects, deadlines and pressures.  You rely on your cohorts in the trenches alongside you, whether it's getting through a difficult meeting or celebrating a project's success.  These relationships can be empowering and fun, but they can also lead to politics and drama.

Consider your work spouse: what role does he play in the organization?  Does your counterpart have influence over your position - the type that can get you promoted… or fired?  How do your coworkers view your relationship and does that impact how they engage with you?

Our independent, cavalier persona responds to those questions with a "Who cares?"  But we do care.  And we should.  The nature of our relationships at work makes up a large component of our ability to be productive and effective in the work environment.  Our work spouses feed and empower us, supporting our success.  But any drama, or perceived drama, can minimize us and our ability to have an impact.

The "power work wife" is the ideal work wife relationship.  Your counterpart is a peer and a true partner in your work projects and initiatives.  You're an internal power couple, essentially, working together towards a common goal and with mutual respect and agreement around how to get things done.  Your ideas are respected, your suggestions given even weight and you do not feel like you are pushing or fighting with your partner to be heard or understood.  While this relationship will still entertain its share of gossip, the balance of power is that of equals and this is visible to the organization.

The subordinate work wife is a trickier matter.  The earliest usage of the term work wife was a

reference by a CEO to his administrative assistant, and historically, that has been the perception.  The work wife takes care of the husband's needs at work - ensuring he's organized, receives and responds to messages, gets to meetings on time and has lunch/coffee as required.  Then he goes home and the home-based wife fills in the gaps.

The balance of power here can be challenging.  In an admin/exec relationship, the roles are clear and the power balance is dependent on the personalities involved.  But what happens when you are the work wife to someone higher on the food chain but who is not your direct boss?  If his position can influence your advancement within the company, then you're still a target for the rumor mill.  More so because the relationship between the executive and the executive admin is easily explained - it's a stereotype - but a close relationship with an imbalance of power and no direct reporting ties leaves much open to overactive imaginations in the work place.

Confessions of a Work Wife
So here's the truth: there was no Shane.

But there was a Shirley. Seriously. Same scenario in my opening paragraph - daily coffee, occasional lunch, lots of IMs, phone calls and hallway conversations. If you look at the definition of a work spouse, she was it.  It was only later, as we left our place of mutual employment, that we really became personal friends (and then Dirty Girl partners).

Was I still a work wife?

Or are we just friends?

If you're about to tell me the sexual undertones of a male/female friendship is an old fashioned view, then you're ignoring the truth our work mores place before us daily.  No one cared if every day I walked into Shirley's office, handed her  cup of coffee and spent ten minutes telling her about the idiot barista who interpreted my soy mocha as soy milk and gave me a hot steaming cup of milk… like I was a toddler getting ready for bed (yeah, that really happened).

Perception matters.

As always, your comments, questions and thoughts are welcome. 
And don't forget to share this blog! 

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty is a principal at Dirty Girls Consulting, offering special programs that coach women moving into leadership roles. Women work differently, think differently, and it is up to us to allow this difference to become our strengths. We explore breaking free of traditional standards, accomplishing professional and personal goals to cultivate an authentic, fully loved life. Read more Dirty Girl Consulting blogs here.

Obstacle #11: To flirt or not to flirt at work

Flirting is a power tactic.

Whether at work or at play, the art of flirtation is about persuasion and control.  And fun.  I am not asserting that flirting is positive or negative in any situation. This obstacle is one each of us needs to figure out individually, the way in which we're most comfortable working through it.  So let's consider the art - and obstacle - of flirtation at the office.

First, just what is flirting?  For the purposes of the work environment discussion, and as evaluated in various studies, flirting is defined as personal charm that incorporates playfulness, flattery and a level of sexiness.  This is a step beyond friendliness, which is defined as exhibiting warmth and interest.  Flirting is deliberate attempts to have the opposite party notice your particular charm.

So, what if you knew that flirting benefitted you in negotiations?

