I love sharing stories about winning women.

1. Because celebrating progress is such a powerful motivator, and
2. It helps other women see what else might be possible.

In the past I’ve shared how some women doubled or even tripled their salary to give you ideas on how to be creative with your efforts to win pay rises, promotions and to be recognised as you truly deserve.

This week I want to celebrate an amazing woman who thought outside the square when it came to career moves.

Let’s call her Briony. Briony is super smart, has big goals and dreams and certainly doesn’t fit the mold for what’s traditionally seen as a leader in her industry – but this doesn’t stop her.

She was ready for a promotion and a pay rise yet because she works in a sector where salary bands are relatively transparent, wasn’t sure how she was going to get there.

Plus there had been salary freezes and people were being let go, so she was pretty confident that it would be hard for her to get this during a “cost of living” crisis.

Instead of her limiting mindset or scarcity thinking stopping her, she decided to get creative and I’m delighted to say it really worked for her.

1. She started networking and increasing her visibility with a game behind the game (I.e. she knew she wanted a new role with more money)
2. She let her network know what she was looking for and that she was prepared to be creative about the solution.
3. One of her network let her know about a secondment opportunity in an entirely different area, which she jumped into with both feet, which also came with a significant increase in pay
4. Then she did great work in the new role, working on both delivering exceptional results in this new area, and also on intentionally making sure her new boss knew exactly how much value she was delivering.  
5. She was also intentional in letting her new boss know that she would like the role permanently if it should come up. She didn’t leave them guessing.
6. Voilà! The permanent role became available along with yet another substantive increase in pay and she has been excited to accept this permanent placement.

Congratulations Briony. You have provided us with a great case study of how career success and career progress can happen for women even in an economic downturn and when others are saying it cannot be done, and we’ll have to bide our time.

LEARNINGS?

Progress isn’t linear – Those big career moves don’t have to happen overnight or in one fell swoop. They can take time, relationship building, and even a series of moves, manoeuvres and negotiations in order to get to where you want to go.

Creativity counts – In an economic downturn you may have to think creatively if you want to win big opportunities with big raises. Research might tell us that in an economic downturn hiring and recruitment decisions are more conservative i.e. people appoint those who already have a track record either in the role or in the industry, or ideally both.  There can also be a double whammy for women, where we see men more likely to be appointed on potential while women are more likely to have to prove the track record. However you get to choose whether or not to accept this premise.

If your company has put a wage freeze on right now, if you’re really keen on an off cycle raise or career progress, possibly when others are being let go, then consider creative solutions like secondments, plum assignments, additional duties that broaden and expand your experience, that also ensure you are known and seen by a whole new raft of decision makers.

Plan with purpose – Briony knew what she was aiming for. She has a long-term plan and this secondment/promotion with a pay rise was just one step closer to her ultimate long term career goal. She can clearly articulate her why and has a clear sense of purpose and is very motivated to get to her long term goal, even when evidence and ‘common sense’ is sometimes giving signals of the opposite. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Don’t let the mantras of low confidence and low agency become self-fulfilling prophecies. If we’re told over and over again that women lack confidence or that women don’t have as much agency, maybe we’ll start believing it and that would be a shame. 

It’s the same with this economic downturn. Just because history tells us it might be harder to get a substantive off cycle raise or a big promotion right now, you don’t have to believe it. 

As the Chinese proverb goes – “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.”

YOUR THOUGHTS? Drop me a note and let me know – if you’re winning in the career game right now despite the economic downturn I’d love to hear from you – so we can inspire women to continue to become the leader they want to see.

REFERENCES:

• Goldsmith, M., & Reiter, M. (2007). What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. Hyperion. Link
• Ibarra, H., Carter, N. M., & Silva, C. (2010). Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women. Harvard Business Review. Link
• Parker, K., & Funk, C. (2017). Gender Discrimination Comes in Many Forms for Today’s Working Women. Pew Research Center. Link
• Robinson, K. (2011). Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative. Capstone. Link