Women: the what, when, how, and why of self-promotion

My partner (Teresa Leste) and I had the chance to speak to about forty fantastic female MBA candidates last week about some lessons learned in the front lines of business, enabled by some powerful materials created out of the Deloitte WIN program.  The feedback I received from the students afterwards has encouraged me to share some of the key points on self-promotion we discussed that will help them in the recruiting process but also help throughout their careers.  In truth, for the longest time I thought of self-promotion as a bad thing.  So my hope is to help others more quickly see it as an crucial aspect of managing your career more quickly than I did and techniques for putting self-promotion to work.

Our discussion was in three parts:  Telling your story (what you say), Making positive impressions (how you show up), and finally Networking in action (what to do).

Telling your story

As women, when we judge our own performance, we tend to rate ourselves lower than our actual performance.  When asked to rate their own knowledge and skills on multiple areas, Deloitte women at senior levels rate themselves lower, but performance reviews of men and women showed that women, in general, compared to men are scored equally.  In addition, and potentially because of this, up to 70% of professional women feel like they’re imposters in their own roles.  I know I have felt "imposter-ish" at many points in my career.   

Because of this confidence gap, we often tend to shy away from taking credit for our accomplishments.    Now think of a busy recruiter at an event looking for the most promising candidates based on a 30 second conversation - and you see the issue and how critical it is to be able to succinctly articulate your value proposition.

During the session last week, we practiced our 30 second elevator pitch.  We answered key questions like: If you had to summarize your resume in a sentence or two, what would you say?   What are the key themes in your resume?  How can you create value for a prospective employer?

The hard part about creating my pitch at times has always been really knowing what my objectives are and then being prepared to ask for what I wanted very directly.   And of course, I needed to learn to practice delivering the message confidently while prepared to take credit for my accomplishments.    It is good to remind each other as women that our accomplishments certainly didn't happen accidentally! 

Making positive impressions

Armed with a quick statement of our personal brand, we then focused on few key things to give us the best chance to make the right impression.

Put yourself out there - No one will know that you are ready to tackle new challenges and deserve support unless you take initiative.  Being an effective professional both in a recruiting context and in a full-time job requires making effective impressions every step of the way.    One of the best ways to get ahead in the workplace is not only to do good work but also to let people know you’re doing good work!  This is a paradox I struggled with early in my career.  'Societal norms’ can translate females seeking recognition to them being a braggart.  This leads us women to sometimes avoid attention since societal expectations for female behavior promote modesty and collaboration.  The important thing is to recognize this paradox early and know when you may need to take more of risk putting yourself out there.  We reminded ourselves of the power of the power pose when we need a little extra courage.   (Amy Cuddy TedTalk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc )

Be confident - Stand up tall and show that you have faith in yourself, your abilities, and your work.   This means your posture but it also means the words you use.   We often use qualifiers that weaken our message considerably and make us appear less than succinct.   We talked about these words and which ones were our personal pet peeves.   We agreed we all needed to let our friends know that we wanted to eliminate these from our speech so they can tell us when we were using them unconsciously.  

Some that we discussed included:

• Oh sorry!  Don’t say you’re “sorry.”  Some mentioned and I believe it is true that women apologize 7 times more per day than men. Reserve apologizing for when you really mean it.  Ex. “Oh so sorry, but could I just…”  On this point we watched a video that forever changed how we hear the word 'sorry' - worth a watch if you haven't seen it yet.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzL-vdQ3ObA  
• Just.   Drop the “just:” It qualifies your statement.  Ex. “I just want to add …”
• I haven’t researched…Don’t tell us why what you are about to say is likely to be wrong.  Ex. “I’m just thinking off the top of my head but Here's a thought…”
• Just a minute…Don’t tell us you are going to “just take a minute” to say something. Think about how much stronger it sounds to simply say, “I’d like to tell you about our product.”   Another diminishing version of Just a minute is  “If I could quickly say…”
• What about…?  Don’t substitute a question for a statement. When you have something to say, don’t couch it in a question.  Ex. “What about increasing the marketing budget?”  I think we should consider increasing the marketing budget.
• Actually  Drop the “actually.” Actually” communicates a sense of surprise that you have something to say  Ex. “I actually have a question.” This filler word is probably the most overused in my world.   Another related one is To be honest.   That of course implies that the listener should doubt other things you've send not qualified this way. 
• But...um  If you feel the need to use a filler word, punctuate and pause. It is good to have space between your statements.  Ex. “We should focus on our marketing. It only comprises 1% of our budget.”

To support conveying our confidence in our abilities, we also touched on some speech related 'bad habits' that diminish our presence and message.    One example that I recently heard extensively when interviewing candidates was Upspeak.   Upspeak originated in Australia / New Zealand; embedded itself in 1980s “Valley Girl” culture.   It produced a way of validating common understanding and/or seeming approachable in conversation, but our statements as a consequence sound like questions when we use upspeak.   The strategy for knowing if you upspeak is to ask a trusted advisor in your life or to record yourself in conversation.   If you find you do Upspeak, be conscious to land on a 'down note'.   You might practice physically pushing your arm down when ending a sentence.   The other speaking related confidence killer is the Vocal Fry.    I learned from the WIN work that use of the Vocal Fry originated with upper-class British men in the mid-60s to portray superiority.  It then likely reemerged in America as a result of women attempting to lower their voices.   Today it is often characterized as being used by young women to communicate disinterest (ex. Kim Kardashian, Ke$ha).   If you got into this habit, practice deep breathing exercises.   Luckily for me my trombone hobby has given me some good habits in the use of the diaphragm to support deep breathing.  Strong breath production is what gives you voice production.

Additional info:  https://www.dailyworth.com/posts/3308-how-to-change-your-voice/  http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-04-24/upspeaks-use-by-smart-men-and-women-and-what-it-means 

Networking in action

Armed now with a personal brand and awareness of the things that can both help and hurt how we show up, we turned our discussion to how and when we proactively look to manage our careers through networking - in the networks we've built and the ones we still need.

I first asked, "who shares my general discomfort with the idea of proactive networking and sometimes not knowing where to start?"   I had a room full of empathetic networkers.   We began to unpack how to tackle networking by first recognizing the difference between mentors and sponsors and critically observed that mentors are nice, but we need sponsors.   Mentors act as sounding boards and shoulders to cry on—offering advice, support, and guidance.  Sponsors advocate on their protégés’ behalf, connecting them to important players and assignments.  On this topic our guests saw my passion.  I've seen too many women feel 'bad' about 'needing a sponsor' to get the next opportunity, thinking that they would get opportunities based on the merits of their past performance.   We all need sponsors, every one of us.   With that in mind we explored how to find the right sponsors.

We ended the evening with how to keep your network growing and healthy more broadly.  We shared tips and tricks for using social media, events and proactive meetings to go beyond the “one and done” to create lasting relationships.

I want to thank all the women who thanks me afterwards and shared the impact of the discussion we had.  I was particularly struck by one student's observation that Teresa and I have very different styles, but that we were both effective.   She wondered if we paired up intentionally to demonstrate that point.   We weren't quite that clever this time but it raised a good point.   In all of this we need to remember to "Be true to yourself." Just be the best version of yourself.   That means being authentic in your interactions and self-promoting in the way that works best for you.

Beth is a Principal at Deloitte Consulting based in New York.   She helps her global technology and media clients successfully tackle the biggest disruptive and transformational issues facing their businesses.   She and her husband live in New Jersey with their two children.