Trying to overcorrect is a great way to find middle ground. In order for me to speak the right amount in a meeting, I have to feel as if I am saying very little. People who are shy will have to feel like they are saying way too much. I know a woman who naturally talks softly and forces herself to "shout" in business meetings just to speak at an average volume. Overriding our natural tendencies is very difficult. In all the years I"ve been trying, I can only think of a few times when someone said to me, "Sheryl, I wish you had spoken up more in that meeting." Omid did it once and I hugged him.
Eric turned out to be absolutely right about Google, and I will always be grateful to him and to Larry Page and Sergey Brin for taking a chance on me. My eighteen-month plan at the company extended into six and a half years, and I learned more than I ever could have hoped while working with true visionaries. But eventually I felt that it was time to make a move on the jungle gym.
In my personal life, I am not someone who embraces uncertainty. I like things to be in order. I file doc.u.ments in colored folders (yes, still) and my enthusiasm for reorganizing my closet continually baffles Dave. But in my professional life, I have learned to accept uncertainty and even embrace it. Risk-and a great deal of luck-landed me at Google. That worked out so well that I decided to embrace risk again, which led me to Facebook. At the time, other companies were willing to hire me as CEO, but I joined Facebook as COO. At first, people questioned why I would take a "lower level" job working for a twenty-three-year-old. No one asks me that anymore. As I did when I joined Google, I prioritized potential for fast growth and the mission of the company above t.i.tle.
I have seen both men and women miss out on great opportunities by focusing too much on career levels. A friend of mine had been working as a lawyer for four years when she realized that instead of shooting for partner, she"d rather join a company in a sales or marketing role. One of her clients was willing to hire her in this new capacity but wanted her to start at the ground level. Since she could afford the temporary pay cut, I urged her to make the jump, but she decided against taking a job that put her "back four years." I understood how painful it was for her to lose hard-earned ground. Still, my argument was that if she was going to work for the next thirty years, what difference does going "back" four years really make? If the other path made her happier and offered her a chance to learn new skills, that meant she was actually moving forward.
In many cases, women need to be more open to taking risks in their careers.2 When I left Google to join Facebook, as a percentage of my team, fewer women tried to follow me. As they had been all along, the men were more interested in new and, as we say in tech, higher beta opportunities-where the risks were great but the potential rewards even greater. Many of the women on my team eventually showed interest in joining Facebook, but not until a few years later, when the company was more established. The cost of stability is often diminished opportunities for growth.
Of course, there are times in life when being risk averse is a good thing; adolescent and adult males drown in much greater numbers than adolescent and adult females.3 But in business, being risk averse can result in stagnation. An a.n.a.lysis of senior corporate management appointments found that women are significantly more likely than men to continue to perform the same function even when they take on new duties. And when female managers move up, they are more likely to do so internally instead of switching to a different company.4 At times, staying in the same functional area and in the same organization creates inertia and limits opportunity to expand. Seeking out diverse experiences is useful preparation for leadership.
I understand the external pressures that force women to play it safe and stay put. Gender stereotypes can make it hard to move into positions traditionally held by men. Women are also more likely to accommodate a partner"s career than the other way around.5 A job change that includes moving to another city may be a nonstarter for a woman in a relationship. The result is the unfortunate tautology that the tendency to stay put leads to staying put.
Being risk averse in the workplace can also cause women to be more reluctant to take on challenging tasks. In my experience, more men look for stretch a.s.signments and take on high-visibility projects, while more women hang back. Research suggests that this is particularly true for women in environments that emphasize individual performance or when women are working closely with men.6
One reason women avoid stretch a.s.signments and new challenges is that they worry too much about whether they currently have the skills they need for a new role. This can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, since so many abilities are acquired on the job. An internal report at Hewlett-Packard revealed that women only apply for open jobs if they think they meet 100 percent of the criteria listed. Men apply if they think they meet 60 percent of the requirements.7 This difference has a huge ripple effect. Women need to shift from thinking "I"m not ready to do that" to thinking "I want to do that-and I"ll learn by doing it."
My first day at work at the World Bank, Larry Summers asked me to perform some calculations. I was at a loss on how to proceed, so I turned to Lant Pritchett for help. "Just put it into Lotus 1-2-3," he advised. I told him that I didn"t know how to do that. "Wow," he exclaimed. "I can"t believe you"ve gotten this far, or even how you can understand basic economics, without knowing how to use Lotus." I went home convinced that I was going to get fired. The next day, Lant sat me down. My heart was pounding. But instead of firing me, he taught me how to use the program. That"s a great boss.
