There’s no question that in the world of Womenomics, time is the critical new commodity. And to amass a meaningful amount of it, you’re going to have to attempt more than just the starter steps we outlined in chapter 5. Think of it this way: as is the case with any other commodity, the less supply that’s available, the greater the value. Certainly you know it’s true for you personally. That’s why, we’re sure, you’re reading this book

But it’s also true in terms of the value of your time on the job. If you are constantly making room for every little assignment, your time will not seem particularly valuable. If something can be gotten on the cheap, it will remain cheap. But if you take control of your time and project an image of yourself as a person who will handle, let’s say, only assignments at the highest levels, your time commodity value will skyrocket.

What does this mean? You will need to get much, much savvier about the way you work. You will learn in this chapter to take a leaf out of the old male playbook and start weighing every assignment, to choose the projects that really matter to the bosses. And as you nurture smart-time behavior you should also develop the bold and unashamed art of self-promotion. Image boosting, as we all know, isn’t easy for women. But as you start to uncover, and luxuriate in, all the hours you will save, all of this will become second nature.

You Don’t Have to Be Perfect

Somewhere buried deep in a woman’s DNA is an insidious gene that makes us believe we are responsible for everything. Since our brains are wired to see and predict every possible scenario—every possible thing that could go wrong or could be better—it makes sense that we are driven in this direction. But this estrogen-fueled excess of diligence and responsibility can be a horrible waste of time.

You know what we mean. We worry not only about our jobs but about other people’s tasks too. We organize birthday cakes and cards for colleagues, even when they might not want them. We fret about holiday gifts for assistants and teachers who’d be happy with something generic. We know all about it. We are just as guilty of compulsive perfectionism as you are.

 

KATTY During the 2008 presidential elections I had to travel quite a bit for work. Before each trip I’d make sure the family was organized so that there was minimum disruption when I was gone. I’d see that the fridge was full, meals planned, the babysitter organized for the extra hours, and the children set up with playdates. My husband, Tom, didn’t ask me to fix stuff, I just did it automatically. Then I found I was getting overstretched, and the travel was tiring anyway without all that domestic organizing and worrying. It began to occur to me that Tom never felt he should check the contents of the fridge before he went on a work trip. Soon I was getting resentful. Where was the recognition for all this stress and time I put in to make sure the house ran smoothly in my absence? But really it was all my own fault. Tom certainly never asked me to do all that shopping and planning before I left. He is a very involved, capable parent who is quite up to the task of running the house by himself for a few days. No, I was micromanaging—big time. So when planning the next trip, I decided just to pack my own bag and go. And guess what? Everyone was just fine (OK, so I did come back and find ten pounds of cod in the freezer because my husband’s grasp of cooking portions was a little undeveloped but, hey, that’s not the end of the world.) Nobody starved (there was plenty of fish), my husband arranged for the babysitter, and the kids got to school on time. Without me! Amazing! Of course a part of me, control freak that I am, was a bit put out—the universe of my home clearly doesn’t depend entirely on me and me alone! But once I’d dealt with my domestic ego, I found it was also very liberating.

 

When it comes to the work environment, our determination to control every detail of a project is just as pronounced as it is in the kitchen or playroom. For professional, ambitious women, this trait is even more acute—we tend to be overachieving perfectionists, so of course we don’t trust anyone else to do things right. After all, we know best!

 

CLAIRE I used to be a maniacal perfectionist, especially at work. I felt that every piece I put on the air had to have the same amount of blood, sweat, and tears poured into it. I’d labor into the night making endless changes, and often ruining the evenings of coworkers and friends and my spouse. I’ve finally realized that such perfectionism is not an option anymore if I want to see my family and keep colleagues happy. And so I’ve adjusted. I’ve figured out when I can do a “good” job and when I need to do a “perfect” job. With almost every assignment I get or propose, I make a decision at the start about how much time it deserves, before I start my “perfectionizing.” Basically, I’ve learned to be comfortable being “good enough” when it makes sense.

 

Here are two key lifestyle changes for all of you hyper-control-freak perfectionists out there: first, think “good enough”; second, start delegating.

Good Enough

By “good enough” we mean absolutely, definitely, not our very best, not perfect. We are actively encouraging you to perform occasionally below standard. Go on, you have our permission. In fact we suggest a trial period where you make a conscious habit of NOT doing things as well as you usually do—and even then we bet you’ll still be good and not just mediocre. It’s a radical concept, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be liberated to focus on high-value/high-return activities in your professional and personal life.

“You have to remember,” counsels Julie Wellner, an architect from Kansas City, “are you trying to be good enough in your own eyes or everybody else’s eyes?” Julie has set up her own firm and created a work enviroment where she can be with her children when she chooses. But she still fights the lure of perfectionism. “That’s where we fall short compared to men. Men are better at saying, ‘OK, this is good enough in my eyes.’ Women are constantly saying, ‘Is this good enough in the world’s eyes?’”

