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How to Advocate for Career Development and Promotion
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How to Advocate for Career Development and Promotion
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Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
We'll give you a few minutes for everyone to join and then start.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's SSP early career subcommittee webinar, how to advocate for career development and promotion. We are glad that you could join us today. My name is pavithra Noriega and I'm a member of the SSP early career subcommittee. Before we get started, I have a few housekeeping items to review.
First of all, your microphones are muted, so please use the Q&A box to enter questions for the panelists. We'd love to hear your thoughts and we'll cover them at the end of the session. You can also use the chat to say Hello or flag any questions that you are having. We encourage you to introduce yourself in the chat and tell us where you're from.
Closed captions are also available. You can view captions by selecting the More option on your screen and choosing Show Captions. This is a one hour session, and we'll be recording it and sharing it in the next few days. Before we get started, a quick note on SSPS code of conduct and today's meeting. We are committed to diversity, equity, and providing an inclusive meeting environment for studying open dialogue free of harassment, discrimination, and hostile conduct.
We ask that all participants, whether speaking or in chat, to consider and debate relevant viewpoints in an orderly, respectful and fair manner. SSP is committed to complying with competition and antitrust laws. Please avoid any discussions of pricing, market allocation, boycotts, or other topics that could be interpreted as anti-competitive. If any such discussions arise, they shall be stopped immediately to protect both individual participants and the organization.
With that, it's now my pleasure to introduce you to our speakers today. Our first panelist is Meredith adinolfi. Meredith is the vice president of publishing operations for Cell press. At Cell press, she oversees production, editorial operations, and design for a growing portfolio of journals across the life medical, physical, and sustainability sciences.
She also contributes to the strategic vision of Cell press and focuses on workflow optimization across the organization. Meredith is passionate about developing people. She leads a large team at Cell press and also mentors several young women. Meredith has served on several committees and was the career development committee co-chair for two years.
During that time, she helped to launch the thriving SSP mentorship program. You may also know her as the co-host of the SSPS early career podcast, which provides primers on key, foundational and timely topics in the industry. Thank you, Meredith, for joining us. Our next panelist is Julia kostova. Doctor Julia kostova is the vice president for America for academic partnerships for the Americas at Taylor Francis.
She oversees partnership strategy, institutional and Community Engagement and advocacy, and closely with research communities, institutions, libraries, and funders to support the creation and dissemination of cutting edge research. Julia brings nearly 20 years of experience in scholarly publishing and has built long standing partnerships across the scholarly communications ecosystem. Julia is committed to cultivating, cultivating, and mentoring women executives and leaders, and she has held a fellowship at women in power at 92nd Street Y in New York City.
She holds a PhD in French literature from Rutgers University, and has taught at both Columbia and Rutgers to complete today's panel. We are also joined by our third and final panelist, Deirdre Simmons. Deirdre is a strategic human resources professional, a certified coach and a facilitator, a commercial talent entrepreneur, a sought after speaker with 20 plus years of experience in human resources, operations and leadership.
She writes a weekly article on LinkedIn. She is the author of the etextbook public speaking a bridge to success, and is also the author of the practical guide clear communication, powerful results. Deirdre focuses on aligning people strategy with organizational goals, improving efficiency while staying human centered. She holds a BA in organizational communication with a minor in management and supervision from Purdue University.
She also holds an MS in human resource management from the UConn school of business. You may also know her from disrupt HR, where she delivered a talk titled HR lessons from Cardi B. Thank you, Meredith, Julia and Deirdre for joining the panel today. Before we begin the panel discussion, we'll start with a quick poll. It should appear on your screen in just a few moments.
The question is, what do you find most challenging about your career development. Please select the option that best fits. We'll give a couple of minutes for everyone to answer this.
Thanks to everyone for responding. We'll use these results to guide our conversation today as we get started, feel free to introduce yourself in the chat with your name and where you're joining from. And if you have any questions for the panelists, please drop them in the Q&A. To kick us off, the first question is for all our panelists. Meredith, I'll start with you. When you reflect on your own career journey, what was one moment when advocating for yourself has changed the career trajectory.
Thanks first of all, Hi, everyone. It's really nice to be here. I'm really happy to be on this panel and very interested to hear from Julia and Deirdre too. So Thanks for the opportunity. So Yeah, so I reflected on this question and did think about one pretty pivotal moment in my own career. Earlier in my career, at that moment, I was co-managing a team with a partner, and he and I had been working together as partners for a few years.
We worked really great together. It was very enjoyable, and he told me and our mutual manager at the time that he was leaving the company for another opportunity, and it sort of surfaced for me that he and I were probably both experiencing similar feelings, that we enjoyed the partnership, but we were both starting to sort of outgrow the need for the partnership in the role. It was quite important to have a partner in the first couple of years as we sort of learned and grew into the role, and we were both kind of looking for maybe a new challenge.
So after hearing that he was leaving, I reflected for a bit and thought about, what is this going to mean for me. And what do I want this to mean for me. And then I went back to my manager and I said, I've been thinking about this. I'm sure you have quite a bit of thinking of on your plate right now. But I want to let that I'm ready for a new challenge.
I don't really want to work with a new partner. I'm ready to manage the team on my own. I have a lot of ideas. I can see some benefits from consolidating the management under one person. And here are some of the things I'm thinking about. So as you're reflecting, I just want you to know that I'm ready for it and I'm confident. And this is what I would love to see happen.
And I went in knowing that I couldn't guarantee that I was going to get what I wanted out of that situation. But I felt like it was a good moment to advocate and also perhaps took a little something off my manager's plate, because if I could go in with some level of confidence and tell him this is a possible way forward and I can do this. And I'll be here for you to do this, it might actually relieve some of the burden of thinking about, OK, what are we going to do next here.
I should probably have prefaced this. I think this is a good context for the conversation that I do consider myself an introvert. So anybody who's on this call who is in that category and thinks, Oh, that sounds really scary. It is. And it can be. And I know we're going to talk a lot about different things in this conversation, but I do consider myself an introvert.
It was definitely out of my comfort zone. But I did do it. And it was a really big turning point in my career. Spoiler alert it did happen. And that that's what ended up happening in my career kind of went from there. So I am really glad that I did that and I sort of pushed myself to do it, but it wasn't necessarily easy. And I don't think any of us want to position these things as, as always, easy or comfortable or natural, but they do sometimes make sense and pay off.
What a great story! Thanks for sharing with us, Meredith. I'd love to hear your perspective next, Julia. Thank you very much. And and again, Thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of this panel. Thank you for everybody who joined today. It's really heartening to see the enthusiasm in the chat there.
And so really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today, but also to sit to sit alongside Meredith and Deirdre, as well as the rest of the SSP crew behind this. This is a really important conversation, and I'm just honored to be a part of this. Meredith fantastic story. I think for me, I would approach this question differently. Actually, for me, the framing of this question, one moment that fundamentally changed the course of my career simply does not reflect my experience.
For me, advocating for myself and in fact, kind of being very intentional and strategic about it in developing my career has never been one and done. It has been it has required consistency, it has required agility. It has required commitment. So for me, my experience, I don't know that I could pinpoint a moment when I advocated for myself that fundamentally changed the trajectory of my career.
It's more it's been a lot more about smaller asks, sometimes bigger asks. But it has been a series of asks that I've continuously developed and to marry at this point. You know, it may not come naturally, but you do learn over the years, so I'll just give you. I can think of many, many times when I've advocated for my needs or when I've had suggestions and I've wanted for them to be given airtime and I now in hindsight, I can see how those asks and of course, the support that I have received for them, regardless of their outcome, have really shaped my career positively.
So I've asked all kinds of things that now, looking back, you know, you kind of say, Oh, I realized that this actually played a much bigger role than I realized at the time, I have asked for things like participating in specific projects to build my skills. I have asked for coaching. I have asked to be invited to sit-in high stakes negotiations, just to listen and learn how leadership talks about some of these bigger questions that were outside of what I would normally do.
I have asked for an expanded remit. You know, this is something that I actually have found to have been really, really valuable, like, for example, a situation where, you know, there's a lot of people doing it, but I actually think that I'm best positioned to take the lead on this and to consolidate some of the efforts that are happening across the team or across the company that has actually become been really helpful in terms of developing a concrete skill set, in terms of developing leadership skills, in terms of actually also updating and expanding your resume.
Right I've asked for trainings, I have asked for courses, and of course I have asked for promotions. So for me, my experience is that that advocacy and advocating for your needs and for your growth opportunities has to be a consistent. Process that accompanies you throughout your whole career. That has been my experience. Thank you.
Julia that's really insightful. So, Deirdre, please share with us your experience has been similar to the other two panelists. Good morning, everyone. Thank you SSP. Thank you, pavitra, for the question. And Meredith pinpointed one specific instance. And if you're paying attention along the way. And you have that, I think it's wonderful because it can be a catalyst for your growth, Julia mentioned, which is something a little bit closer to my experience is it's continuous.
It's along the way. And and just to be transparent with all of you. And Thank you all for being here. I'm closer aligned with Meredith as an introvert in my experiences are closer aligned with Julia. So I remember a CEO saying to me, Oh, I hire people like you because you're a go getter. You always show up and you do extra. And I don't have to pay you that much because you enjoy your job.
I'm like, wait, what? What? what? So then there is the knowledge of don't know what I have and the gifts and talents that I'm sitting on, and I'm underselling myself. But it was not just that one experience. It's a collection of experiences and encounters. It's sitting at the feet of women like Carla Harris, who is a business person and author of When it is listening to a doctor, Danielle Cox, who is a tedx speaker and nonprofit leader.
