Advice on Being Successful (from NY Times Article)

I was going to wake up early, and get work done…didn’t happen. It is a rainy Sunday morning, so I have an excuse! I have just been sitting here for hours surfing the web, and I came across this NY Times article, “Four Executives on Succeeding in Business as a Woman,” by Adam Bryant.

It is a long article, so I am here to make everyone’s life easier, by giving you the Cliff Notes version. I think each of the four women interviewed gave killer advice, so below are my favorite tidbits.

Amy Schulman (Pfizer): Executive vice president and general counsel; business unit lead, consumer health care

“For many guys, this is simpler because they’re not as over-invested in the question of “Do I belong?” Everything is not a test. If you’re not viewing interactions as a litmus test for whether you belong, you’re going to act better. On the other hand, if you’re looking all the time for that kind of validation, you’re either going to be self-conscious or insecure, and neither of those is a recipe for success. What you want is the kind of inherent confidence that leads to grace. You want to be around people who are having fun and enjoying what they’re doing.”

Lisa Price (Carol’s Daughter): Founder and president

“What I have noticed is that men can have a real serious debate about something and sound like they’re just going at it, and you think they’re going to walk out of the room angry at each other. And they go get a sandwich, and they’re fine. They don’t take it to heart. Women don’t do that. If we’re going at it, there might not be conversation for a couple of days, until the dust settles.”

“However, when you’re speaking to your boss or your manager about an issue, and you’re feeling overwhelmed, crying is not a good thing to do, because you don’t necessarily know how it’s being perceived by the person to whom you’re speaking. I know from personal experience that the stigma never goes away. And you are enforcing a stereotype, unfortunately, that women are weak, and they’re not as tough as men.”

Doreen Lorenzo (Quirky): President

“I think women by their nature have better instincts and better intuition.

I also think women are better at team dynamics, because they don’t have to be the alpha all the time. There’s a whole set of soft skills with people dynamics, and women have a really good sense of how to get people to cooperate and work together.”

Marjorie Kaplan (Animal Planet, Science and Velocity Networks): Group president

“Management is the hardest job. Everybody, myself included, needs coaching on managing. Again, I’m generalizing, but because women are thoughtful about people, sometimes the process of managing and providing constructive feedback becomes very lengthy. There’s lots of conversation about who the person is as a person and what’s really troubling them. It can go very deep into their lives. While that can be helpful sometimes, at other times it’s useful to just be clear — this is the expectation, this is a job, and here’s what you need to be able to do.”

“I’ve had people say to me, “I wonder if you’re too nice.” Some of that is because I’m a woman. What I have said in response is: “I am nice. And I want to be nice. There’s not such a thing as ‘too nice.’ But my expectations are high, and people do rise to my expectations. That’s how I manage. I don’t manage based on fear. I manage based on expectations.”

It’s easy for women to be read as too nice, too kind. But it’s important to be able to make that choice. One of the values that I — as a person and as a woman — bring to the workplace is that I want to be nice at work. Niceness and kindness are not the opposite of ambition and drive. It is powerful to choose to be nice.”