Once you’ve mastered the ability of being able to use “good enough” strategically, you’ll be able to shift your performance up a gear and be “totally excellent” when it really counts. After all there’s no way you can have time to do everything to your highest standards all the time. Remember, that’s the road to sixty-hour workweeks—the road we are trying to destroy. No, if you want a sane life, permanent perfection is just not possible. Get over it! We are not looking to be judged “good enough” by Gandhi.

Embracing “good enough” is simply a smart power move. Think of it this way: we’re so good and so in demand we can’t possibly do everything to perfection. And, by the way, our “good enough” is great.

Letting Go

The most successful people—the Big Picture Thinkers—don’t try to do everything. Instead, they hand things off. It’s better for them, better for their boss, and it’s better for their company too because it allows younger talent to flourish.

As the boss of her own communications company, Christine Heenan had to learn the art of delegation. For her it has meant a deliberate process of keeping her perfectionist tendencies in check. She hated to let go of anything, because she knew just how she wanted it done, and after all, can’t the boss always do it best? But if she wanted time with her two boys as well then there simply wasn’t enough of her to go around.

“I think successful delegating means empowering people other than you to do something maybe not exactly as you would do it, but to do it instead of you,” she explains. “I might say, ‘This press release is not written the way I would have written it.’ But it’s gone out, and I see an e-mail back from the client saying it sounds fine, and I’ve just got to leave it at that.”

She faces the same issues at home. “Say my sitter has allowed my son Colin to do his homework over at his friend Ben’s house,” Christine says. “I think he should do his homework at home before he goes to Ben’s, but she’s there and she’s in charge and once you know no one is hurt and no one is in trouble, then you just have to let it go.”

Delegating also sends a cunning reminder to your bosses, babysitters, and husband that you are too busy to do everything. It can be another form of saying “no” that leaves everyone better off.

Remember Lauren Tyler, our private equity banker in New York, who balances three children and two stepchildren with a determination to maintain work-life control in a world where there usually isn’t any? She says delegating is the key to her ability to stay in a job she loves and have time for the family she also loves. “It solves three problems for me—it leaves me in the clear to get my job done, gives someone below me an opportunity to shine, and it builds loyalty. It all comes back to help me and the organization. But you do have to let go!”

That is often easier said than done. Accepting that some delegated tasks may not be done precisely to your exacting standards can cause stress. How do successful women manage this tricky terrain?

Here are some delegating tips:

1. If you are overstretched, but a delegating novice, choose one task to delegate and then delegate it right away, before you have second thoughts. As you grow more comfortable, use the 80–20 Rule to figure out which tasks can be handed off.
2. Ask who is right for the job. It does not always have to be the team star. Someone new and keen may be perfect for some tasks. Someone with more experience may be better for others.
3. Once you’ve chosen the person, explain the task, the time frame, and the review process. Make yourself available for specific questions but don’t check up on their progress every ten minutes. Remember you have delegated to win time—not to spend it checking up on the delegatee!
4. Ask yourself: is there something here for me to learn in doing this task? Will it provide me with new skills and competence that will be useful in the future, or is it a routine task that I could do quickly—but that won’t necessarily add to my value as an employee? And could it present a learning opportunity for one of my junior staffers? What’s routine for you may be a learning opportunity for others. Those are the perfect tasks to delegate.
5. Enlist your executive assistant, if you’re lucky enough to have one, in the cause. Anybody who can help you by fielding phone calls, deciding what decisions can be postponed if it’s your day off, or even cunningly pulling you out of meetings that you didn’t want to sit through until the bitter end, is an invaluable asset. Treat assistants well and with respect, it goes without saying, but don’t hesitate to ask them to work for you. Your assistant is not your friend. She, or, yes, even he, is your bodyguard.

Miriam Decker, a top Wall Street investor, asked us to change her name because of the cutthroat nature of her business. “I just heard one male partner here remarking that anybody on the 6:30 P.M. train home doesn’t deserve to be at the firm,” she says, laughing and grimacing at the same time. “You can’t even risk putting an ‘out-of-the-office’ automatic e-mail reply on your e-mail account,” she continues, “Bad form.” Miriam says an assistant is one of the keys to keeping her life livable, and somewhat under wraps. “With a good assistant,” she explains, “I can make my life work. They know the kids, the schools, when to interrupt a meeting for a phone call, how to mention I’m at ‘a breakfast’ when I’m in late. I learned from my partner’s assistant. One day I asked where he was. ‘At breakfast,’ she told me. Then two hours later when he came in I went into his office to talk and he said, ‘I just had the best workout!’ I laughed to myself and was reminded that this is nothing new. Men have been doing it for years.”

