As you prepare for the discussion, you must do the following:

• Review your personal agenda and the “report card” that you agreed upon with your manager at the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010; Everything that you agreed that you would accomplish this year should be COMPLETE by the end of the 3^rd quarter.
• Make a detailed list of your accomplishments as well as a list of the one or two things that you will complete by Sept. 30^th
• Schedule a quick meeting 15-30 minutes with your manager where you review what you have done during the first three quarters of this year and agree upon those things that are remaining for the year. This is also the time to reiterate that you are focused on your promotion or new assignment. You want to understand from your manager that you are on the right trajectory. Obviously, he/she cannot make any guarantees at this point (after all there is still a quarter of performance to go), however, this conversation will open the door for them to give you a heads up if things don’t look good for you, or if there are some previously unforeseen obstacles that you need to be aware of and will have to work through in the 4^th quarter.  You should also ask your manager if there is anything else that you could do to make their job of sponsoring you for promotion any easier.

This is also an excellent time for you to check in with your sponsor to understand if there is any data in the market place that you should be aware of concerning your candidacy. You should also make sure that your sponsor (assuming your sponsor is different than you direct manager), is VERY aware of your key accomplishments and ANYTHING that you think could potentially be an impediment with an explanation of why you don’t think that the issue is insurmountable.

Assuming that that you get the tacit green light from your manager and your sponsor is also constructive about your prospects, plan to finish your annual plan by September 30^th and then focus on the 4^th quarter with continued strong performance, a great attitude, adequate time spent continuing to invest in key relationships, and looking for opportunities to do something extraordinarily value add.

Yes, 2010 seems to be going faster than 2009. It’s time, if you haven’t already done it to take inventory of where you are in this year’s professional goals.

If you did not do the following in June, at the end of the second quarter, commit to the following in the next 10 days:

-Review your professional agenda:

• Have you completed the projects you started to work on?
• Have you had the experiences that you wanted to have, been exposed to the key people that you wanted to get exposed to?
• Have you had at least 3-4 conversations with your mentor?
• Have you had at least 2-3 conversations with your sponsor?
• Have you chosen a sponsor, if you realized at the end of 2009 that you did not have one or your sponsor had recently left your firm?
• Are you clear on what it takes to get promoted this year if that was your aspiration/objective as we started 2010
• Have you compared your report card and your understanding of what it takes to get promoted with your firm’s report card?
• Have you had a mid-year evaluation or conversation where you reiterate your expectations about how this year should develop?
• If you are behind on your projects at work, commit to overtime or early  morning time this week to catch up. Do not let July 15th catch you still way behind.

It’s the 3rd quarter, time to get it in gear , so that this year will END as YOU intend!

Last week I postulated that as I travel around the country giving speeches in corporate, academic or conference settings and spend time speaking to women, I am forming a conclusion that the two biggest impediments to women in maximizing their success are FEAR and FATIGUE. In last week’s blog, I talked about FATIGUE and how it is an impediment, particularly to more seasoned professional women, in maximizing their success and in this week’s blog, I want to discuss the role of FEAR and the role it plays in impeding success maximization.

As I discussed in Expect To Win, when you think about WHY you don’t really “go for IT”, the big promotion, the new opportunity that could really catapult your career, having the big conversation with your boss, leaving your job that you know is below your intellectual or skill level to reach for something more challenging, or whatever IT is, the answer is usually rooted in FEAR. You are afraid of failing, or you are afraid of success, you are afraid of what your family will say, you are afraid of what “people” will think, you are afraid of the unknown, you are afraid that if it doesn’t quite work out the way you think it will, then what, you are afraid that if you are too successful, you might be not be able to find a significant other, or you are just plain scared!