Women are also more reluctant to apply for promotions even when deserved, often believing that good job performance will naturally lead to rewards.8 Carol Frohlinger and Deborah Kolb, founders of Negotiating Women, Inc., describe this as the "Tiara Syndrome," where women "expect that if they keep doing their job well someone will notice them and place a tiara on their head."9 In a perfect meritocracy, tiaras would be doled out to the deserving, but I have yet to see one floating around an office. Hard work and results should be recognized by others, but when they aren"t, advocating for oneself becomes necessary. As discussed earlier, this must be done with great care. But it must be done.
Taking risks, choosing growth, challenging ourselves, and asking for promotions (with smiles on our faces, of course) are all important elements of managing a career. One of my favorite quotes comes from author Alice Walker, who observed, "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don"t have any."
Do not wait for power to be offered. Like that tiara, it might never materialize. And anyway, who wears a tiara on a jungle gym?
5
Are You My Mentor?
WHEN I WAS a child, one of my favorite books was Are You My Mother?, the story of a baby bird that emerges from its sh.e.l.l to discover an empty nest. The hatchling heads off in search of its missing mother, asking a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a cow the burning question: "Are you my mother?" Each animal responds, "No." The hatchling grows more desperate, eventually shouting, "Are you my mother?" at a car, a boat, a plane, and even a steam shovel, which can only respond with a loud "Snort!" Stuck in the shovel"s jaws, the hatchling appears doomed until, miraculously, the shovel lifts the bird back to its nest. The mother returns and the hatchling announces, "You are a bird, and you are my mother."
This children"s book poignantly mirrors the professional question "Are you my mentor?" If someone has to ask the question, the answer is probably no. When someone finds the right mentor, it is obvious. The question becomes a statement. Chasing or forcing that connection rarely works, and yet I see women attempt this all the time. When I give speeches or attend meetings, a startling number of women introduce themselves and, in the same breath, ask me to be their mentor. I cannot recall a single man asking me to do the same (although men have asked me to mentor their wives or girlfriends).
The question is a total mood killer-the equivalent of turning to a pensive date and asking, "What are you thinking?" Every senior woman I have talked to about this is deluged with the same request. Their reaction is unanimous: "Oh, I never know what to say when people I don"t know ask me to be their mentor." The interaction is flattering, but awkward. Even media mogul Oprah Winfrey, who has taught so much to an entire generation, admits that she feels uncomfortable when someone asks her to be a mentor. She once explained, "I mentor when I see something and say, "I want to see that grow." "
In part, we"ve brought this on ourselves. For the past decade, talk of mentorship and sponsorship has been topic number one at any women"s career seminar. It is the focus of blogs, newspaper articles, and research reports. Many of these young women are responding to the often repeated advice that if they want to scale the corporate ladder, they need to find mentors (people who will advise them) as well as sponsors (people who will use their influence to advocate for them).1
The emphasis on finding a mentor became especially clear to me when I went back to speak at Harvard Business School in the spring of 2011. I was invited by Dean Nitin Nohria, who joined me onstage and conducted the interview. His first questions centered on Facebook and what it was like to work for Mark. I told him that I loved it, except on days when coworkers said things like, "Sheryl, can you look at this? We need to know what old people will think of this feature." We discussed the Arab Spring and a slew of other timely topics. Dean Nohria then asked me a question about women in the workforce. I"m not sure what possessed me, but I turned to look at the audience, paused, and answered with brutal honesty. "If current trends continue, fifteen years from today, about one-third of the women in this audience will be working full-time and almost all of you will be working for the guy you are sitting next to."
Dead silence in the large auditorium. I continued, "I"m sorry if this sounds harsh or surprises anyone, but this is where we are. If you want the outcome to be different, you will have to do something about it."
On that strained note, Dean Nohria ended the interview and turned to the audience for a Q&A. A number of men leapt to the microphone and posed thoughtful, big-picture questions like "What did you learn at Google that you are applying at Facebook?" and "How do you run a platform company and ensure stability for your developers?" Then two women rose to the microphone. The first asked, "Do you think it"s okay to work for a company that competes with the company you worked for before business school?" The second asked, "How can I get a mentor?" My heart sank.
The men were focusing on how to manage a business and the women were focusing on how to manage a career. The men wanted answers and the women wanted permission and help. I realized that searching for a mentor has become the professional equivalent of waiting for Prince Charming. We all grew up on the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty," which instructs young women that if they just wait for their prince to arrive, they will be kissed and whisked away on a white horse to live happily ever after. Now young women are told that if they can just find the right mentor, they will be pushed up the ladder and whisked away to the corner office to live happily ever after. Once again, we are teaching women to be too dependent on others.
