I Shouldn't Be Telling You This: Success Secrets Every Gutsy Girl Should Know (26 page)

Something big just blew up in your face, and you have to act on it
now
.
It’s never fun when the sh*t hits the fan. Let’s say you’ve organized a big business dinner and that night the speaker just doesn’t show. Not only will your guests be pissed off, but the next day your boss will blame
you.
In this kind of crisis you need to salvage the situation as best you can at the moment, and you also have to salvage your reputation.

A year or so ago I had the chance to interview Teresa Irvin, a detective supervisor with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Mental Evaluation Unit. I’d read about her work dealing with people having mental breakdowns and threatening to commit suicide, and I wanted to ask her how she handled such terrifying experiences. She told me something that’s stuck with me ever since—that in a crisis we often have a little more time than we realize. And you should use that time to make a smart, rational decision. “Count to ten,” she told me, “and give yourself a chance to think. Ask yourself questions: What could happen in the next twenty minutes? What should I do right now?” And tell yourself to breathe, she says. That can make a big difference.

Your speaker didn’t show? Is there a possible substitution? As an alternative, could you do a Q-and-A session with someone dynamic in the audience?

Sh*t-hits-the-fan moments often occur when you’re doing something publicly, such as making a presentation. The moment you throw a lot of people into the mix, the greater the chance for disaster, to say nothing of humiliation. One thing that’s important to realize is that the more frenzied you make the situation, the worse it will be. Grace under pressure can save the day. Let me tell you two stories.

When I was younger, I signed up to see a presentation by a legendary fashion editor. PowerPoint presentations didn’t exist yet, so her talk involved slides and a carousel, the standard method back then. As expected, the editor drew a big crowd and everyone was all abuzz as she strode to the front of the room. After she’d given a brief intro and gotten through about two slides, the carousel jammed. A young AV guy was eventually called in, but despite sweating bullets for several minutes, he couldn’t fix the machine (I’m sure, by the way, that he never worked in this town again!). Rather than talking off the cuff, the editor announced haughtily and with great irritation that she couldn’t do the presentation and sat down. How lame is that?

Fast-forward to a recent charity event in the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. The entertainment was the fabulous Sheryl Crow, and I was lucky enough to be sitting at one of the front tables. She started to perform, but horror of horrors, neither the mike nor the amps were working. Sound guys swarmed the stage trying to fix the mess, but they couldn’t get things to work right away. Sheryl looked totally unfazed. Finally she strode over to the podium at the side of the stage and started singing into the mike on the podium. Awesome.

If things are blowing up in public, don’t look frazzled or share the trauma or your anxiety with the audience or other people (just think of some of those bad Oscar-presenter moments). Breathe, smile, and say something like, “Please bear with us while we sort out a few technical problems.”

After any kind of mess-up, do a postmortem with yourself and/or your team and figure out if there was any way you could have prevented the problem or reduced the chances of it happening. Your speaker didn’t show? Well, did you confirm and reconfirm? Did you fail to acknowledge a flakey vibe from him? Did you send a car for the speaker so that you could monitor his whereabouts?

Also—and this is important—was there a moment where you should have trusted your gut and immediately initiated Plan B? Lili Root, the executive director of events marketing at Hearst, told me she had once put together a charity event at which all the wine was being donated. “I looked at the amount of wine that night,” she said, “and knew that it wouldn’t be enough for the number of confirmed attendees—even though the ‘wine expert’ was insisting it would be sufficient. We found the nearest liquor store, and in the middle of the event, someone went out to buy more—running up Fifth Avenue with a hand truck full of cases of wine.”

Stepping in early with Plan B can be how you end up with a glitch rather than a fiasco.

Something you were sure would be a success bombs.
It’s a double whammy when a project goes wrong. Not only must you contend with the bad results, but at the same time you have to face the fact that your judgment might have sucked, and it’s hard not to lose confidence in yourself. You want to fix the problem, yet you wonder if you’ve got what it takes to see things clearly enough to do that.

