Around a year ago I was wandering around Amsterdam’s American Book Centre, and “Nice Girls Don’t Get The Corner Office” by Lois P. Frankel caught my eye. As someone who’s into personal growth, the book resonated with my interest in career development, and its provocative title did the rest.
So I bought it, took it home, and ever since I read it I’ve been wanting to find the right words to discuss and write about it. Because well, there is quite a lot to unpack.
I say ‘the right words’ because Lois P. Frankel left me with very mixed feelings. I loved it and hated it.
I loved it because this book took me on a reflective journey that made me think critically about my strengths and weaknesses and helped me identify many aspects and underlying patterns of my behavior – both on a personal and professional level – that have been holding me back in some way or another. Worrying about offending others and backing down too easily, being a bit of a people-pleaser, having trouble saying “no”, over-justifying myself, and explaining too much when asked for information… you name it. Although these are attitudes and behaviors that can also be exhibited by men in the workplace, for some reason, they seem more common especially among women. Nevertheless, there are also other traits and behaviors generally inherent to women which I believe can not just push you forward and give you an advantage, but also be very beneficial to create stronger business relationships and workplaces.
On the other hand, I hated it because although I started the book with excitement, it made me uncomfortable and frustrated as I kept on reading, diving deeper into the bottom-line advice, which basically seemed to suggest that women who want to get ahead in business have to learn to play by the rules created by men in the corporate world.
So today’s read is going to be slightly different from the topics I usually cover in this blog, and chances are, also a little bit more controversial.
But I think that’s one of the great things about writing publicly: that when your own perspective is exposed to different views and opinions, it has the power to create a conversation so that you can question your own take on things, and choose to reframe it (or not). Therefore, I invite you to disagree with me or leave your thoughts and opinion on the book (or this review on it if you haven’t read it) at the bottom of this page, since I am sure that I can also learn a great deal from looking at things through your prism.
In this quick book summary, I am going to be sharing and picking on some of the key ideas of the book. So if “Nice Girls Don’t Get The Corner Office” has been on your reading list for a while, or if you’ve never heard of it before but you can identify with behaviors such as working without a break, being overly critical about yourself, undermining your capabilities, having trouble creating boundaries and saying no, continuously asking for permission, and often being too modest or reluctant to negotiate, then this read is for you.
Why is this book only addressed to “Nice Girls” and are you one?
Before anything else, let’s start with its title; because there is already enough to unpack there, and it’s what drew my attention to the book in the first place.
One might think, “what is so wrong about being a “nice girl”?
There is nothing wrong with being a nice girl. Nice is good, everybody likes nice. However, it is simply not enough. If you rely on being nice to be liked, feel safe, and comfortable, but exclude developing complementary and equally important behaviors, you risk holding back your career progress and ultimately getting what you want or deserve.
Don’t misunderstand overcoming your “Nice Girl” phase and becoming more empowered, assertive, and confident, with being mean or nasty.
You can still be who you are and operate according to your values, while asking for what’s rightfully yours, setting better boundaries, speaking up, and learning to act like you deserve your success. Because you do.
The issue is that, from early childhood, girls are taught to link their well-being and success to acting in certain stereotypical ways, like being polite, lady-like, soft, compliant, caring, or relationship-oriented, and these behaviours are then later reinforced throughout our life by the media, family, and social messages. So, when we find ourselves acting a certain way almost unconsciously, it is not that we are trying to sabotage ourselves, we’re simply acting in ways that are consistent with our past learning experiences.
When trying to break those patterns however, it is not uncommon to encounter friction or resistance, usually from male counterparts who are not comfortable with us breaking from our girl roles and becoming more assertive (although you might be more familiar with getting the term “bitchy” or “difficult”). The reactions we get are uncomfortable and difficult to cope with. To avoid that, we often rather play the “nice girl”, rather than asserting ourselves and asking for our needs to be met.
It is somewhat ingrained in our system to make others (including men) comfortable. Therefore, we’ve learned to be less direct so that we will not be perceived as taking too much power away from men. There is a weird sense of guilt that often comes with each assertion. We relate taking control back, with taking control away from someone else. More than getting what we need, deserve or want, we feel we are forcing others to give back what they have been giving away for so long.