Women who flirted during negotiations in which a clear "zero sum" exchange needed to take place (goods for money, for example) obtained better terms when their counterpart was male.  If you knew you could receive a higher discount or a better set of terms, would you smile a little more brightly or offer a compliment?  Put so bluntly, it feels icily calculated.  But think for a minute about the men you work with - if you share a private joke, a sidelong glance, if you touch his arm or tell him you like the way his shirt brings out the color of his eyes, are you friendly or flirting? When men have an elevation in mood due to what they perceive as flirting (and flattery), they are more amenable in negotiations.

But not all the time.  When women flirt with men in negotiations where both parties are trying to achieve a gain, they are less successful. The overall success of a mutual negotiation is higher - a larger pie is carved out between two friendly parties.  But the slicing of that pie does not favor the flirting woman.  She managed to improve the benefits to both of them, by helping to expand the potential rewards, but statistically she isn't able to claim her competitive share of that pie.

So perhaps you could argue that you'd rather not take chances on the type of misunderstanding flirting at work can bring and since not all negotiations are successful, you will rely on your no-nonsense smarts to work through those delicate conversations.  And that's certainly an option.

But this obstacle has another slippery slide.  It's not your standard eight foot wall to scale.  It's more like that inverted wall where you have to pull your weight up the inverted side and then use all your strength to haul yourself over the inverted top and avoid toppling down the "easy" side, which can result in injury.  And mud.  There's always mud.

Consider the challenge of likability.  Women in leadership roles fight the likability battle regularly.  If we're assertive, we're bossy or a less kind b-word.  If we insist or debate, we're pushy and hard.  We use "male" qualities to manage and get ahead in a man's environment, and yet those same qualities that brand men as strong leaders make women brassy and cold.  The social cost is high. This impression also leads to misconception around competence - women who are viewed as overly aggressive by their male peers are also viewed as less competent.  Women who flirt with their peers, on the other hand, are perceived as friendly.  When women are perceived as friendly and competent, their ability to be heard and negotiate is amplified.

What if you knew that men flirt more than women in the workplace to get what they want? 

Catherine Hakim, social scientist and author of Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction in the Boardroom and the Bedroom, says we should unabashedly use our feminine charms.  We have them, why hide them?  Men have no such qualms about using their charisma or looks if they believe it will provide some leverage, so why are we ashamed to?

Of course, there is also the risk of misunderstanding.  Is a real relationship blossoming here or is this merely bantering fun at work? We - men and women - can feel taken advantage of once we realize the other person wanted nothing more than that moment of flirtation - and perhaps  for you to help write that update for the CEO's pet project.

So where do you stand on the concept of flirting in the work place?  Victoria Pynchon advises that if you're going to do it, do it genuinely. Don't fake compliments, don't flirt with men you're not comfortable with.  Rather, play into the positive qualities before you. "I've never known anyone who was so thoroughly repugnant that I couldn't find something to love in them."

So how do you overcome this obstacle?  And how do you handle others who flirt with you?

Studies used in this discussion: 

Feminine Charm: An Experimental Analysis of its Costs and Benefits in Negotiations by Laura J. Kray, Connson C. Locke and Alex B. Van Zant (July 2012)
SIRC Guide to Flirting by Kate Fox (2014)
The Five Flirting Styles by Jeffrey Hall (2013)

As always, your comments, questions and thoughts are welcome. 
And don't forget to share this blog! 

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty is a principal at Dirty Girls Consulting, offering special programs that coach women moving into leadership roles. Women work differently, think differently, and it is up to us to allow this difference to become our strengths. We explore breaking free of traditional standards, accomplishing professional and personal goals to cultivate an authentic, fully loved life. Read more Dirty Girl Consulting blogs here.

Knock, knock... Who's there?

How do you answer that question?

How often does that answer change?

If we shake hands at the office, I get to know you under a professional pretense.  But if we meet at a neighborhood barbecue in our summer shorts with a beer in hand, am I meeting the same person? Or do you bring different personas to your personal and professional life?  And perhaps yet a third person to the gym or to a charity board of directors' meeting?