Promote Thyself

Would it make sense to give away Nobel Prizes anonymously? Are Pulitzer winners kept under wraps? Do CEOs who navigate a successful merger hide the fact? No, of course not. And for good reason. The world likes winners

And self-promotion is a basic part of business life. Informing others of a success is just as much about keeping them in the loop as is informing them about a failure. Working smart time requires that you get the most bang for your professional buck, which means that when you score a win, you need to let the right people know. And remember—your boss wants to revel in your victory.

As with everything else in life, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this. The wrong way is fairly obvious (gloating to your own staff, babbling incessantly about a win, giving yourself obnoxious shiny stars and smiley faces). The right way is not so obvious, but it’s extremely important. In our experience, women shy away from this kind of self-promotion. Don’t.

Just one example of what the real cost to women is when they don’t sell themselves: a 2002 study that looked at the starting salaries of men and women graduating from Carnegie Mellon with master’s degrees found that only 7 percent of the women negotiated for more money, compared to 57 percent of the men. On average, those men got an extra four thousand dollars.

The following tips will keep you within the lines of intelligently informing the command chain about your successes, without falling into useless, time-wasting, animosity-inspiring bragging.

1. Try for an informative, casual, but straightforward tone. You say: “Bob, did you hear? We nailed that Backstra account. It was a thrill to run that closing! Thanks for the opportunity.” They hear: You’re just so jazzed about the victory you couldn’t keep it in.

Robin Ehlers says she used to be shy about calling attention to her work, but over time she’s realized higher-ups actually appreciate it, and they view it as part of her loyalty to the company. “People that I work for know that I love this company, I love what I do, I’m always reliable,” she explains. “So the way I get my name out there, is that, when I do something well, I always copy my boss.”

2. Don’t simply rattle off a list of accomplishments. It’s much better to handle references to a recent success in a conversation. Often it can include you asking lots of questions, and even offering praise. You say: “How are things going on the Canada account?”…“Ah, yes, I had a sense when I finally got them to agree to that concession last week that they’d eventually sign on. It was tough going though. They were really dug in. Oh, and thanks for that idea about throwing in the regional business. When I finally dangled that, they agreed. Congratulations, Bob. It’s just great news for the company.” They think: I clearly have a brilliant employee who is learning from me.

3. Be self-deprecating. You say: “I’ll never forget that moment last month when I got the All-America service award…and I tripped on my way up to the stage!” They hear: You’re clearly a star but have a great sense of humor about it.

4. See yourself as others may see you. This is crucial to managing your image. The way you are perceived inside the company may not be fair, but it is what it is, and if you are working there, you have to deal with it. That can be why, says Melissa James, self-promotion or powerful talk from women can make us seem like that B word we all hate so much. “Sometimes I know I intimidate men,” she concedes. Not fair, but since she’s self-aware, she can calibrate. You say: “Ted, we couldn’t have closed the deal without your advice on the product numbers.” They think: A well-mannered, perceptive employee—she’s a winner.

5. Tell a story. These can work really well and are easy and entertaining to pull out of your hat when you come face-to-face with higher-ups. If you think hard enough, you can find drama in any recent success.

You say: “Jim—what a wild trip to Minneapolis that was. The plane landed four hours late…and when we got off…our bags hadn’t made the flight, including our PowerPoint presentation! Well—you can imagine my team was demoralized. Luckily, I’d been rehearsing the presentation for a week—and our whole team knew it cold. I rallied them…told them wrinkled clothes and no gadgets didn’t matter, that we were selling ourselves. And the client was bowled over. I’ve never felt so proud of our people.”

They hear: You are clearly a stellar team leader who isn’t afraid to talk about bad moments, who motivates her people, can pull the company out of a jam, and most important, seems to thrive on the experience!

By the way, Melissa James, who thinks all women have a hard time with the promotion business, thinks praising the team is always the best way to go.

“Every time I have an opportunity to talk about my team I send an e-mail up the chain. That’s the whole point really, of being a leader. Motivating and supporting others.”

The Strategic Yes

A key nexus of working smarter not harder and being a savvy self-promoter is to focus on the high-profile assignments that your boss really cares about. That’s how you get the biggest bang. And in learning to recognize those moments, you will come to see that occasionally there are assignments that might threaten to wreak havoc with your schedule, but they might also provide you with a huge payoff. When the two of us give each other advice, we’ve taken to calling them Strategic Yes moments. These are the times when you need to realize how much mileage you will get out of saying yes. These are the times when it might cost you personally but it will pay off so well professionally that it’s worth that super early start, the Sunday in the office, that tedious trip to Houston. You need to keep an eye out for these opportunities and bank them, so you can coast later.

