Throughout the years I have changed jobs, changed locations, got small promotions and… tons of advice. Not that I always asked for it, but it was offered, and on some occasions dumped on me.
Turns out, the best business advice I ever got was not given to me from a person I worked with… I stumbled over it while browsing through some e-learning classes. Who would have thought? Without further ado, let me tell you what this valuable piece of advice is. Where it comes in handy – I’ll get to that part after that. “If you don’t ask,the answer for you will always be no”.
As I wrote, I came across this advice while browsing my LinkedIn e-learning classes. At some point in my previous job I wanted to ask my manager for a training. I thought this training would help me get better in my job, so I wanted to make sure I get it approved. Consequently, digital native that I (almost) am, I scanned the internet to find methods, tips and tricks on how to ask your manager for something. And I did find some kind of roadmap to navigate yourself through these kind of requests. (Btw, I completely did NOT follow this roadmap, because my brain can’t seem to follow a clear path while I talk… a misery on its own).
Pretty much at the beginning of this class a woman was giving some form of introduction. Why it is important to have a clear outline of what you want to ask for, what your manager will want to hear from you, and how to deliver your “pitch”. To be honest, I don’t even remember in detail what she was saying, and to be even more honest, it doesn’t really matter. What really caught my attention was this one sentence…
“If you don’t ask, the answer for you will always be no“
It’s pretty obvious. Unless you ask for what you want, you deny yourself the chance to get a yes to an idea you have. If you think you manager is going to give you a no on your carefully crafted pitch and therefore you don’t even bother to ask in the first place, you already lost. Because all you did was taking the 50% chances on a yes and adding them to you 50% chances of a no. Simple math: 100% NO for you. I don’t know if by definition that is a self fulfilling prophecy, but for the dramatic effect let’s call it like that.
Oh btw, the magnitude of this advice sank in, I’d say, roughly a week later. Do you also have that? Sometimes it just takes you what seems like forever to really understand something? And when you realised how much time passed you feel, yeah… kind of stupid?
“If you don’t ask, the answer for you will always be no” challenged also some other behaviors I had formed in one way or another in my head. And I want to share this with you, because I sincerely believe that you can benefit from it, too. If you feel like you block yourself in your career and that you haven’t reached your full potential, please keep reading. Don’t spend a single day longer denying yourself the career you deserve.
Which behaviors you should start challenging today:
- Assuming you know the outcome.
- Badmouthing your own idea already in your head.
- Making yourself small.
- Doubting you deserve a reward.
- Being afraid to come across as too aggressive (for a woman).
- Expecting THEY will see your worth and reward you for it.
- Finding comfort in not taking ownership.
- Be perceived as driven.
Assuming you know the outcome
So I decided to ask my boss for a training. The boss I had at the time was smart, caring, and honest. If she would have said no to my request to get that training, I trust that she had carefully reviewed all aspects of the situation. Some of them are:
- Does she need this particular training?
- Have I already planned another training for her?
- Is there budget for this training?
- Should she rather focus on something else?
- Will she have the capacity give the workload I am expecting she will have?
- What benefit would this training bring to the department?
All those questions have to be considered, and for sure I can’t answer them all. So assuming to know what my manager will say to me, means that I must have thought everything through. But how much DO I really know about the department’s budget, about plans my manager has been working on for a long time, upcoming projects? You guessed it right: next to nothing. So to sum it up: guess less and ask more. Give your manager the benefit of the doubt and stow away any negative thought you have. I started going into conversations like that with a light mood, hoping for the best. And considering a no as an option. It also had a good side effect. I started being more agile in the conversation, because I was more open to the feedback. And I can tell you, I have heard many times I am not an active listener, or at least that I should improve my active listening skills. So that was definitely an add on.
Badmouthing your own idea already in your head
As much as I benefited from applying a positive attitude meetings, one on one’s, etc, I had to keep up the positive vibes towards myself. You start thinking “yes, this idea is great! Perfect!” BUT this, but that, but, but, but… before you know it your idea is horrible. What happened?
By all means, I am not a psychologist. What I can tell you is that when I start badmouthing my own ideas it is because of insecurities somewhere along the lines of “what if this is just stupid and I make an ass out of myself?” To not risk that, I rather trash my idea.
I think it’s the moment to let go. These people hired me. I have every right to be here. No, I won’t be a genius every day. Yet my idea can be a good starting point for a more elaborated version of my initial thought. Get your manager on board and be thankful for the input he/she can provide you. If your idea is worth going after, you will be happy you took this leap of faith.
And if your idea was really not your most glorious moment, never underestimate the power of a good laugh. They don’t laugh about you, they laugh with you 😉 I learned that people like working with me more, when I could actually admit that I do not deliver only gold, and that I am open to any sort of feedback. It made me appear more human and less of a Mrs. Know-it-all. Give it a go. If your idea is good, the pride you will get from having made a valuable contribution will get you though some rough other times at work.
