Ambition is not a Dirty Word

Is It Honorable For Women To Give Up Their Ambition? Part II: Let's Get Real

 

When it “sunk in that mainstream schools shortchanged her severely autistic son”, Amy, 39, closed her thriving medical practice to help start charter school. For a long time, it seemed to be working out. “Then I found my husband in bed with a woman on the school committee. We went through a horrific divorce. I had to try to revive my career; at 49, it’s finally starting to take off again. But at my age, with everything I had to deal with, it was f_­­_g hard.” 

 

What If? Could this be you?

Is It Honorable For Women To Give Up Their Dreams?

Debra: You preach ambition for women. Aren’t you forgetting something? What about life balance? Mothering? –32, with better values than “just career”

Say your ambition is to be a great wife, mother, friend, or fair-minded coworker who refuses on moral grounds to educate herself about office politics. That doesn’t bother you, does it? No, because that’s socially sanctioned ambition. You’ll likely regard the following women as having chosen “honorable ambition”.

When Joining Mom and Pop Is Good Business

Last week we talked about the cons of joining the family business (review my CONS advice at www.AmbitionIsNotADirtyWord). Now let’s talk pros.

Joining Mom and Pop Good or Bad Business?

Dear Debra: I just finished my M.B.A. I’m seriously considering joining my parents’ business. Advice? –Mixed feelings at 26 

Let’s start with cons to consider:

SAME OLD STORY: CLINTON'S CAMPAIGN PROVES THAT THE SCARLET LETTER FOR 21ST CENTURY WOMAN STANDS FOR AMBITION

I'm traveling through the Little Rock, Arkansas airport hours after meeting in New York with a group of women to talk Hillary and women and ambition. Exiting security, the first thing I see, through the airport bookstore's window, is a large black and white poster of a photograph of Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea walking up onto a podium. The caption reads:

"Get Ready to Pary Like It's 1992".

Don't put on your party shoes just yet. There's still a hill to climb. And not just over substantive differences between candidates. Hillary's up against the same old story: it's tough being a working woman--and her campaign proves it, say female execs. They may or may not back her, but successful city women say  Clinton's travails show what they're up against.

Tory Johnson, CEO, Women For Hire, workplace contribitor on "Good Morning America" and anchor of "Home Work" on ABC News Now called a breakfast meeting to talk about what successful working women are saying about Hillary Clinton. Tory's resulting article was originally published in the New York Post, February 25, 2008 and is reprinted with permission below.

SISTER ACT: Tory Johnson (center) talking Hillary and careers with (from left to right) career coach and business psychologist Debra Condren, Working Mother Media CEO Carol Evans, attorney Sara Newman and Hyperion Books publisher Ellen Archer.

Guest post by Tory Johnson, CEO, Women For Hire.

LOVE her or hate her, win or lose, successful working women are talking about Hillary Clinton.

But it's not her politics that have them fired up. What getting under their skin is a laundry list of gender-nuanced issues brought to the fore by  Clinton's run for the ultimate corner office.

Job Seeker Tactic for Rebounding from Rejection

02.05.2007

Ask Anything! Ambitchous Answers to Questions You Always Wanted Advice About, But Didn't Know Who to Ask.

READ MORE: Los Angeles  See also: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debra-condren-phd/ask-anything-ambitchous-_b_40486.html

Job Seeker Tactic for Rebounding from Rejection: Get more power from Powerful Advice--Create Your Own Advisory Board

Dear Debra:

I was laid off three months ago and haven't yet landed a new position. My industry is flooded with people like me. I'm feeling disillusioned, rejected, and out of ideas. Honestly, it would be easy to get stuck in feeling like a loser, but I'm a fighter and I don't like pity parties. How can I get a leg up on my competitors and come up with some fresh strategies and opportunities? Many thanks.

Jill, 29, Los Angeles

# # # #

Dear Jill:

You need a secret-weapon solution: time to convene your own advisory board.

You're probably going to have to pep talk yourself into implementing my advice given that you're feeling down and already smarting from rejection. But trust me--follow the steps below and you'll be back on track so much faster than if you keep gutting it out on your own. No need to weather your job search alone. Break the isolation and frustration you're feeling by lining up some powerful allies to cover your back, coach you, and cheer you on.

Used effectively, a board of advisors can be a high-yield, cost-effective, and fast-track resource for landing your next great job and for advancing your longer-term professional objectives. Its sole purpose, from your perspective, is to educate and mentor you in your quest to open your horizons. The members can offer fresh and diverse perspectives as well as steer you in the right direction. It will dramatically increase your overall business acumen and your appeal to hiring companies because its focus is geared to your specific career situation, it operates on your own level of knowledge, and it aims directly at your goals.

Your advisory board can quash a strategy that is headed over a cliff.

Here are six tips for forming your custom-tailored advisory board:

1. Spend a few days identifying people you know, or people you've read about, whose professional skills and reputation you admire. These movers and shakers should be successful people who make things happen. Screen out those who are merely good at what they do. To be on your list, they must be great.

2. When your list is complete, time to assemble your first-round draft picks--make sure the people you select are smarter and more experienced than you and won't hesitate to tell you when you're headed in the wrong direction. Each person's expertise and knowledge should complement another's. By choosing people in varying professional areas, you will fill in all sorts of information gaps. Your goal is to create a group that can offer expert advice in as many professional areas as possible, depending on your needs: leadership and performance development, management, business plan development, public relations advice, long-term strategic career planning, insider industry information. Don't be intimidated at the prospect of asking the best and brightest to participate. If someone turns you down, tell yourself you won't take it personally and move on to the next prospect. Start at the top, targeting those people you'd most like to have on your team, and work your way down.

3. Contact each person, let them know--or remind them, if they're an old acquaintance--how much you respect their expertise, and briefly let them know what you're targeting in your job search. Then ask if they would be willing to be an informal adviser. Let them know exactly what it entails and what's in it for them. For example, you will meet with the board for a two-hour working dinner every three months and you'll pick up the check. Or that you'll have a periodic 60-minute telephone conference call with your other advisory members. Tell them that in addition to advising you, you hope to offer them the opportunity to take advantage of a brain exchange with the other bright, creative and inspired professionals that are serving on your advisory team.

4. As soon as your board members commit, immediately schedule your first board meeting. Either rent a bridge line (e.g., check out www.greatteleseminars.com) or schedule a meeting in a fine restaurant with a quiet (preferably private) meeting area. Get firm commitments for that date and time.

5. Prepare in advance your current one-page job search and career objectives plan. Include specific ideas, questions, goals, dilemmas you are grappling with. Ask for what you need, but keep it short, focused and succinct. Send an email copy, along with the meeting details and who will be at the table to your board members the day before the meeting.

6. Call your meeting to order on time. Go around the table--or around the phone line--for brief introductions. Then do a lot of listening and minimal talking. Ask only brief, clarifying questions. Pay to have your phone conferences audio taped (get the okay of your board members, of course), or bring a battery-operated tape recorder to live meetings, so that you don't have to bother with trying to write everything down. Avoid saying, "Yeah, but..." or giving reasons why something won't work (I call this the Yeah, but Rebuttal, and it's a sure-fire way to turn off your advisors.) Listen, listen, listen. Keep an open mind. Give yourself time to absorb all the great ideas that will be flying around the table.

This is what the best companies do--including those that are struggling with being rejected by the marketplace. Follow their lead, and before you know it, you'll be back at work in a job where you can thrive. And when you are, don't forget to let your board members know--and be sure and send them an old-fashioned, soothingly-civilized thank you note.