Here’s how:

1. Know Your Boss

Beyond your own job description, make it your business to be on top of your boss’s pet issues—if it’s his priority, make it your priority. Don’t bust a gut on something he’s not very interested in. But if he has a client, concern, or commodity he is keen on, you will get a lot of mileage by performing well, and putting in the extra hours, in those areas.

For Stephanie Hampton at Marriott the Strategic Yes moment came on an environmental project that she knew was very important to her boss. Marriott was planning to invest $2 million to protect the Amazon rain forest—and it needed a major communications rollout. This green initiative was personally sponsored by the company’s CFO and Stephanie’s EVP, so it had high-level backing.

“It was game-changing and the first-of-its-kind for the industry, so I felt like I was part of that. And I felt like if I did my job, we could help win the hearts and minds of many customers, investors, and employees through this very real initiative to address climate change. I had to work some late nights and a weekend or two, but it wasn’t systemic, so I was happy to do it.”

2. Keep Tabs on Company/Industry Buzz

This is similar to knowing your boss. You have to put a bit of extra effort in, but there are opportunities to score high here. If you can keep an eye on the current hot issues either in your company, or even more broadly within your industry, you can direct your energy into those high-profile, high-reward projects that are grabbing everyone’s attention. And if you are ahead of the curve on buzz, it also gives you a chance to leap on those areas early on and claim them as yours. It makes you and your boss look good, which helps everyone.

In our industry that means being aware of the new story lines that editors are fixated on—in yours it could be the implementation of a new technology, the effect of a new legal precedent, a hot new vein of medical research, or how to channel concerns about the energy crisis into profits for your company. Whatever it is, keep your ears and eyes open and make company news by being a trend leader.

3. Make Yourself Essential

Melissa James of Morgan Stanley says that especially when the economy is in a downturn, it’s critical to develop this skill. Assess what you do that nobody else can do, and that your boss could not handle without you. And if you’re not coming up with anything, focus on this fast. “But none of this is easy,” notes James. “It can be complicated to figure out exactly what is the best use of your time for your bosses and for you. It takes some intuition.” It also takes good communication. Don’t hesitate to check in with your superior frequently to go over priorities, yours and hers. Over time, you’ll see how you should best direct your energies.

4. Strategic Yeses to Make Up for Lots of Nos!

Both of us are constantly tallying our quotas of nos and yeses. It’s a question of balance. If we’ve turned down a run of assignments, trips, or stories we realize it may be a good time to say yes to a project. And if you want to get extra kudos, offer to take something on before you’re even asked. Make sure that yes is heard loud and clear for maximum professional capital (which of course you can spend later to win yourself time).

If you are generally allergic to taking on extra assignments, this may not come easily—so keep your female sixth sense on your boss’s expectations. If you pick up hints that you’ve seemed to be underperforming/slacking off/not quite a team player in recent weeks—throw out a keen, confident yes and knuckle under for a short burst.

And, a confession, we don’t always get this right ourselves!

 

CLAIRE I’d been on the road for work every week for three weeks back to back. Moreover, I had a trip to Italy coming up for Good Morning America that I was dreading, since I’d been gone so much. At the same time, I’d also been getting pressure to travel to Texas to cover Jenna Bush’s wedding just three days after the Italy trip. My husband and I wanted to have our daughter’s birthday party that weekend, so between that and all the travel I decided to say no to covering the Bush wedding. I thought that was the end of it. Hardly. I got a call from an executive explaining that the execs felt I should go, and that everyone thought I had “enough” time between my trips to justify it.

For some reason that just made my blood boil. I called the female executive who was making this decision and coldly explained why I would not be going. She countered, saying that the network was assigning me and, again, I had “enough time” between trips. I exploded, questioning why they could make that judgment about my family life, reminding her I was not a “serf” (yes, I said that) to be dispatched at will, and throwing out all sorts of other things including hysterical tears. I ended by saying I was not going, and if that meant I’d be fired then so be it. (I happened to be writing Womenomics at the time, and I think all of the focus on empowerment was making me giddy).

Since Katty was in the middle of an interview, I called my husband immediately. Maybe he was thinking about our bank balance, but he encouraged me to take a step back. He suggested that we celebrate Della’s birthday the next weekend and that he’d be around for the kids if I had to go. Most importantly, he pointed out that this sounded like a high-profile assignment from the network’s point of view, and one that would get me a lot of airtime on a lot of shows all in one swoop. I hadn’t seen the big picture like that. It took me a few hours to recover, but I called back later and told the executive I could in fact go. She was quite cheerful and grateful, and acted like my emotional outburst was no big deal. Phew.

Anyhow, I realized later than I should have seen that the trip to Texas was clearly an opportunity. And in fact it turned out to be. Three days in Texas, and I was on every broadcast. Now, maybe I was able to make an important point with my approach, and still get the benefit, but I’m not sure I’d suggest that as a strategy. Too draining. Especially for my husband!