Making yourself small
Especially at the beginning of me working in an office job, I had the tendency to make myself small, thinking that I am not important enough in the company to ask for something. Either I thought I was too young or not long enough in the company. There was always a reason to deliberately lower my value.
Really, I can’t give you a 5 step program to start seeing your own value. I had to force myself to acknowledge that I have skills that I master better then others. Even then, it took me so long to trust in my skills and not always reduce my success to luck. That’s also a way of saying no to yourself or denying yourself of good things waiting for you around the corner. Real story: in my second year of my first job I was still on a limited contract. I already knew that I won’t be staying in this position forever and started looking into ways to boost my CV. I found an accredited project management class. The cost was at 1.5k. I had saved some money and was willing to spend it on some additional training. It would be nice though if work could pay some of it. But who am I to ask for that support? It’s my first job, I am on a limited contract. Surely they won’t spend any money on me. As classes took place on a Wednesday, I had to talk to my boss, to let her know I would be leaving on time on Wednesdays for the duration of this class. I remember literally saying to my boss, that I am not having any expectations for the company to pay for it, but would only like to know if maybe, please, please, perhaps, I could leave Wednesdays sharp at 5:30 pm. I swear, I had zero expectations, but my manager was not only thrilled about this idea, saying that it’s great I am investing into my career, she encouraged me to go right away to HR and check with them what support they could offer. Eventually I did get financial support and if it wouldn’t have been for my managers encouragement, I would not have thought I am in a position to ask for it. I had some rough times with this manager, but I will be forever grateful for her positive reaction. I ended up having an amazing time, met inspiring people, and still benefit from what I had learned during this class.
Doubting you deserve a reward
Everyone sees something else as rewarding. For some it is money, for others it is additional benefits, and extra vacation day, promotions, anything you can imagine. I am totally a victim of capitalism, and yet money was never much of an incentive for me. KPI that define your bonus? Don’t care! What gets me going is a mixture of pride for the job I do and a weirdly calibrated level of competitiveness. I don’t need to win when playing games, or be the most athletic (I am quite a potato actually), BUT when it comes to my work I want to deliver the best results you could possibly get. While I like my colleagues and became friends with most of my close colleagues, in my head there is this competition going on. What I learned pretty early, was that seniority in a position was often rewarded, rather than work you were delivering regardless of how long you were in a job.
That’s the way I handle it, and it got me through working life pretty well so far: especially at the beginning of a new job, I will rather follow for a while until I feel like I have seen and understand enough offering my view on matters. Here I was in job #1, doing some hideous work every day with excel and number (the worst…), that was needed to participate in an international call. These calls were pretty cool, and the only good reason why you would want to go through this excel and numbers mess in the first place. Only that I would not be participating in this call, it was my colleague joining. It took me a while to gather the courage to bring it up, but eventually I asked my manager that I want to take over this call. I can tell you, I was brutally honest about it. If I have to do the unpleasant part of the job the whole week only to not do the fun bit, my colleague should check the numbers and find his way through Excel. A week later I was doing the call, and did it till my last day in this position. Turned out my boss was completely with me on this. You do the s*** part of a job, you get the fun part too.
To be fair, I didn’t expect to get my bosses blessings, because of this seniority thing going on in the company. So I didn’t think I deserve being rewarded with a nice task. Yes, I know, my understanding of rewards seems off, but as I said before, I do take pride in delivering good work. Giving me a special task IS a reward for me. My motivation to speak up came from feeling frustrated. Frustration can be a great career booster, if you see frustration as a motivator.
Being afraid to come across as too aggressive (for a woman)
I have been called a bitch by a vice president in the middle of a meeting, in front of a big group of people. I was called into the HR office for a talk with my manager for being “forceful”. (FYI: still, never go fired)
Here is the deal: the fact that we live in 2020, me being in a western country, having open discussions about body shaming, #metoo movements, and a trend for unshaved armpits has not fully changed the way women are expected to behave. We don’t get to be demanding, loud, have a controversion opinion, or use the word fuck. We are supposed to be “better than that”. Well FUCK THAT. NO ONE ASKED YOU.
Obviously there are places where the grass is greener, but from what I have experienced and heard from friends, those green places are far and few. I do feel strongly about this topic, so excuse my French. I’ll try to keep my ranting at a minimum. How well it worked so far 🙂
When I was called a bitch, it was because I was questioning a lot of the things this VP was saying. It didn’t make sense to me, so I asked and said how I see things. Seems that was enough to be seen as a “bitch about it”. I am happy that didn’t happen too early in my professional life. I don’t think I had the strength to see this behavior for what it really is: Narrow minded and sexist. I wasn’t witty enough to say something to him about it. But it changed my view on this guy. I had lost all respect for him and the position he was holding. It was that moment that I decided he is a clown, and there is no authority whatsoever that comes with him.