Nevertheless, I feel it’s important we begin to identify when we are backing down just to avoid making someone else uncomfortable, and start accepting responsibility for not getting our needs met or not reaching our full potential.
What does the “corner office” symbolize?
As Lois P. Frankel explains, “the corner office” is just a metaphor for achieving the career success you want. That doesn’t mean you need to aspire to be a senior executive, but you might have other ambitions such as a promotion, higher pay, or other perks which don’t necessarily have to revolve around the conservative corporate world. Even if what you’re out for is being your own boss, making a living from your passion, or starting something on your own, learning how to negotiate, taking credit when it’s due, being decisive, creating boundaries or better managing relationships that respect your worth will still have an important impact on your success.
So although this book mainly shares examples of real women in the corporate world and industries which tend to be more conservative (and also more men-led) such as banking or law, there’s still valuable nuggets of advice for those whose main ambition in life has nothing to do with climbing the corporate ladder.
So, what is your ambition? What does “your corner office” look like? And what do you think are the “nice girl” behaviours that might be holding you back from achieving your career aspirations?
On ‘Nice Girls Don’t Get The Corner Office’ Louis P. Frankel covers 133 ‘mistakes’ that might be doing just that, and although you’re definitely not committing all 133, you might still be operating in ways that are preventing you from getting closer to that “corner office”.
Although there is a lot of empty fluff and even some outdated non-sense advice in that long list of “mistakes”, there are some other roles and attitudes which I believe many women can commonly associate themselves with.
So below, I have decided to only cover the 6 behaviors that I found to be most relevant since I have identified them not just in my own behavior, but also had other female colleagues and friends identify with them as well.
1. Working too hard and doing the work of others.
I believe hard work is paramount for any worthwhile success. You need to put in the work if you want the results. Working hard helps you develop a work ethic and discipline that are necessary to keep on advancing in your projects and career. That said, some women tend to take it to the extreme, in some cases due to a deeply rooted idea that we need to work twice as hard in order to be considered half as good. Our tendency to take responsibility not only for our own work but also the work of others is yet another self-defeating behavior.
What happens is, that if you continue to go past the baseline, you won’t always be recognized, but you’ll usually be given more work to do because you’ve shown you can and will do it. You will set expectations that will be difficult to break free from later on.
Moreover, there are other factors that need to come hand in hand with hard work, that involve not just being an achiever, but also managing your career, such as strategic thinking, networking, relationship-building, likeability, or being a team player.
Another big mistake is doing the work of others. Rolling up your sleeves to help out the team and having each other’s back? That’s awesome. Developing a habit of continuously thinking “If I don’t do it, then no one else will”? Not so awesome.
It will create an imbalance in your workload and lead to taking more responsibility than you should. Remember that people are not hired and promoted just because they work hard. It’s a great plus, sure, it says you’re engaged and committed to your work and the company, but there are other things like people knowing your character and feeling confident about your ability to deliver results and get the job done (which isn’t always necessarily equal to doing the job yourself). In this sense, learning how to properly delegate and having clearly defined responsibilities for each team member can help you avoid the tendency of doing other people’s work.
Ask yourself how many of the following behaviours are an obstacle to achieving more balance in your life:
- strive for perfection
- rarely ask for help
- have unreasonable expectations for how much you can accomplish in a day
- feel guilty for not being quite what everyone else wants you to be
- don’t negotiate
- believe you have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good
- allow others to dictate how your time will be spent
- engage in excessive multitasking
Do any of these sound like you? If so, what can you do?
Practice saying no more often, even if you feel guilty or uncomfortable at first. You shouldn’t feel guilty about having your needs met and setting fair boundaries. Stop volunteering for low-profile/low-impact assignments. Recognize when people delegate inappropriately to you, and start delegating to others better yourself. If you are someone’s manager or supervisor, avoid people delegating up to you because they claim not to know how to perform a certain task or say they don’t have the time. You probably don’t either, and it’s not your task to take on, so try to suggest that they ask a colleague for assistance or use it as an opportunity to teach them so that the next time that a similar task pops up they have the capability to do it themselves.