And it's understanding and being in spaces with women preachers like the Reverend Nancy Kingwood Smalls and Reverend Renita Weems, as well as Doctor Valerie Bridgeman, and just learning and listening and growing and seeing their trajectories. Because that journey doesn't have to be what you think it is today. Grow and expand. Now, what can you take away from what I've said.
I want you to pay attention to your journey along the way. Take opportunities to grow and learn. Both Meredith and Julia pointed that out to say, hey, you raise your hand, say, hey, I can do that. I want you to listen and assess. I listen to that leader who was telling me how she viewed me, and I made some shifts. I attended some conferences. I listened to some people about how I should show up and how I should be valued and talk about that value.
Accept your missteps along the way. Don't think of them as failures. Think of them as education and yield to the wise. I mentioned just a few of the women's names. Yield to their experiences. Listen to them. Don't always show up in spaces with I've got the answer. Assess the landscape. I hope that helps someone.
What a fantastic opening to our webinar today. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and experiences. The next question is specifically for Meredith. Meredith, can you please share your thoughts on how can early and mid-career professionals future proof their skill set in an evolving scholarly publishing industry, and how that benefit them to advance their career later. Yeah, Thanks for this question.
I think, first of all, I'd like to reframe instead of thinking about skill building as just purely career advancement or promotion. I want to think about it more as just enhancement and, you know, making yourself well rounded and well suited for whatever your ambitions are. Because skill building is important, even if you're not looking for a promotion at that particular moment.
But of course, it will be on your mind and is going to help you with career advancement. But I think I heard both Deirdre and Julia talk about listen and learn, and I think that's a really important piece of this answer to that, making yourself visible and putting yourself forward for the Learning Spaces that are available, even if you're not at a point of contributing in those spaces yet, but you're just listening, observing and seeing how other people handle situations or tackle problems or answer questions.
I think that's really important. The other thing is sort of staying up to date or up to speed on what's going on in the industry. And I say that knowing how difficult that is, especially right now, there's things are just moving at such a pace and there's so much going on, even outside the industry, that impacts what's happening in the pace of what's happening. So it's hard. But I think identifying some of the industry sources that work for you and that help you feel informed and like you, you understand what's going on is really important, because that's going to give you a sense of what are people talking about, what kind of learning are other people doing, and what other types of roles are out there.
What other types of opportunities are out there. What are you seeing other people move on to. And then that's really also where you're going to get exposed to all types of industry events that might be available to you. There's tons that's available for free or at a very low cost. That will help you even just sort of at the basic level of a certain skill or technology or project management or leading people, really any number of things.
And sometimes that foundational piece that you can get through a free webinar or a free course online is all you need to know in terms of, is this something I want to build on. Is this something I want to go further on. And the other thing I would say is having these conversations regularly with your manager or with your team so that they know what you're interested in. And that also you can express to that person that you are in a learning mode, and you want to be learning and you want to be challenged.
And whatever opportunities there are, you want to put your hand up for those, even if they're just learning opportunities. And then also using that as an entry point to identify any gaps on the team. Are there places where the team could benefit from certain skills that nobody has, and maybe even you don't know exactly what the deployment of those skills will be yet, but you just identify that this is where we're falling behind the curve a little bit.
And maybe I could put myself forward to grow my skills in this way. So not all of those things are going to lead directly and immediately into a promotion or a career advancement, but certainly they make you a better candidate for those things when that time comes. But in the Meanwhile, you're just making yourself well-rounded. You're honing all of your skills.
You're getting better at the job you're doing. Because honestly, that's one of the number one things you can do to make yourself attractive for career advancement is just doing a great job at the job you're doing and differentiating yourself. And some of that can be through unique skill sets. Hope that was helpful. Yeah Thank you Marie.
Thank you for sharing those practical tips and tricks as well. My next question is specifically for Julia. Julia, given that you work at the intersection of academia and publishing, how can employees leverage organizational structures or career paths to navigate these cross-sector roles. That's that's a great question and Thank you very much for that.
It's also a tough question is what I'll say. So so I for me, I spent a lot of time in academia early on, and had also been exposed to publishing prior to actually going back into graduate school and earning my PhD, and I was quite comfortable in both of these sectors. I'll also say that even earlier I had worked in some other sectors as well. So I had understood that each sector has its own know, culture, its own incentives, its own motivations, its own organization, career paths and so on and so forth.
And and I was comfortable in each of these. And at some point, I realized that where I could actually add value and it came very naturally, was to actually learn to translate to each of these audiences. Write, translate, for instance, to academics, what publishers do or want or don't want, wand and vice versa. And I remember it started it started with me sharing, you know, trivial knowledge, you know, facts like, this is what a deadline is or this is the fiscal year runs, you know, up until June or, you know, like little, little facts that were obvious if you were in one of those sectors, but perhaps less so if you were working with the sector but were not immersed into it.
It's like how to write a grant, how to write a paper, that kind of stuff. And I and then I just kind of realized that I enjoyed straddling both spaces. I enjoyed working, you know, with in different sectors. And I enjoyed bringing, bringing this knowledge back and forth. And, and I kind of worked intentionally on getting better at this. And it became really one of my superpowers.
Right so I could I can speak quite confidently and comfortably translating what editorial does to product or to government affairs or to policymakers or to funders and vice versa. So that was quite interesting for me and I. In retrospect, I think this was a competency that I developed without any organizational support, but it seemed to be such a nice fit for the kind of work that I've always done.
So that's the first thing that I'll say. The other thing is that I've always enjoyed learning from other sectors. I have been exposed, by virtue of living in New York to a number of other industries, and I and I would always wonder, well, look, this industry is doing that, or this company is doing that, that actually, why can't we do it that way. Or why can't we learn something like that.
I had an opportunity to work for outsole, well-established consulting company within our industry. And there this was really kind of the pivotal moment in my career where I realized how valuable it is for me to have that, to develop that cross-sectoral knowledge. So in that particular instance, I would, would try to talk to, to customers or to some of the other consultants there to learn about, well, how does advertising technology business work.
What are what are the models there. Do they have any relevance to what we do to how we in publishing, do do marketing and communications or advertising or something like that. You know, so I started thinking about some of those ways in which I could learn from other sectors and bring that knowledge back and say, you know, look, everybody is using this, this kind of a tool in another industry.
Does it have relevance to us and vice versa. And so I think that for me, it has not so much been about using organizational structures as kind of intuitively finding these opportunities. That said, I will now say looking from where I'm sitting right now, that a lot of organizations have become a lot more thoughtful and intentional about providing precisely these kinds of frameworks for development of capabilities or career paths that are quite clear and allow employees to navigate a lot better the skills that they need to acquire.
And so I think there's a lot more support for professionals these days to actually have some guidance on how what career paths are available to them and how they can develop the skills to serve them in these contexts. Thank you Julia. I really liked how you explained about how you are experienced in both sectors. Sort of helped you bridge those two sectors in.
My next question is for Deirdre. Deirdre, given your unique perspective as a HR professional, what do you think differentiates someone who actively manages their career compared to someone who waits maybe too long to advocate for themselves. So the differentiator between someone who manages their career and someone who waits too long. Well, the differentiator has already been answered.
Meredith said. It well-roundedness willing to learn. Having regular conversations and honing your skills. Julia contributed to that by saying, know your audience. Being able to translate things for your audience so that they understand it. And I the way I, I heard Julia and the way I put the Deirdre framework around what Julia said is that she gained information and understanding systems outside of her present ecosystem, and brought it back as great ideas, to move the organization or the Department forward.
So they've answered that question. I do want to give you a Deirdre answer, and I'll try to do it as succinctly as possible. The distinguishing factor, again, between people who actively manage their career and those who don't. Let's go to Newton's laws. The first of Newton's laws is a motion. A body in motion remains in motion.
Now, again, give me a little bit of liberty. I want you to think motion of a runner. And when a runner gets into their sweet spot. And they get into that rhythm, they propel forward, not the motion of a rocking chair, because you're not going anywhere. But if you figure out, and this has been said before, differently, the organizational shifts adapt to the changes and keep moving.
You're going to have that forward motion. Newton's second law force equals mass times acceleration. Now I've substituted the word force for intentionality. Be intentional in your actions, in your conversations. Again, capitalizing on wins. But that's going to accelerate your career for every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction. That's Newton's law.
How does that translate into the landscape of work. It is relationship management. It is or emotional intelligence. What you give out, people will want to give back. That's also one of those persuasive principles of reciprocity. So if you give out those things, then you will advance your career. How does that look different than someone who was not intentional.
The person that's not intentional. People don't even mention their name. The person that is intentional. People develop projects for them to do to showcase their skills. They're asked to be Run Stretch projects. And again, those people who are intentional, their names are spoken in rooms that they have yet to enter. And I'll stop there.
Thank you. Deirdre I loved how you used Newton's laws to explain your answer. With that, my next question to our panelists are. Promotion conversations can be uncomfortable. What preparation do you consider essential before initiating that conversation with a manager. We can maybe start with Meredith. You Meredith explained before where you had this type of conversation with your manager and how it changed your career trajectory.
Can you share your experiences with us. Yeah, I think this is a really interesting question. And just sort of think of it along the lines of, you know, I'm sure in this webinar, we have a variety of different personalities, different comfort levels with these kinds of interactions. So it'll be a little bit different for everybody. But the first thing I think is important to highlight is we don't have to go into these conversations assuming that they're going to be confrontational or difficult.
