DEFINING YOUR PROFESSIONAL VALUE AND SPEAKING UP FOR YOURSELF
When I’m dressing for work, I check my reflection to make sure that everything is where it’s supposed to be. Often I see two Mikas. No, my closet doesn’t have twin mirrors, and I haven’t forgotten my glasses. (I actually have terrible vision and desperately need to get to my eye doctor—maybe after this book!) The reason I see double is because there are two versions of me that walk out into the world every day—and I have spent my entire adult life learning about the value of each of them while wishing they were one and the same.
I’m a slow learner. It took me years before I fathomed that my professional self and personal self were genuinely different from each other. It was longer still before I came to understand that each was equally important, even if the balance tipped from day to day, year to year. Then I spent another eight years gradually identifying, evaluating, cultivating, and knowing my financial worth during the rebirth of my career in television news, when I joined Joe Scarborough as cohost of Morning Joe.
It’s only now that I fully appreciate that the only way for me to feel like a successful woman is to grow my value in all areas of my life. It took me roughly three decades to get all this, but it doesn’t have to take you anywhere near that long. I’m not saying that experience and accumulated wisdom aren’t important, because they absolutely are. But you don’t have to waste time. If you want to feel like a truly successful woman, you shouldn’t waste time. You can learn to define—and expand the definitions of—your professional and personal identities now.
To do that, we’re going to go on a little tour. Of you. You’re going to take a really hard look at your professional self and your private self. You’re going to remember the moment you entered adult public life—for most of us, that happened when we got our first real job—because it was within that first minute that you began to develop a professional persona distinct from your personal identity. You’re going to think about the enormity of that growth spurt and whether you were conscious of it then or if you are even now. Even so, you did it. You demarcated two states of being in yourself: one, to adjust and rise to the demands and conditions of your new professional life, and the other, to establish your new adult personal life and settle into what you were really feeling inside. You’re going to pinpoint the degree to which you are in control—really in the conductor’s seat—and the degree to which you have, consciously or not, allowed circumstances to dictate your life’s direction.
If you’ve never thought about any of this explicitly, don’t worry—that’s completely normal. The development of your professional persona probably occurred so naturally, so gradually, that you probably didn’t even notice that it was happening.
What I want you to do right now is to notice. Take inventory. Of all of it.
THE BIRTH OF YOUR PROFESSIONAL PERSONA
Let’s talk about the Big Bang of your career: the birth of your professional persona. When you entered the workplace as a young adult, it was probably the first time you’d ever had to behave in a way different from just yourself—however cool, quirky, smart, bubbly, or however you’d wanted to come across to your friends in school or college (we’ve all been there). Moreover, if you were in your early twenties and just coming out of college, it was probably the first time you’d ever not been a student. And on the path to knowing your professional marketability, the experience of graduating from being a student to a working person is a major landmark.
After all, in college you had enormous control over the scale and scope of your own success, as well as a great deal of freedom to decide the particular areas at which you actively wanted to succeed. It was all in your lap. There were clear instructions on how to achieve, and everyone knew them, from deans and professors to students: study the material, participate in class, and perform well on graded work. That was pretty much the blueprint, and to the extent that you followed it, your sense of value as a student was either elevated or deflated. The particular nature of your interests and aptitude became even more finely honed once you chose a major. No matter how diligent you were or weren’t, you were making your first important declaration of your interests and your abilities. In short, it was the first time you really asserted your sense of who you were as a young adult.
Then you graduated. You entered the workforce. And your sense of self and exactly what it is you have to offer probably vaporized on contact.
That’s basically what happened to me. I had been an English major in college, and a pretty decent one—I thought. But when I was applying for jobs at local television news stations, the producers didn’t care that I’d been a hard-working student or that I had graduated from Williams College. And the competition for even the smallest television markets in the country was brutal. I was darn lucky just to land a job helping staff reporters and producers track down whether oil spills on the highway or fender benders in the suburbs were worth pursuing as TV news stories. But deploying my student’s sense of value in this field? Are you kidding? What did parsing a Shakespeare sonnet have to do with a breech at a local sewage treatment plant? What did Jane Austen have to do with a homicide in Hartford?
The skills I had learned in college were seemingly useless—and my sense of my own value plummeted. As I wrote in my first book, All Things at Once: “I’d wanted to be actively engaged in building my career, and laying the foundation for a family—and I was nowhere. . . . To borrow a line from Pat Buchanan that he shared one day on Morning Joe, I felt like ‘a big nothing burger.’”