Strategic Nos

We can guarantee with absolute certainty that there will come a time in your professional life when, however savvy you are about rejecting perfection in favor of “good enough,” about delegating, self-promoting, and delivering those strategic yeses, you will have no choice but to assert yourself with a big, definitive NO. It can be career changing. We’re talking about Alpha stuff here. You’ve been offered partner but just can’t accept and stay sane. The Tokyo office is yours, but you know it won’t work with your life. That EVP slot is on the table, if you’ll bust your gut and marriage for it.

This is the time to know when and how to kick Womenomics into top gear in order to turn down a major commitment, without driving your career into a brick wall.

These are tough. They are often moments of real confrontation. They may involve an intractable boss, an unfair but critical assignment, perhaps turning down a promotion. They can be terrifying to imagine. And that terror can keep you from sticking up for yourself, from setting reasonable boundaries, from getting what you want.

It might reassure you to learn that even seemingly apocalyptic, ugly nos can have very good outcomes. And even when they don’t, the players survive. We know, we’ve both done it.

 

KATTY It started with an innocent phone call from my agent. Would I be interested in talking to a major US network about a job as White House correspondent? Sure I was happy to talk; I mean this was a big deal. No American network had ever had a Brit reporting from the White House before. And yes, I was flattered. The meeting went well, I liked the people, they must have liked me—I was offered the job. The agent was thrilled and pushed hard—You have to take this, it’s a major step up in your career here, if you don’t I’m not quite sure what you do want.” But I was already having doubts. The BBC is a public broadcaster that doesn’t pay well, but it did give me a lot of freedom and a lot of time off. I knew I’d never get that kind of control over my schedule at a U.S. network. My vacation would be cut in half, I’d have to be at the White House every day, and on call whenever needed. These are tough, competitive organizations, and I’d be a newcomer, and a foreigner to boot, with a lot to prove. I felt under pressure to say yes—from the network, which kept calling, from my agent, who was growing increasingly exasperated, and from my own susceptible ego. But in the end I went with my gut—the idea of that job made me miserable, so what was the point of taking it? I said “no” and had to say it again, several times with increasing firmness. Luckily, I had Claire to advise me!

 

CLAIRE I felt something in my stomach, but I couldn’t identify it exactly. Surely it must be butterflies. There was a new anchoring gig at our network, and I was a front-runner! Just a few years ago I would have done armed combat for a job opportunity like that. And there was no mistaking the thrill that my agent, my friends, and relatives were getting from the prospect. But as the days went on, I realized that the feeling in my stomach wasn’t butterflies, it was dread. Did I really want to uproot my family from Washington to New York? After years of feeling I was in a backwater, I’d grown to love the more relaxed lifestyle of the nation’s capital. And it was not the ideal time in my husband’s career to make a move either. My agent suggested I could commute to New York. Maybe. After all, how could I really say no to an anchoring job if it were offered? That’s supposed to be the pinnacle of our business—something we all strive to do. And network executives were whispering in my ear about how much they hoped I’d say yes. “We need someone like you in that chair,” said one at a dinner gathering. They need me! It was the most seductive of siren calls. But all I could think about was whether I really wanted to take on the responsibility and the long hours. I had a young child and another on the way, and finally felt I’d achieved a routine that was working in my life. After weeks of agonizing, I realized I couldn’t do what the company might need and also be my best version of a mother. Some people can, but I couldn’t. The day before I was supposed to fly to New York to check my “chemistry” with a male anchor, I told my agent to pull me out of the running. Strategically, I decided to focus not only on lifestyle but also on the fact that I loved the job I was doing, which was true. The executives were startled, to say the least. Did it close some doors for me? Probably. I’m not anchoring as much as I once was, for example. But in the long run, I’ve come to believe that my willingness to say “no” didn’t really damage my standing at the company. In fact, it was probably best for everybody. It’s kept me doing what I really love to do, which is write and report. It also let me make a statement about priorities, which was healthy for me and ABC.

 

Even when strategic nos are not as career changing as rejecting a seemingly glittering promotion, they are still remarkably stressful. Sometimes it’s a question of standing your ground against a single unreasonable request or particularly belligerent boss.

Every Wednesday Miriam Decker’s big boss holds a small staff meeting with about twenty people, but one Wednesday Miriam knew she’d need to work from home. “I had two important school meetings and two doctor’s appointments,” she says. “I just had too much I needed to squeeze in, and I don’t live near the office.” She could see tension coming when she heard that her partner and supervisor wouldn’t be able to attend that Wednesday meeting either, and their golden rule was that one of them always went. She decided to break that rule and go ahead with her plans anyway. She ignored the stress building in her mind and told her partner she’d handle the meeting by conference call from home. She didn’t tell him why. “I could tell he was bothered when I told him,” she says, “and I did feel guilty for a few minutes.” But she didn’t offer to change her schedule.