Right sometimes we can build up the difficulty level in our minds, because we are sort of making an assumption that we will meet resistance, or that we will have to convince the other person of our case. Right so I think that's the first part of the preparation piece is just trying to reframe your mindset that unless you have information to suggest otherwise, in more cases than not, your manager cares about you and your career advancement, not as much as you do yourself, but and wants to help you along that journey.
Right? so they're not trying to work against you. And at the same time, there might be issues or conditions outside of your readiness and interest and competence that will affect whether a promotion is available to you at that moment or not. So setting the right expectations in your mind that if it most likely, if it doesn't go exactly how you want it to go. It's not going to be because your manager isn't receptive, and they don't care about hearing what you think and where you feel you are.
It's most likely going to be due to other factors. And then on the practical side, in terms of preparation, if you're nervous about the conversation, it can be helpful to think about what's going to make you more comfortable and more confident. For some people, that might actually be writing out some sort of script, that maybe you're not reading that in your meeting, but you are just kind of doing a little scenario planning of what could happen.
What could they ask me. Make sure that you're prepared on the topics you want to talk about of other people. It might be helpful just to jot some bullet points, so you make sure you hit all of your important points, but you know you're not relying on something written. There's also practice available in a lot of different formats. You can practice live with a friend or a partner or a colleague if you have someone you trust.
Now does a lot of this for you too, where you can actually do a practice session and you can sort of ratchet up the difficulty level if you want. You can tell the AI to be a little bit challenging or not receptive and see what that conversation, what path that takes. So I would reflect a little bit on what you think is going to help you come into the room feeling like your best self and feeling like you, you know, what you want to cover and how you want to talk about it.
And whatever is right for you is fine. And then going in with an open mind of that, you may hear some things that you weren't expecting to hear when you open this conversation, right, that your manager may have feedback for you about things that they identify as gaps between where you are and the next, the next role or what you're advocating for. And that hopefully will be constructive feedback and something that will be a good jumping off point to have a conversation about what you can do next and what you need to do next.
But I think preparing yourself in those ways can be helpful. But for me, the number one thing is just going in, assuming good intention, and assuming that it's going to be a good constructive conversation until there's evidence to the contrary. Thank you. Meredith, I'd love to hear both Deirdre and Julia's perspectives on this question.
Would I may I ask you to repeat the question. I want to make sure I heard you properly. Sure promotion conversations, as Meredith was referring to, can be uncomfortable. So what preparation do you consider essential before initiating a conversation with your manager. So as I'm answering this question, if you are here and present and promotion conversations are hard, or the thought of them make you sweat and your palms are sweaty, put a 1 in the chat.
So if it does make you nervous and it is uncomfortable, put a 1 in the chat. I want to see who we're talking to. If promotion conversations seem exciting and warm and fuzzy like soup on a cloudy day like today. Put a 2 in the chat. OK, so yes you are. You are in line with the people who are here. They feel that it is uncomfortable.
So the first thing that I would say to you is I want you to walk with me, journey with me on a mindset shift. And it really is a lot of what Meredith have said as opposed to this being uncomfortable. Where is the opportunity. So now when you think conversation performance management think opportunity. And also from a business perspective, businesses are always concerned with Roi, their return on investment.
So you need to be able to say I'm a good return on investment. So the first thing I want you to do is reframe that language, reframe your thinking. And listen. Ask questions versus being adversarial or walking into it as an adversarial relationship. Oh, I want you to organize your thoughts. Think about what you've done over the course of your time there, how you were in conversation with others.
I want you to organize your questions around how have I done this job to your expectations. How could I be better. Get that language from them in this conversation showing again, and I think Meredith mentioned this, that you want to be a lifelong learner, that you are. And something my mother would say is always, you want to do better. The last thing is that I show your impact.
Go in there with the numbers. You worked on this project and it increased your customer base. It increased sales. You help finish the project early. Whatever impact you can show both. You know the soft skills and the numbers go in there. So know your Roi. It is not adversarial even if it is. And oftentimes you have to manage up because leaders oftentimes don't know how to hold these coaching conversations to get you to better.
So when you walk in with that, you will be better prepared for your next. Terrific terrific response, Deirdre and Meredith. So I don't know that there is much more I could add. I think in terms of the pragmatics and the mechanics of it, I think everything has been covered. I think from my perspective, I will say what I think was touched on already and, and, and for me, the, you know, there is a lot that leads up to a conversation about a promotion.
Right so I think it is worth investing in some of this pre-work, letting your manager know what you're interested in, letting your manager know what your ambition is, starting to demonstrate that you are actually building up the skills to that next level. So I think there is a lot that a lot that needs to be done before the actual conversation. And I think it's worth paying attention to some of that.
I think sometimes it is, you know, like a part of that is just letting your managers know what your ambitions are, right? You cannot assume that they know that you want to be promoted. In fact, early on in my managing career, I, I had a fantastic employee who I really wanted to, to promote into what I thought is where she wanted to go. And I remember when I approached her, you know, about having a discussion about how we get her ready for that.
She said, this is not at all what I'm interested in. I was flabbergasted, right? Even though this was somebody that I worked with very closely, she had never given me an indication that actually her interest lies entirely elsewhere in terms of career growth. So sometimes it is just it is literally readying your manager. Demonstrating that what you want that you are interested in, in developing the skills to get you to the next level that you're interested in.
I think that's important work before the actual conversation. And then when you think about that conversation, it is just a conversation in a series of conversations, as opposed to this is coming out of nowhere, right? So so I think it's important to think about that as a progression. Thank you to all our panelists. I thought that was very engaging and insightful.
Our next question actually ties back to some of the things that we discussed before. What advice. See, so what advice would you give to someone who feels they are not the type to self-advocate? For example, someone who's introverted or introverted, early career and unsure about how they add value to a certain organization.
We can start with Meredith. Sure I think a lot of this relates to things that all three of us said in the last answers to just around the preparation piece. That's sort of why I wanted to touch on the different practical types of things that one might do. And I saw that Deirdre put in the chat around breathwork, and there's all sorts of things. One might do to kind of, you know, I saw all those ones show up in the chat.
And so, like, there's all sorts of things. One might do to go in feeling a little bit calmer and less stressed. But it just in general, in terms of being an introvert in the workplace, I think the other thing to remember is there's no right way to do these things. And you might observe other people who are a little bit more extroverted or a little bit more outgoing, who are very comfortable bringing up difficult or sensitive topics in groups or with their manager.
You don't have to be one of those people in order to be able to have these conversations. It's OK to do it your own way. And to do it with whatever preparation you need to do it with. The other thing I would say is it's OK to acknowledge, obviously every manager is going to be a little bit different, but it's OK to acknowledge with your manager if it is difficult for you to have a certain conversation, maybe that takes the edge off a little bit for you.
And sort of to Julia's point, hopefully this is not just one random moment in time that catches everybody off guard, right? Hopefully you and your manager are developing a relationship so that by the time you're having a conversation like this, a difficult conversation of any kind, you actually have a rapport built up and you feel a certain level of comfort, even, you know, with the variety of things that a managerial relationship could be.
So Yeah, the relationship building piece I think is important. If you feel like you are respected and heard and understood, that hopefully you're going to be more comfortable, more comfortable when these difficult topics come up. But also acknowledging, Yeah, like this. This is a difficult topic for me to talk about. I do feel a little bit out of my comfort zone, but I want to have a conversation with you about x, and maybe you even say that the time before the meeting, before you actually have the conversation, let them know that you're preparing for a conversation about x.
And it might be a challenging topic, but you really it's really important for you to talk about it. And maybe you could even ask them, what would a conversation look like. What what? How can I be best prepared to have a conversation with you about this. But I think the bottom line is, I mean, this is at least what I've learned as an introvert in the workplace.
There's nothing really that's going to solve that for you. You're not going to all of a sudden change. And have all the confidence you want or need to have a difficult conversation. So it's about pushing yourself within, within limits, not, you know, causing a break for yourself, but pushing yourself in the small ways that you can, you build up your confidence, try to speak up in places that have lower stakes, try to get yourself a little bit that momentum that Deirdre was talking about.
Try to get yourself into a little bit of a rhythm with doing it. And just it's a little bit of a rip the Band-Aid off type of thing. Sometimes you just have to do it. All you can do is prepare yourself the best as possible to be able to do it. Thank you.
Meredith Deirdre. So that you had already shared a lot of advice on the chat. Is there anything else that you would like to add. There is a book called Quiet, and it talks about how we live in a loud world and people who are loud, and even if they're wrong, they're rewarded. I too am an introvert and I see that. And I have anxiety. By the way, I'm a keynote speaker.
I deliver sessions on communications, I do all of the things, and I still get nervous. But I'm also introverted, which just means I get my energy from being with myself and in my thoughts. So manage your energy, manage your energy. So do that first. And the second thing I would say Julia mentioned having ongoing conversations. So I would add to that and say those ongoing conversations should also be like, Oh, I'm thinking about this career path.
What do you think about that. Oh, I finished this particular course. And this is what I learned. It's dropping those seeds, planting those seeds along the way so that when you have the big conversations, they're not that big because they're already growing. Give people the language for which to describe you when you are in a meeting.
Hello, everyone. I graduated with this or I took this course. This is what I learned. And based on what you're talking about, this is how it applies. Just an extra phrase in there. So people begin to have language to describe you, and you are showing up how you want to be, not how they perceive you. Again, that goes to now they have language to talk about you in rooms that you have yet to enter.