Certainly, there are aspects of who we are and how we share that are more appropriate at work versus the backyard barbecue.  I might share stories at work about past projects and former bosses, whereas at the barbecue, I'll probably blather on for hours about my kids or obstacle course racing.  In either case, I might modify the content of my message but I am not really changing me… I am the same geeky but self-assured bookworm always ready to laugh at a joke.

But have you ever met someone at work who presented herself a particular way and then later, at a cocktail reception or chance grocery store run-in, you felt like you were meeting a whole new person?  I don't mean someone having an 'off day' - I mean someone who regularly brings different personalities into different situations.  Perhaps it's a more secretive nature that likes to keep things mysterious.  But I have to wonder: how much work is it to stretch yourself into a different role to fit a different scenario?  And what is the purpose of contorting into those roles anyway?

One acquaintance of mine explained that her job required her to bring a different personality to the table - that she worked in the very constrictive world of investment banking and therefore was required to behave a certain way or risk being 'frozen out'.  I hear from other women that there are plenty of organizations with a similar culture where one feels she must conform or risk being ostracized and ignored. It's not always a male dominated culture issue, but sometimes it is.

It's very popular to talk about being "authentic" and true to yourself.  And on that journey, it can be challenging to figure out who we are if we're maintaining a veneer of someone else in order to just get along.  You have to be clear on where the 'real you' begins and the alter ego ends.  And for those who are in this type of work scenario, is it possible to exist in those restrictive environments and yet still feel you're being true to yourself?  How much of our perception that we must conform is our own assumption?

The real question for you, however, is how do you show up?  Try this exercise - I did it last month and with a few text messages, got a wave of results within an hour.  It feels awkward when you first reach out, but it's well worth pushing past that.  First, everyone you touch is happy to participate.  Second, what you receive back will be both loving and enlightening.  So here you:

• On a piece of paper, draw three columns.  At the top of the first column, write "Family/Intimates."  At the top of the second column, write "Friends & Associates" and at the top of the third column, write "Acquaintances."

• Contact 3-5 people in your life who fit into each one of those categories for you and ask them to describe you in just three words.  That's it.

• Write the words ascribed to you under the appropriate column.  

And now consider what you see: how the people in your world see you.  Which one of those columns is closest to the "real" you?  Which one is the person you wish most to be?  Lucky for you, you already are that person.  You have the power to love that person.  You have the power to change that person.  Really, you have power.

So, how do you show up?

As always, your comments, questions and thoughts are welcome. 
And don't forget to share this blog! 

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty is a principal at Dirty Girls Consulting, offering special programs that coach women moving into leadership roles. Women work differently, think differently, and it is up to us to allow this difference to become our strengths. We explore breaking free of traditional standards, accomplishing professional and personal goals to cultivate an authentic, fully loved life. Read more Dirty Girl Consulting blogs here.

Obstacle #3: Can you hear me now?

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty

DGC Principal

nho@dirtygirlsconsulting.com

"You make a good point.  And this idea makes sense.  Let's talk about how we move this forward."

My idea just received executive approval.  I was sitting around a small formica conference table with our head of operations, chief technology officer, vice president of services and vice president of delivery.   And the idea I proposed was just validated as a smart, new direction for our business.

I should be feeling elated.  But I wasn't.

I had voiced the idea twenty minutes earlier.  At the time, the four men in the room looked at me, nodded and said, "That's really not our core competency, Natalie.  I don't know how much of a story we could really build around that."

Fast forward twenty minutes.  Why were they suddenly saying that my story idea, a new direction for the company, was the right idea?

Because one minute before that moment, the head of services restated my idea. In his own words.  But still my idea.

Welcome to Obstacle #3
Why wasn't I heard?  Why wasn't I getting credit for proposing this bold new move?