How did she get the guts to stand her ground? “I thought about the fact that there are fifty-two of those high-level meetings in a year, and I’m missing one.” And she moved on.

Christy Runninghan will never forget the down-and-dirty confrontation with her unreconstructed boss at Best Buy a few years ago. She was supposed to be able to leave work early on Fridays in the summer, but he didn’t want to let her out the door if he was still there.

“I’m not somebody who confronts my boss or something like that you know…. I grew up in Catholic school for goodness sakes, that whole Catholic guilt is kind of going along with what you’re supposed to be doing,” she remembers, laughing now. “I finally had to say, ‘Look, I am documenting all of these hours, you want me to stay here until five-thirty or six like you? But I also have to be in here at seven o’clock to fulfill my duties. Look at how many hours that would be.”

He was tough, and unsympathetic, she remembers, but she’d prepared her argument well and was able to make her case. “And I said, ‘And here’s what I’m taking for lunch, so this is well over what I should be working in a work week, and I’m not going to be staying until five-thirty or six o’clock. Just because you are coming in later and staying later, doesn’t mean I have to do the same thing. Here’s what I’m doing, and I’m still fulfilling my job requirements in more than enough hours to do the job.’” He was not happy, but she got to leave early on Fridays.

Not all bosses will react well to Strategic Nos, so choose your battles. But take heart as you explore this unfamiliar landscape. There are savvy bosses out there who get it.

“I do remember for a long time not ever wanting to say, ‘I’m home with a sick child today.’” Julie Wellner, who owns that architecture firm in Kansas City, says she struggled with being open about her scheduling needs, and as a boss, she was also leery of her employees being open about their personal lives, even though she granted flexibility. Now she sees that honesty works, within limits.

“Now I don’t mind anybody in the office saying ‘I can’t do that, I’m gonna be at a baseball game.’ As long as it is straightforward and doesn’t become too much information. In other words, if you say, if I or one of my staff says, ‘I’m not going to be there because I have to attend something at my child’s school,’ I think that’s just fine. What I don’t want them to say is, ‘My mom is sick and I’m gonna have to help my sister move and blah blah blah.’”

“I think honestly, if you’re doing your job you don’t need to be there twelve hours a day. It’s an unrealistic thing and it’s an unhappy thing and it doesn’t work in the long run,” says Geraldine Laybourne. “You shouldn’t have to work that many hours. You’re not productive, you can’t be coming up with good ideas.”

And remember this key Womenomics fact as you contemplate whether you can turn something down or leave the office: a good manager, who is truly looking for results, will see through meaningless face-time.

“A lot of these people are just running in place. A lot of it is, how can I put the face-time in so the boss thinks I’m really great?” says Laybourne, shaking her head. “That is a needy needy needy kind of thing. I think people need to understand themselves, what they bring to the party. Think hard, be fresh for thinking, and stick to their guns.”

This may seem to go without saying, but we’d better say it, and probably more than once: you have to be a good performer to pull this off. Setting limits, saying no, being lazy like a fox—it only works out if you’re cunning like a fox as well. After all, no boss is going to offer you bonuses and promotions simply because you’re less available. But every boss will offer incentives if you happen to be less available but are also accomplishing better, higher-caliber, higher-impact assignments without hiccups or delays. Every boss we’ve talked with, and every woman we’ve interviewed with a flexible schedule, says the same thing. It works best if they really like you; and indeed the flexibility itself often makes them like you more because you perform better.

Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.

When you put all these separate strategies and techniques together you may find that you can actually create a flexible schedule on your own—without even asking permission, negotiating a new deal, or, most critically, taking a pay cut. Let’s face it—some companies just aren’t prone to offering you the possibility formally. It will be up to you to make it happen. Lauren, for example, says it’s unusual to get a formal flexibility agreement in her line of work.

“In investment banking or private equity it’s tough to do, probably because, even these days, there’s so much money at stake,” she explains. “It’s just the culture. The group norm is to work as hard as you can.”

Miriam goes one step further. “You’ll always have younger men or younger women ready to steal your lunch money, as we call it. If you don’t work your tail off, you probably won’t be wanted as part of the group. So if you want flexibility, don’t ask about it, just take it,” she advises. “It’s basically don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Most of us are not in industries quite that cutthroat, but we still may need to create our own utopia. So together with all of the savvy techniques we’ve laid out, here’s a path to follow that will let you start to set precedents, create routines, and carve out a way of working that will leave some colleagues wondering, “How did she get this great work setup?” But once it is set in place, your new schedule will be hard to roll back.