While FATIGUE is the more predominant impediment to more seasoned career professionals, FEAR is the predominant deterrent to younger, less experienced professionals. I am not saying that more seasoned professional women aren’t also plagued by FEAR, fear of losing what they have worked so hard for, fear of failure, etc., but FATIGUE is more often than not the reason why they don’t go for it, pull out all of the stops, and leave it on the floor.  Younger professionals generally have less familial responsibility, more energy in general and less of their career has been spent fighting their way up the corporate ladder, so FATIGUE has not had a legitimate opportunity to settle in as a constant friend and then as a formidable foe. However, because younger professionals have less experience in recovering from mistakes and less experience in general, they are more afraid of a mistake, for they fear that they will not be able to recover from it. They don’t necessarily identify with the “this too will pass” adage and mantra of more seasoned professionals who understand that there will always be challenges and that maturity teaches you that there is always a way to solve a challenge. Younger, less experienced professionals are most often overwhelmed when challenges arise and are therefore less inclined to take risks that could result in outsized returns for FEAR that the mistake or not achieving the goal could be a real career breaker, or insurmountable. If you identify with this statement, then know that you are allowing FEAR to slow you down, to sabotage your ability to maximize your success.

So FEAR has you in its grip, what do you do now?

1. First, understand that ANY time that you approach ANY opportunity, conversation or challenge from a position of fear; you will always UNDERPENETRATE that opportunity. You cannot and will not be able to maximize your success in that endeavor. You will not get the maximum return on your energy expended. So if you are going to bother pursuing any endeavor, pursue it WITHOUT FEAR, so that you will get the most out of your effort;
2. Second, understand that this is YOUR life and the TIME in your life is the most precious thing that you have in it, for it is finite. You can always get more money, more things, more skills, but you will never get more TIME. You cannot afford to waste this precious entity, which you will never get more of. You will never see THIS day in your life again, so you must spend it professionally and personally in a way that you are getting the most return from it. So do not waste another moment endeavoring to do things that will not give you the highest yield on your time expended. FEAR will cause you to lose valuable time. It will cause you to stay in a seat that you should abdicate because you are no longer learning, you are no longer producing for your firm in a productive, high impact way. FEAR will block your ability to make a decision that could result in a wonderful career or job with a steeper learning curve and career trajectory.
3. Thirdly, understand that because it is YOUR life, you cannot let the FEAR of what others will think or say, impede your forward motion or your propensity to take a risk. Other people’s opinions or advice may be needed, appreciated, or even asked for and it may be excellent advice, but you cannot let what you think their reaction might be deter you to your decision, if you fundamentally believe that you are making a great decision for YOU. As a dear friend, once told me, this is real life, this ain’t no dress rehearsal!” This life was given to YOU. Everyone has the opportunity to make the most of it, don’t let someone else’s fears, concerns, or negative spirit deter you from maximizing yours.
4. Fourthly, FEAR of success is a tricky concept. Most of us would never admit that we are afraid of success, yet sometimes people sabotage themselves and their own success, because they are afraid of the unknown. They are afraid of how life might change if they are successful, how others might react, and the new challenges that await them when they get to a new level. Remember that you have been given gift of intelligence, of experience, of a network and of valuable relationships that have enabled you to attain higher and higher levels of success.  You have the responsibility to go for it. With every new level of success, you receive a more powerful platform from which you can be effective in helping others succeed, you can deploy the multiplier effect in all of your actions, which is incredibly powerful and which will ultimately enable you to achieve even more in your life.  If you are afraid of the new level, the new promotion, the new title, the new challenges that wait, refer to your track record. You have a track record of firsts in your life, a track record of overcoming things that once looked like challenges and ended up as accomplishments. Refer to your track record, if you did it before, you can do it again;
5. Lastly, remind yourself that the worst that can happen if you go for it, is that you FAIL, but failure always brings you a gift and that gift is called experience. Now you know how to do it better, now you know how to do it differently, now you know how to do it successfully. The journey to go for it, is always worth it. You learn something; you add experience and knowledge to your tool chest that, if it can’t be used now, it can be harvested later, where it might bring you even greater value.  You cannot let FEAR rob you of the satisfaction that you will have AFTER you have had endeavored to GO FOR IT!

Remember, FEAR HAS NO PLACE IN YOUR SUCCESS EQUATION!

HAVE AN EXTRAORDINARILY BLESSED AND TERRIFIC WEEK!!!