I can tell you why - now, in hindsight, of course - but first let's recognize that I am not alone.  There is plenty of discussion around why women feel they do not have a voice in senior level meetings or the boardroom.  Heath Flynn Holt, a consulting firm, wrote an article (Harvard Business Review, June 2014) about their 2012 study which identified some interesting thoughts from the male perspective:

• over 30% of men felt women didn't focus their ideas concisely enough
• over 50% of men said women didn't control the floor when they had it

This is compounded by women themselves stating that they don't feel they are loud enough to overcome the chatter and verbal one-upmanship of a group of men and they feel at a disadvantage when surrounded by men who are not part of their support system.

When staring this obstacle down. how should I have tackled it? First, to borrow a phrase my Dirty Girl partner uses often, how did I "show up" to the meeting? And second, how did I want to show up?

Walk into a room already feeling at a disadvantage - outnumbered and unsupported by your peers - and that's going to "show up" in how you present yourself.  Sit down dreading boisterous interruptions; you're going to get interrupted. Worry about being challenged; you'll freeze when you get push-back. Bring your insecurity to the table; self-doubt will sit down and have lunch.  They do that, our insecurities.  They feed.

But how did I want to show up?  Unsupported, nervous and insecure were not the words on the top of my list.  So before walking into that room - where perhaps being outnumbered is a given - think about who you want to bring with you.  You can't change the fact that you are the only woman in the room.  You can't change the fact that the men in the room are going to see you as a woman.  But you absolutely control what kind of woman are they going to see.

So what would that take, for you to show up as confident and knowledgable?  For one, it means excusing self doubt from the table, firmly, and dusting off the crumbs.  You know what you know. In fact, you know more than that.  Your ideas stem from the benefit of your experience and your intelligence -  the same traits that got you to this table in the first place.  When you "show up" as that confident, composed leader, that's what your table mates see.

It sounds so simple to say, "Just push that baggage aside and be great!"

But it is simple.  It's just not always easy.

Does defending your idea make you defensive?
The art of debate in the boardroom is remembering that we're all there for the same purpose - for the benefit of the company.  Staying composed can be difficult if you're interpreting every tough question as an attack - especially if your last interaction with Rob from sales or Kevin from human resources was not as productive as you would have liked. Staying focused on the facts and the key message will help you keep an even tone, avoiding any interpretation of being too emotional or highly defensive. Sometimes, bluntly reminding the people around the table of that goal - benefiting the company - can help alleviate the politics that can come into play when your idea is challenged and serve to keep you focused.

Why do they do it?  How do we respond?  

If I had asked my coworker afterwards why he stole my idea, I can pretty much guarantee you he'd stare at me like I had morphed into General Ackbar.

He didn't steal my idea because he didn't hear it. What he heard was, "Well… maybe… this might not be the right track… perhaps… it could be… we should consider…. I'm not sure this is the best idea but…"

Twenty minutes later, my coworker said, "Definitely… now… we must… I believe… this is… I know."  Whatever nuggets of my idea did seep in, he simply made better.  More powerful.

So who's idea would you follow?

It's a generalization but I'm going to say it anyway: women have tend to frame ideas in softer, more hesitant language.  We don't like to appear pushy.  We don't want to be labeled arrogant. We know - studies tell us repeatedly - that we are not likable when we assert ourselves (that's a whole other blog since we're playing to a perceived bias, not a real one...) The mission in my meeting was to get my point across, to propose an idea I firmly believed would get the company to the next stage. Yet, despite being one of the most direct people I know and I still fell into this verbal pandering.  But who are we pandering to? We aren't serving ourselves and we aren't serving the men in the room, either. They don't care. They don't even hear us.

Had I framed my idea as I truly believed in it and used language to convey not just my faith in my idea but the knowledge I had to back it up - the market data, the understanding of how media works - I would have "shown up" far more powerfully.  And probably shortened the meeting by twenty minutes.

