Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead... But Gutsy Girls Do by Kate White Read Free Book Online Page B

accomplished?
•  solved a nagging problem that no one has ever bothered to tackle?
•  taken on a major responsibility that wasn't in your job description?
•  presented an idea to your boss that made her say. “Wow”?
•  done something that made half your peers green with envy?
    If you answered NO to most of these questions (or “No, but…”), it's time to strip down to your metaphoric underpants and jump through the water.
    DO NOT PROCEED UNTIL YOU CONSIDER THESE TWO POINTS
    Okay, before you do start jumping in, it's important to realize that only a certain kind of rule breaking will pay off for you. It must directly or indirectly
1. make money for your company, OR
2. save money for your company.
    Now, that seems pretty obvious, but good girls have a tendency to gravitate toward earnest projects that sound noble on paper and involve lots of scurrying around, but ultimately don't help the bottom line.
    At one of the fashion magazines I worked at, an editor on my level in another department told me one day in a self-congratulatory tone that she had just gotten permission from the editor-in-chief to develop a stringer system for the magazine. Young women from around the country would be paid a small retainer to keep the magazine posted on trends and stories in their area. There would be stringers in Minneapolis and Miami, Tucson and L.A. Here a stringer, there a stringer, everywhere a stringer stringer. The editor said this had never been done at the magazine before and she was thrilled to have gotten it off the ground. As I offered her a strained, “That's great,” all I could wonder was whether I should have thought of the idea myself.
    But you know what? Readers of the magazine wanted to know what the hottest styles were and the tell-tale signs of guys who would never commit, not what people were doing in Des Moines. The stringer system might have charted new territory but it did nothing for the business. It fizzled just a short time later.
    SIX EASY WAYS TO COME UP WITH A WOW IDEA
    Okay, you're ready and eager to make a gutsy move, to break, bend, or extend the rules. But where do you begin? How do you find the ingredients for your own upside-down sundae?
    One of the points that struck me as I pored through management books in my job as editor-in-chief of Working Woman was how little information exists on how actually to generate a bold, creative idea or strategy. These books are filled with information on how to do the maintenance part of your job effectively: supervising people, handling your boss, managing your time, but little on going beyond the basics. You're not likely to find a chapter called “How to Knock Their Socks Off.”
    In part that's because we assume you can't teach people how to conceive bold, gutsy ideas—they're supposedly second nature to certain individuals. But I think there are several strategies that you can train yourself to use effectively.
    I. Fantasize About What Turns You On
    Some of the gutsiest moves involve paying attention to your own needs as a human being, as a consumer, even if it means ignoring the common wisdom in your company about what people want. You know what you like, what you buy, what you rely on, what you really get the hots for. That's incredibly valuable information. My assistant, Amy, once told me that her favorite magazine covers were those that looked so delicious that she felt a strange urge to lick them. I realized that that was one of the best guidelines I'd ever heard, far better than any I'd gotten analyzing lots of numbers.
    Unfortunately we tend to leave our secret or crazy yearnings behind when we walk into our jobs. We're encouraged to focus on lots of numbers and adhere to principles developed by people who haven't been away from their desks in decades. If you pay attention to what gets your juices flowing, you are likely to hit on an approach that may seem renegade, but in the long run it could turn everything around for you.
    This is