I also had no real mentor; no boss who was going to show me the ropes. I had to figure everything out on the fly. Is that striking a familiar chime with you? It happens to many of us. After having been hired, you’re given a job title, but, depending on how lucky you are in your boss, either you are given thorough training or someone who just basically tosses a stack of papers on your desk and says, “Organize and file,” before vanishing into a labyrinth of beige cubicles. Where is the blueprint to succeed like the one you had in college? A human resources staffer might have given you an employee handbook covering health benefits and antidiscrimination policies on your first day, but there are no instructions on how to excel at this job. You have to wing it. On your own.
And thus your professional identity is born: the personality you wear at work. But this game face isn’t good enough. Straight up: your career will not become as successful as it can be unless you can grow that professional persona into something much bigger and more valuable. Indeed, it becomes the basis for your professional value: that unique set of personal qualities, professional style, and work experience that sets you apart from everyone else in the room.
PROFESSIONAL VALUE–BUILDING BASICS
Developing your professional brand, one that has financial value, is different from just doing a good job at work. It’s about developing a skill set that you can translate into a brand. You need to be patient. This will take time to evolve and mature. First, you have to earn your chops. You need to put in your time doing the kind of drudgery that has attended every entry-level job in the history of employment. But by bearing down and doing it, you learn how to do hard work and probably work you don’t like to do—and it also burns off any residual collegiate arrogance. This isn’t college anymore.
At work you build a new sense of value. You learn how to act—and how not to act—with everyone at your organization, from your boss to the executive-in-chief to your peers. You learn how to dress appropriately. You learn what your place is and how to maximize it so you can move on to the next place you’d like to go. You come to understand how the system and politics of your workplace operate. You make mistakes, and you learn how to handle them and how those mistakes impact your sense of professional value. Same thing with your successes: you observe how successful people a rung—or more—above you do their jobs, watching their wins and their flops and learning about how the pros get work done.
One of my most important mentors early on would turn out to be my future husband, Jim. We met in our early twenties, working together at a small Fox station in Hartford, Connecticut. He was thorough, tireless, and always naturally connected with whomever he was interviewing. He had a brand as the best reporter in the market. It was a hard-fought reputation. Looking at how good he was as an investigative reporter, I realized that it would take years for me to reach that level of expertise.
Jim was and still is candid with me about my work. After the first break of my career, covering a double homicide in the Stowe Village public housing projects in a miniskirt and heels in the middle of winter (basically, looking every bit the spoiled, uptight white girl in a throng of people who were not happy to have me on their home turf), Jim told me I’d done “a nice job.” Not criticism, but not exactly overwhelming praise either—nor did I deserve any. The next time I was more prepared. I dressed appropriately, I was ready, and I was confident. It was the start of my career in television journalism.
All of these first work experiences—whether they’re two years’ worth or twenty—are the seeds you plant to grow your brand and increase its worth. Therefore, it’s important to reflect on them, think about what you learned from them, and choose which parts you want to nurture and grow. If you’re the journaling type, then journal away. If you’re more of a list maker, use an outline or make bullet points. If you’re reentering work life after staying home with your children for a few (or more) years, it’s a good time to regroup and plot out your career strategy. Keep track of what you enjoy and strategize how to do more of it. You can even ask your kids to help you make a PowerPoint presentation. I don’t care how you do it; just give your work and life journey real thought. Make the connections between how one move or observation led to the next, positive or negative, and where it took you. It’s time to start mapping out your professional value: the amalgamation of all your experiences and assets that make you vital on the job.
Take, for example, the experience of television senior executive, producer, and impresario Nely Galán, the former head of Telemundo, the largest Spanish-speaking television company in the world, and self-styled “Latina Tyler Perry.” When you speak with her it’s clear that Nely is absolutely positive—in every sense of the word—about her professional value. “My professional value is about being fully and authentically Latina, and yet a Latina who can be fully in the mainstream. Which I think is the quagmire of Latina women in America, just like many different women around the world—Middle Eastern women, Indian women, Chinese women—who come from traditional cultures,” she said, talking about her own professional value from her home in Venice Beach, California. “We seem to always be in the crossroads of fully being authentic to our traditions, but we want to be part of the mainstream too. So I think I built a profession in the first part of my life around television, telling the stories of those women at the crossroads.”
