Women Who Work ... and Self-Sabotage

[BossyBitch]

Sorry for the Trump-inspired title - couldn't resist, given that it's actually pertinent to the subject.

I'm hoping for some useful insights here. I'm a woman in tech and trying and failing to place women on my client projects. My firm is actively supportive and not the problem in this particular case. Much to my horror, however, I've become somewhat of a repository of real-life examples of the kind of female self-sabotage commonly described in literature.

For the purpose of illustration, these are some of the most recent gems from actual client interviews that I sat in on and cringed my way through:

• [Candidate is asked about her professional history and does fine up to describing her A-levels, then volunteers the following] ... so I enrolled at Oxford but then I failed my math exams [...] and then I failed the exam again and was made to leave, so I enrolled with the OU instead because there are no formal acceptance criteria
• I just put that project on my CV for fillers, really my colleagues did almost all of the work on it. I only [description of precisely what she was interviewing for].
• I reckon one could [perfect response to the question] - but I've only read that and have never actually done it in practice
• ...

These are all highly competent women whom I would have placed easily had they not opted to take a mid-sized nuke and shoot themselves in the foot with it. I see an urgent need to actively coach my women to do better in such situations but, TBH, really don't know where to start. The issue is obviously bigger than just my projects, the problem being that it doesn't make commercial sense for the firm to keep on pushing its female quota if we can't get our current women employees staffed to begin with.

Possibly relevant: I don't do great at self-promotion myself but am aware that it's part of the job and actively self-police in such situations.

I'm in a perfect position to push the issue and maybe even start a larger initiative but could really use some helpful input.

Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office by Lois Frankle is good on this topic.

I read it the same week that I saw DH writing an email sorting out a small fuck up he'd made at work.

No where in the email did he apologise. I realised that I would have started with an apology.

I then had a quick look through my sent mail and realised just how many emails I sent with apologies in them. Even when I hadn't done anything wrong or when the error was someone else's.

I haven't apologised at work since and it was years ago now.

DH and I both keep a copy of Nice Girls in our desks and have regularly lent them to young women starting out in our teams over the years. We both work in male dominated industries and are keen to help our female staff avoid some of the less obvious pitfalls. I know that DH has also lent his copy to some of his male peers.

I did an assignment for my MBA on selection, and evidence shows interviews are quite a poor way of choosing good candidates. You get people who are good at interviews which is a skill in itself. The best way of selecting is to have candidates do a work trial of doing the actual job, ideally for a few weeks.

Ironically I had exactly this in my last post, I was seconded and did the job to an outstanding level, then totally fucked up at interview.

Are we ? By whom ? When?

Lass, it's been established on many threads that you have escaped the social conditioning that so many of us have been subjected to.

I was taught that it was rude to boast, not to push myself forward too much (no, it didn't all stick, that's why I had a reputation from primary school onwards for bossy arrogance - I contend it's not arrogance, I really am that good ), to let other people have their turn etc.

Sure, the boys were often taught the same things, but it wasn't enforced as harshly, so it doesn't seem to have stuck.

Virtually every cartoon we watched on TV had a male protagonist, and a female sidekick - I was trained to not seek the glory, but to support someone else to, and for years I thought I was destined to be an awesome second, but wasn't cut out to be a leader, and that's rubbish. I'm great at leading a team, but no-one ever wants to give the young woman a shot at it, so it's take me to grow into my older woman invisibility and lack of care to find that out.

Lochan I noticed a similar thing - people send me something, for me to express my opinion. I want to say: 'Change x'. But what do I write? 'I think it could be a good idea to consider changing x to maybe say z instead'. I've made a concious effort to stop that nonsense.

Or how many times have you noticed a woman during a meeting starting their sentence with 'I'm sorry, this must be a stupid idea but, I was just wondering, if nobody minds..

I think this is why single sex education is good for girls. The pressures brought to bear in co-ed systems aren't there. Young women get the foundation to achieve excellence and the confidence to navigate the world of work once they get there.

Katharina exactly that.

I've had this discussion with my DH.

He identifies your sentence "I'm sorry..." as demonstrating a lack of confidence that the speaker is right or lack of belief in the idea.

I explained to him that women do this because they think it's polite.

Once you start thinking about this stuff you notice it in meetings all the time.

