What Works for Women at Work: Four Patterns Working Women Need to Know

14. The Science of Savvy in 20 Lessons

293 14 The Science of Savvy in 20 Lessons this book is based on hundreds of experimental studies and nearly 150 hours of interviews. We felt pretty good that we were able to boil them down into just 13 short chapters until someone handed us a challenge: if you really want to change things, she said, give them 20 takeaways. Just 20. So here they are. 1 Women often have to provide more evidence of competence than men in order to be seen as equally competent. you may have to prove it again, but don’t prove it so often you burn out. 2 if you have a trust fund and enjoy conflict, call this bias out every time you see it. otherwise, fuhgeddaboudit, unless dwelling on unfairness is giving you new insights or helping you solve a specific problem. 294 • The Science of Savvy in 20 Lessons 3 building and maintaining a network is an integral part of being a successful professional—particularly if you’re a woman. Remember two important rules. one: no random acts of lunch.1 if you take the time to reach out to somebody, take the time to follow up. two: networking involves the reciprocal exchange of favors—although the favors (particularly for young women) can be as simple as giving someone else a sense of accomplishment in your success. 4 take real-time notes of your accomplishments and report them matter-of-factly in performance reviews and other appropriate contexts. Remember, men’s bragging is an established part of their “mine’s bigger than yours” give-and-take. toot your own horn by using the facts. 5 Form a posse that includes both men and women and celebrate each other’s accomplishments in a good-citizen way. if you lead a team, celebrate the successes of your team in a way that subtly reminds people that you led them. 6 Just say no to office housework like taking notes, answering the conference-room phone, planning parties, and serving on four billion committees—or figure out a way to get something in return for your contributions. The Science of Savvy in 20 Lessons • 295 7 balance the masculine with the feminine. Women need to act masculine enough so they are seen as competent at their jobs but feminine enough so they are seen as competent at being women. 8 Don’t serve your anger hot. Many successful women decide that showing anger at all is just too tricky for them, but if you feel you need to stand up for yourself, link your anger to the way the recipient ’s actions have jeopardized a shared business goal. 9 if you get pregnant, and when you return from each maternity leave, make sure the people around you know you remain committed to your career. this means both your supervisors and your coworkers —make a plan so that the work that comes up while you’re on leave doesn’t just add to everyone else’s load. 10 there’s no such thing as a perfect mother—especially when the expectation is that good professionals commit 24/7 to their jobs and that good mothers commit 24/7 to their children. Shoot for good enough, and remember, the research shows that what matters is whether you are happy with the trade-offs you’ve made. 296 • The Science of Savvy in 20 Lessons 11 Make a plan: decide which of your kids’ school and other activities you will participate in for the next six months. Put them on your calendar as meetings and let your kids know they can count on you being there. then don’t second-guess yourself. 12 if you’re thinking of getting pregnant, make sure you talk over caregiving expectations with your partner. you shouldn’t be the only one making accommodations. if you already have kids and your partner isn’t pulling his or her weight, that’s a big problem. go to a marriage counselor and treat it like one. 13 if anyone tells you they don’t know how you can work, or work fulltime , tell them tolstoy was wrong: happy families are not all alike. Different things work for different families, and you are doing what works for yours. 14 bias against women fuels conflict among women. Stop judging other women on the right way to be a woman, and keep in mind that we...