To be clear, the issue is not whether mentorship is important. It is. Mentorship and sponsorship are crucial for career progression. Both men and women with sponsors are more likely to ask for stretch a.s.signments and pay raises than their peers of the same gender without sponsors.2 Unfortunately for women, men often have an easier time acquiring and maintaining these relationships.3 One recent study shows that men are significantly more likely than women to be sponsored and that those with sponsors are more satisfied with their rates of advancement.4
Because it is harder for young women to find mentors and sponsors, they are taking a more active role in seeking them out. And while normally I applaud a.s.sertive behavior, this energy is sometimes misdirected. No matter how crucial these connections are, they probably won"t develop from asking a virtual stranger, "Will you be my mentor?" The strongest relationships spring out of a real and often earned connection felt by both sides.
I"ve been lucky to have strong mentors and sponsors over the course of my career. The acknowledgments in this book include a long list of people who have been generous enough to guide and advise me. During my junior year of college, I took Larry Summers"s public sector economics cla.s.s. He offered to supervise my senior thesis-something very few Harvard professors volunteer to do for undergraduates. Larry has been a major part of my life ever since. I met Don Graham, chairman of the Washington Post Company, more than fifteen years ago when I was working in D.C., and he has helped me navigate some of my most challenging professional situations. If it hadn"t been for Paley Center CEO Pat Mitch.e.l.l"s encouragement and support, I might never have spoken publicly about women in the workplace. These three, among so many others, have encouraged me, made introductions, and taught me by example. Their wisdom helped me avoid mistakes-and clean up the ones I wasn"t smart enough to avoid.
In turn, I have tried to mentor others, including friends of friends, and as I get older, children of friends. I get so much joy out of watching the career of Emily White, who started working with me right out of college and now runs mobile partnerships for Facebook. When I first met Bryan Schreier, he had never worked in a tech company or traveled abroad, but he displayed unusually strong leadership and a.n.a.lytical skills. I hired him to help build Google"s global operations, and he exceeded every expectation. Years later, when he wanted to pursue a new career as an investor, I introduced him to his current partners at Sequoia Capital. He is now a highly successful early stage venture capitalist, and I can see the impact he has on the companies he advises. I am fortunate to have Emily and Bryan and so many other talented people in my life.
Studies show that mentors select proteges based on performance and potential.5 Intuitively, people invest in those who stand out for their talent or who can really benefit from help. Mentors continue to invest when mentees use their time well and are truly open to feedback. It may turn into a friendship, but the foundation is a professional relationship. Given this, I believe we have sent the wrong message to young women. We need to stop telling them, "Get a mentor and you will excel." Instead, we need to tell them, "Excel and you will get a mentor."
Clara Shih is a superb example. I met Clara about five years ago at a conference and was immediately impressed by her ideas about social media. She went on to write a thoughtful book on the subject and founded Hearsay Social, a software company that helps businesses manage their social media presence. Every so often, Clara would contact me, always with an interesting point or a thoughtful question. She never asked to get together to "catch up." She never asked a question that she could have found the answer to on her own. When I was leaving the Starbucks board of directors in 2012, I gave them a few names of social media experts who might join in my place and included Clara. She was only twenty-nine years old at the time, but she was invited to join the board.
While asking a stranger to be a mentor rarely, if ever, works, approaching a stranger with a pointed, well-thought-out inquiry can yield results. Garrett Neiman stopped me after I gave a speech at Stanford to explain that he had founded CollegeSpring, a nonprofit that provides SAT tutoring and college counseling to low-income students. He wanted to meet with me and made it clear that he only needed a few minutes of my time to ask for introductions to some people who could help expand his organization. He had done his homework and knew that I care deeply about education. In our first meeting and in every interaction we"ve had since, Garrett has been respectful of my time. He is crisp, focused, and gracious. And he always follows up to let me know the results of our discussion.
Capturing someone"s attention or imagination in a minute can be done, but only when planned and tailored to that individual. Leading with a vague question such as, "What is Facebook"s culture like?" shows more ignorance than interest in the company, since there are hundreds of articles that provide this answer. Preparation is especially important when looking for a job. When I left the Treasury Department, former chief of staff Josh Steiner gave me great advice about asking for advice. He told me to figure out what I wanted to do before I went to see the people who had the ability to hire me. That way I would not waste my one shot seeking general guidance, but would be able to discuss specific opportunities that they could offer.
