Book Description
How to break into the highest levels of corporate power and seize the top spots
Women have made important inroads into the corporate world, but the true power in corporations remains overwhelmingly in the hands of the men. Only 12% of corporate officers are women, and less than a third of those have profit-and-loss responsibilities.
What Every Successful Woman Knows offers 12 proven strategies for women who have set their sights on the executive suite. Derived, in part, from in-depth interviews with more than 200 successful senior corporate women, these strategies embody an array of critical dos and don’ts—from building a power base to avoiding becoming a generalist (multispecialize instead)—and a range of key tactical behaviors, such as bonding with your boss, exuding authority, and seizing the significant and dumping the insignificant. Together these strategies constitute a coherent action plan for getting the power in an organization and wielding it effectively.
Book Info
A collection of 12 strategies for women to follow to stay successful in the business world. Features the insights of more than 200 women working in the business world today, giving tips and techniques for forming important professional alliances and making them count, becoming a better presenter and listener, and for creating a style that can become an asset. DLC: Women executives.
From the Back Cover
Success secrets of today's most prominent female executives
12 Proven Strategies Women Can Use to Break Through the Walls of Powerand Land Today's Top Corporate Jobs FACT: Only two of the Fortune 500 companies are headed by women FACT: Only 83 women versus 2,267 men hold the clout titles in corporate Americachairman, CEO, vice chairman, president, COO, SEVP, and EVP FACT: Only 2.7 percent of the top-earner spots in the Fortune 50063 positions out of 2,320are held by women
The statistics, while stark, are not insurmountable.
What Every Successful Woman Knows reveals 12 strategies women must follow to break out of their career stalls and vault into the top corporate echelons. More than 200 womensenior corporate executivesshare insights into what it takes to get and keep the power in today's business world. Turn to any page in this practical guide for tips and techniques on: The importance of forming professional alliances, and making them count Five tips to effective listening, and ten tips on the art of presenting A four-step strategy to creating a signature stylethen making that style an asset to the firm
Nearly a century after winning the right to vote, woman are still fighting for the right to attain and wield corporate power. What Every Successful Woman Knows goes straight to the sourcesuccessful womento determine what they did to climb the corporate ladder, and how other women can follow their examples to permanently shatter the glass ceiling.
Despite the inroads women have made into middle and upper corporate management in the past decade, true corporate power in the United States remains an overwhelmingly male alliance. And as the education levels, capabilities, and relevant experience of women rise, so do their frustrations at being left behind as their male counterparts reap the rewards.
What Every Successful Woman Knows shows women how to acquire the training, political savvy, and navigational skills they need to take their rightful places as corporate leaders. Based on interviews with more than 200 corporate women who candidly reveal both their successes and what they might have done differentlyand bolstered by the unique perspectives of its co-authors, a man and a woman who have both been business insiders, senior executives, and canny observers of corporate AmericaWhat Every Successful Woman Knows is a useful, helpful resource for today's corporate woman. It establishes nothing less than a comprehensive women's power agenda, a roadmap for breaking out and going after real corporate power.
More than just discussing the questions of what women must do to achieve corporate success, What Every Successful Woman Knows concentrates on how. Its twelve success strategies constitute an effective action plan for gaining recognition and equality in executive offices and corporate boardrooms. Look to its hands-on, specific guidelines and strategies to discover how to: "Fit in" with the organizational cultureand succeed Develop a branding campaign when the brand is You Navigate the political shoals and currentsand emerge a winner Manage and control sex and relationships at the office Become a multispecialistand create your own fast track
What Every Successful Woman Knows doesn't simply dwell on the already well-documented gender inequities in corporate America. Instead, it takes a proactive approach that shows women how to overcome top-level gender biases. By detailing long-range strategies for driving change, building power bases, and reaching for the top jobs in any organization, it will increase the odds of women moving above and beyond prevailing corporate hierarchiesand reaching the critical, decision-making positions of power.
About the Author
Janice Reals Ellig is a managing director and partner at the executive search firm of Gould, McCoy & Chadick. A specialist in organizational change, succession planning, and management development, Reals Ellig was previously with Heidrick & Struggles and held executive-level marketing and human resources positions at Ambac Financial Group, Citibank, and Pfizer. Quoted in Fortune, Mademoiselle, Working Woman, and Newsday, she is a regular speaker on career management and serves on several not-for-profit boards.
William J. Morin is the founder of WJM Associates, a management consulting firm specializing in executive development. Morin was chairman and founder of Drake, Beam & Morin, a world leader of career management. The author of numerous books, he has also written for publications including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and has appeared on Good Morning America, Today, ABC Nightly News, Jim Lehrer's Newshour, and CNN's Pinnacle.
Excerpted from What Every Successful Woman Knows: 12 Breakthrough Strategies to Get the Power and Ignite Your Career by Janice Reals Ellig, Bill Morin, William J. Morin. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
STRATEGY 7 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 distinctive 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-driven 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 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 to self-marketing. If you're 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 women 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 altogether-and end up lost in the corporation. The lesson? Be visible-and be bold.
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