And how did she develop her professional value? What about her past prepared her to build it? Where did it come from in her life? “I was born in Cuba. We immigrated to this country when I was five. My parents were very Latino and very proud to be Latino, and always made me feel that being Latina was the best of both worlds. And I really always felt that—which I think is important for me to say to other women from other cultures. I always felt like I would make double the money because I knew two cultures really well,” she said, speaking about how her upbringing shaped from an early age her clear sense of herself professionally and personally. “[I always knew] whatever I did, I would bring my two sides. And I always say that I could be a million things. I don’t think it’s all about this one career. It’s more about finding your voice. Like, if I was a doctor, I would be helping Latinos and I’d also be fully in the mainstream, publishing and being a doctor. . . . If I was a lawyer, I’d probably be in some way helping Latinos, and maybe not even charging Latinos and taking on very high-end clients to pay for my practice. If I’m a teacher, I would be focused a lot on Latino kids. . . . I concerned myself more about what was my voice, what was my authentic voice, than what specific career I was going to go into. Because it didn’t really matter. I was going to be successful at anything I did.”
Nely’s upbringing didn’t play a coincidental role in her professional life—indeed, it shaped her professional value. How does your background shape yours? How did the way you were raised give you a special perspective—on what? Was there a moment in your upbringing that marked a turning point for you, when you had an inkling or outright decided what you wanted to do for a living when you “grew up”?
FOUND MY FOOTING
Let’s look at your early work history. Think back. There is usually a story—more specifically, your own personal story—that illustrates the moment you first had your “Wow, I’ve arrived!” experience on the job. That story tells you a lot about the origins of your professional value. For Nancy Gibbs, managing editor of TIME, it was getting an assignment she didn’t want. “Back around 1988 the editor of TIME, Henry Muller, called me to his office to tell me that I had passed the ‘writer’s trial’ given to fact checkers who hoped to be promoted,” Nancy wrote to me. “But now, Henry told me, I was a full-fledged staff writer. I was elated. And, he went on, henceforth I was no longer assigned to the International section; I was to be the new Living writer, reporting to a legendary and notoriously rigorous editor named Martha Duffy, one of the first women ever to hold that title at TIME. I was crushed. I gulped my thanks, left Henry’s office, and went back to see my great mentor Otto Friedrich. ‘I don’t want to be the Living writer,’ I told him. ‘Living stories are about ice cream flavors and designer dogs. I hate the Living section!’ And he just smiled at me and said, ‘Nancy. . . . this is the best thing that ever could have happened. Everyone hates the Living section. This is your chance to do whatever you want with it. And Martha wouldn’t have asked for you if she didn’t think you could do it.’
“So one of my first Living cover stories was about a landmark Supreme Court case concerning the right to die. I wrote about date rape when that phrase was brand new; about how we apportion resources between children and the elderly; about crime and punishment, faith and values, politics, policy. Martha, who was famous for not suffering fools, was a great editor and champion, and subsequent editors kept letting me try new things, search for the story that doesn’t fall into a category, for which I am forever grateful. The next TIME editor, Jim Gaines, a terrific journalist with a great story sense, started assigning me the cover story every third or fourth week. And he gave me a raise I hadn’t asked for. That was when I had a sense I might have found my footing.”
After surviving that proving ground—and prevailing—Nancy’s professional value began to solidify. “I used to say it came down to the central rule of news writers: you have to write faster than everyone who writes better, and better than everyone who writes faster,” she mused. “I have since come to think of it as patrolling the territory where public and private intersect, on both the What and the Why of major events, which is how I came to focus in my books as well as my journalism on the presidency. I’m not just interested in what presidents do in the job; I want to know what the job does to them.”
Very clear. Honed by her experience. Realizes what her unique perspective is. Nancy knows exactly what she brings to the table—her capabilities, her talents, and her value in the marketplace. She took smart, calculated risks that she knew would make her job more interesting to her and that she hoped would improve the magazine. It worked, and now she’s in charge of the place.
Michele Sullivan, the first woman president of the Caterpillar Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the heavy construction equipment behemoth, is also clear on her mission. As the head of an international nonprofit, she has decided that it will, in large part, focus on improving the lives of girls and women in high-needs circumstances. “In Africa boys go to school. The girls look for water all day and don’t go to school. When you then provide them with water—a well or a hookup—if it’s in India, for example, the girls now have a chance to go to school and become educated. And it’s totally putting them on the path to prosperity,” Michele explained to me when I invited her on as a guest on Morning Joe. “But even in the US we are investing in organizations such as LISC, the Local Initiative Support Corporation, which is well known for turning around impoverished neighborhoods. We opened an office in Peoria, Illinois, which is the world headquarters of Caterpillar. And we just opened the first financial opportunity center right in an impoverished neighborhood, which gives an integrated approach to the families. They budget, they learn about their credit score, they get ready for a job, and most of the clients are single women. So when you start to put your money in the women and the girls, the family will start to flourish.”
