Sheryl Sandberg, China & Me

by J. T. Gilhool

  It appears this issue exists with the all-male, and predominantly white male, leaders in North America. It is hard to be certain because no one has given me any real details about the so-called relationship issue. But, what has been made clear is that it is up to me to fix the problem.

  According to the Catalyst study, it might be more productive if the male leadership attended training and acted more like role models. Like Lang said, expecting me to the lead the change is pointless.

  Catalyst recently launched MARC, Men Advocating Real Change, an online learning community for professionals committed to achieving gender equality in the workplace. I found one posting both enlightening and frighteningly disturbing. It is an unedited compilation of men’s messages to their daughters. [Source: MARC, “Messages to Daughters,” Nov. 21, 2012.]

  • Speak your mind, but do so with dignity and grace. A pretty face is soured by ugly words.

  • Women have been abused fighting for equal rights and justice. Do not become complacent by thinking they can not be taken away from you. They can and will . . . never allow any of these rights to be taken away.

  • Women must take the responsibility and ownership for change. There are not enough men of character standing up on behalf of women. Women must continue to tear down institutional systems that discriminate against women in all ways.

  • Don’t take any crap off anyone. We teach people how to treat us. If someone is pushing you around, push back.

  • Jealousy is a terrible thing. If there is nothing bad to say about you-people will make things up. You have to rise above it. Over time people will figure out rumors are not true.

  • Be a nice b**** (‘scuse my language but you know what I mean).

  While I believe the intention of the messages are to encourage women, several (and I did not include all of them) seem to suggest that women still need to take the lead in effecting change. This is the opposite of the findings from the Catalyst study. Further, gender stereotypes are evident. Even when attempting to encourage, the messages continue to be mixed: “A pretty face is soured by ugly words.” Really?

  Recently, the appointment of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer drew a lot of attention. MARC asked Marie C. Wilson, founder and president emerita of The White House Project, why this appointment received so much press. “Only recently,” Wilson said, “have we begun to understand that we need a critical mass (usually considered one third of the members of any group) for women and other ‘outsiders’ to be seen as unexceptional.” [Source: “The Only Woman in The Room: On the Perils of Being a Token,” MARC’s Ask a Woman blog, Oct. 2, 2012]

  In other words, women will remain the exception in positions of power and; thus, continue to be overly scrutinized compared to their white male counterparts. Indeed, the messages some men would give to their daughters suggest that we are a long way from eliminating gender bias in our society. When asked to send a message to one’s daughter, one respondent admonished his real or imagined daughter to be a “nice bitch.” Successful women still are characterized as bitches – nice or not.

  High Heels, Pills & Booze

  December 2012

  Melbourne, Australia

  Disclaimer: I know I have been writing that you shouldn’t let others bring you down and you should ignore the “haters.” But, hey, I’m human. Sometimes, things can get dark. I’ve debated publishing this but in the end, I decided I would because it is — in fact — part of the China experience for me. And, sometimes, it really sucks! However, while I wrote this more than a month ago, please know that I am now on holiday with my family in a wonderful and special location where I will have the opportunity to re-orient my perspective. Three-plus weeks with those I love . . . the greatest gift and the toughest task master remains time . . .

  Ever wonder what trying to stay alive looks like? From the darkness, the light can be hard to find. Searching for it can be exhausting. Each day a struggle to get up and move. Getting up, even though you can’t find the reason, pretending your way through your day, your week, your life.

  Teetering. Teetering on my high heels, I go to the office each day wondering what new and ever increasingly ridiculous game will greet me. For me, staying alive has been both a literal and figurative struggle. No one likes the smart girl. At least, not until you need her as your Secretary of State.

  The other morning, I woke at 6:15 and checked my phone to be sure that my 7 a.m. call was still scheduled. Having worked until nearly 10:30 the night before, I was tired. Friday mornings are tough for me — I hate the 7 a.m. Friday call. I do it from home because one too many times I’ve gotten to the office to find out it was canceled, while I was sleeping. Yes, it is a call with North America. And, yes, they cancel it while I am asleep. This is low-level crap — annoying but not worth fussing over. You just check your phone and do the call from home.

  This particular Friday, however, I checked my phone to find out that my 1:1 would be attended not just by me and my boss but by a human resources representative. No idea why. Well, maybe a little bit of an idea . . . nobody likes the smart girl. Two anxiety pills. One-half glass of beer.

  Teetering. The call lasted 30 minutes and was annoying and, in some ways, belittling. When you have the courage to be the dissenting voice, I guess you should not expect people to appreciate it. No one wants to hear that the emperor has no clothes. While that is my take on the meeting, I was told it was about “relationship building.” Interestingly, the relationships that need building are very specific and seem to be directly related to my perspective on the emperor and his clothes.

  Ultimately, I was told to be nice, which is not my strong suit. I do not suffer fools well; I never have and I don’t think that is going to change any time soon. In my opinion — oh, you knew I had one — some people spend a lot of time talking but very little time doing, very little time helping and even less time being constructive. I am just not in the mood for “nice” right now.