Mentorship is often a more reciprocal relationship than it may appear, especially in situations where people are already working at the same company. The mentee may receive more direct a.s.sistance, but the mentor receives benefits too, including useful information, greater commitment from colleagues, and a sense of fulfillment and pride. Sociologists and psychologists have long observed our deep desire to partic.i.p.ate in reciprocal behavior. The fact that humans feel obligated to return favors has been doc.u.mented in virtually all societies and underpins all kinds of social relationships.6 The mentor/mentee relationship is no exception. When done right, everybody flourishes.
Erin Burnett, now a well-known CNN journalist, credits Willow Bay, a veteran TV correspondent and editor, for mentoring her when she first started out. Willow was a brand-new anchor of Moneyline but did not have deep financial experience. Erin had worked at Goldman Sachs, which made her an ideal person for Willow to hire as an a.s.sistant. Erin impressed Willow with her ambition, work ethic, and talent. Meanwhile, Erin got to watch a savvy, established journalist up close and personal. Each benefited from the other"s expertise.
Justin Osofsky caught my attention at Facebook years ago when we were getting ready for our first senior-level meeting with the Walt Disney Company. Each of our teams, including sales, business development, and marketing, had submitted ideas for the partnership, but no one was coordinating, which left our presentation disjointed and unwieldy. Rather than just submitting his section, Justin took the initiative to pull the group together and integrate all the ideas. I have been "mentoring" him ever since, which in his case means that I often turn to Justin to solve problems. This helps the company and creates ongoing opportunities for him.
Getting the attention of a senior person with a virtuoso performance works, but it"s not the only way to get a mentor. I have seen lower-level employees nimbly grab a moment after a meeting or in the hall to ask advice from a respected and busy senior person. The exchange is casual and quick. After taking that advice, the would-be mentee follows up to offer thanks and then uses that opportunity to ask for more guidance. Without even realizing it, the senior person becomes involved and invested in the junior person"s career. The word "mentor" never needs to be uttered. The relationship is more important than the label.
The label itself is open to interpretation. For years, I kept an eye on an enormously talented young woman on my team at Google and advised her each time she had a major decision to make. I never used the word "mentor," but I invested a lot of time in her development. So I was surprised one day when she stated flatly that she had "never had a mentor or anyone really looking out" for her. I asked what a mentor meant to her. She explained that it would be someone she spoke to for at least an hour every week. I smiled, thinking, That"s not a mentor-that"s a therapist.
Few mentors have time for excessive hand-holding. Most are dealing with their own high-stress jobs. A mentee who is positive and prepared can be a bright spot in a day. For this same reason, mentees should avoid complaining excessively to a mentor. Using a mentor"s time to validate feelings may help psychologically, but it"s better to focus on specific problems with real solutions. Most people in the position to mentor are quite adept at problem solving. Give them a problem to solve. Sometimes high-potential women have a difficult time asking for help because they don"t want to appear stumped. Being unsure about how to proceed is the most natural feeling in the world. I feel that way all the time. Asking for input is not a sign of weakness but often the first step to finding a path forward.
Mentoring and sponsoring relationships often form between individuals who have common interests or when the junior members remind the more senior members of themselves.7 This means that men will often gravitate toward sponsoring younger men, with whom they connect more naturally. Since there are so many more men at the top of every industry, the proverbial old-boy network continues to flourish. And since there are already a reduced number of women in leadership roles, it is not possible for the junior women to get enough support unless senior men jump in too. We need to make male leaders aware of this shortage and encourage them to widen their circle.
It"s wonderful when senior men mentor women. It"s even better when they champion and sponsor them. Any male leader who is serious about moving toward a more equal world can make this a priority and be part of the solution. It should be a badge of honor for men to sponsor women. And since we know that different perspectives improve performance, companies should foster and reward this behavior.
Of course, there are some tricky issues to be solved here, including the perceived s.e.xual context of male-female relationships. Once during my Treasury years, Larry Summers and I traveled together to South Africa, where we holed up in the living room of his hotel suite to work on his speech on fiscal policy for the next day. Jet-lagged and oblivious to the time change, we suddenly noticed it was 3:00 a.m. We both knew it would look awful if anyone saw me leaving his hotel suite at that time. We discussed the options. Maybe he should check to see if anyone was in the hall? Then we realized we were stuck because there is no difference between trying not to be seen leaving someone"s hotel room late at night and actually leaving someone"s hotel room late at night. I strode into the (luckily) empty hall and made it to my room undetected.