So, your turn: has this happened to you?  While each of us faces a different situation, often the dynamics around the obstacle are similar.  What's your obstacle training look like?

As always, your comments and thoughts are welcome.  And don't forget to share this blog!

N.B.  I am aware that I am posting my obstacles "out of order" numerically.  I will beg your indulgence. It's just how I think.  And really, there is no good order to obstacles.  Is there?

Just get over it...

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty

DGC Principal

nho@dirtygirlsconsulting.com

Get over yourself.
Get over your fears.
Get over those hurt, misunderstood feelings.
Get over those hurdles.

Because once you get over, you can get on, right?  Get on with your goals, get on with your dreams, get on with your life.  The only thing holding us back from getting on is getting over.

There's merit to this.  "Get over it" suggests that sometimes, it doesn't help us to spend obstinate hours mulling over why a meeting went sideways or why our words were misunderstood.  Sometimes, it really is in our best interest to chalk it up to experience, to chance or mishap, and just keep plowing forward.  Especially in those situations where there's no fix, there's no changing the outcome, and there's really little chance for a future repeat.  Get over it and get on with it.

However, "get over it" can also be an excuse to gloss over an uncomfortable moment.

I've referred several times in my blogs and postings to the "glass obstacle course" that women in business face - women in any business, but especially in male dominated industries.  I've been noodling over a series of blogs about the glass obstacle course concept, and last week, I wrote a list of what I perceive those obstacles to be.  As I wrote it, I thought, "Wow, I am starting to sound like one of those strident femi-Nazis that Rush Limbaugh used to make fun of…"  And suddenly, concern about being assigned to that particular group paused my list-making.  What is it in my generation that makes many women uncomfortable with the word "feminist"?  Is it because we're sandwiched between the extreme stereotype of the man-hating, bra burning, "second wave feminists" of the 60s and 70s, and the blithely oblivious millennials who still have a thin understanding of the impact gender plays in our lives, at work and at home?  I scribbled some notes, I expanded my list of glass obstacles, and I sat uncomfortably with the idea of being a feminist writer. 

And then I just got over it.

Worrying about being labeled is something that I can justify needing to "just get over it."  I can't control any name-calling or pigeon-holing that might take place based on how someone interprets my words.

But I can't justify "just getting over" the obstacles on the list I created. We need to work through these, sometimes crush these… but we do ourselves a disservice to ignore or make light of them. Workplace challenges are very real.  Telling women to just get over it means telling them to play along to get along in corporate America - in the name of getting along with men.  This is not a new concept but what I keep seeing are articles and videos and speeches by women, for women, that tell us how to play the game.  Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In describes a lot of the challenges in corporate culture.  She lays out in the open the pitfalls women face when advancing their careers.  But her guidance to other women is very narrow.  Her own story, while true to her, isn't everyone's story.  Not all of us have a wonderfully supportive husband.  Not all of us have husbands.  Not all of us want to play the corporate game under the existing rules of engagement. Anne Marie Slaughter tells women they can't have it all… at least, not what they want when the want it.  Life is about making decisions but if you believe you can't have your all when and where you want it, then you're right. You won't. You already decided that.

The majority of advice women hear is about contorting themselves to conform to the man's game.  This still puts the control in the hands of men - we adjust our rhythms to a pattern men are comfortable and then we can get ahead. But I posit that men and women don't even define "having it all" the same way, so why are we playing their game?

There are two concepts I want to discuss throughout my next several blogs:

• First, the glass obstacle course is real.  Some obstacles are there as a result of history and culture.  Some are there because we women put them there.  It is worth the time to examine them and figure out the smartest way to get over them.  Some we will need to smash. Some we might rebuild into a new pathway through.  And some, well, we might just need to get over them.  
• Second, there's no denying office politics, corporate culture and games that are played when climbing the proverbial ladder.  You want to play that game - you want that c-level title?  Fine.  That's an admirable objective.  But does that mean you need to play their game? We need to explore our own power to change the rules and the outcomes of these games.  Educate our peers - male and female - on our expectations for the rules of engagement.

