A woman on my team asked for a few minutes of my time today to go for a walk. An approach that’s getting some press lately as a creative way to inject a little exercise into the workday, a walking meeting is perfectly suited for 1:1 coaching conversations requiring nothing more than brain power, that is, unless you’ve decided to don your stilettos that day. I admit I liked it. In a facility that’s a little over a million square feet, there was no shortage of corridors to traverse; we could have easily talked all afternoon without seeing the same space twice.
The ground we covered today is tierra del fuego. A hot topic I find myself consulted about frequently, it’s the deliberation over career choices and making the right next move, a dress rehearsal any starlet insists upon before stepping onto center stage in a brand new role.
Today’s spin was on the appeal of the prescribed career path and the question as to whether we should all take it just because it’s there and we can clearly see what’s in front of us. It was a healthy discussion with a woman at the beginning of a very promising career. I admire her for challenging the status quo when most of us might be tempted to fall in line.
For some the decision to follow the progression from Assistant to Manager to Senior Whatever is rote. It’s certainly what I did. Everything went pretty much according to plan until I found myself at the end of the line standing in utter despair, wondering what I would do next. In some ways I didn’t think I had a choice all of those years, so when the road ended abruptly it took me a while to find my way.
Last week I had sushi with another woman at an impasse similar to my own experience. Unable to articulate what she wants for herself next, we talked about the powerful role culture can play in women who limit themselves. Some of us really do grow up thinking we don’t have a choice. We take what is handed to us, whether we like it or not. Interestingly enough, what crept into our conversation was the admission that self-doubt adds an element of fear to the risk of something new; the idea that we simply cannot ask for what we really want because we’re afraid we’ll bite off more than we can chew. There seems to be this notion with women that if we ask for the job we want and then fail to deliver, well, we had no right to ask for it in the first place. Better to be safe than risk that disgrace, right? It makes me wonder if for some women, the issue isn’t that they don’t believe they have a choice, but that they’re unwilling to make a choice for fear of committing when they’re not entirely confident they can deliver.
The good news is it’s all in our heads. I find the research in this HBR blog post about The Power of Intent compelling. If we have the resolve to make something happen, it will.
Several years ago when I was offered a new leadership position I told my manager at the time that I was going to take my team from the worst performing to the top performing on the account. Tired of being associated with the mediocrity I was certain our group was capable of rising above, my statement came more from the humiliation I felt as a member of the last place team and frustration over the fact that I knew we could do better, than from any concrete plan to rise to the top. The words fell out of my mouth without even thinking and were quickly forgotten once I immersed myself in the job. I was startled to find myself quoted in my own year-end performance assessment, my manager having remembered my comment and acknowledging that I had done exactly what I said I’d do.
Was that a bold statement? Hell, yes. Did I have any way of predicting at the time that I would be successful? No. But I wanted that role, that opportunity, that chance to make a difference so badly that there was no way it would not happen. This is the power of intent. It’s a Catch-22, though. You need to be willing to put yourself out there. Many of us aren’t, and so when confidence wavers, we waffle and wilt, the new opportunity pushed to the wayside in favor of what someone else says we can do, not what we want to do.
I speak from experience when I say (brazenly) that when you are doing what you absolutely love, there is no one who can do it better than you do. Others will do it differently and find their own success, but you are the only one who can bring your heart and soul into what you do. I’m no stranger to stage fright, for sure. But what I observe is that neither are most others. Standing in a lambent spotlight is not as daunting as it seems when you recognize that you can choose what you stand for.
You always have a choice. Be brave enough to make it.
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