• Make a point of leaving the office a few times during the day for “meetings.” Let everyone know you’ll be on your BlackBerry. While you are gone, send several e-mails back to the office dealing with pressing issues immediately. People will start to realize you don’t need to be there to be on top of things.
• Come in at 7 A.M. one morning. Make sure you boss knows how early you were there. Be superefficient in a public way throughout the day, meet deadlines, take on new projects. But at lunchtime, announce you have an appointment at 3 P.M. Try to have an assignment finished or some other impressive piece of work done that you can hand off as you head out. (Don’t apologize and don’t promise to be up all night.)
• Or stay late one evening, and again, make sure people know. As your colleagues leave the office, let them know you’ll be working from home the next morning, since you want to get a jump start on the day and avoid the commute. While you are working at home, send a slew of e-mails and information to all concerned. Let them feel you work.
• Pick a project that is not due for a while. Get most of it done in advance but don’t tell your boss. Then let him know that since you’re an early bird, you’d like to get a “head start” on the project from home at 6 A.M. the next day. Put it on his desk when you walk in the door at noon. Highly impressive! He’ll think you did it all that day from home and wonder whether working from home is more productive!

Tim Ferriss in The 4-Hour Workweek has some quite creative suggestions about becoming “ill” but insisting to your employer that you can handle your work at home, and then while at home, you suddenly become so productive both you and your boss realize you may be on to a good thing in terms of efficiency and productivity! We love the chutzpah of this one.

So you get the idea. Start small, but be assumptive. Always have your work covered in spades, so that nobody can say you are not getting everything done. If you can find ways to prove that you are somehow superefficient even though you are at the office less, then all the better. Soon you will find that your quirky schedule is simply accepted, and nobody will question when you are in or out because they know your work gets done on time. Once that happens, all you need is a few more tips to keep things running smoothly.

• Go public with deadlines. Announce your internal limits out loud to whomever listens in a way that is focused on productivity. “Gang, let’s get moving on this. I’m out of here at 4 P.M.” “Guys, let’s spend the morning on this. I’m not around this afternoon.” “We’ve got to finish the Braden proposal by Friday. I’m away next week.” It will make you seem efficient, bottom-line oriented, and will help to ingrain the notion that your schedule will not change.
• Energy executive Sarah Slusser says being clear about schedules and time limits is both good common sense and helpfully respectful—two things that in the end make you look strong. “A lot of work is teamwork, so you can’t just disappear,” she says. “You have to let people know ahead of time what you’re doing. That really helps. If you let people know you need a flexible schedule and tell them exactly what it is, colleagues know to build around that, and they think you’ve done the responsible thing by informing them. It’s a hard thing to do, though; you feel like you’re weak by saying I want to leave work early on Fridays. But it’s not weak; you have another obligation or another responsibility or another priority, and that’s who you are.”
• Be assertive and clear about your schedule, and depending on the company, don’t hide the family. Most places have moved beyond the Stone Age. Once you have a pattern established, the more truth the better. “Can I take that home with me? I’ll have it reviewed tonight. I’ve got soccer to coach at 4 P.M.”
• Offer alternatives. Christy Runningen at Best Buy says having that attitude breeds understanding and agreement. “I’ve finally gotten to the point where most of the time I can just say ‘I won’t be available here,’” she explains, “but I try to be up front and also say, ‘I can do this, or would this work instead?’”

Exceptions

There are of course professions that absolutely require your physical presence at specific times. It’s not possible to get a knee operation from a surgeon who’s out playing with her children in the park. In these cases, being cunning doesn’t immediately pay off in terms of time away from the office, but it can bring other benefits that lead to the same effect. If you perform well, over time you will be in a much stronger position to renegotiate your whole deal—to define your job in the terms and times you want.

Linda Brooks, our New York lawyer, whose law firm operates, like most law firms, on billable hours, says her profession does not really encourage time-saving techniques.

“You’re not going to see a lot of people spending a lot of time figuring out how to bill fewer hours,” she concedes. “Even if you get your work done much faster, the partners will still want you to be billing, or working, a certain amount of hours. I think the work-smart model, just fundamentally and economically, it’s kind of at odds with the billable hour,” she says. Obviously if you work smarter and more efficiently you will be seen as a better employee—you just might not get to take your reward in “down-time.” But, one could argue, Linda’s smart, effective work is the reason her partners were open to her taking a pay cut and taking a day off a week. “I think by making this decision,” she adds, “I am by definition working smarter. I just try to get as much done in the four days that I am in the office as I can so it frees up more time on Friday.”

Economically, it wasn’t the best thing for her. But psychologically, it’s given her the life she wants, and she was more than willing to pay the price, literally, for that freedom.