Junior women and senior men often avoid engaging in mentoring or sponsoring relationships out of fear of what others might think. A study published by the Center for Work-Life Policy and the Harvard Business Review reported that 64 percent of men at the level of vice president and above are hesitant to have a one-on-one meeting with a more junior woman. For their part, half of the junior women avoided close contact with senior men.8 This evasiveness must end. Personal connections lead to a.s.signments and promotions, so it needs to be okay for men and women to spend informal time together the same way men can. A senior man and junior man at a bar is seen as mentoring. A senior man and a junior woman at a bar can also be mentoring ... but it looks like dating. This interpretation holds women back and creates a double bind. If women try to cultivate a close relationship with a male sponsor, they risk being the target of workplace gossip. If women try to get to the top without a sponsor"s help, their careers will often stall. We cannot a.s.sume that interactions between men and women have a s.e.xual component. And everyone involved has to make sure to behave professionally so women-and men-feel safe in all settings.
At Goldman Sachs in the late 1990s, management committee partner Bob Steel recognized this perception problem and came up with an admirable solution. The father of three daughters, Steel told a training cla.s.s that he had a "breakfast or lunch only policy" with employees because he felt uncomfortable going out to dinner with female employees and wanted to make access equal. Sharon Meers worked at Goldman at the time and said Steel"s decision caused a bit of a stir, but she thought his candor was heroic. Anything that evens out the opportunities for men and women is the right practice. Some will get there by adopting a no-dinner policy; others may adopt a dinner-with-anyone policy. In either case, we need practices that can be applied evenly.
Many companies are starting to move from informal mentoring that relies on individual initiative to more formal programs. When taken seriously, these formal mentorship/sponsorship programs can be remarkably successful. Structured programs also take the pressure off junior women from having to ask the difficult "Are you my mentor?" question. One study showed that women who found mentors through formal programs were 50 percent more likely to be promoted than women who found mentors on their own.9 The most effective formal programs help educate men about the need to mentor women and establish guidelines for appropriate behavior. These programs can be a great way to help normalize the senior man/junior woman model.
Official mentorship programs are not sufficient by themselves and work best when combined with other kinds of development and training. Deloitte"s Leading to WIN Women"s Initiative is a good example. Deloitte had already established a program to support female employees, who still remained underrepresented at the highest levels of the company. This prompted Chet Wood, CEO of Deloitte Tax, to ask, "Where are all the women?" In response, Deloitte launched a leadership development program in 2008. The program targeted senior women in the tax division who were close to promotion. The women were a.s.signed sponsors, received executive coaching, shadowed members of the executive committee, and took on global a.s.signments. Of the twenty-one members of the inaugural group, eighteen have since been promoted.
As helpful as these formal programs can be, they are not always offered, and in some situations, senior people are not available to give guidance. The good news is that guidance can come from all levels. When I first joined Facebook, one of my biggest challenges was setting up the necessary business processes without harming the freewheeling culture. The company operated by moving quickly and tolerating mistakes, and lots of people were nervous that I would not just ruin the party, but squash innovation. Naomi Gleit had joined Facebook right out of college several years earlier. As one of Facebook"s earliest employees, she had a deep understanding of how the company worked. Naomi and I became close. I bet most people, including Naomi herself, probably a.s.sumed that I was mentoring her. But the truth is she mentored me. She helped me implement the changes that needed to be made and jumped in to stop me from getting things wrong. Naomi always told me the truth, even if she thought it would be hard for me to hear. She still does this for me today.
Peers can also mentor and sponsor one another. There is a saying that "all advice is autobiographical." Friends at the same stage of their careers may actually provide more current and useful counsel. Several of my older mentors advised me against taking a job at Google in 2001. Yet almost all my peers understood the potential of Silicon Valley. Peers are also in the trenches and may understand problems that superiors do not, especially when those problems are generated by superiors in the first place.
As an a.s.sociate at McKinsey & Company, my first a.s.signment was on a team that consisted of a male senior engagement manager (SEM) and two other male a.s.sociates, Abe Wu and Derek Holley. When the SEM wanted to talk to Abe or Derek, he would walk over to their desks. When he wanted to talk to me, he would sit at his desk and shout, "Sandberg, get over here!" with the tone one might use to call a child or, even worse, a dog. It made me cringe every time. I never said anything, but one day Abe and Derek started calling each other "Sandberg" in that same loud voice. The self-absorbed SEM never seemed to notice. They kept it up. When having too many Sandbergs got confusing, they decided we needed to differentiate. Abe started calling himself "Asian Sandberg," Derek dubbed himself "good-looking Sandberg," and I became "Sandberg Sandberg." My colleagues turned an awful situation into one where I felt protected. They stood up for me and made me laugh. They were the best mentors I could have had.