“...promoting your distinctive value is a key item on the power agenda. When you're out to get the power, if you don't leave your mark, you can lose the trail all together — and end up lost in the corporation. The lesson? Be visible — and be bold.”
Marketing Brand You!
Bill: As a man, I can say that I do think men probably are overvalued in corporations, women inherently undervalued. Do you agree?
Janice: Yes, and I think it's because men have an easier time demonstrating confidence in their own abilities. It started with our socialization differences when we were children.
Bill: Confidence and a willingness to promote those abilities through sports and such.
Janice: Exactly. Women tend to think people can mind-read their accomplishments, or that others will guess instinctively how great the woman's accomplishments have been.
Bill: It doesn't happen that way, however. Women have to learn to create a signature style and market it. Aggressively.
Janice: Absolutely. After all, if you don't market yourself others won't either.
Contemporary jargon calls it “branding” and the jargon is right-on: Brand You! It means you must create a brand for yourself, then sell it. It's marketing, it's public relations, it's about personality as well as accomplishment, and it is absolutely essential in today's business environment.
Why? because it's a knowledge-based world; it's a performance-based arena; process counts more than function. You can do your job well... and do it well... and continue to do it well. And as New Yorkers say, “that and a buck-fifty will get you on the subway.” Doing one job well is not nearly enough in today's world. If you're going to move on, move out, and move up to power, you must not only create value, you must demonstrate that you create value.
Men seem more instinctively to have a sense of their own distinctive worth. More to the point, their willingness to speak up — even, as we saw in Strategy 6, when they may not fully know what they're talking about — is one aspect of their confidence when it comes it comes to self-marketing. If your comfortable contriving a fact out of thin air, then chances are you won't have any qualms about tooting your own horn.
Women, on the other hand, are still proving themselves, still stepping gingerly into the higher reaches of corporate power, still not quite sure what the next step should be. With the men around them continuing to question what all these woman are doing in what was once their exclusive clubhouse, it's no wonder women question it, too. If you're dubious about your very legitimacy, it's hard to promote your distinctive value.
Yet promoting your distinctive value is a key item on the power agenda. When you're out to get the power, if you don't leave your mark, you can lose the trail all together — and end up lost in the corporation. The lesson? Be visible — and be bold.
SCENARIO:
Martha T. had been interviewed by the president of the company. She believed she had made it clear during the interview that she wanted the job; She believed she was qualified. Two days later, screwing her courage to the sticking point, she phoned the president, reminded him of their interview, of her qualifications, and of her eagerness for the job, then said: “You'll be making a big mistake if you don't hire me.”
He hired her.