Generally after I have given a speech on some aspect of Carla’s Pearls and Expect To Win and after the general Q&A session with the broader group, I have an opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with some of the women participants.  Many times I am approached by  women, who after logging 10-15 years in a career or at a company, after attaining a level of hard earned seniority, are faced with a big career opportunity but  who are not  motivated to go after the big promotion or the position of leadership,  and I ask the question “Why?”. I hear over and over again, “I am tired.” As I kept hearing it from women particularly between the ages of late thirties and mid fifties  years old,  I had to stop and ponder. During the conversation with them, in my mind, I would think, “you have worked so hard for this, for this very moment in time, when you have the prerequisite experience, you have the level of knowledge that creates specific eligibility, you are right THERE and you are tired?  How could you NOT go for it now?” “Isn’t there a reserve somewhere inside your tank, that you can draw upon to make it over this last hurdle, this last part of the journey, where you can reap the benefits of having worked so hard, having fought the good fight, navigated the VERY choppy political waters? Can’t you pull it together to push one last time?”

As I reflected on my own experience, pondered over these conversations, and directly asked some of the women that I encountered the foregoing questions, I began to understand the issue. The senior women professionals who are in their early to mid forties, in corporate jobs across all industries, are in many cases, the first woman to hold their current position, they may have been the first woman to hold each of the positions that they held before arriving in their current position. There were no direct role models (this is particularly true for women of color) that they could access to directly and personally understand the business model for success in the environment or in a specific role. Many of these women were pioneers, trailblazers, “the first” and in many cases, these women had to “figure it out” by careful strategizing and in some cases, by trial, error and recovery. They had to first learn to understand the political landscape and then develop a strategy to navigate it. I am not saying that none of them had mentors or sponsors along the way to help, for many did, but even the act of finding a mentor or a sponsor 15-20 years ago was a new concept, and was an obstacle to be overcome, an objective to achieve. For many women, the stress of being the first (in their family, in their community, in the department, at the company), being the only (in the company, in the industry, in North America, at the decision making table, on the board), took an incredible amount of exertion. Coupled with subjective and politically oriented environments, the journey to the top took a lot of work, day in and day out, year in and year out. Add achieving personal objectives, like finding a significant other, starting a family, caring for a family, managing aging parents, the senior woman had a journey, where there probably haven’t been very many respites along the way and then suddenly she is THERE, and she is tired. Fatigue has become a constant friend over the years and now it’s a dominant voice, and consciously she says, “I am tired. No more.”

I think that the conversation in her head goes, “ I have made it through many firsts, I have accomplished a lot, I don’t owe any one anything, and I don’t have to apologize for making the decision to go no further. This has been tough, I have gone through a lot, been there and done that. It’s time.” In my mind this conversation would be ok, IF, she were truly done, if she had no more value add to offer in her current seat, in a more senior seat, in her company, or at a competitor. But 9 out of 10 times, this is not the case. She does have more to offer, greater value to add, but she thinks that she is too tired to push on further because she perceives that she will have to continue to exert the same level of bionic energy that it took to get her to this moment. Fatigue clouds our judgment and distorts our future vision. Somehow the thought of continuing to move upward, to have a greater level of authority and impact, is coupled with a perception that it will involve more physical and mental exertion and we can only see the exertion, not the higher level of return associated with going for it, nor can we even imagine that perhaps the level of required energy is very different and perhaps even less.

Ok, so you are there, what do you do about it?