Michele’s mission for the Caterpillar Foundation and the brand it represents are tied together. Moreover, she’s tied herself and her own sense of inner value to that brand. As a little person, Michele has overcome many of her own personal hurdles at work and in her personal life. She wants the Caterpillar Foundation to give to other women what she feels so blessed to have had. “I know how lucky I am in so many ways. People don’t have what I have, but they should. A woman should have self-esteem. If a woman has self-esteem, she has everything to start,” she said to me. “And I’ve always had that, thanks to my parents and where I was born. Not everybody has that. And that’s where it comes from in me.”
The cosmetics queen and mogul Bobbi Brown is also clear on her brand—not just for her line of makeup but also for the philosophy behind it, the one that drives her as a businesswoman, wife, and mother. “I certainly believe that confidence is the secret to beauty. Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself. If you compare yourself to women whom you meet or actresses on television—supermodels for sure—you don’t usually win those kinds of contests. But if you look inside yourself and you learn to love who you are and enhance your features, then you become your best self. My motto is ‘Be who you are,’” she told me during a conversation we had for this book. “We don’t do makeovers at our counter; we do lessons. We teach women how to do their makeup in their style, and that’s been a really big, important part of our growth.”
How does she see her professional value, if it could be reduced to a few sentences? “I think I am simple. I am straightforward. I am honest. I have a little bit of a wicked sense of humor and a funny wit. And I believe in telling the truth,” Bobbi said to me. That core piece of her professional value is reflected, she told me, in her cosmetics brand as well. “I, like most of the women who come to my counter, am usually multitasking. You know, many of us have husbands, children, jobs, things that we volunteer for, and we get overloaded. We need something quick and easy. So I understand really strongly that for most of us women, we need things that are simple, quick, and actually do what they promise to do.”
Building your professional value isn’t an overnight job, and it isn’t easy. You have to be bold. Ask yourself tough questions and give real answers.
• What about my background has shaped what I am doing now? What about it is shaping what I want to do?
• How has each of my experiences built on the last?
• What was my pivotal work experience that told me that I was really thriving?
• What were my biggest three mistakes and what did I learn from them—and what about my behavior still holds me back?
• What have my biggest three successes taught me about what I’m good at and what I love doing?
• What characteristics have earned me positive attention at work?
• Which of my personality traits have earned me lukewarm or negative attention?
• What do I want to accomplish in my life? What do I need to accomplish?
• What haven’t I done but am dying to try?
Try it. Learn what dreams and goals are lurking in your psyche. Take time pulling them out and admiring them from different angles. Get inspired. Get driven. Get action oriented. Just don’t take as much time as I did. As Nely was told on a trip by a group of eighty-something-year-old fellow travelers: “‘Honey, do everything on your bucket list before you’re sixty-five. Because after you’re sixty-five, your body is a ticking time bomb.’”
JILL OF ALL TRADES
For the first twenty years of my career as a television news journalist, I had no professional value. The concept never even occurred to me. In the early years I had a ridiculous stereotype of a television news reporter in my head, and I overdressed and overacted for the part—marking me as a rank amateur, although I didn’t know it at the time. Even when I started dressing more conservatively—though with zero personal style—for years, I had, a rather amorphous professional persona. My response to not being shown how to do my job—to build my professional value—was to become a Jill of All Trades. I surfed through my career, riding wave after wave, a combination of the ebb and flow of the relentless news business and my compulsive reactivity to it. I was willing to do—and did do—whatever the newsroom producers needed done: cover local crises, read the evening news, and so forth.
At age thirty I was the anchor of CBS’s Up to the Minute, which taped at nine o’clock at night and then shot live from a grueling two o’clock in the morning until five. It was a thankless job, and in truth, I hated it. I was so worn ragged from the punishing hours that one night, barely conscious, I fell down the stairs at home while carrying my infant daughter, Carlie, and risked both of our lives. It was nothing short of a miracle that we ended up being fine ultimately, but not without Carlie breaking a leg and me suffering from near-paralyzing guilt that I still haven’t been able to let go of. Still, I did that job because I was young and wanted that work experience. In hindsight I realize that I needed to learn what I liked doing and where I wanted to take it. I needed to start building my professional value.