Dear Gens X and Y

KATTY I was twenty-nine years old and living in Tokyo as a foreign correspondent for the BBC when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I phoned up my best friend, a colleague from work, and burst into tears. “I don’t know if I want kids. What about my career? No one will ever take me seriously again.” For the first time in my life I was really loving my work, getting praise from my bosses and self-esteem from my rising profile. If I left work at 8 P.M. I felt I was going home early. I was convinced that having a baby would mean the end of all that. I’d be put on the “mommy track.” Thirteen years and four children later I realize that’s not true. My career has gone through various permutations, some fast-track, some slow, but it does still exist. I do know, however, that I have benefited, as I’ve sought flexibility over the years, from my early days of hard work, and from the career base I established for myself in my hard-charging twenties.

 

Women who are just starting out these days are well ahead of where we were twenty years ago. It never occurred to us to think ahead about children—we’d chugged back the corporate Kool-Aid. The confrontation with reality came hard. But today’s young women are different. They are already planning long term and asking balance questions right from the start. Gens X and Y, you are smarter than we were, and you’re right, it is never too soon to build healthy work habits.

But the reality is that you may not be able to walk into a company for your first job and demand significant flexibility. So in the early part of your career, you may well have to make sacrifices, adopt the dragon-slayer attitude, and pretend that you are dying to do nothing more than pull four all-nighters in a row.

Valerie Jarrett, President Barack Obama’s senior adviser and a family friend, says she’s worked hard to help her daughter, Laura, who is in law school, navigate the new work terrain. A lawyer herself who was running the Habitat Company in Chicago until last year, she tells her daughter to choose her profession carefully so she can have a life and a family.

“There are so many more options now for women, but you still have to be savvy about your choices, and know what the profession will demand,” she says.

Jarrett says she also encourages her daughter to do the hard work early, so that she will have earned the flexibility she needs, when she needs it.

“We had long conversations about goodwill. I told her, ‘Laura, this is what gets you through life, and you do want to build it up.’ So, for example, in the beginning of the summer she worked like a dog. I said there’s only one chance to make a first good impression, and so you’ve got to work exceptionally hard at the beginning if you want people to see what you’re made of basically.”

“I tell women, build up that goodwill bank, make those sacrifices early,” says Melissa James of Morgan Stanley. “It only gets harder over the course of your career to make those time sacrifices, and if you build up that goodwill bank, hopefully you’ll be able, at some later stage, to cash in on it.”

That said, you can still learn much from the techniques already discussed in chapters 3, 4, and 5. You should already be thinking big and using your time well. And we definitely don’t want you to become a doormat—work hard, but keep focused on your life-work priorities. Be certain that the projects you are spending time on will pay off for you. Don’t let yourself get handed all the drudge work. These are invaluable skills and will show from the start that you are leadership material. Start experimenting with our techniques now, when the stakes are not so high.

Thirty-two-year-old Anne Hurst, who has a master’s degree in public policy, just quit one nonprofit job as an educational consultant to move to another called Jump Start. She took a $10,000 or 20 percent annual pay cut to do it. Why? Like so many young women of her and perhaps your generation, work-life balance is already important to her.

“There was very little respect for the fact that I had needs and desires outside of work, the fact that I wanted to go to the gym or go running. Of course everyone would say it was fine, but in reality, the number of hours that I worked, the office situation that I was in, really didn’t respect making me a happy person.”

Anne is about to get married and wants to have children, so working for a company that would offer flexibility is already very much on her mind.

“I definitely thought about it when I was thinking about taking this job. I thought about the atmosphere in the office and how I would feel more relaxed if I have a kid, about my needs to adjust my schedule from time to time. My last job had horrible deadlines. You had to work through no matter what, which is completely not acceptable if you have to go home and get your kid from day care.”

It’s also important that you carefully study the industry where you are working or considering working. Do your research. Zero in on its track record with women. Is there a large percentage of women in the workforce? In management? Those would obviously be good signs. And what kinds of lives do those women lead? Talk to some of the women there about their experience in that business. Before you launch yourself on a certain path, ask if it’s an industry where it’s easier for women to pull off the New All.

Maybe you don’t have children at home, and maybe you aren’t thinking about having any yet, or even at all. Maybe you really do want to dedicate most of your free time to your career. Even then you will benefit from honing your skills at buying time, and being more efficient and ridding yourself of guilt.

And when you’ve earned a few years or decades of corporate credit and want to cash them in to buy more freedom because smart time isn’t enough, we’ve got the ultimate guide to negotiating a whole new deal. Just ahead you’ll find our road map to more formal flexibility and an entirely new life.

news you can use

1. If you try to be perfect all of the time, you will work all of the time.
2. Be savvy—delegate, self-promote, and learn when to say no, and yes, strategically.
3. Note to Gens X and Y—like your mothers said, you are never too young to adopt healthy habits.