Quite often I hear women (not u reasonably) complaining that they proposed an idea that was ignored only for it to come up again twenty minutes later via a man and be agreed. I suspect that often the difference is not what was said but how it was expressed.

The thing is that once you are aware of this it's not too difficult to train yourself out of it.

Katharina and Lochan I do this all the time. Starting emails with apologies when I have no need to apologize or couching comments in niceties. I'm trying to stop but I'm realizing how deeply entrenched it is.

I really would recommend "Nice Girls Don't get the Corner Office" Mineral it's a really quick read.

Personally it made quite a big difference to how I communicate at work and was promoted about 4 months after making the changes (having been trying to move up for a year)

It's got all sorts of interesting stuff about body language in it too.

Lochan Thanks, I'm going to order it now

My lightbulb moment was when one of my 'I would maybe..' replies was ignored and I realised that they sincerely assumed that anything expressed so hesitantly and with apologies was just a suggestion. Something they can take into account, if they feel like it. Or not.

But that's not what the company is paying me for. They pay me so I would manage certain risks. And if my expert opinion is that X risk should be managed Y way, I should make sure this happens and express my opinion and advice clearly.

And what happens when I just tell people 'Change X'? It gets changed.

lightbulb moment here - I too apologise for everything! I feel it's polite, but maybe it's also making me look less sure of myself.

Must try to stop apologising.

Although I don't tend to do long-winded emails, as I first started working in a company where most people receiving my emails didn't have English as their first language, so I quickly got used to writing short, precise emails. Admittedly sometimes with an apology in them!

I am confused, if you recognise what is happening and why it is happening can't you employ these women? You say that they could do the role so make allowances.

MrsG that's what I did with one of my post-docs, she was the best on paper, too self-effacing in person, so I took her anyway. It paid off, after a bit of coaching, she's now more confident/good at presenting, it's entirely fixable in most cases.

It can be difficult if someone really flops though in an interview/presentation, it's hard to argue for them unless they are outstandingly better on paper.

Yes I understand that it can be difficult advocating for them especially if there are males in the recruiting panel.

Do these women get feedback after the interview? even if they don't request it?

There's a term in social psychology for when women down play their achievements and men exaggerate their minor achievements. A study was done where women paid themselves less and men paid themselves more for the same job.

Been trying to look for the term on Google but to no avail. Anyone know it?

Imposter syndrome? I think it's been mentioned upthread.

Thanks for all the very insightful responses so far!

MrsG I can and do adjust when I am the hiring manager - the firm actually does it as per policy now and (I can't believe I'm saying this; it's been a tough road) is actually doing well in this regard. We also don't use traditional job interviews but task based multi-stage assessments - see poster EElisavetaOfBelsornia's post above for why this may in fact benefit (not only) women applicants with imposter syndrome/poor self-marketing skills. My problem in this particular instance happens at a later stage, when they're employed by my firm but I'm supposed to convince clients to actually let me staff them on their projects. I'm in consulting, so it works a tad differently - we apply for our actual jobs but then over and over again for individual client projects for as long as we're in the business.

As PP have pointed out, though, this does appear to happen in other industries and I have absolutely seen women make themselves 'unappointable' (thanks, Mineral, I'll steal this one) by simply saying or doing things that will raise red flags. For obvious reasons, even in our internal hiring process I won't be able to say yes to a candidate who seems as though they're capable of doing the job but won't survive a client interview. Selling our services to clients is our core responsibility, after all.

I've given a bit more thought to a lot of stuff PP have said. The apologising thing, especially, struck a chord. It's something I used to do endlessly until my manager explicitely ordered me to stop apologising unless I had caused damages of 10k+ or was at least 15 minutes late. It's a rule I've adopted and religiously pass on to my own subordinates with similar issues.

I've generally given a bit more thought to my own professional biography regarding self-marketing and confidence issues and have come to the conclusion that, although I might not have noticed it as such, I myself was actually coached quite actively in this regard. In my case, I happened to have (and still have) a lovely manager who's a man but suffers from severe confidence issues, but who's in fact genius at his job. I've learned tons about how to survive the jungle by simply watching him cope or because, on many occasions, he's actually gently guided me towards a more appropriate form of expression, etc.

I really like the coaching approach and make a very active effort to invest time into all my own subordinates - women especially when it comes to such matters. Obviously, I'll have to get them staffed before they ever become my problem to deal with, so there's that ...