But I didn’t. I continued to run wherever I was told to go. Now, some of those experiences were incredibly enriching. I had a front-row seat to history, as it happened. For example, I reported on up-to-the-minute chad counting during the infamous Bush-Gore election of 2000 for MSNBC, and I all but lived at the Secaucus, New Jersey, studios for that tense and unexpectedly protracted period of time. I reported from a dangerously blown-out outpost, steps away from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and became CBS’s voice from Ground Zero. I participated in some major moments in the early part of American twenty-first-century history, and I’m proud of my work.
I also wore pencil skirts, fabulous boots, and, along with my two female cohosts, bubbled a daily girlish “Shoe check!” as we stuck out our bedecked feet to gush over in mutual admiration, all for the women’s cable show HomePage, which Entertainment Weekly, probably rightly, dubbed “The PowerPuff Girls of journalism.” They asked, and I delivered.
I had done a lot of different things, but I had no focus. I was constantly reacting to what was needed instead of proactively pitching stories that had my particular perspective or stamp branded into them. Truthfully I didn’t think of pitching any of those stories because I didn’t have an area of expertise. I didn’t think of myself as being the one in control— I was there to please my superiors. I did what I was told to do. Or I pitched what I thought they would like, not what interested me.
What I considered the height of my career was in my mid- to late thirties when I reported for CBS Sunday Morning, the CBS Evening News, 48 Hours, and 60 Minutes II. The producers assigned me stories, and I thought I had arrived because I was always overbooked. I was busy, but I was definitely not in the conductor’s seat; I was more like a very eager passenger. I thought I was doing the right thing by making myself indispensable, the kind of reporter whom producers would send out on any story because they knew I was up for and equal to the job. I had that professional reputation to the extent that people in the newsroom teased me for being Overbooked Mika.
Still, after twenty years in the business, I had no immediately identifiable brand, nothing that distinguished me as an instantly recognizable television personality known for her perspective, professionalism, and personal style. In short, I had no professional value. And that’s why, I believe, I was ultimately fired from CBS, the last job I had before joining MSNBC’s Morning Joe in 2007. With a new president then at the helm, there was a “housecleaning.” I was easy to lose. Although I would do anything, to the higher-ups I represented nothing in particular. Instead of being indispensable, I had made myself easily disposable. Because there was nothing unique that I brought to the table—nothing that I could articulate, anyway—that reflected my own professional value. I could be replaced by anyone willing and able to do the jobs I had done. And I was.
Blair Blackwell knows this story all too well. Now manager of Education and Corporate Programs at Chevron, Blair had been frustrated at a nonprofit for years, somehow unable to carve out a role to be where she could shine. Ultimately she left her job and spent eight months interviewing people she trusted, reading and networking in order to find a meaningful position that afforded upward growth and opportunity.
When she read Knowing Your Value, Blair had her “aha” moment. She instantly recognized that her reticence to advocate for herself had kept her from reaching her potential at work. “I was always overly accommodating,” Blair said. “I felt lucky just to be at the table rather than having an attitude of ‘I’m the right person to be at this table.’” Just as I had been, Blair was a “yes” woman, willing to do whatever was asked of her even though her experience and performance were manifest proof that she was capable of far more. She hadn’t fully recognized—and she certainly hadn’t communicated—her professional value. She hadn’t spoken up. And because of that, she wasn’t heard.
So Blair took time to consider carefully her next move. Her career included stints as a tax consultant, education adviser, and development director in places as diverse as Kazakhstan, Bosnia, and New York, and Blair knew she had to step up her game in articulating the skills she offered. When she spread out the diverse assortment of jobs on her résumé, she worried that to others it looked as if she lacked focus. But as she looked more closely she noticed that the amazing variety had informed her work life. “I’ve invested a lot of time learning from my career successes as well as the challenges or frustrations I’ve faced,” she said. “[Reading] Knowing Your Value gave me permission to not be perfect and to better appreciate all that my varied experience brings to the table. That’s pretty powerful. So when I was in my job discussions with Chevron, I had more confidence articulating my experience and value and asking for the salary commensurate with that. I’m now in a position I love and in a place in which I feel extremely respected and empowered.”