Before making the decision to NOT go for it, step back and evaluate whether you really don’t want that more senior seat after all you have worked for and that you really have nothing else to offer, OR is it that you need a respite, a time to renew, reconfigure, and regenerate, or maybe just some sleep. If you identify that it is the latter that is influencing your decision, then commit yourself to creating some “break time” for yourself. If you have the financial luxury and the political capital at work, ask for a sabbatical. Increasingly cutting edge companies are realizing that the senior executives need time and white space to renew and to create new ideas, products and processes and are allowing them a two week, 3 month, or 6 month break away from their current seats.  You cannot be afraid to ask for it, if you even have a clue that on the other side of the experience, you will be fresh, more productive and more value add to the organization.  If a sabbatical is a non-starter, then start a plan that will allow you collectively a day a week for you to rest, reflect on where you are and really evaluate what the next step could mean for you if you didn’t have to worry about exhaustion and continued fatigue. You can plan a morning and an afternoon somewhere over the course of a 7 day period where you use this time for more sleep, a time away from immediate tasks, or time to create. Be religious about putting this time on your calendar, treat it like an emergency. If an emergency arose, you wouldn’t be able to get something done on your “to do” list, right? Well, this is an emergency! If you are about to let a great opportunity pass you by or not maximize your success in your seat, because you are tired, THIS is an emergency that must be tended to. You have worked too hard, for too long, broken too much glass and forged many new paths…you can’t let this prize elude you. You can also create discipline around your vacation time. Most senior people in most industries get at least 4 weeks vacation. Plan 1 week per quarter to replenish, rest and renew. If you have kids, and you want to spend every vacation with them, then make sure that you plan at least two hours/day for yourself.

Fatigue is a sneaky companion and a major deterrent to having the “go for it” attitude every day. As I said earlier, it clouds your judgment, helps you to create obstacles where there are none, encourages you to see the downside first and sometimes only the downside, discourages you from dwelling in the possibility and also opens the door to fear.

In next week’s blog we will discuss the impediment of FEAR and its impact on maximizing your success.

HAVE AN EXTRAORDINARILY BLESSED AND TERRIFIC WEEK!!!

“We selected the most influential, powerful and inspiring women for our list, from the national stage to the practitioners managing the financial assets and of their clients, to the academics who inform our thinking. These leaders are the ones we look to for guidance, and we salute them.

“The exceptional leaders on this list are responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth, for investors and for the nation. Every American is affected by the decisions some of these women make; the bills they shepherd through Congress and the regulations that affect all investors.”

TO SEE THE COMPLETE LIST

http://www.wealthmanagerweb.com/News/2010/5/Pages/50-Top-Women-in-Wealth-Named-by-WealthManagerWebcom.aspx

A message to all members of The Inner Circle

This year’s The Mentor Factor professional development conference, being held June 15 in NYC, has a powerful lineup. Speakers include:

Carla A. Harris Managing Director

Morgan Stanley Investment Management

#18 on The 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance 2009

Stacy Bash-Polley

Managing Director & Co-Head of Fixed Income Sales in the Americas

Goldman Sachs

#2 on The 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance 2009

Cara Heiden

Co-President, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage

Wells Fargo & Co.

#12 on The 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking 2009

Karen Peetz

Senior Executive Vice President, CEO Financial Markets & Treasury Services

BNY Mellon

#2 on The 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking 2009

And, new this year, a panel of senior executive men on a panel to tell women everything we need to know from THEIR perspective.

View the entire agenda here:

http://www.25mpwib.com/TMF_Agenda.html

Members of The Inner Circle receive a special discount by using the registration code SAVE200.

Interested in bringing a team of women from your institution? Contact Melissa Buono at 212-803-6067 or Melissa.buono@sourcemedia.com.

Hope to see you there!

Best,

Rebecca Sausner

Editor

The Inner Circle

To view United States Treasury Department’s Women in Finance Symposium, online click here. The video shows the panel discussions and remarks from the US Treasurer and Secretary of the Treasury.

As someone who has worked in business and finance, I know how important these discussions are.  When I started my career in business, it was a pretty lonely world for women, but thanks to the talent and dedication of women such as Elizabeth Warren, Karen Mills and Carla Harris, that is not necessarily the case anymore.  This event not only serves to elevate awareness about the progress of women in the financial sector, but it is also our hope that it will inspire more young women to pursue financial careers of their own in the future.