Thank you Deirdre. And also to Meredith. Our my next question is for all three of our panelists. What strategies help ensure your contributions are recognized in a remote or hybrid environment. How do you build visibility, especially as an early career professional in a hybrid or remote environment.
Julia we can start with you. OK Thank you for this question. So I've given this thought, this question quite a bit of thought from, from the other end of this, which is, which is as a leader and as a, as a, as a manager, how do I ensure that there are opportunities for the team members, right, that require or that do not just rely on just serendipity or, or coincidental running into your boss in the elevator.
And so, so I've thought a lot about that. And, and I think that, that organizations are becoming a lot more intentional about providing some of this, you know, different, different ways of communicating and different ways of, of, of ensuring that there are pipelines for new ideas and so on and so forth. But I also think that it is. It is.
It is still a challenge, right? Remember, we went remote literally overnight. And so the adaptation to a hybrid or remote environment this require like a long term rethinking of how we operate. Right and so so I think that there's a lot that is happening certainly among the leaders that I work with. But at the same time, I think that there are a lot of opportunities for.
Professionals to actually make suggestions and to be more intentional about how they demonstrate and how they come and get seen in the context of a, in a remote context or in a hybrid contract. So I'm thinking about things like know, does your company, does your team have a way in which new ideas can be elevated for discussion. Right that is, would it benefit from a structured process where everybody could really come together and discuss what you know, what innovation might look like in a particular team.
Are there discussions that are being held around strategy that you think you and your teams can be a part of, or should be a part of. Then maybe if there is, if the answer is yes to some of these questions or maybe certainly other circumstances, I think there's an opportunity for, for professionals to actually be a part of the solution and say, you know, well know, we're still struggling to get a little bit more visibility on this or we really think we can contribute to this discussion.
That is happening that we just learn about how do we do that. Right and so sometimes it is a question of taking initiative, going to your manager and saying, I'd like for us to do that. One of the things that I've always been clear to, to my team is it's important that you not only go to your manager just with a list of problems. It's important to try and come up with solutions as well, right?
So this isn't like go and say there's an opportunity for us. For whatever reason, it has not come up to us and we think that we can contribute in a, B, C ways. What do you think is the best. So try and already suggest some ways in which you could be more visible and build up that visibility. At the same time, I think it is worth asking for things that will make your organization more friendly to people working remote or in hybrid environments.
So again, thinking about communication channels, can they be improved. How can they be improved. Do you have you given feedback on that. Thinking about what's the structure of meetings where you actually want to be heard and take part of, you know, so those are things that do not, you know, that you can actually be a part of those solutions that will ultimately benefit you as well.
That's my $0.02. Thanks Thank you Julia. Very insightful. Meredith, would you be able to share your experiences as well, both as a manager and maybe an employee yourself. Sure Yeah. I love everything that Julia said. I think this visibility piece is really important that in the remote or hybrid environment, there just isn't this sort of accidental visibility that you get from being co-located in an office together.
So taking the opportunities to make yourself as visible as possible. So maybe it won't shock people that I'm going to talk about a few practical ways that one might do that. But the first thing that comes to mind is using your camera in meetings. I think especially in, you know, I can say this from personal experience.
It's very tempting in the environment we work in now, especially in larger meetings, to be off camera because you don't have maybe you're not speaking in that meeting and there's a lot of people in there, but even taking some opportunities to switch that on, it just makes you more visible. You appear more engaged. That doesn't mean that there aren't going to be days where you need that camera off for your own personal reasons.
That's fine. Take your opportunities. But just knowing that being a little bit more visible, even in the larger team settings or when it's not strictly necessary, can help you appear more engaged and be more part of the conversation. There's also small ways that you can participate in meetings without necessarily putting your hand up or speaking, if that's not yet where you're at or not a thing that you can do on a regular basis.
So teams or Zoom or Google Chat, whatever you use at your organization, we'll have things like reactions. I've seen a few of my fellow panelists have used them here just to indicate you agree with something. There's always a chat window, where you can put a question or a comment, and I see people on the team using this really effectively to show that they're listening, they're here, they are engaged in the topic, they care about the topic.
So that that can be really effective. And then this will sound familiar to pavithra, but finding sort of lower stakes opportunities to speak up and contribute to conversations. So again, if you can, if you're a little bit more outgoing and you can do that in all the various team contexts, then great. But if that's not really like available to you just yet, then finding those opportunities where maybe it's a smaller meeting, maybe there's four or five of you, or maybe it's people you feel really comfortable with because them and you work with them a lot and put your hand up in those meetings and try to use those as a little bit of a jumping off point to make yourself a little bit more visible and more comfortable.
And then that might lead to people in those smaller settings knowing that you're the go to person on a certain thing, or you have a certain answer and maybe they'll call on you to give that in other formats and push you a little bit. I always like to position it as a little bit of a challenge to yourself, of maybe you pick a number of times per month or percentage per week, or whatever kind of numbers resonate with you that I want to speak up and at least three meetings this month, or it could be whatever makes sense for you based on your meeting schedule, but just a little challenge to yourself.
And then there are also things that you can do sort of while you're in the, the, the sort of day to day cycle of things. If you see an email that celebrates somebody or that talks about a project somebody's working on or something that they've got going on, you can reach out to that person not because you have to and because it's required of your role or the job that you're doing.
But just because you want to say congratulations or, hey, you did a really good job in that talk you gave the other day. I learned a lot. Or, hey, I like snowboarding in the winter too, or whatever, whatever it might be, connecting with people on their interests and remembering everybody's a person first But it feels really nice when someone, maybe you don't cross over your work with all the time reaches out to you just to tell you they noticed something, or, you know, they want to engage with you on something.
So those are just a few practical things. And then I think, lastly, just remembering that the virtual workplace actually gives us many, many more opportunities than the in-person environment gave us in terms of free webinars, virtual social interactions, you know, free Learning's online courses like that has kind of exploded, right? So just trying to leverage and take advantage of the extra things we get in the virtual environment that we didn't have before.
Thank you. Meredith I'm sure our audience really appreciated all the practical tips you just shared. Deirdre, do you have anything to add to that. I'll quickly go through. Yes, there's an opportunity for one on one, so be intentional about setting up quick meetings to get to know people and just relationship management.
I'm from the South. Take something from us Southerners. When you're having these conversations, remember key things about their family and be inquisitive about who people are, not just what they can do for you and what they do at work. I'm an introvert. It takes a lot to get up and put on clothes, but show up to the function.
Stay just long enough to smile at some people. Have some great conversation. Leave before people are dancing on tables with lampshades on their head. OK, raise your hand, but not too much. You want to volunteer for things, but not too much. You want to execute in excellence. Make sure you're including other people in the decision making. So that you show your collaborative and intentional on outcomes.
Lastly, this may sound controversial. I don't have time to deep dive into it. Align yourself with power. People with titles aren't always the one with power. Watch and see who has power. Serve everyone. Show up for everyone. But if you align yourself with people who have power, oftentimes they'll bring you with them.
And not negative power and not, you know, you know, I mean good power. You got that. OK Thank you. Love that. Deirdre so that brings us to the final question for our panelists. I'm also mindful about the time so that we can go to the A's. So to all panelists, if every attendee walked away today and did one small thing this week to advocate for themselves, what would that be.
If you can answer, you know, in a couple of sentences, that would be great. I can start really quickly, and I'll just be super succinct so that we're not we don't take up more than we should. One thing that we have not talked about is the power of your network. So I would like if there's one thing that I'd like you to do today to walk away with a task and an action point for this week is to contact one person from your network this week.
Not your peer, not your friend who you've had 15 lunches with somebody who, kind of marginally well, but who is an important person in the industry or somebody who kind of is who, who is meaningful for your career progression. And and just introduce yourself in a more meaningful way than just a LinkedIn invite without an add note and see if you can and see if you can actually kind of connect with this person meaningfully to learn about their job, to tell them about you with no ask.
That would be one thing I think network is, is, is, is one of the factors of my own success. And so I'd like to strongly recommend that everybody take advantage of that. Thank you. Julia, Meredith and Deirdre, anything you want to add. Any practical takeaways from today's webinar. Mine would just be to work on that reframing of the advocacy as constructive and positive and not confrontational or, you know, automatically difficult.
And maybe doing that by asking yourself, what makes you nervous about these types of conversations and this type of advocacy. Why does it sort of raise your temperature, and what are the ways that you could work on that for yourself, whether you have a live one or not to do, but just sort of working on the reframing in maybe the quiet space while you think about it. I would jump in and say, we've talked a lot about intentionality today, but what I did not get to bring up to you is, OK, so where is it that you have your passion.
Where is it that you are supposed to be in this world, as opposed to looking at someone else in this ideal of a career ladder. It's not pie. There's room for everyone. Your success may not look like someone else's. So know yourself so what journey you should be on. Competition and comparison is the thief of joy. Pursue your joy by knowing who you are and understanding the landscape in which you reside.
Thank you Deirdre. With that, we'll go to some of the Q&As. One of the questions that came in, how do you motivate yourself to speak up when you have been denied or rejected with opportunities in the past. Do you have advice for how to get over that fear of rejection.
Denial and rejection is redirection. Keep at it and persevere. Not thinking about what happened then, but thinking about where you want to be. And do not allow anyone to stand between you and your greatness and your success. You've got to want your success more than you want to sit-in, being comfortable and not having and continuously having those conversations.