I invite you to join me on an exploration of the glass obstacle course and the rules of engagement.  Everyone's is a little bit different, but I bet many of the obstacles I've seen and faced are the same as yours.  We're not going to smash every obstacle, but we're going to do our best to avoid those tiny, painful slivers of glass when we do.  More than anything, we will have an honest conversation about what we want and how we go about getting it. On our terms.

As always, your comments and thoughts are welcome.  And don't forget to share this blog!

Obstacle #19 in the Glass Obstacle Course

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty

DGC Principal

Who put that in my way?  Did I?

I sat at my desk a few weeks ago, waiting for a coworker.  We’ll call him Kevin.  Kevin and I have a standard weekly meeting, which we normally conduct by phone since we work several states apart. This particular week, he traveled to my local office and so when I ran into him in the hallway earlier in the day, he confirmed he’d come by my desk at our usual time. 

Our meeting time came and passed… and I was still at my desk, waiting. 

Five minutes before our meeting was scheduled to end, Kevin stops by.  The apology for missing our meeting was buried in a joke. There was no acknowledgement that despite ready access to email, text and IM, he did not take fifteen seconds to let me know he wasn’t going to make our scheduled time.

This is where the glass obstacle analogy comes in.  Today, a small action – or rather inaction – does not stop me from doing my work or from having positive work relationships.  But what if Kevin made this a habit? And what if others observe this behavior and figure they can easily blow off meetings with me as well?  After all, I try to be accommodating and flexible: we are all so busy and it seems like a little thing, but it sets a precedent for future behavior.  Behavior that becomes an obstacle to my ability to function as a leader.

What really bothered me about the situation was trying to figure out what made Kevin think that it was ok to skip the professional courtesy of a call in the first place.  I thought about a few of our male coworkers with whom I knew he also had meetings that day.  And I am pretty sure if he was running late or about to miss one of those meetings, they would have received some sort of message about it.  After all, this was a business meeting. Was there something in my behavior that indicated that I did not require equal treatment to my male peers? 

  

This also puts the power structure of our relationship in Kevin’s hands.  I’m not into power struggles with coworkers – too much work – but I’ve also got things to do. And if I’m always adjusting my work to Kevin’s pace, my stuff may not get done.  And certainly not on the schedule I am trying to meet.  So there’s a balance to be managed here, where we collaborate and are both getting what we need.

How do I get around this obstacle… a seemingly harmless act of disrespect… without damaging what has been, so far, a productive and positive working partnership?

I suspect if I put the question to Kevin directly, he would be surprised that I interpreted the missing communication as disrespectful.  That lack of awareness raises the question of how men generally treat women in the work place.  And how we respond in return. Is it easier to skip the professional niceties with me because as a woman, I’m not as likely to make a fuss?  Did I invite this behavior because I laugh at his jokes?  Do I sound like a harpy if I call him out on it?  There are already myriad studies that show how women struggle with being liked in the work place – and drawing a firm line is one way we get pegged as being strident or aggressive.  Or to use Sheryl Sandberg’s term… bossy.

Mrs. Roosevelt had it partly right: we do teach people how to treat us.  So it’s my job to tell Kevin, “Hey, my time is valuable and if you’re going to miss an appointment, you need to let me know.”  But she only had it partly right because some patterns of behavior were taught long before we came into the picture.  Men and women do treat each other differently, and I have long held the belief that what we perceive as sexism in the workplace is not just perpetuated by men, but by women too.  Some roles and behaviors are familiar to us, even though they may not be the best behaviors for success at work.

I still don't know if this particular glass obstacle is one I nudged into my path or one that has been there a while and I finally tripped over it.  I suppose it doesn't matter.  I just know it's there.  But now that I've bumped into it, I can scale it.

How many obstacles do you run into that seem innocuous?  We are so ready to excuse them.  But step back and examine the pattern… are they really so innocent?