By Victoria Pynchon, Forbes.com
Special to Online Career Tips
At the ABA Women Lawyers Leadership Academy this month, the formidable working mother Mary Cranston, Chair of the ABA’s Commission on Women in the Profession and the first woman Chair of an AmLaw100 firm, instructed the crowd of eager young women lawyers to set audacious goals and learn the art of the strategic “no.”
When Cranston achieved her goal of making partner at Pillsbury (no small accomplishment) she realized she needed another goal.
No book of business in hand and with no knowledge of how to build one, she said to herself, “I’ll build the biggest book at Pillsbury” (more than audacious -in the category of immaculate conceptions).
The Four Magic Words for Women Lawyers – Portable Book of Business
I don’t know if Cranston built the biggest, but she built one large enough to be a major player in a mega-firm with a sterling reputation – a goal that few women at the time had achieved and that most women continue to find unreachable.
For Cranston, the strategic “no” was simple.
If the task did not further her career plans (or feed a passion) the answer was “no.” She had two children at home at a time when the “standard” advice was not to have children before you made partner. We boomer women lawyers were told that pregnancy “showed a lack of commitment.” The men, of course, fathered children whenever they damn well pleased.
Cranston knew she didn’t have time to say “yes” to everything her firm asked her to do and “yes” to children as well.
Why It’s Hard For Us To Do
This morning, over at The Glass Hammer, an executive coach also advises women to use the strategic no after reminding us why it’s so difficult to do.
A lot of my executive coaching clients have a hard time saying “No” too, yet it’s a critical skill we need to succeed and keep our sanity. Saying “No” is hard because it’s inconsistent with the beliefs we have about ourselves (we’re supposed to be collaborative, empathetic, care-taking), and the expectations others have of us. I often catch myself resenting a woman establishing boundaries when I would never think twice about a man doing it. So how do we as women leaders establish boundaries with both power and grace?
via Say “No” with Power and Grace » The Glass Hammer.
Say it loud and say it proud.
“No, I’m sorry, but I’m heading up the trial team for Microsoft and we’re choosing the jury in three weeks. I’d love to help. Why don’t you ask Jack? His hours are low.”
O.K., so you don’t need to throw Jack under the bus but remember the men are doing it to one another and to us every working day.
Say, “I’m on the Finance Committee and we’re just digging ourselves out of the recession and interviewing possible merger partners as well. I’d love to serve on the hiring or diversity committee. They do essential work. Why don’t you ask Robert? He hasn’t picked up a Committee assignment yet and he needs one if he expects to stay on the partnership track.”
Be On Purpose
Notice I’m suggesting men rather than my professional sisters for low-status committee work. Maybe if men begin to populate those committees, they’ll increase in status, and diversity will become something other than a glittering lure for law students who still believe in the Tooth Fairy and law firms’ commitment to work-life balance.
AmLaw100 firms with the most highly rated women’s initiatives have worst records for promoting women.
I walked into a meeting yesterday and was asked, at the door, “are you the speaker?” The answer was “no” but I still asked “why, do I look like the speaker?”
“Well, you look purposeful,” she replied.
That’s good news for someone who was told 25 years ago that I wasn’t being advanced to partnership because I always looked “frazzled” and “hurried.” I didn’t say, that’s because I’m doing your job in addition to mine, though I surely thought it.
What I should have known (but didn’t have Cranston around to remind me) was that saying “yes” to everything made me look frazzled.
Later, a Gen-X associate would use the word “haggard” when she left work at 5 p.m. and I stayed the entire night finishing a critical summary judgment motion before going to the gym to shower and then to Macys to buy a new outfit for the three day deposition of a Rand statistician I was in the midst of examining .
In short, I wasn’t doing my career any favors by micro-managing, keeping the important work to myself and (by that time barely) tolerating my associates’ “work-life balance.” The easy answer to that, by the way, is to staff up, not work your associates or partners like slaves.
Saying “No” to “Women’s Work”
I can’t stress strongly enough how important it is to use your strategic “no” whenever you’re asked to do “women’s work.” I was litigating a quarter billion dollar environmental insurance coverage case with a defense team comprised of equity partners from more than a dozen AmLaw firms back in the late nineties. We’d been assigned to the Complex Case Court, presided over by one of the smartest, most successful Judges on the Los Angeles Superior Court bench.
I was the only woman at the table.
The Judge turned to me at the beginning of our first in-chambers status conference and said “will you take notes?”
I smiled at her and responded, “with all due respect, Your Honor, I’d like to lateral the note-taking duty to one of the male lawyers at the table.” I smiled and took a beat. “We women do the clerical work far too often, don’t you agree?”
It was a dangerous move. You don’t oppose the simple requests of Judges who have the power to dismiss your case or, at the least, make your life a living hell. It was a calculated risk, however, one I hoped would establish a bond between us without going overboard on the sisterhood angle.
She smiled, reddened, took the point (“well said,” she mused) and gave the job to the senior-most man at the table.
Be strong. Take risks. Say “no.”
Here, however, are a couple of thing to say “yes” to. The first is my mid-January negotiation seminar being offered online by 3Plus International at a substantial discount – less than half my consulting rate for a four-part program that will teach you to say “yes” to what’s important and “no” to what interferes with your goals.
The second is How Remarkable Women Lead by McKinsey & Company consultants Joanna Barsh and Susie Cranston. Yes, that’s Susie Cranston, daughter of Mary Cranston and, I know, one of her proudest achievements in a lifetime of successes.
Full disclosure – Susie is one of my step-daughter’s closest friends but I didn’t learn about this book from her. I’ve had this book recommended to me by successful women from every area of business and the professions.
If you haven’t yet purchased all of your holiday presents, the gift of a negotiation seminar or of How Remarkable Women Lead for the harried professional or business woman in your life is a gift that will keep on giving.
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