I love that, and remembering that rejection on any particular thing is not equivalent to of a value statement about you or your worth. It might just not have been the right time, or the right opportunity, or the right fit. A lot of conditions can contribute to that, but just not equating that with a sort of self-perception that you're not good enough or you didn't make the cut.
It's it that's sure you can take it as a learning experience, but that's what can lead to, I think the fear of going back in and putting yourself out there again, is feeling like it was something about you that led to the rejection, and that's almost never the case. Julia, if you wanted to add something, we can. And if not, we can go to the next Q&A. I think that's sound advice.
I would also add that you also need to know when to cut your losses. Right? right. If there is, if at some point, like you've tried your best and there's just no. And this happens not because of you, not because of your manager, not because of your organization, sometimes circumstances are such that you cannot there's nothing available for you.
And so from that perspective, I think you need to know, like, OK, well that relationship has run its course. What other opportunities are there for me. I don't think there's anything negative about being realistic about that as well. Thank you Julia. And actually that resonates with the last question we just got. How do you approach seeking a promotion when there are limited opportunities for advancement within your team.
Look outside your team. Look and see where there are gaps in the organization or processes. I think Julia brought this up before. And build those opportunities. Say, hey, I see a problem, I see a gap, I can do this. Or again, Julia said, cut your losses. I know this is before, all of your times, but there's an old artist named Kenny Rogers says.
You gotta know when to hold em and you gotta know when to fold em. Yeah, I agree with all that. And also, just what we were kind of talking about before is just make yourself in the Meanwhile, as ready as possible and as good at your job as possible and doing as much as you want to do within your current role. And that might make you ready when something does open up on the team.
If you do choose to stay or it makes you better ready for the next thing if you move on from the team. I think one final question if our panelists have time, there are a couple of questions that talks about salary negotiations that comes with promotions. Any advice on those types of conversations.
I think you're on mute air here. No what is happening in the organization and how they do the pay structure, but also know what's happening in the market and be able to speak to that based on your competencies, based on your, you know, the length of your resume. And sometimes an organization, especially nonprofits, they may not be able to pay what you're asking. So what are some other things expand the compensation conversation to, well, can I go to this conference.
Will you pay for this certification. I'll stop there because I know we're at the end of time. And you ladies. Plus one on that. Yeah great advice I the only thing I would add is also just knowing what your stakes are for a salary conversation.
Is this a make it or break it for you. Do you have to get more or are you moving on. And not that you have to put that ultimatum on the table, but just knowing what it means for you. And to Deirdre's point. You might not always be able to get that. They just might not be physically able to give you what you want. So what does that mean for you.
Thank you. Meredith so as we wrap up today, a big Thank you to both Meredith, Julia and Deirdre. It's been such an insightful and also very engaging discussion with all our audiences. And Thank you all for joining us today. As well. We'd love to get your feedback to help shape future programming.
So you'll receive a brief evaluation form with the email. And there's a link in. There's a link also in the chat, so feel free to share your feedback. For more information on upcoming programs, please visit the SSP website. We'll also be posting the recording on the SSP website and all registrants will receive the link. Thanks again for being here and we hope to see you at the next webinar.
Take care. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Meredith and Deirdre. Nice to see everybody. Thanks, everyone.
Segment:0 .
We'll give you a few minutes for everyone to join and then start.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's SSP early career subcommittee webinar, how to advocate for career development and promotion. We are glad that you could join us today. My name is pavithra Noriega and I'm a member of the SSP early career subcommittee. Before we get started, I have a few housekeeping items to review.
First of all, your microphones are muted, so please use the Q&A box to enter questions for the panelists. We'd love to hear your thoughts and we'll cover them at the end of the session. You can also use the chat to say Hello or flag any questions that you are having. We encourage you to introduce yourself in the chat and tell us where you're from.
Closed captions are also available. You can view captions by selecting the More option on your screen and choosing Show Captions. This is a one hour session, and we'll be recording it and sharing it in the next few days. Before we get started, a quick note on SSPS code of conduct and today's meeting. We are committed to diversity, equity, and providing an inclusive meeting environment for studying open dialogue free of harassment, discrimination, and hostile conduct.
We ask that all participants, whether speaking or in chat, to consider and debate relevant viewpoints in an orderly, respectful and fair manner. SSP is committed to complying with competition and antitrust laws. Please avoid any discussions of pricing, market allocation, boycotts, or other topics that could be interpreted as anti-competitive. If any such discussions arise, they shall be stopped immediately to protect both individual participants and the organization.
With that, it's now my pleasure to introduce you to our speakers today. Our first panelist is Meredith adinolfi. Meredith is the vice president of publishing operations for Cell press. At Cell press, she oversees production, editorial operations, and design for a growing portfolio of journals across the life medical, physical, and sustainability sciences.
She also contributes to the strategic vision of Cell press and focuses on workflow optimization across the organization. Meredith is passionate about developing people. She leads a large team at Cell press and also mentors several young women. Meredith has served on several committees and was the career development committee co-chair for two years.
During that time, she helped to launch the thriving SSP mentorship program. You may also know her as the co-host of the SSPS early career podcast, which provides primers on key, foundational and timely topics in the industry. Thank you, Meredith, for joining us. Our next panelist is Julia kostova. Doctor Julia kostova is the vice president for America for academic partnerships for the Americas at Taylor Francis.
She oversees partnership strategy, institutional and Community Engagement and advocacy, and closely with research communities, institutions, libraries, and funders to support the creation and dissemination of cutting edge research. Julia brings nearly 20 years of experience in scholarly publishing and has built long standing partnerships across the scholarly communications ecosystem. Julia is committed to cultivating, cultivating, and mentoring women executives and leaders, and she has held a fellowship at women in power at 92nd Street Y in New York City.
She holds a PhD in French literature from Rutgers University, and has taught at both Columbia and Rutgers to complete today's panel. We are also joined by our third and final panelist, Deirdre Simmons. Deirdre is a strategic human resources professional, a certified coach and a facilitator, a commercial talent entrepreneur, a sought after speaker with 20 plus years of experience in human resources, operations and leadership.
She writes a weekly article on LinkedIn. She is the author of the etextbook public speaking a bridge to success, and is also the author of the practical guide clear communication, powerful results. Deirdre focuses on aligning people strategy with organizational goals, improving efficiency while staying human centered. She holds a BA in organizational communication with a minor in management and supervision from Purdue University.
She also holds an MS in human resource management from the UConn school of business. You may also know her from disrupt HR, where she delivered a talk titled HR lessons from Cardi B. Thank you, Meredith, Julia and Deirdre for joining the panel today. Before we begin the panel discussion, we'll start with a quick poll. It should appear on your screen in just a few moments.
The question is, what do you find most challenging about your career development. Please select the option that best fits. We'll give a couple of minutes for everyone to answer this.
Thanks to everyone for responding. We'll use these results to guide our conversation today as we get started, feel free to introduce yourself in the chat with your name and where you're joining from. And if you have any questions for the panelists, please drop them in the Q&A. To kick us off, the first question is for all our panelists. Meredith, I'll start with you. When you reflect on your own career journey, what was one moment when advocating for yourself has changed the career trajectory.
Thanks first of all, Hi, everyone. It's really nice to be here. I'm really happy to be on this panel and very interested to hear from Julia and Deirdre too. So Thanks for the opportunity. So Yeah, so I reflected on this question and did think about one pretty pivotal moment in my own career. Earlier in my career, at that moment, I was co-managing a team with a partner, and he and I had been working together as partners for a few years.
We worked really great together. It was very enjoyable, and he told me and our mutual manager at the time that he was leaving the company for another opportunity, and it sort of surfaced for me that he and I were probably both experiencing similar feelings, that we enjoyed the partnership, but we were both starting to sort of outgrow the need for the partnership in the role. It was quite important to have a partner in the first couple of years as we sort of learned and grew into the role, and we were both kind of looking for maybe a new challenge.
So after hearing that he was leaving, I reflected for a bit and thought about, what is this going to mean for me. And what do I want this to mean for me. And then I went back to my manager and I said, I've been thinking about this. I'm sure you have quite a bit of thinking of on your plate right now. But I want to let that I'm ready for a new challenge.
I don't really want to work with a new partner. I'm ready to manage the team on my own. I have a lot of ideas. I can see some benefits from consolidating the management under one person. And here are some of the things I'm thinking about. So as you're reflecting, I just want you to know that I'm ready for it and I'm confident. And this is what I would love to see happen.
And I went in knowing that I couldn't guarantee that I was going to get what I wanted out of that situation. But I felt like it was a good moment to advocate and also perhaps took a little something off my manager's plate, because if I could go in with some level of confidence and tell him this is a possible way forward and I can do this. And I'll be here for you to do this, it might actually relieve some of the burden of thinking about, OK, what are we going to do next here.
I should probably have prefaced this. I think this is a good context for the conversation that I do consider myself an introvert. So anybody who's on this call who is in that category and thinks, Oh, that sounds really scary. It is. And it can be. And I know we're going to talk a lot about different things in this conversation, but I do consider myself an introvert.
It was definitely out of my comfort zone. But I did do it. And it was a really big turning point in my career. Spoiler alert it did happen. And that that's what ended up happening in my career kind of went from there. So I am really glad that I did that and I sort of pushed myself to do it, but it wasn't necessarily easy. And I don't think any of us want to position these things as, as always, easy or comfortable or natural, but they do sometimes make sense and pay off.
What a great story! Thanks for sharing with us, Meredith. I'd love to hear your perspective next, Julia. Thank you very much. And and again, Thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of this panel. Thank you for everybody who joined today. It's really heartening to see the enthusiasm in the chat there.
