We can guarantee with absolute certainty that there will come a time in your professional life when, however savvy you are about rejecting perfection in favor of “good enough,” about delegating, self-promoting, and delivering those strategic yeses, you will have no choice but to assert yourself with a big, definitive NO. It can be career changing. We’re talking about Alpha stuff here. You’ve been offered partner but just can’t accept and stay sane. The Tokyo office is yours, but you know it won’t work with your life. That EVP slot is on the table, if you’ll bust your gut and marriage for it.
This is the time to know when and how to kick Womenomics into top gear in order to turn down a major commitment, without driving your career into a brick wall.
These are tough. They are often moments of real confrontation. They may involve an intractable boss, an unfair but critical assignment, perhaps turning down a promotion. They can be terrifying to imagine. And that terror can keep you from sticking up for yourself, from setting reasonable boundaries, from getting what you want.
It might reassure you to learn that even seemingly apocalyptic, ugly nos can have very good outcomes. And even when they don’t, the players survive. We know, we’ve both done it.
katty It started with an innocent phone call from my agent. Would I be interested in talking to a major US network about a job as White House correspondent? Sure I was happy to talk; I mean this was a big deal. No American network had ever had a Brit reporting from the White House before. And yes, I was flattered. The meeting went well, I liked the people, they must have liked me—I was offered the job. The agent was thrilled and pushed hard— "You have to take this, it’s a major step up in your career here, if you don’t I’m not quite sure what you do want.” But I was already having doubts. The BBC is a public broadcaster that doesn’t pay well, but it did give me a lot of freedom and a lot of time off. I knew I’d never get that kind of control over my schedule at a U. S. network. My vacation would be cut in half, I’d have to be at the White House every day, and on call whenever needed. These are tough, competitive organizations, and I’d be a newcomer, and a foreigner to boot, with a lot to prove. I felt under pressure to say yes—from the network, which kept calling, from my agent, who was growing increasingly exasperated, and from my own susceptible ego. But in the end I went with my gut—the idea of that job made me miserable, so what was the point of taking it? I said "no” and had to say it again, several times with increasing firmness. Luckily, I had Claire to advise me!
I felt something in my stomach, but I couldn’t identify it exactly. Surely it must be butterflies. There was a new anchoring gig at our network, and I was a front-runner! Just a few years ago I would have done armed combat for a job opportunity like that. And there was no mistaking the thrill that my agent, my friends, and relatives were getting from the prospect. But as the days went on, I realized that the feeling in my stomach wasn’t butterflies, it was dread. Did I really want to uproot my family from Washington to New York? After years of feeling I was in a backwater, I’d grown to love the more relaxed lifestyle of the nation’s capital. And it was not the ideal time in my husband’s career to make a move either. My agent suggested I could commute to New York. Maybe. After all, how could I really say no to an anchoring job if it were offered? That’s supposed to be the pinnacle of our business—something we all strive to do. And network executives were whispering in my ear about how much they hoped I’d say yes. "We need someone like you in that chair,” said one at a dinner gathering. They need me! It was the most seductive of siren calls. But all I could think about was whether I really wanted to take on the responsibility and the long hours. I had a young child and another on the way, and finally felt I’d achieved a routine that was working in my life. After weeks of agonizing, I realized I couldn’t do what the company might need and also be my best version of a mother. Some people can, but I couldn’t. The day before I was supposed to fly to New York to check my "chemistry” with a male anchor, I told my agent to pull me out of the running. Strategically, I decided to focus not only on lifestyle but also on the fact that I loved the job I was doing, which was true. The executives were startled, to say the least. Did it close some doors for
me? Probably. I’m not anchoring as much as I once was, for example. But in the long run, I’ve come to believe that my willingness to say "no” didn’t really damage my standing at the company. In fact, it was probably best for everybody. It’s kept me doing what I really love to do, which is write and report. It also let me make a statement about priorities, which was healthy for me and ABC.
Even when strategic nos are not as career changing as rejecting a seemingly glittering promotion, they are still remarkably stressful. Sometimes it’s a question of standing your ground against a single unreasonable request or particularly belligerent boss.