All in all, work on breaking the habit of trying to bite off more than you can chew.
2. Trying to please everyone.
There is a little girl in most of us, who wants to be liked, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, when the needs of that little girl overshadow the rational, adult woman, we can get into trouble, because we risk putting other people’s comfort and needs before our own.
Likeability and being perceived as “nice” is an incredibly important factor for success for both men and women, but it’s simply not sufficient. Therefore, it is crucial to balance being liked with being respected and understanding the difference between the two. If you are only concerned with being nice, your need to be liked will prevent you from taking the risks of those who are usually respected, such as voicing out contrarian opinions, or putting your foot down when being taken advantage of, for example. Contrarily, if you are only concerned with being respected and don’t care at all about being nice you risk losing the support of your network and in some cases… being perceived as a selfish inflexible jerk. And there is nothing worse than becoming a jerk when being nice is just so. darn. easy. So don’t be a jerk.
But also, don’t be so desperate to be liked that you end up being a people pleaser, because then you’ll most certainly be taken advantage of.
Usually, it is the people who are both liked and respected who are most successful. And although it might be tricky finding the right balance, most of the time there will be a little voice, your instinct, telling you when something is trespassing boundaries and when you have the temptation to give in just to avoid conflict.
Try to resist it by replacing the thought of “People won’t like me if…” with “People might not like if X, but at least I will be acting according to my values”. Balance the inclination to serve others’ needs with serving your own, and before agreeing to something you might not want to, ask yourself how much will it matter if the other person is still a little annoyed.
Try to discover where the inordinate need to be liked comes from, and learn to set boundaries. By learning to set boundaries, you won’t have to worry about anyone taking advantage of you again.
3. Being reluctant to negotiate and waiting to be given what you want.
I used to hate negotiating (haaaaaated it), until I realized that people are not going to come up to you and just give you what you want on a silver platter. If you keep waiting to be given what you want, you could be waiting your whole life. So you need to learn to ask for it instead. You have to be vocal about your needs, wants, expectations, and aspirations. And even then, most of the time, you’ll find resistance to your requests, which is when you need to proactively engage in negotiation if you want to try to land the best possible situation for yourself.
However, there seems to be a common tendency among women to feel that they are asking for too much, when in fact, they are not. Instead, male counterparts are generally much more comfortable asking for what they want and feel completely entitled to have their request fulfilled.
On the contrary, “nice girls” are reluctant to advocate on their own behalf, and instead, they work hard hoping that someone will notice and give them the rewards they deserve. If that’s your case, sorry to break it out to you, but that’s not how it usually goes.
If you don’t ask, sure, you don’t risk hearing “no”, or someone making you feel like you are not deserving of your request, but you will also not get what you want.
“Failing to proactively negotiate at work costs nice girls not only money, but affects career opportunities and job success as well”, says Frohlinger, author, keynote speaker, and Managing Director for Negotiating Women Inc. “Women have to raise their hands to let people know they are interested when a big job becomes available. They have to request the resources required to get the job done. They have to reach an agreement on project parameters and deadlines. And yes, they certainly have to advocate when it comes to compensation”.
CAROL Frohlinger
The way I see it, if you’re not hearing “no” every now and then, you’re not asking for enough. Or to put it differently, if you are always hearing “yes”, you’re probably selling yourself short. So, moral of the story, don’t wait to be given what’s owed you – ask for it.
Think about what you want and why you want it. When asking for it, be straightforward, direct, and try to accompany your request with a couple of legitimate reasons why you should be given what you’re requesting.
Lastly, separate being liked and getting what you deserve. If you ask for what you deserve in an appropriate way and are suddenly not liked because of it, they might just be hoping you will give in to their expression of displeasure. Don’t 🙂
4. Holding your tongue and softening your message
Fearful of hearing the accusation that we are too aggressive or pushy, some women will often avoid saying things that should legitimately be said. How many times have you withheld a comment, only to avoid being perceived as too bold or audacious?