Unfortunately, I had those incidents with female management, too. But it is funny how things went there. When being accused of aggressive behavior, the conversation quickly was coming to end after I asked to tell me when exactly I have been aggressive. There are two discussions I can remember and in both situations it boiled down to being strong about my opinion being seen as aggressive. Double check it, but as far as I am concerned it takes more than an opinion to be actually aggressive. Have I expressed my self in the most elegant way? No. Have I sugar coated my key message? No. But really, having an opinion and expressing it is far from being aggressive.
Going against this misconception of being aggressive, when as a woman you are saying your opinion and don’t feel the need to apologize for it, has cost me a lot of energy and faith that the universe (or HR department) will not punish me for it. However, their have been moments, even periods of times, where I was afraid I’ll loose my job because I scandalized the department by speaking up. It felt horrible going to work with the constant fear of “today is the day I’ll get fired”.
…we have a responsibility towards future generations – to create a place for young woman that is better than the one we work in.
It demands a lot from you to stand your ground and push back on all this old fashion view on how women have to behave. And some people won’t like you for it. And those people might be in higher management positions, possibly blocking your career. But with everything you do, make sure you can still look at yourself in the mirror. That feeling of shame when you know you went against your own values is painful. I’ve been there. You owe yourself that much. Also, we have a responsibility towards future generations – to create a place for young woman that is better than the one we work in. So be fearless and ask. Because if you don’t ask, the answer for you will always be no. And the next young graduates will meet bosses, that already had to deal with us impossible millennials. You’re welcome!
Expecting THEY will see your worth and reward you for it
To make this one short: You wish!
People are busy AF. It is on no ones agenda to keep track of all your achievements. Not even the most amazing boss in the world will be able to keep track of your good work. It would require them to be there all the time seeing you in action. Hence, NO they DON’T see your worth.
Janes, that’s our job to cheer us, make us shine, remember highlights in our daily work. And when the right time is there, voila “here a selection of my greatness”. The right time, could be at any moment, but usually I have been using my highlights during performance reviews. At some point I started saving emails from colleagues who were thanking me for something, and I was writing a list of all the small things that went really, really well. By the time a performance review was just around the corner I had gathered a well sized list of my accomplishments.
I think the first two, three performance reviews I was ashamed to “show off”. What helped me to see my worth in the work I did, was reading through the thank you mails I was saving. As I was reading them, I was remembering how much work it was to finish just before the deadline, how much coordination and detail work it required to get the right products at the right time to the right location. And just like that I realized that actually yes, that was a job well done.
Most of the times my boss was very much aware of my work, but on occasions it was good I could offer a small “reminder”. It was also never perceived as “showing off” or being arrogant. Once you do that – pointing at your achievements – they DO see your worth. And then it’s also to ask for whatever you want. YOU showed your worth, bravo!
Finding comfort in not taking ownership
Yeah, it can be overwhelming. Juggling work, live, love, friends, social media, grocery shopping, cooking…. For sure, I can’t keep my power level constantly at an all time high. I don’t even care doing that, because I am good with where I am. Are you?
Look, there is nothing wrong with slowing down when you feel like it is a lot going on at the moment and you need a breath and gather your thoughts. However, there is a fine line between taking a break and slipping into a comfortable zoning out so you avoid taking ownership of you matters.
Oh it is so easy to throw your hands up in the air and pretend there is nothing you can do. But when it‘s your job? There is plenty you can do, change, approach differently. The minimum you can do is ask. And we already established that. If you don‘t ask, the answer for you will always be no. So take ownership. Feel responsible for your own fortune. Push as far as you are comfortable to push. Because if there is really nothing that can be done, at least you can say that you did as much as you could. And as this might be not enough, and you choose to look for something new in your career, you can do that knowing you not just giving up. A comforting thought.
Be perceived as driven
You know what the great thing is about walking though life chanting “if you don’t ask, the answer for you will always be no”? People perceive you as driven. It’s the good kind of people. Others won’t care about you, and others can’t stand you (the feeling is mutual).
When not asking for something that could be beneficial for your career, some people, and I mean your manager, might think that you don’t care about a career, don’t want to pick up more responsibility, that you are happy in your current position. Of course it is an assumption, but the reality is, your manager won’t have the capacity to keep on asking you if you are good with what you got.
All in all, I can say that my managers, after all the struggle, concluded that I am a driven person, that wants a career and is willing to walk the extra mile. This perception is gold. If there is somewhere a promotion in the company, it’s amazing to have your boss promoting your drive.
Let’s conclude
Having said all that, don’t march to your managers office and request the clouds off of the sky. Prepare yourself! Have info ready, think of some scenarios, lay out arguments. And when that all is done, be fearless and go for it. Unless you knock the door will always remain closed for you.
It doesn‘t always have to be asking for big promotions or pay raises. Sometimes you will want to ask for a small training, or something as simple as a regular one on one meeting. Even if that sound like much of a request, with the wrong mindset, asking is a big thing.
I wish for you to have confidence for the small and big questions in corporate life! So keep in mind Janes: if you don‘t ask, the answer for you will always be no.
What‘s the best advise you have ever gotten and how did it benefit you? Please share it with me. I‘d love to know and god knows, I need all advise I can get!