And so really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today, but also to sit to sit alongside Meredith and Deirdre, as well as the rest of the SSP crew behind this. This is a really important conversation, and I'm just honored to be a part of this. Meredith fantastic story. I think for me, I would approach this question differently. Actually, for me, the framing of this question, one moment that fundamentally changed the course of my career simply does not reflect my experience.
For me, advocating for myself and in fact, kind of being very intentional and strategic about it in developing my career has never been one and done. It has been it has required consistency, it has required agility. It has required commitment. So for me, my experience, I don't know that I could pinpoint a moment when I advocated for myself that fundamentally changed the trajectory of my career.
It's more it's been a lot more about smaller asks, sometimes bigger asks. But it has been a series of asks that I've continuously developed and to marry at this point. You know, it may not come naturally, but you do learn over the years, so I'll just give you. I can think of many, many times when I've advocated for my needs or when I've had suggestions and I've wanted for them to be given airtime and I now in hindsight, I can see how those asks and of course, the support that I have received for them, regardless of their outcome, have really shaped my career positively.
So I've asked all kinds of things that now, looking back, you know, you kind of say, Oh, I realized that this actually played a much bigger role than I realized at the time, I have asked for things like participating in specific projects to build my skills. I have asked for coaching. I have asked to be invited to sit-in high stakes negotiations, just to listen and learn how leadership talks about some of these bigger questions that were outside of what I would normally do.
I have asked for an expanded remit. You know, this is something that I actually have found to have been really, really valuable, like, for example, a situation where, you know, there's a lot of people doing it, but I actually think that I'm best positioned to take the lead on this and to consolidate some of the efforts that are happening across the team or across the company that has actually become been really helpful in terms of developing a concrete skill set, in terms of developing leadership skills, in terms of actually also updating and expanding your resume.
Right I've asked for trainings, I have asked for courses, and of course I have asked for promotions. So for me, my experience is that that advocacy and advocating for your needs and for your growth opportunities has to be a consistent. Process that accompanies you throughout your whole career. That has been my experience. Thank you.
Julia that's really insightful. So, Deirdre, please share with us your experience has been similar to the other two panelists. Good morning, everyone. Thank you SSP. Thank you, pavitra, for the question. And Meredith pinpointed one specific instance. And if you're paying attention along the way. And you have that, I think it's wonderful because it can be a catalyst for your growth, Julia mentioned, which is something a little bit closer to my experience is it's continuous.
It's along the way. And and just to be transparent with all of you. And Thank you all for being here. I'm closer aligned with Meredith as an introvert in my experiences are closer aligned with Julia. So I remember a CEO saying to me, Oh, I hire people like you because you're a go getter. You always show up and you do extra. And I don't have to pay you that much because you enjoy your job.
I'm like, wait, what? What? what? So then there is the knowledge of don't know what I have and the gifts and talents that I'm sitting on, and I'm underselling myself. But it was not just that one experience. It's a collection of experiences and encounters. It's sitting at the feet of women like Carla Harris, who is a business person and author of When it is listening to a doctor, Danielle Cox, who is a tedx speaker and nonprofit leader.
And it's understanding and being in spaces with women preachers like the Reverend Nancy Kingwood Smalls and Reverend Renita Weems, as well as Doctor Valerie Bridgeman, and just learning and listening and growing and seeing their trajectories. Because that journey doesn't have to be what you think it is today. Grow and expand. Now, what can you take away from what I've said.
I want you to pay attention to your journey along the way. Take opportunities to grow and learn. Both Meredith and Julia pointed that out to say, hey, you raise your hand, say, hey, I can do that. I want you to listen and assess. I listen to that leader who was telling me how she viewed me, and I made some shifts. I attended some conferences. I listened to some people about how I should show up and how I should be valued and talk about that value.
Accept your missteps along the way. Don't think of them as failures. Think of them as education and yield to the wise. I mentioned just a few of the women's names. Yield to their experiences. Listen to them. Don't always show up in spaces with I've got the answer. Assess the landscape. I hope that helps someone.
What a fantastic opening to our webinar today. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and experiences. The next question is specifically for Meredith. Meredith, can you please share your thoughts on how can early and mid-career professionals future proof their skill set in an evolving scholarly publishing industry, and how that benefit them to advance their career later. Yeah, Thanks for this question.
I think, first of all, I'd like to reframe instead of thinking about skill building as just purely career advancement or promotion. I want to think about it more as just enhancement and, you know, making yourself well rounded and well suited for whatever your ambitions are. Because skill building is important, even if you're not looking for a promotion at that particular moment.
But of course, it will be on your mind and is going to help you with career advancement. But I think I heard both Deirdre and Julia talk about listen and learn, and I think that's a really important piece of this answer to that, making yourself visible and putting yourself forward for the Learning Spaces that are available, even if you're not at a point of contributing in those spaces yet, but you're just listening, observing and seeing how other people handle situations or tackle problems or answer questions.
I think that's really important. The other thing is sort of staying up to date or up to speed on what's going on in the industry. And I say that knowing how difficult that is, especially right now, there's things are just moving at such a pace and there's so much going on, even outside the industry, that impacts what's happening in the pace of what's happening. So it's hard. But I think identifying some of the industry sources that work for you and that help you feel informed and like you, you understand what's going on is really important, because that's going to give you a sense of what are people talking about, what kind of learning are other people doing, and what other types of roles are out there.
What other types of opportunities are out there. What are you seeing other people move on to. And then that's really also where you're going to get exposed to all types of industry events that might be available to you. There's tons that's available for free or at a very low cost. That will help you even just sort of at the basic level of a certain skill or technology or project management or leading people, really any number of things.
And sometimes that foundational piece that you can get through a free webinar or a free course online is all you need to know in terms of, is this something I want to build on. Is this something I want to go further on. And the other thing I would say is having these conversations regularly with your manager or with your team so that they know what you're interested in. And that also you can express to that person that you are in a learning mode, and you want to be learning and you want to be challenged.
And whatever opportunities there are, you want to put your hand up for those, even if they're just learning opportunities. And then also using that as an entry point to identify any gaps on the team. Are there places where the team could benefit from certain skills that nobody has, and maybe even you don't know exactly what the deployment of those skills will be yet, but you just identify that this is where we're falling behind the curve a little bit.
And maybe I could put myself forward to grow my skills in this way. So not all of those things are going to lead directly and immediately into a promotion or a career advancement, but certainly they make you a better candidate for those things when that time comes. But in the Meanwhile, you're just making yourself well-rounded. You're honing all of your skills.
You're getting better at the job you're doing. Because honestly, that's one of the number one things you can do to make yourself attractive for career advancement is just doing a great job at the job you're doing and differentiating yourself. And some of that can be through unique skill sets. Hope that was helpful. Yeah Thank you Marie.
Thank you for sharing those practical tips and tricks as well. My next question is specifically for Julia. Julia, given that you work at the intersection of academia and publishing, how can employees leverage organizational structures or career paths to navigate these cross-sector roles. That's that's a great question and Thank you very much for that.
It's also a tough question is what I'll say. So so I for me, I spent a lot of time in academia early on, and had also been exposed to publishing prior to actually going back into graduate school and earning my PhD, and I was quite comfortable in both of these sectors. I'll also say that even earlier I had worked in some other sectors as well. So I had understood that each sector has its own know, culture, its own incentives, its own motivations, its own organization, career paths and so on and so forth.
And and I was comfortable in each of these. And at some point, I realized that where I could actually add value and it came very naturally, was to actually learn to translate to each of these audiences. Write, translate, for instance, to academics, what publishers do or want or don't want, wand and vice versa. And I remember it started it started with me sharing, you know, trivial knowledge, you know, facts like, this is what a deadline is or this is the fiscal year runs, you know, up until June or, you know, like little, little facts that were obvious if you were in one of those sectors, but perhaps less so if you were working with the sector but were not immersed into it.
It's like how to write a grant, how to write a paper, that kind of stuff. And I and then I just kind of realized that I enjoyed straddling both spaces. I enjoyed working, you know, with in different sectors. And I enjoyed bringing, bringing this knowledge back and forth. And, and I kind of worked intentionally on getting better at this. And it became really one of my superpowers.
Right so I could I can speak quite confidently and comfortably translating what editorial does to product or to government affairs or to policymakers or to funders and vice versa. So that was quite interesting for me and I. In retrospect, I think this was a competency that I developed without any organizational support, but it seemed to be such a nice fit for the kind of work that I've always done.
So that's the first thing that I'll say. The other thing is that I've always enjoyed learning from other sectors. I have been exposed, by virtue of living in New York to a number of other industries, and I and I would always wonder, well, look, this industry is doing that, or this company is doing that, that actually, why can't we do it that way. Or why can't we learn something like that.
I had an opportunity to work for outsole, well-established consulting company within our industry. And there this was really kind of the pivotal moment in my career where I realized how valuable it is for me to have that, to develop that cross-sectoral knowledge. So in that particular instance, I would, would try to talk to, to customers or to some of the other consultants there to learn about, well, how does advertising technology business work.
What are what are the models there. Do they have any relevance to what we do to how we in publishing, do do marketing and communications or advertising or something like that. You know, so I started thinking about some of those ways in which I could learn from other sectors and bring that knowledge back and say, you know, look, everybody is using this, this kind of a tool in another industry.