Every Wednesday Miriam Decker’s big boss holds a small staff meeting with about twenty people, but one Wednesday Miriam knew she’d need to work from home. “I had two important school meetings and two doctor’s appointments,” she says. “I just had too much I needed to squeeze in, and I don’t live near the office.” She could see tension coming when she heard that her partner and supervisor wouldn’t be able to attend that Wednesday meeting either, and their golden rule was that one of them always went. She decided to break that rule and go ahead with her plans anyway. She ignored the stress building in her mind and told her partner she’d handle the meeting by conference call from home. She didn’t tell him why. “I could tell he was bothered when I told him,” she says, “and I did feel guilty for a few minutes.” But she didn’t offer to change her schedule.
How did she get the guts to stand her ground? “I thought about the fact that there are fifty-two of those high-level meetings in a year, and I’m missing one.” And she moved on.
Christy Runninghan will never forget the down-and-dirty confrontation with her unreconstructed boss at Best Buy a few years ago. She was supposed to be able to leave work early on
Fridays in the summer, but he didn’t want to let her out the door if he was still there.
“I’m not somebody who confronts my boss or something like that you know. . . . I grew up in Catholic school for goodness sakes, that whole Catholic guilt is kind of going along with what you’re supposed to be doing,” she remembers, laughing now. “I finally had to say, ‘Look, I am documenting all of these hours, you want me to stay here until five-thirty or six like you? But I also have to be in here at seven o’clock to fulfill my duties. Look at how many hours that would be.”
He was tough, and unsympathetic, she remembers, but she’d prepared her argument well and was able to make her case. “And I said, ‘And here’s what I’m taking for lunch, so this is well over what I should be working in a work week, and I’m not going to be staying until five-thirty or six o’clock. Just because you are coming in later and staying later, doesn’t mean I have to do the same thing. Here’s what I’m doing, and I’m still fulfilling my job requirements in more than enough hours to do the job.’ ” He was not happy, but she got to leave early on Fridays.
Not all bosses will react well to Strategic Nos, so choose your battles. But take heart as you explore this unfamiliar landscape. There are savvy bosses out there who get it.
“I do remember for a long time not ever wanting to say, ‘I’m home with a sick child today.’ ” Julie Wellner, who owns that architecture firm in Kansas City, says she struggled with being open about her scheduling needs, and as a boss, she was also leery of her employees being open about their personal lives, even though she granted flexibility. Now she sees that honesty works, within limits.
“Now I don’t mind anybody in the office saying ‘I can’t do that, I’m gonna be at a baseball game.’ As long as it is straightforward and doesn’t become too much information. In other words, if you say, if I or one of my staff says, ‘I’m not going to be there because I have to attend something at my child’s school,’ I think that’s just fine. What I don’t want them to say is, ‘My mom is sick and I’m gonna have to help my sister move and blah blah blah.’ ”
“I think honestly, if you’re doing your job you don’t need to be there twelve hours a day. It’s an unrealistic thing and it’s an unhappy thing and it doesn’t work in the long run,” says Geraldine Laybourne. “You shouldn’t have to work that many hours. You’re not productive, you can’t be coming up with good ideas.”
And remember this key Womenomics fact as you contemplate whether you can turn something down or leave the office: a good manager, who is truly looking for results, will see through meaningless face-time.
“A lot of these people are just running in place. A lot of it is, how can I put the face-time in so the boss thinks I’m really great?” says Laybourne, shaking her head. “That is a needy needy needy kind of thing. I think people need to understand themselves, what they bring to the party. Think hard, be fresh for thinking, and stick to their guns.”
This may seem to go without saying, but we’d better say it, and probably more than once: you have to be a good performer to pull this off. Setting limits, saying no, being lazy like a fox—it only works out if you’re cunning like a fox as well. After all, no boss is going to offer you bonuses and promotions simply because you’re less available. But every boss will offer incentives if you happen to be less available but are also accomplishing better, higher-caliber, higher-impact assignments without hiccups or delays. Every boss we’ve talked with, and every woman we’ve interviewed with a flexible schedule, says the same thing. It works best if they really like you; and indeed the flexibility itself often makes them like you more because you perform better.