The best step to take after any kind of screwup—big or small—is to obtain as much information as you possibly can. I talk about this a lot in “The Secret Weapon That Will Make You a Winner (and Save Your Butt),” but it’s especially critical to do when a project goes off the rails. That is a moment when you might love to stick your head into the sand, but don’t! Ask people who worked with you—directly or indirectly—to put their thoughts about it in writing. They’re often far more honest this way.

I learned early on as an editor in chief that the smartest move to make during any kind of newsstand slump is to “go to the rug.” I throw a year’s worth of issues onto the rug in my office and stare at them, looking for patterns and reasons for the slump. Often I
do
see what was wrong. I’ve pulled myself out of more than one slump that way.

You make a big fat mistake.
If you know how to fix it, go ahead. If you don’t, get direction from people you trust who can help you.

Equally important is how you discuss matters with your boss. If it’s critical that she know about the mistake, don’t let anyone beat you to the punch. You have to be the first to tell her so you can present the info as accurately and unhysterically as possible. Tell her that you have an issue and in the same sentence tell her that you also have a plan to fix it.

In some situations you may wonder if it’s best to stay mum. I do think that a let-sleeping-dogs-lie tactic works in certain cases. If you have a handle on the problem and there’s unlikely to be any serious damage or repercussions, it might be best not to draw unnecessary (and unwanted!) attention to it. The litmus test is to ask yourself this question: “If I don’t tell my boss and she finds out after the fact, would she be seriously pissed that I didn’t inform her?” If the answer is yes, buck up and confess. But again, have the solution in hand.

You are called onto the carpet by your boss.
Being called into your boss’s office for a reprimand (or worse, a reaming out) can make you feel as though you are in fourth grade again. In that kind of situation, I have three words of advice for you: hear him out. Do not interrupt. Do not bristle. Just listen. If you start to cry, glance at a bright light (it’s been shown to squelch tears). If that doesn’t work, say something such as “I’m sorry, I want to hear what you have to say, but I’m reacting a bit strongly right now. Can I schedule a time to talk to you in a little while?”

Once you have fully heard your boss’s complaints, replay his words back to him as best as you can. That not only lets him know you heard them, it also guarantees that you haven’t missed anything in the heat and awkwardness of the moment. Use positive words rather than negative ones. Instead of “What you’re saying is that you don’t feel I do my work fast enough,” say something such as “So what you’d like is for me to turn around my work more quickly.” Ask for clarification on any points if necessary. You need specifics. Not as a challenge, but so you know exactly what he wants you to do differently. Don’t leave in a huff or with your tail between your legs. Thank him for sharing his thoughts and let him know you take his concerns seriously.

Afterward, follow up with an e-mail restating the points you discussed and assuring him that you will definitely be making the changes he’s asked for.

Here’s the most important point about dealing with a “talk” from your boss: be sure you have really heard what he said. Let go of your natural defensiveness and ask yourself: are his complaints legit? I read a study once that said that over time, male bosses sometimes stop critiquing female employees because they get prickly or teary-eyed; the end result is that some female employees never gain valuable insights. If you sense that the criticism is legit, you need to address it.

But what if you sense a perception problem? Maybe your boss has said you’re not spending enough time meeting with clients. You know you
are
, but now you must take steps to alter his perception. Send him updates after you meet with clients, keep him abreast of your plans.

You are fired.
I’ve never been fired, but publishing can be a precarious business, so from the beginning of my career I thought a lot about how I would handle that kind of blow (and as far as I know, it might have been close to happening at any number of points). I drew much of my inspiration from friends and colleagues who’d been there and not only survived but thrived afterward, often having the last laugh. Here are the four things they all seemed to do.

1. They gave themselves a short period to wallow in their misery. Then they got busy—with networking, with exploratory interviews, with putting their name out there.