That’s a major element of not just knowing but also growing your professional value: you must articulate it clearly, be a strong advocate for yourself, and allow your personality to shine boldly. Noticeably. I can’t stress that enough. Blair had not effectively done that, she said, until she had read my book. Why not? I wondered, as I often do about myself and the many women I meet who have been or are in Blair’s (and my) shoes. What did she think had been holding her back—psychologically—from marketing her professional value at work? Blair admitted that she had probably unconsciously been too afraid to promote herself because, she said, she didn’t want to appear “aggressive.”
AMBITIOUS WOMEN ARE ATTRACTIVE
Okay, let’s just stop here for a minute and clear something up. There is a toxic sexist stereotype that’s been floating around in our culture’s well water for far too long. I think it’s time we filter out the concept that “aggressive” women are unattractive. This is just wrong. So-called aggressive women, to me, are those who know their value, speak up for themselves, and offer their perspective where pertinent. They are leaders. From where I sit, aggressive women are crucial in a business setting. These women often get what they want because they have the confidence to speak up. It’s almost as simple as that.
Let me tell you one of my favorite aggressive woman stories. I was in the Milly boutique in Manhattan (Michelle Smith, founder of the Milly label, is one of my all-time favorite designers, and you’ll meet this imaginative, successful, and resilient woman later in the book). While I was shopping, a young woman approached me with a beautiful, welcoming smile. With personal poise and genuine graciousness, she told me how much she loved the show and that as an up-and-coming shoe designer, she really loved my fashion sense—the way I wore my shoes, in particular, was flat-out hot and classically tasteful all at once. Would I accept a pair of boots that she had designed, that she was sure that I would love?
I couldn’t say, “Are you kidding me? Yes!” fast enough. And I had no idea of what these boots even looked like yet. But I was almost positive that I was going to love them simply because of the way she had presented herself to me. In the less than two minutes it took for her to introduce herself as Layla-Joy Williams, she had impressed me with lovely manners, a warm confidence, and her outfit, which was a flawless communication of what I would call elegant bohemian—ebullient and artsy yet neatly pulled together and sophisticated.
There was no question that this was an aggressive, ambitious young woman; after all, she’d marched right up and boldly pushed her product line on me, obviously hoping I’d wear her boots on air so that she could get free, national publicity. She knew exactly what she was doing. But the truth is that a lot of people hustle their stuff at me for the exact same purpose. But generally they are either offensive, rude, and cocky; too meek to make their point quickly and effectively; or so slavishly flattering that their obvious insincerity only makes me feel used and squeamish. Layla-Joy Williams, however, had the whole package, and that signaled to me a core competence: my instinct told me that she was going to be successful because of that.
I happily took her card and the boots, which I loved so much that I wore them at the shoot for my Cosmo column (which means that Layla-Joy’s boots are now featured in one of the top women’s magazines every month). She has become one of my fashion contacts and unofficial mentees—young women I’ve taken an interest in and introduce to key players who I think will be helpful to them as they start their careers.
Another one of my favorite aggressive women stories involves meeting Allison Dorst, founder and head of the athletic fashion site Pinks and Greens. Allison approached me in an elevator when I was rushing between two events, effectively pitching her company—stylish workout clothes that actually fit and flatter women of all body types—to me in just under two minutes. By minute three she had my personal e-mail address.
Alison followed up with me over e-mail consistently, for over two months, until I had the time to bring her in to 30 Rock for a meeting. When she got the chance, she came prepared. Allison walked into my office with samples of her merchandise and a clear vision of her brand’s potential. When I asked her whether she could come back again the next day, she did, no questions asked. Frankly I admired her spunk, tenacity, and fearlessness right from the very beginning—so much so that I ultimately became an investor in her company and brought her on to help with my Know Your Value events, starting with that very first one in Hartford. Who better to help me with an “elevator pitch” competition than the woman who actually pitched me in an elevator? We now have a relationship that is mutually beneficial, all because Alison came ready to play. She’s aggressive, for sure—shy types don’t corner people in elevators—just one of the reasons I know her company is going to be wildly successful.
