Boss Whispering: How to Get What You
Want When You’re an Outsider at Work
Have you ever felt
like you don’t quite fit into the culture of your workplace? Do your co-workers
fail to invite you to social gatherings outside of the workplace? Have you been
passed over for training and advancement opportunities? Making advances in the
workplace can be a challenge, especially when you work in a homogeneous
environment. Homogeneous work environments exist in organizations that lack
diversity in some respect. It may be a place where the workers are mostly male,
female, white, black, or some other identifiable sameness element. Homogeneous
work environments come about in a very natural way. People are generally
inclined to hire, develop and promote people who are like them, or people with
whom they have most in common. In many cases, the decision maker will pull
success criteria from their own frame of reference which encompasses their
personal views on gender, race, religion and other markers. By making inferences
based on their personal opinion and by looking at the current organizational
landscape, the decision maker often chooses to maintain the status quo by
hiring, developing, or promoting the person who fits their pre-ordained mold.
Fortunately, strides
have been made over the past several decades to appreciate and create diversity
in most workplace environments. A diverse organization is one that employs
people from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures and is thus able
to draw upon a wide range of perspectives in accomplishing its goals. When an
organization values diversity, it creates a tolerant atmosphere that fosters
innovation and creativity harnessing and nurturing the best and brightest
talent. While many companies have hired a more diverse workforce, the lack of
developing, mentoring and promoting diverse workers is still a shortfall for
many organizations. Has an organization truly made effective and sincere
strides toward true diversity if all of their managerial and executive personnel
are of the same ethnic group or gender?
If you are working
for an organization that is homogenous, and you don’t identify with the main
characteristics of the group, you might be facing some real challenges. For
example, a woman who works in a mostly male environment may find that she is
not developed or mentored as her male co-workers are. She may find she has to
work harder to prove herself, or to even be recognized by her superiors. Her
work may be more closely scrutinized and she may not be invited to be part of
group projects. Indeed, she may feel like an outsider in her workplace. This is
not due, in most circumstance, to her co-workers and superiors intentionally
excluding her. It’s just human nature that members of a homogenous group tend
to congregate and interact more readily with other members of that group. Since
an outsider has little hope in changing the cultural makeup of their workplace,
they will have to work to navigate the barriers that are keeping them from
getting what they want. If you are feeling like an outsider in your workplace
you know that doors don’t just open for you, you have to push them open. If a seat
isn’t readily offered to you, you may have to take it. When you are an outsider
in a homogenous workplace, self-promotion may be your best advancement strategy.
If you feel like an outsider at work, and you believe you have significant
contributions to make to the organization, step up and promote yourself by
following these 5 rules.
Get Face Time
If there is a position you want, training you need, or a
promotion you know you are qualified for, you have to step up and make your
desires known to the decision makers in your organization. When I say decision
maker, I mean you have to meet with whoever in your organization has the
ability to make your request happen. Don’t waste your time with people who can
do nothing for you. Remember, you are not part of that in-group whose members
will automatically be considered for the best positions in the organization. You
are not going to receive the phone call that they will surely get when there is
an opening in a workgroup or when a new position becomes available. You have to
be assertive in making your desires known, and there is no better way to
present yourself than through a face to face meeting. Do not send an email or a
letter. You need to be able to intuitively discern the decision maker’s
reactions to your statements and tailor your presentation as needed. Letters,
emails, and memos won’t get the attention that a meeting will get. When you
meet with your boss, make sure they have the time to give you their undivided attention.
Watch for non-verbal body language that indicates your boss is engaged with the
conversation and ready to listen to what you have to say. If you get the
feeling your boss is distracted, can then on it, and offer to schedule your
meeting at another time if necessary.
Be Androgynous
As a society, we have raised our daughters to cultivate
communal personality traits such as being caring, kind, nurturing, empathetic
and communicative. We have taught our sons to possess more agentic traits
including being aggressive, decisive, independent and confident. As a result,
males are hesitant to display communal traits due to being judged as not being
“manly” and women stick with their assigned communal behaviors to avoid being
labeled as not feminine or worse, being called a bitch. Exhibiting only gender
prescribed behaviors causes an immediate barrier for women since all the traits
that would generally be attributable to leadership belong to the male agentic
traits category. Successful leaders have found a way to blend all of the male
and female traits into one presentation style thus being aggressive and
decisive when the situation calls for it, and being able to employ more
communal behaviors when necessary. When advocating for themselves, females who
want to be perceived as leaders must be able to display agentic personality
traits whenever appropriate, while still making use of their communal traits. This
means being assertive when you ask for that meeting with your boss, and being
decisive about what you want.
Speak to Their Needs
Before Listing Your Own
Begin with a conversation about what the organization needs
and how you can fulfill that need through the training or the promotion you are
asking for. Make your boss feel secure and validated. This may seem strange,
but people are much more likely to cooperate with a suggestion when they feel
their sense of importance has been validated and their needs are being met.
This approach will show your boss you respect them, you’ve done your homework
and your request is not entirely self-serving.
Be Clear in Stating
What You Want
No one wants their time wasted. Before you go in for the
meeting with your boss, you’d better know what it is you want and why you want
it. Be sure to explain how your request will meet the aforementioned needs of
the organization. Don’t be afraid to put your request in writing with a few
words on how granting your request serves the organization. I always advocate for
a face to face meeting rather than just sending an email or memo to make your
request, but once the face to face meeting is over, it doesn’t hurt to leave
the decision maker with a written summary of what was presented.
Help Them Find a Reason
to Say Yes
This is where you pull out all the stops in making your
pitch. Appeal to the decision maker’s empathy and sense of logic. Find a way to
get them to empathize with your situation and understand that granting your
request is the most logical decision. Make them feel they have won something
for the organization by granting your request.
Outsiders can be successful in homogenous working
environments as long as they are willing to persevere. Following these rules
will go a long way in getting you what you want. I believe that success is
based not so much innate talent, but more on desire, intention and effort. When
you are an outsider, you will have to work harder for what you want, but as long
as you have the desire and ability, there is no reason for you to fail when you
step up and ask.
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