The event kicks off with a welcome by Treasurer Rosie Rios and remarks by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.  Following the Secretary’s comments, a panel moderated by Maria Bartiromo of CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” will discuss women’s roles in the economic recovery.  This topic could not be timelier. Women now account for more than half of the workforce. Additionally, men have suffered the brunt of job losses in the recent recession, meaning that more and more women have been entering the workforce and those that were in it already, are now working longer and harder to make up the difference and make ends meet.  Women are now economic engines, and their progress in the labor force is intrinsically tied to our future prosperity as a co

What happens if I ask someone to be my sponsor and they turned me down?

You can survive a very long time in your career without a mentor, but you will not move upward in any organization without a sponsor, therefore the sponsor relationship is the most important relationship of the three key relationships that you need in your career, the advisor, the mentor and the sponsor (see Chapter 5, in Expect to Win).

The sponsor relationship is so critical to your ability to move upward in any organization, you cannot let the challenge of finding a sponsor deter you from finding one nor can you allow one person’s inability or unwillingness to sponsor you, stop you from continuing to seek out a sponsor. Many of us tend to shy away from the challenge of finding a sponsor, if we ask one person to act in that relationship capacity and they so ‘no’. We let the rejection completely paralyze us or deter us from continuing the journey of finding a sponsor. If you ask someone to be your sponsor and they decline, then you should mentally say to yourself, “next”. Move on to the next person that could potentially sponsor you, but you should understand WHY that person does not want to sponsor you. That could be VERY valuable data for you to have.

There are generally three reasons that someone might not be willing to sponsor you:

1. The person might not feel that he/she has enough information about you or has not worked with you enough to have credibility behind closed doors representing your interests. If he/she cannot demonstrate behind closed doors that he/she has first hand experience and can passionately represent your candidacy, then he/she will not be able to achieve the desired outcome for you;
2. you might think that the person has the power (“the juice”) to achieve the objective for you, but he/she might know that they do not really have the power to accomplish the objective for you at the decision making table, and obviously in most cases, someone that you thought of and approached as a perspective sponsor would not want to admit that to you;
3. he/she might not think that you are the appropriate candidate for the opportunity, for the promotion, for the top pay,etc.

Whatever the reason might be that the person turns you down, you should endeavor to get the data, evaluate it, own it, and then move on to find another sponsor after you have evaluated if you have to make any adjustments to your performance, behavior, style, etc.

What happens if I ask someone to be my sponsor and they turned me down?

You can survive a very long time in your career without a mentor, but you will not move upward in any organization without a sponsor, therefore the sponsor relationship is the most important relationship of the three key relationships that you need in your career, the advisor, the mentor and the sponsor (see Chapter 5, in Expect to Win).

The sponsor relationship is so critical to your ability to move upward in any organization, you cannot let the challenge of finding a sponsor deter you from finding one nor can you allow one person’s inability or unwillingness to sponsor you, stop you from continuing to seek out a sponsor. Many of us tend to shy away from the challenge of finding a sponsor, if we ask one person to act in that relationship capacity and they so ‘no’. We let the rejection completely paralyze us or deter us from continuing the journey of finding a sponsor. If you ask someone to be your sponsor and they decline, then you should mentally say to yourself, “next”. Move on to the next person that could potentially sponsor you, but you should understand WHY that person does not want to sponsor you. That could be VERY valuable data for you to have.

There are generally three reasons that someone might not be willing to sponsor you:

1. The person might not feel that he/she has enough information about you or has not worked with you enough to have credibility behind closed doors representing your interests. If he/she cannot demonstrate behind closed doors that he/she has first hand experience and can passionately represent your candidacy, then he/she will not be able to achieve the desired outcome for you;
2. you might think that the person has the power (“the juice”) to achieve the objective for you, but he/she might know that they do not really have the power to accomplish the objective for you at the decision making table, and obviously in most cases, someone that you thought of and approached as a perspective sponsor would not want to admit that to you;
3. he/she might not think that you are the appropriate candidate for the opportunity, for the promotion, for the top pay,etc.

Whatever the reason might be that the person turns you down, you should endeavor to get the data, evaluate it, own it, and then move on to find another sponsor after you have evaluated if you have to make any adjustments to your performance, behavior, style, etc.