Does it have relevance to us and vice versa. And so I think that for me, it has not so much been about using organizational structures as kind of intuitively finding these opportunities. That said, I will now say looking from where I'm sitting right now, that a lot of organizations have become a lot more thoughtful and intentional about providing precisely these kinds of frameworks for development of capabilities or career paths that are quite clear and allow employees to navigate a lot better the skills that they need to acquire.
And so I think there's a lot more support for professionals these days to actually have some guidance on how what career paths are available to them and how they can develop the skills to serve them in these contexts. Thank you Julia. I really liked how you explained about how you are experienced in both sectors. Sort of helped you bridge those two sectors in.
My next question is for Deirdre. Deirdre, given your unique perspective as a HR professional, what do you think differentiates someone who actively manages their career compared to someone who waits maybe too long to advocate for themselves. So the differentiator between someone who manages their career and someone who waits too long. Well, the differentiator has already been answered.
Meredith said. It well-roundedness willing to learn. Having regular conversations and honing your skills. Julia contributed to that by saying, know your audience. Being able to translate things for your audience so that they understand it. And I the way I, I heard Julia and the way I put the Deirdre framework around what Julia said is that she gained information and understanding systems outside of her present ecosystem, and brought it back as great ideas, to move the organization or the Department forward.
So they've answered that question. I do want to give you a Deirdre answer, and I'll try to do it as succinctly as possible. The distinguishing factor, again, between people who actively manage their career and those who don't. Let's go to Newton's laws. The first of Newton's laws is a motion. A body in motion remains in motion.
Now, again, give me a little bit of liberty. I want you to think motion of a runner. And when a runner gets into their sweet spot. And they get into that rhythm, they propel forward, not the motion of a rocking chair, because you're not going anywhere. But if you figure out, and this has been said before, differently, the organizational shifts adapt to the changes and keep moving.
You're going to have that forward motion. Newton's second law force equals mass times acceleration. Now I've substituted the word force for intentionality. Be intentional in your actions, in your conversations. Again, capitalizing on wins. But that's going to accelerate your career for every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction. That's Newton's law.
How does that translate into the landscape of work. It is relationship management. It is or emotional intelligence. What you give out, people will want to give back. That's also one of those persuasive principles of reciprocity. So if you give out those things, then you will advance your career. How does that look different than someone who was not intentional.
The person that's not intentional. People don't even mention their name. The person that is intentional. People develop projects for them to do to showcase their skills. They're asked to be Run Stretch projects. And again, those people who are intentional, their names are spoken in rooms that they have yet to enter. And I'll stop there.
Thank you. Deirdre I loved how you used Newton's laws to explain your answer. With that, my next question to our panelists are. Promotion conversations can be uncomfortable. What preparation do you consider essential before initiating that conversation with a manager. We can maybe start with Meredith. You Meredith explained before where you had this type of conversation with your manager and how it changed your career trajectory.
Can you share your experiences with us. Yeah, I think this is a really interesting question. And just sort of think of it along the lines of, you know, I'm sure in this webinar, we have a variety of different personalities, different comfort levels with these kinds of interactions. So it'll be a little bit different for everybody. But the first thing I think is important to highlight is we don't have to go into these conversations assuming that they're going to be confrontational or difficult.
Right sometimes we can build up the difficulty level in our minds, because we are sort of making an assumption that we will meet resistance, or that we will have to convince the other person of our case. Right so I think that's the first part of the preparation piece is just trying to reframe your mindset that unless you have information to suggest otherwise, in more cases than not, your manager cares about you and your career advancement, not as much as you do yourself, but and wants to help you along that journey.
Right? so they're not trying to work against you. And at the same time, there might be issues or conditions outside of your readiness and interest and competence that will affect whether a promotion is available to you at that moment or not. So setting the right expectations in your mind that if it most likely, if it doesn't go exactly how you want it to go. It's not going to be because your manager isn't receptive, and they don't care about hearing what you think and where you feel you are.
It's most likely going to be due to other factors. And then on the practical side, in terms of preparation, if you're nervous about the conversation, it can be helpful to think about what's going to make you more comfortable and more confident. For some people, that might actually be writing out some sort of script, that maybe you're not reading that in your meeting, but you are just kind of doing a little scenario planning of what could happen.
What could they ask me. Make sure that you're prepared on the topics you want to talk about of other people. It might be helpful just to jot some bullet points, so you make sure you hit all of your important points, but you know you're not relying on something written. There's also practice available in a lot of different formats. You can practice live with a friend or a partner or a colleague if you have someone you trust.
Now does a lot of this for you too, where you can actually do a practice session and you can sort of ratchet up the difficulty level if you want. You can tell the AI to be a little bit challenging or not receptive and see what that conversation, what path that takes. So I would reflect a little bit on what you think is going to help you come into the room feeling like your best self and feeling like you, you know, what you want to cover and how you want to talk about it.
And whatever is right for you is fine. And then going in with an open mind of that, you may hear some things that you weren't expecting to hear when you open this conversation, right, that your manager may have feedback for you about things that they identify as gaps between where you are and the next, the next role or what you're advocating for. And that hopefully will be constructive feedback and something that will be a good jumping off point to have a conversation about what you can do next and what you need to do next.
But I think preparing yourself in those ways can be helpful. But for me, the number one thing is just going in, assuming good intention, and assuming that it's going to be a good constructive conversation until there's evidence to the contrary. Thank you. Meredith, I'd love to hear both Deirdre and Julia's perspectives on this question.
Would I may I ask you to repeat the question. I want to make sure I heard you properly. Sure promotion conversations, as Meredith was referring to, can be uncomfortable. So what preparation do you consider essential before initiating a conversation with your manager. So as I'm answering this question, if you are here and present and promotion conversations are hard, or the thought of them make you sweat and your palms are sweaty, put a 1 in the chat.
So if it does make you nervous and it is uncomfortable, put a 1 in the chat. I want to see who we're talking to. If promotion conversations seem exciting and warm and fuzzy like soup on a cloudy day like today. Put a 2 in the chat. OK, so yes you are. You are in line with the people who are here. They feel that it is uncomfortable.
So the first thing that I would say to you is I want you to walk with me, journey with me on a mindset shift. And it really is a lot of what Meredith have said as opposed to this being uncomfortable. Where is the opportunity. So now when you think conversation performance management think opportunity. And also from a business perspective, businesses are always concerned with Roi, their return on investment.
So you need to be able to say I'm a good return on investment. So the first thing I want you to do is reframe that language, reframe your thinking. And listen. Ask questions versus being adversarial or walking into it as an adversarial relationship. Oh, I want you to organize your thoughts. Think about what you've done over the course of your time there, how you were in conversation with others.
I want you to organize your questions around how have I done this job to your expectations. How could I be better. Get that language from them in this conversation showing again, and I think Meredith mentioned this, that you want to be a lifelong learner, that you are. And something my mother would say is always, you want to do better. The last thing is that I show your impact.
Go in there with the numbers. You worked on this project and it increased your customer base. It increased sales. You help finish the project early. Whatever impact you can show both. You know the soft skills and the numbers go in there. So know your Roi. It is not adversarial even if it is. And oftentimes you have to manage up because leaders oftentimes don't know how to hold these coaching conversations to get you to better.
So when you walk in with that, you will be better prepared for your next. Terrific terrific response, Deirdre and Meredith. So I don't know that there is much more I could add. I think in terms of the pragmatics and the mechanics of it, I think everything has been covered. I think from my perspective, I will say what I think was touched on already and, and, and for me, the, you know, there is a lot that leads up to a conversation about a promotion.
Right so I think it is worth investing in some of this pre-work, letting your manager know what you're interested in, letting your manager know what your ambition is, starting to demonstrate that you are actually building up the skills to that next level. So I think there is a lot that a lot that needs to be done before the actual conversation. And I think it's worth paying attention to some of that.
I think sometimes it is, you know, like a part of that is just letting your managers know what your ambitions are, right? You cannot assume that they know that you want to be promoted. In fact, early on in my managing career, I, I had a fantastic employee who I really wanted to, to promote into what I thought is where she wanted to go. And I remember when I approached her, you know, about having a discussion about how we get her ready for that.
She said, this is not at all what I'm interested in. I was flabbergasted, right? Even though this was somebody that I worked with very closely, she had never given me an indication that actually her interest lies entirely elsewhere in terms of career growth. So sometimes it is just it is literally readying your manager. Demonstrating that what you want that you are interested in, in developing the skills to get you to the next level that you're interested in.
I think that's important work before the actual conversation. And then when you think about that conversation, it is just a conversation in a series of conversations, as opposed to this is coming out of nowhere, right? So so I think it's important to think about that as a progression. Thank you to all our panelists. I thought that was very engaging and insightful.
Our next question actually ties back to some of the things that we discussed before. What advice. See, so what advice would you give to someone who feels they are not the type to self-advocate? For example, someone who's introverted or introverted, early career and unsure about how they add value to a certain organization.
We can start with Meredith. Sure I think a lot of this relates to things that all three of us said in the last answers to just around the preparation piece. That's sort of why I wanted to touch on the different practical types of things that one might do. And I saw that Deirdre put in the chat around breathwork, and there's all sorts of things. One might do to kind of, you know, I saw all those ones show up in the chat.
And so, like, there's all sorts of things. One might do to go in feeling a little bit calmer and less stressed. But it just in general, in terms of being an introvert in the workplace, I think the other thing to remember is there's no right way to do these things. And you might observe other people who are a little bit more extroverted or a little bit more outgoing, who are very comfortable bringing up difficult or sensitive topics in groups or with their manager.