As for the topic of male bragging: Yes, it does happen a lot IME - and it's something I tend to actively prep people for. The last unsuccessful male candidate I tried to sell to a client simply explained to them how he would approach his job in order to maximise their revenue and how he has a proven track record of making exactly this happen. The only two problems with his statement: a) he happened to be a recent graduate who'd worked on a few projects as a student and b) the role he was interviewing for happened to be a purely technical one for a governmental agency with absolutely no intent of making revenue at all ... by the time he was done, my toenails had curled themselves into a bona fide afro, but he believed he had done a stellar job and was very taken aback when the client didn't want him.

This lady (a mumsnetter herself) set up her coaching practice for exactly this.

Currently pursuing a different element of her career, but a super resource nonetheless.

artemismindsetcoaching.com

This thread has been fascinating, thanks to all the posters.

I also think we need to coach our menfolk on these issues and highlight when they're (unconsciously) being part of the problem.

Interesting thread. I am definitely trying to apologise less, explain less, and assert more.

Interesting point about educating the menfolk. Because it doesn't always go smoothly when women are assertive - it feels alien not just to the woman doing it, but to other she's asserting herself to. Just as an example, I've seen it happen on this board a lot where some hapless male stumbles in and is absolutely appalled at how some posters express themselves. I wonder to what extent that shock is caused by the content of the message, and what extent it's the manner of its delivery.

I've also had feedback in my working life that I'm scaring people when I assert myself - I've made the "mistake" of modelling my behaviour on male bosses and sometimes it's gone down like a cup of cold sick

I was not impressed when I was sent on an internal communications course where it was completely obvious that the trainer expected quite different delivery from men and from women. Of course she was probably right in that it'll do your career more good if you learn to communicate in ways that won't alienate people, and that can be a gendered phenomenon, but it would have been good to explore and challenge some of the assumptions.

I also think we need to coach our menfolk on these issues and highlight when they're (unconsciously) being part of the problem.

And they tell you your examples are nothing like as bad as the ones the had in the unconscious bias training, and you're just being over-sensitive and there is no sexism. Although NAMAL my manager.

Whoever mentioned about single sex education has a point - I went to an all girls' school and apparently never got the memo about imposter syndrome.

For the most part it has worked quite well for me, but it's definitely put up a few backs at interviews particularly with all male panels. I've had feedback that I shouldn't exaggerate (I wasn't - it was an "increased x from 0 to 50" measure, it's just what happened) and that I didn't sound like a team player because one of my examples was something that I thought of, got sponsorship for, and created entirely on my own.

I take it as a positive because it means I haven't ended up working for men who don't like assertive women but if I could give some honest feedback without destroying my career I'd jump at the chance to tell a few home truths.

Oh and I've also had the fun experience of being strongly advised to consider my appearance and then told I should be dressing like Sandra* who, whilst a great role model in that she is very competent and senior, also looks like she steps out of a salon every morning and religiously wears skyscraper heels.

It's a double bind though isn't it? We self sabotage because we are socialized not to brag or be too forthright. Then we work hard to correct that and we present confidently and dare to be honest about our skill set only for the panel to conclude that we are too forthright or aggressive because they expect (albeit subconsciously) women to be less self-confident and judge them harshly when then don't meet the stereotype.

Or maybe I have just been unlucky but I am now confident in my abilities and present in interviews are sure of myself and what I have to offer. I am not cocky. But I know this scares off some people because it jars with what the subconsciously expect from a woman.

Very interesting thread.

I agree with everything that posters are saying. And you do notice it more as you get older.

I heard a brief clip from the radio the other day talking about confidence. Not necessarily in women, just generally. And how people will be swayed based on the confidence of the person they are talking to, almost more than the content of the conversation.

And it's something I've noticed when people (women) write on mumsnet.

You get a lot of 'in my opinion' (IMO), iirc (if I recall correctly), IME (in my experience) and even IMHO (my humble opinion).

A hugely significant number of paragraphs will start with 'I think'.

I think the rape culture in this country needs tackling because...

Which is an opinion.

Instead of

The rape culture in this country needs tackling because...

Which is an assertion.

And taken individually, these things are probably fine. But the sheer number of times they are used does indeed give an overall sense of self deprecation.

I'm far more likely to buy in to someone's post if they don't keep using I think. The content of what they are saying just gets diluted. (But I know it's because the way they have phrased it, so I try to ignore my own bias).