Another common way to dilute a tone or message that might be perceived as too direct is asking a question as a safe way to express an idea. The issue with posing your statements as questions, however, is that although you might not be perceived as too aggressive, you’ll also not be perceived as owning your ideas and taking ownership of them. In addition, another resource often used when trying not to seem too pushy is using preambles. Preambles are clutter words used before getting to the main point. The more words you use, the more diffuse your message becomes, and the less likely you are to make your point come across. Instead, short and to the point sounds confident.
Lastly, we tend to overexplain ourselves. Overexplaining can make you feel insecure and unsure, and when combined with preambles, it can completely kill your message, getting it lost in a sandwich of clutter.
The reason why “nice girls” tend to use these more than men is that more words tend to soften a message, and heaven forbid we sound too powerful, right? Another reason is that sometimes we keep on talking in order to get some sort of reaction or feedback. We think the more we talk the better case we make, when in fact, the opposite is true.
All in all, less is more. Get comfortable with the silence after delivering a short, direct and to-the-point message.
5. Being too modest, and apologizing more than you should.
There is a time and place for modesty. Making things look easy or seamless when in fact they required herculean efforts isn’t a great marketing technique. Completely erase the statement “oh, it was nothing” from your vocabulary.
In response to congratulations, women will often say things like “It was really nothing”, or “I guess I just got lucky”… say those phrases enough times and you’ll begin to believe them. Instead, practice saying “Thank you for noticing”, or “Thanks, I am happy with how it turned out”. Avoid using “It was only…”, “I just…”. Using minimizing words will only result in diminishing the importance or size of your achievements. Try to avoid downplaying your success or attributing it to something other than your talent, hard work, or know-how.
In addition to being too modest, some women have a bad habit of apologizing for unintentional, low profile errors, (and even wins!), which just erodes self-confidence and in turn, the confidence that others have in us.
I mean, have you ever had a man apologize for legitimately gaining an advantage? Neither. So, why do we?
Let me briefly illustrate this difference with an anecdote from my childhood. My cousin (male) and I started playing tennis when we were just 3 years old, and in our teens, we started playing competitively in tournaments. We both had a very similar technical level, but very different competitive styles on the court. Up to this day we still laugh when we remember his great opening sentence every time he had to shake hands with his opponent: “You’re going down, I’m going to beat you.”, he used to say decidedly, looking them in the eye. Instead, what did I do? I went in there playing to win, but every time I scored a great shot, I instinctively found myself saying “sorry!” to my opponent. Can you imagine? A shot that I had very rightfully scored! It literally came out of my mouth like an involuntary sneeze, I just couldn’t help it. The worst part is that it didn’t just stick to tennis, it expanded to other areas of my life.
I am not quite sure where this involuntary reflex came from, but once I started to pay attention to the number of times I apologized unnecessarily it really started to bug me, and so now I make a conscious effort not to. Whether it is used as a conflict-reducing technique or as a way to avoid being perceived as if we are taking power or advantage from others, apologizing when it’s not due, makes us look like we are at fault, when actually, we are not.
If you can also identify yourself falling into this type of behaviour, try to consciously reduce these apologies for big-time mistakes. When you do come across a mistake worth apologizing for, do so only once, and then move into problem-solving mode. Avoid using apologies that put you in a one-down position as a way of ensuring you are liked. Always being from a place of equality regardless of the level of the person with whom you are dealing. He or she might have a higher position or title than you but that doesn’t make the person any better than you.
And lastly, since we’ve mentioned titles… I want to address one last common issue: undermining their importance, limiting our own possibilities by acting within the boundaries that have been circumscribed to us, and asking for permision.
6. Titles, limiting our possibilities and asking for permission.
Particularly within the start-up landscape, it is not unusual to hear the “we don’t worry about titles” trope. And yes, we might work on many different areas of responsibility and our scope of tasks might be broad as hell, but be a little too lax when it comes to your job title for long enough and you might end up finding yourself in a position where your title doesn’t match your scope of responsibility, along with the confusion that comes along with it.