  Finish the beer.

  So, lately, the Sunday night blues have started arriving on Saturday afternoon. The demons have returned in the dark hours of the morning. The cold calm has settled in once again. It is there in the corner, waiting for the opportunity to overtake me and my high heels.

  This phone call really knocked me back. It made me angry. I found it incredibly sexist and parochial. I’ve been listening to human resources in the States tell me to be “more charming” for months — yes, the vision you have in your head right now is exactly the vision in mine when I hear that — “servicing” the man.

  Ironically, it is a woman telling me this. How exactly have we made so much progress in this region if I can’t work well with others? Something is off. I know all too well that it is easier to cast stones than build bridges. And, if things aren’t going well from a broader perspective, then a scapegoat must be found. I feel a bit like the goat right now.

  I stopped wearing pants to the office in January after I was told to stop calling attention to my differences. I love Hillary and her pant suits but, really, my “differences” are less noticeable in a pant suit? I don’t know if a pant suit is the answer but when you tell me I can’t or shouldn’t do something, then I am going to do it. So, the dresses and heels re-entered my wardrobe and they were intended as a statement . . . yes, that statement. Further, they were a shield, a barrier against all the crap.

  Suddenly, the high heels, the wrap dress, the pills and the booze are no longer sufficient to tame the darkness. I realize how awful that sounds but, really, the suggestion that I needed to charm my way up the corporate ladder — actually, just to stay on the corporate ladder — was and is depressing, demoralizing and demeaning.

  When the reasons suddenly become illusions and you are moving by sheer force of will fortified by pills and martinis . . . well, you are struggling. Am I struggling to stay alive? Maybe. It is the structure, the repetition, the familiarity of the routine that keeps me moving now. Numb. I feel numb. Progress was halted by circumstances that I don’t contro
l and that are playing themselves out thousands of miles away from me but are, in fact, impacting me. Impacting me irrationally.

  No one is causing that to happen except me. I control my reaction. I am overwhelmingly disappointed and really struggling to understand why, in 2012, it is still necessary to stereotype women — my tone is too aggressive so I should be more charming. Jack, however, is confident and assertive. He is driven for results and I am a bitch. Why do I care?

  There are people struggling to stay alive in circumstances of poverty, war and violence. There are people who appear to have everything struggling to find a reason to get out of bed. It seems crazy. It is self-indulgent. But, it is real.

  The demon in the corner lives in my head. It has lived there in one form or another for 30 years and I’ve kept it at bay with more or less success over the years. I’ve found it creeping back in over these past months making me angry at first, then sad and finally full of self-doubt and worse. Now, the cold calm is back.

  Decision time.

  It’s That Time of Year Again . . . And I Don’t Mean Christmas

  December 2012

  Shanghai

  There is no getting around it. My performance review is scheduled for this week and, if you’ve been following along, I am not expecting it to be a thing of beauty. I expect to be told that I have met, if not exceeded, my objectives but issues will be raised about “how” I met them.

  Was I sufficiently charming and submissive to the powers that be? Or did I stand up for myself, hold myself and others accountable and drive for results with a passion for excellence? Well, if I did the latter I am a bitch (which has already been keenly established); and, if I did the former, I may be well liked but then I didn’t do my job.

  And, there it is. The conundrum. I gave several performance reviews myself while I was on my 3-week tour. Indeed, I have not been home in 2 weeks and I am writing this from the airport lounge on Sunday.

  The one I struggled with the most was for a young woman who, like me, has a strong and determined personality. She is smart and ambitious. She works extremely long hours and believes that delivering on her objectives, putting in her time and taking challenges head-on will help her get ahead. It won’t.

  Some of the feedback from others about her sounds like the recent feedback I received on myself. She is too strong willed. She is too opinionated. She doesn’t listen well. The thing is, I have observed her and she does listen well. But, when she speaks, you don’t like what she has to say or how she says it because she isn’t afraid to be the dissenting view in the room and she delivers her message with confidence. She isn’t afraid to say the Emperor has no clothes. What do I tell this young, bright, ambitious woman? Do I tell her the truth?

  Yes. The truth is that at this point in your career — at this level of management — you will often be the only woman in the room. You will have to make a choice about who you are and what you want to be. That choice may not come for years but it will come sooner or later. And, the choice is simple, really — unbearably simple.

  Do you want to change who you are to meet someone else’s expectation of a woman and how a woman should behave? Or do you want to be true to yourself? If you choose the former, you may well continue to move forward. If the latter, chances are slim, very slim, that you will continue up the ladder but you may, ultimately, be happier being you than being the woman someone else thinks you should be. Simple. Heart-breakingly simple.

  In her blog for The Nation, Jessica Valenti commented on Sheryl Sandberg’s book and her own experience of trying to be “liked.” The tongue-in-cheek title of her blog — “She Who Dies With The Most ‘Likes’ Wins?” — resonated with me, which is why I read it in the first place.

  Valenti notes that when she started blogging in 2004, she responded to every comment regardless of how nasty. She believed she could win over these comment-critics if she was polite. Indeed, she believed she could “charm” these critics with her professionalism. She was wrong.