But let’s face it: most people just don’t like the term “aggressive.” And when someone uses adjectives like “aggressive” and “unattractive” to describe a woman’s professional behavior, we all intuitively grasp the subtext. Such comments are made to remind us, subtly or not, that we are there to err on the side of “talk nice and look pretty.” Essentially, to be people-pleasers. So if you don’t like the word “aggressive,” substitute one that you identify with: ambitious, determined, focused, assertive, direct. Whatever term we use, we must stop letting the fear of powerful characteristics being attributed to us get in the way of making the most of our careers. Certainly personal style, dignity, sense of humor, and strong work ethic are welcome qualities at any job. But being nervous about being seen as “unattractive” for promoting your accomplishments in the right place at the right time? Please.
Getting back to “aggressive,” I have to admit that I like the term and all that it connotes. It’s a word I’d like to see powerful women take back, own for themselves, and use to define and grow their professional value. Yet it’s complicated and controversial, especially when it comes to power dynamics between men and women in the workplace.
But why is that? When I was meeting up with my friend, cosmetics mogul Bobbi Brown, I knew she’d be the perfect person to help me think this through. After all, if anyone knows about being successful and attractive, it’s Bobbi. It’s the basis of her entire business; in fact, the tagline of her company’s philosophy is, “Pretty Powerful.” So I asked for her nuanced response as to why the word “aggressive” to describe successful professional women was so problematic.
Bobbi was thoughtful. I could tell she didn’t completely like the word. “I think the word I would choose to use is being ‘fearless,’” she said. “A lot of people are afraid of doing the wrong thing. . . . I think the difference is being assertive is one thing, being aggressive is not positive.” Not positive? Why is aggression such a bad thing—and is it only considered so when it applies to women? “‘Aggression’ is not positive because, to me, that comes with intensity and anger,” she explained. “I think just being ‘assertive’ but mostly just not being afraid [is what has worked for me].” I ran another laden term by her. What about the word “ambitious”? Did she like that way of describing the same kind of powerful women? “I think ‘ambitious’ is great,” she raved. “It’s passion, it’s drive, it’s hard work. People forget about the words ‘hard work.’ Hard work is really the most important thing.”
Bobbi is right, of course. Hard work is absolutely the most important thing a person can contribute to her career. And if you want to be successful, you have to take it for granted that hard work is going to dominate your work life. But there’s a little trick to it. Hard work on the job is a little like the tree falling in the forest: it doesn’t make much noise if no one hears about it.
So for heaven’s sake, speak up. If I hadn’t spoken up about why I needed a raise on Morning Joe—especially when Joe was making fourteen times what I was making—I might still be making a day rate as a freelancer on the show. And by the way, I had to be “aggressive” about it. If I hadn’t communicated my value in a direct, unapologetic way, who would have paid me what I am worth? Advocating for yourself is simply what a competitive workplace demands. In fact, it’s expected. If you don’t proactively endorse yourself and your work, chances are you aren’t going to get very far.
YOUR BOSS HAS NO MEMORY
In my three decades of working in ferociously competitive environments, I’ve realized that men know that the above statement about bosses is true. Have you ever met a successful man in any workplace who doesn’t make sure he gets credit for everything he’s had a hand in doing? Unless you work for a religious institution or place of worship, my guess is that you haven’t.
This is not usually the case with women. In talking with women all around the country I have found that many simply assume that their good work is being noticed, noted, and filed away in consideration for future promotions. This is simply not true. Not by a long shot. Every workplace is busy, no matter what kind it is. Your superiors have a lot on their minds, and much of the time they’re likely racing to stay just ahead of the curve so that the people they answer to don’t steamroll them.
So commit this to memory right now, verbatim: your boss probably has no memory at all of the great work you have done. That’s why, even with a solid track record, you must be assertive (or fill in the blank with your adjective of choice). You must check in with your higher-ups to explain exactly why you are the perfect person for the new job, the raise, flextime—whatever you need. This behavior isn’t merely appropriate; it’s essential to growing your professional value and to your career overall. If, for example, you have pulled off profitable projects that were made better by your particular handling of them and you can make the case for yourself—that is, you can really articulate your professional value—I am confident that you’ll get what you want. Or at least you’ll get more than what you had when you first walked in the office. Consider the following three scenarios.
In Scenario A, Mika works like crazy for every news show her network produces, but she never lets the president know how much and what kind of work she’s doing, or how these accomplishments raise the profile of the company. Because no one knows what precisely she brings to the table or how to best steer her talents and energy, Mika is one of the first to go when trimming needs to be done in the department (as indeed I was).