2. They sought out the best professional guidance possible. It helps, I think, to see a career counselor and/or take full advantage of any outplacement services provided with a severance package, which may include job counseling and access to an office. If you aren’t offered outplacement services, ask for them. If you are, try to obtain even more than your company normally gives—for instance, six months’ worth instead of three. Those who used outplacement services benefited not only from the advice they received but also from being able to go to an office every day.

3. They asked themselves what had gone wrong. Instead of blaming their former employer, they examined what they might have dealt with poorly or miscalculated, such as not noticing that the company was in trouble or recognizing that the job wasn’t a good fit to begin with. Recently I found a letter from a young editor I’d had to let go at
Working Woman.
Several months after she left, she wrote me, saying that it had been good for her in the end because she saw that she was better suited to other things. About five years ago she sold the Internet company she’d started for $20 million.

4. They didn’t burn any bridges. No matter how angry they were, they were gracious and never bad-mouthed their former company or boss.

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Why You Must Manage Your Career as Well as Your Job
 
}

T
hroughout this section, I’ve talked about all the steps you must take to be successful in your job—everything from scheduling time each week to focus on the big picture to managing your subordinates effectively to breaking the rules. But there’s something else you have to pay attention to as well: while you brilliantly do your job, you must also brilliantly “do” your career. You need to take steps to make certain you’re poised and ready for the next exciting move up.

It’s not simply a matter of keeping your résumé polished. By managing your career, I mean growing your skills, making new contacts, religiously watching for opportunities, and going after opportunities in a totally gutsy way.

I know, it sounds like doing two jobs at once, and you’ve already got plenty on your plate. But if you don’t manage your success, it can slip away from you. You receive a promotion you crave, put your nose to the grindstone, and the next thing you know, five years have passed. One day you hear an announcement that someone down the hall, someone lower on the ladder than you, has accepted an incredible job. And you feel almost weak in the knees about the news.

Just contemplating this scenario can make you hyperventilate. But try not to think of it as one more huge task you have to tackle but rather as an exhilarating challenge. This isn’t about doing something that will pay dividends for your company or organization. It’s about doing something just for
you.

Begin right where you are.
The first step to taking charge of your success is to make sure you’re performing in a way that allows your boss (and people above him) to view you as a person who should continue to move up in the organization. That means doing your job incredibly well. But as the career expert Adele Scheele points out, you have to also be taking steps in your job that prep you for the next level or levels. And those steps are different.

“In managing your job,” she says, “you have to define the goals that your organization wants, build a team to deliver them, and spend time in building relationships with your superiors and clients within your organization. In managing your
success
, you need to expand that focus to taking on more or other duties—leaning toward or creating the next opportunity—while learning to take credit for your team’s work (a tricky balance) and building a reputation, including one among your peers.”

Try to imagine how your boss might describe you to someone right now. A dynamo? A star? How long has it been since you made your boss say, “Wow!” If not, ask yourself why. Have you been working on automatic pilot lately or, worse, slacking off as you deal with crazy personal demands? Have you been so busy focusing on the day-to-day that you haven’t been doing
more
or generating any dazzling ideas for the future? Have you failed to toot your own horn? Then it’s time to get your mojo back. Block out time to generate ideas. Suggest and take on projects that will produce strong results. Keep your boss abreast of your accomplishments.

I may be wrong, but I’ve always thought that a presentation I made at a management conference when I was still the editor of
Redbook
helped me land the
Cosmo
job. I was assigned to a committee that had been asked to generate magazine ideas and then present the best one at the conference. I volunteered, to the other committee members, to take on the job of fleshing out our idea, putting the PowerPoint slides together, and then doing the presentation. It was a big extra chore, but I kept telling myself that something good might come from it. When I’d finished my presentation, my boss gave me a thumbs-up from her seat in the audience. I sensed that she saw a side of me that day that she hadn’t witnessed before. It wasn’t much longer before I was named editor of
Cosmopolitan.