  Valenti writes that:

  “When Facebook COO [Chief Operating Officer] Sheryl Sandberg gave a TED talk in 2010, one of the issues she talked about—and later expounded on in her 2011 commencement speech at Barnard—was likability. ‘Success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women,’ she said. This isn’t news to feminists, so what I can’t figure out is why — despite deep knowledge of this pervasive double standard — so many women still insist on being likable, often to their own detriment.

  For me, it was wasting countless hours arguing with people on the Internet — giving equal time to thoughtful and asinine commenters — because I thought somehow it would show me to be fair and open-minded. It pains me to think of what I could have achieved if I had that time back.

  Women’s likability is something feminists use as proof of inequity — he’s a boss, she’s a bitch—but not something we’ve put on par with standard feminist fare like reproductive rights or pay inequality. Because there’s no policy you can create to make people like successful women. There’s no legislation to fight for or against, or even a cultural campaign that would make a dent in such a long standing double standard. Besides, being likable seems like such a small thing compared to larger injustices — why would we spend a lot of time thinking about it?

  But the implications of likability are long-lasting and serious. Women adjust their behavior to be likable and as a result have less power in the world. And this desire to be liked and accepted goes beyond the boardroom — it’s an issue that comes up for women in their personal lives as well, especially as they become more opinionated and outspoken.”

  [Source: “She Who Dies with the Most ‘Likes’ Wins,” Nov. 29, 2012.]

  I am grateful that I came across Ms. Valenti’s blog. It validates my own feelings or maybe it confirms my sixth sense of what is coming this week in my performance review. I know that there are men in North America who do not like me because I have had the courage to make decisions, hire and fire team members, streamline processes and eliminate redundancies. In short, these men don’t like me because I did what they could not do — lead.

  So, I’ll know by mid-week whether I did my job or made friends. If I failed to make friends with the men in North America, then I did my job. And, the irony is that if I did my job, then I will be rated poorly against my male counterparts. It makes me feel like I can’t win. I can only lose. Why would I want to continue in this vain? I don’t know but I do want to finish the work that I came to China to do.

  December 12th

  2012

  Shanghai

  I had an appointment at 8:30 a.m. so I requested to do the 7 a.m. conference call from home, but I was told that I had to go into the office for the meeting. Clearly, this was a sign. Why did I need to be in the office when my functional manager was located in the States and my operational manager was on vacation in Thailand? Gamesmanship. Yes, my performance review was at 7 a.m.

  I was forewarned yesterday that this meeting would be “tough” by my human resources representative in Shanghai. At worst, I thought, I’ll be given a rating of “low achiever” and perhaps be put on some sort of performance enhancement plan. But I seriously underestimated the vengeance of the majority.

  My performance review is a condundrum. It is internally inconsistent. It leaves one wondering if anyone in the legal department looked it over and, if they did, why they are still employed. I failed to meet any of my objectives – not one. And, yet I was rated an achiever. This may say more about the Salt Mine than me. I failed to meet my objectives because I failed to be charming. Yes, charm is my undoing.

  I sat in my office with my HR rep across from me. We had the States and Thailand on the phone. My functional manager walked through the review with military precision. He said that while I made progress, it was impeded by my lack of good relationships with the leadership team in the States (aka the “real” leadership team). The bully in the States must have been dancing a jig.
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  Repeatedly, my functional manager asked my operational manager if he had any comment. Each and every time he said “no.” His excuse was that he had not witnessed my day-to-day interactions. Exactly, and neither did my functional manager or anyone else. It was me, myself and I doing this job without support, without supervision, without anyone watching my back. I was set up to fail and, despite that very obvious fact, I succeeded. And somebody, or several somebodies, felt threatened.

  I arrived in China with a team of zero. In 20 months, there was a team of nearly 50 working together across time zones, cultural differences, language barriers and without any tangible support from the North American Functional Leadership Team. Looking for your goat? There she is – the girl two grade levels below the leadership team working her ass off for you – she’s expendable.

  My operational manager took a hands-off approach, which until the moment of my performance review was expressed as a vote of confidence. I was managing the issues, keeping the programs on track, dealing with the challenges and managing the team. The objective “pulse” scores were a proof point that I am a good manager as was my 360 review, but facts would just get in the way and clutter the path to the real message: No girl is going to tell the boys how to run the business, even if the boys have never stepped foot into Asia Pacific.

  I asked for examples. My favorite was that I escalated things unnecessarily. This was so thinly veiled that my dog could have figured out from where this emanated. The bully was upset that I called him out. Again, the truth was of no consequence. Everyone – including the CEO of Asia Pacific and Africa (who put his opinion in writing) – agrees that the failure was in North America and not in China. Further, I escalated nothing. The Asia Pacific CEO escalated it and I was responding and trying to get facts and data from North America, which never came. The email on this is so clear that it is mind boggling how this example could be used to justify this sham of a review. Worse, my operational manager knew this and stayed mute. Disgusting.