It is important for titles to reflect as much of that responsibility as possible. Not just on the area of business that you are responsible for but also the level that the title implies. Like it or not, titles give certain information, not just for yourself, but also to those in your network both inside and outside the company, and therefore, the accuracy of that title can impact the connections, relationships, conversations, and opportunities that revolve around it.
Especially for underrepresented minorities and women, titles give more legitimacy to our career paths that people may skim over due to conscious or unconscious bias if they weren’t there.
Generally speaking, the people who are the loudest at saying “titles don’t matter” are usually the same people who (surprise!) aren’t marginalized, so don’t let anyone deride your request of being recognized with the title that actually matches your job responsibility.
That said, don’t let a clearly defined title allow you to think narrowly about your job. Don’t just come to work and do your job. Instead, think broadly about your role and try to play the game beyond its boundaries. Regardless of your position, you’re entitled to take independent action within a given set of boundaries. Your job is to identify those boundaries, classify them with your boss, and act within them. Believe me, your boss wants you to take the ball and run with it. It is what you are paid for and it makes his or her job infinitely easier.
Some women ask for permission more out of habit than actually having to ask for the green light for something. By asking for permission before acting, we are less likely to be accused of making a mistake, but we are also less likely to be perceived as confident risk-takers.
So instead of continuously asking for permission, try to inform others of your intentions instead. Assume equality, and assume that if people have a problem with any of your words or actions, they will let you know.
Women are given so many subtle (and not so subtle) messages about “where they belong” that we all too often remain inside an artificially narrowed box. But if you live your life within the boundaries circumscribed by others, you’ll never know your full potential – nor will anyone else.
Overall…Read or burn?
Overall although the book had some good and useful nuggets of advice on how to embrace negotiation, speak up, stand up for yourself, become more confident and assertive, or how to navigate different relationships and boundaries at work, most of the message seemed to rely on how to adapt your behavior to act like men and play according to their rules. Personally, if we’re looking for greater equality and more empowered women in the workplace, I don’t think that conforming to the current status quo should be the path to take.
Instead, I believe that if we actually want to make a difference, we will not conform to the current system, we will change it. In fact, there are plenty of positive traits that are more commonly exhibited by women which could change the rules of the game for the better and which I believe should be celebrated, such as working to form connections with others in order to develop relationships, focusing on team-building and working collaboratively toward a common goal rather than individual success, developing and motivating others through positive reinforcement, or talking through business approaches and incorporating the ideas of others before making final decisions just to mention a few.
In many ways, “Nice Girls Don’t Get The Corner Office” is about how women live according to the rules established by men. Men define the rules for the playing field, heavily influence behaviours that are acceptable for women and people of colour inside and outside of the workplace (it certainly isn’t the other way around). Living our lives this way narrowly circumscribes the choices we make. Like air pollution, if you live in it and breathe it for long enough, you come to believe that’s just how the air is supposed to be.
Lois P. Frankel
I like to think that I am lucky to be building my career in a modern work environment where gender equality is assumed and diversity is abundant, and I feel infinitely grateful to be surrounded by amazing women who I look up to and whose ambition, drive, brilliance, and supportive energy inspires me daily.
I feel it’s time we start acknowledging you can be soft and remain fiercely ambitious. You can be both empathetic and assertive. You can be compassionate and strong. In the end, it’s about balance and knowing your worth. It’s about not waiting to be given what you want, but actively reaching out for it (because you are equally deserving of it than your male colleagues). It’s about not making yourself small for anyone else. It’s about learning to behave unapologetically and tearing down roles and barriers. It’s about not living our lives circumscribed and limited by others’ expectations and rules anymore and realizing that the time has come to jump over fences and break free from the box that others have drawn for you.
To all the inspiring women out there who are doing just that by changing the game one step at a time, who are advocating for their dreams and ambitions, and who are leading by example; keep going.
To those who still struggle to act more confidently, to be more assertive and step into their own power, or who are trying to break with self-defeating behaviors, I hope these few tips from the book were useful in some way.