In Scenario B, Mika starts a new job. When she does exceedingly well and believes she deserves a raise commensurate with her worth to the company, she tries to act like a guy (like Joe). She trash-talks to her boss about getting more money and even jabs him in the shoulder because she thinks she’s required to act like a man to get a salary equal to a man’s. But her efforts are seen as shrill, bizarre, and completely out of character, so her request is ignored.
In Scenario C, however, Mika finally gets smart. She books time with her boss (after enough time has passed after the “guy” negotiation) and tells him exactly why he needs to compensate her. She also explains why the company is not doing right by her, because her value is far greater than its estimation. Her boss listens to her frank appraisal of her own past and continued contributions to the show—which, by the way, is on the serious upswing. This is in part because not only is she the perfect sidekick, but she also handles a very live, nonscripted, politically focused television show with smarts, humor, poise, and relatability. These qualities draw a much wider swath of viewers than the show would otherwise have. Mika is also willing to show him, in no uncertain terms, what the show looks like without her. She is ready to walk. She has figured out a plan B, so her negotiating position is strong.
The boss concedes her points and agrees to “fix” the problem. Mika doesn’t end up getting a salary that’s at parity with her male counterpart, but she gets a boost significant enough to satisfy her that she is getting paid within the ballpark of her value. It’s a happy ending—and it’s all true.
Adapt Scenario C’s script to your own position, coming up with your own lines. If what you’re saying is true and you have put in the hard work, I can all but guarantee that you will get the attention and respect of your superiors. Because here’s the reality: people who are able to market their professional value effectively are seen, consciously or not, as go-getters, the kinds of employees who are going to run with an assignment, bring fresh insights to it, and work like crazy on it. They are seen as dynamic workers who might draw more business into the organization. That’s the kind of person whom superiors want to hire and promote.
People-pleasers, however, consciously or not, are seen as rather like puppies. They’re game and full of energy, and they like to do what’s asked of them. But they also seem just kind of, well, spazzy and erratic. They seem to have no sense of themselves and what they uniquely bring to the table. They seem to have no vision or direction; they’re so driven by the fear of being disliked that they don’t stand out enough for anyone important to notice them. Ultimately people-pleasers are the most replaceable. Don’t be one. (And, no, this is not the last time I’m going to remind you.)
A major part of growing your worth—and of using it to your best advantage at work—is continuing to interview yourself, asking ever tougher and tougher questions. By answering key questions, you will know how to pitch your strengths powerfully in the marketplace and identify and articulate your own defining goals in life. In short, you will know who you are—and what you want.
So ask and answer:
• What strong traits do I have that I’ve undersold or hidden? (My example: ambitious, focused, energetic (possibly supersonically), competitive, direct.)
• If I was going to write a fifteen-word ad for myself, what would it say? (My example: “She’s smart. She’s direct. She’s funny. She’s informed. All this and fabulous too.”)
• What do I not want my professional persona to be? (My example: People-pleasing workaholic with no clear boundaries or particular perspective.)
• What can I do in the future to avoid self-damaging behavior in the office? My examples:
1) PROBLEM: Stop being overly emotional. FIX: Don’t initiate important conversations or meetings, or reschedule them if I’m feeling intense.
2) PROBLEM: Stop making self-flagellating comments at work. FIX: Appropriately self-deprecating is one thing; horsehair shirts are self-destructive, inappropriate, and make people uncomfortable.
3) PROBLEM: Stop letting others take credit for my work/ideas. FIX: Speak up when this happens—that is, “I’m so glad that you agree with that point—that’s exactly why I brought it up a few weeks ago at our meeting.” Own it. Say it.
If I had to sum up my professional value in one sentence, what would it be? (My example: See next paragraph!)
After a lifetime of work experience, eight years as cohost of Morning Joe, and now as an advocate for women knowing and growing their value, this is mine. I am Mika Brzezinski, cohost of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and three-time New York Times best-selling author. I am focused, determined, smart—always ready for a spontaneous quip, verbal volley, and laugh, or to deploy the smooth political segue when tense moments erupt on set and in public life.
Ask what I bring to the table, and I can tell you in one sentence: “Mika Brzezinski is a career television journalist with three decades of news and anchor reporting, who is building a movement to help all women grow their value in their careers and their lives.”
That’s it. That’s my professional value.
But the Mika who is wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend? That’s a different story. That Mika is learning to quantify her inner value. And so will you. We’re going to search for and find ways to grow both the professional and personal aspects of your import and impact as a person. In this way you can be the woman, professional, friend—perhaps wife and mother—that you want to be. We’re going to become truly successful.