You don't have to be one of those people in order to be able to have these conversations. It's OK to do it your own way. And to do it with whatever preparation you need to do it with. The other thing I would say is it's OK to acknowledge, obviously every manager is going to be a little bit different, but it's OK to acknowledge with your manager if it is difficult for you to have a certain conversation, maybe that takes the edge off a little bit for you.
And sort of to Julia's point, hopefully this is not just one random moment in time that catches everybody off guard, right? Hopefully you and your manager are developing a relationship so that by the time you're having a conversation like this, a difficult conversation of any kind, you actually have a rapport built up and you feel a certain level of comfort, even, you know, with the variety of things that a managerial relationship could be.
So Yeah, the relationship building piece I think is important. If you feel like you are respected and heard and understood, that hopefully you're going to be more comfortable, more comfortable when these difficult topics come up. But also acknowledging, Yeah, like this. This is a difficult topic for me to talk about. I do feel a little bit out of my comfort zone, but I want to have a conversation with you about x, and maybe you even say that the time before the meeting, before you actually have the conversation, let them know that you're preparing for a conversation about x.
And it might be a challenging topic, but you really it's really important for you to talk about it. And maybe you could even ask them, what would a conversation look like. What what? How can I be best prepared to have a conversation with you about this. But I think the bottom line is, I mean, this is at least what I've learned as an introvert in the workplace.
There's nothing really that's going to solve that for you. You're not going to all of a sudden change. And have all the confidence you want or need to have a difficult conversation. So it's about pushing yourself within, within limits, not, you know, causing a break for yourself, but pushing yourself in the small ways that you can, you build up your confidence, try to speak up in places that have lower stakes, try to get yourself a little bit that momentum that Deirdre was talking about.
Try to get yourself into a little bit of a rhythm with doing it. And just it's a little bit of a rip the Band-Aid off type of thing. Sometimes you just have to do it. All you can do is prepare yourself the best as possible to be able to do it. Thank you.
Meredith Deirdre. So that you had already shared a lot of advice on the chat. Is there anything else that you would like to add. There is a book called Quiet, and it talks about how we live in a loud world and people who are loud, and even if they're wrong, they're rewarded. I too am an introvert and I see that. And I have anxiety. By the way, I'm a keynote speaker.
I deliver sessions on communications, I do all of the things, and I still get nervous. But I'm also introverted, which just means I get my energy from being with myself and in my thoughts. So manage your energy, manage your energy. So do that first. And the second thing I would say Julia mentioned having ongoing conversations. So I would add to that and say those ongoing conversations should also be like, Oh, I'm thinking about this career path.
What do you think about that. Oh, I finished this particular course. And this is what I learned. It's dropping those seeds, planting those seeds along the way so that when you have the big conversations, they're not that big because they're already growing. Give people the language for which to describe you when you are in a meeting.
Hello, everyone. I graduated with this or I took this course. This is what I learned. And based on what you're talking about, this is how it applies. Just an extra phrase in there. So people begin to have language to describe you, and you are showing up how you want to be, not how they perceive you. Again, that goes to now they have language to talk about you in rooms that you have yet to enter.
Thank you Deirdre. And also to Meredith. Our my next question is for all three of our panelists. What strategies help ensure your contributions are recognized in a remote or hybrid environment. How do you build visibility, especially as an early career professional in a hybrid or remote environment.
Julia we can start with you. OK Thank you for this question. So I've given this thought, this question quite a bit of thought from, from the other end of this, which is, which is as a leader and as a, as a, as a manager, how do I ensure that there are opportunities for the team members, right, that require or that do not just rely on just serendipity or, or coincidental running into your boss in the elevator.
And so, so I've thought a lot about that. And, and I think that, that organizations are becoming a lot more intentional about providing some of this, you know, different, different ways of communicating and different ways of, of, of ensuring that there are pipelines for new ideas and so on and so forth. But I also think that it is. It is.
It is still a challenge, right? Remember, we went remote literally overnight. And so the adaptation to a hybrid or remote environment this require like a long term rethinking of how we operate. Right and so so I think that there's a lot that is happening certainly among the leaders that I work with. But at the same time, I think that there are a lot of opportunities for.
Professionals to actually make suggestions and to be more intentional about how they demonstrate and how they come and get seen in the context of a, in a remote context or in a hybrid contract. So I'm thinking about things like know, does your company, does your team have a way in which new ideas can be elevated for discussion. Right that is, would it benefit from a structured process where everybody could really come together and discuss what you know, what innovation might look like in a particular team.
Are there discussions that are being held around strategy that you think you and your teams can be a part of, or should be a part of. Then maybe if there is, if the answer is yes to some of these questions or maybe certainly other circumstances, I think there's an opportunity for, for professionals to actually be a part of the solution and say, you know, well know, we're still struggling to get a little bit more visibility on this or we really think we can contribute to this discussion.
That is happening that we just learn about how do we do that. Right and so sometimes it is a question of taking initiative, going to your manager and saying, I'd like for us to do that. One of the things that I've always been clear to, to my team is it's important that you not only go to your manager just with a list of problems. It's important to try and come up with solutions as well, right?
So this isn't like go and say there's an opportunity for us. For whatever reason, it has not come up to us and we think that we can contribute in a, B, C ways. What do you think is the best. So try and already suggest some ways in which you could be more visible and build up that visibility. At the same time, I think it is worth asking for things that will make your organization more friendly to people working remote or in hybrid environments.
So again, thinking about communication channels, can they be improved. How can they be improved. Do you have you given feedback on that. Thinking about what's the structure of meetings where you actually want to be heard and take part of, you know, so those are things that do not, you know, that you can actually be a part of those solutions that will ultimately benefit you as well.
That's my $0.02. Thanks Thank you Julia. Very insightful. Meredith, would you be able to share your experiences as well, both as a manager and maybe an employee yourself. Sure Yeah. I love everything that Julia said. I think this visibility piece is really important that in the remote or hybrid environment, there just isn't this sort of accidental visibility that you get from being co-located in an office together.
So taking the opportunities to make yourself as visible as possible. So maybe it won't shock people that I'm going to talk about a few practical ways that one might do that. But the first thing that comes to mind is using your camera in meetings. I think especially in, you know, I can say this from personal experience.
It's very tempting in the environment we work in now, especially in larger meetings, to be off camera because you don't have maybe you're not speaking in that meeting and there's a lot of people in there, but even taking some opportunities to switch that on, it just makes you more visible. You appear more engaged. That doesn't mean that there aren't going to be days where you need that camera off for your own personal reasons.
That's fine. Take your opportunities. But just knowing that being a little bit more visible, even in the larger team settings or when it's not strictly necessary, can help you appear more engaged and be more part of the conversation. There's also small ways that you can participate in meetings without necessarily putting your hand up or speaking, if that's not yet where you're at or not a thing that you can do on a regular basis.
So teams or Zoom or Google Chat, whatever you use at your organization, we'll have things like reactions. I've seen a few of my fellow panelists have used them here just to indicate you agree with something. There's always a chat window, where you can put a question or a comment, and I see people on the team using this really effectively to show that they're listening, they're here, they are engaged in the topic, they care about the topic.
So that that can be really effective. And then this will sound familiar to pavithra, but finding sort of lower stakes opportunities to speak up and contribute to conversations. So again, if you can, if you're a little bit more outgoing and you can do that in all the various team contexts, then great. But if that's not really like available to you just yet, then finding those opportunities where maybe it's a smaller meeting, maybe there's four or five of you, or maybe it's people you feel really comfortable with because them and you work with them a lot and put your hand up in those meetings and try to use those as a little bit of a jumping off point to make yourself a little bit more visible and more comfortable.
And then that might lead to people in those smaller settings knowing that you're the go to person on a certain thing, or you have a certain answer and maybe they'll call on you to give that in other formats and push you a little bit. I always like to position it as a little bit of a challenge to yourself, of maybe you pick a number of times per month or percentage per week, or whatever kind of numbers resonate with you that I want to speak up and at least three meetings this month, or it could be whatever makes sense for you based on your meeting schedule, but just a little challenge to yourself.
And then there are also things that you can do sort of while you're in the, the, the sort of day to day cycle of things. If you see an email that celebrates somebody or that talks about a project somebody's working on or something that they've got going on, you can reach out to that person not because you have to and because it's required of your role or the job that you're doing.
But just because you want to say congratulations or, hey, you did a really good job in that talk you gave the other day. I learned a lot. Or, hey, I like snowboarding in the winter too, or whatever, whatever it might be, connecting with people on their interests and remembering everybody's a person first But it feels really nice when someone, maybe you don't cross over your work with all the time reaches out to you just to tell you they noticed something, or, you know, they want to engage with you on something.
So those are just a few practical things. And then I think, lastly, just remembering that the virtual workplace actually gives us many, many more opportunities than the in-person environment gave us in terms of free webinars, virtual social interactions, you know, free Learning's online courses like that has kind of exploded, right? So just trying to leverage and take advantage of the extra things we get in the virtual environment that we didn't have before.
Thank you. Meredith I'm sure our audience really appreciated all the practical tips you just shared. Deirdre, do you have anything to add to that. I'll quickly go through. Yes, there's an opportunity for one on one, so be intentional about setting up quick meetings to get to know people and just relationship management.
I'm from the South. Take something from us Southerners. When you're having these conversations, remember key things about their family and be inquisitive about who people are, not just what they can do for you and what they do at work. I'm an introvert. It takes a lot to get up and put on clothes, but show up to the function.
Stay just long enough to smile at some people. Have some great conversation. Leave before people are dancing on tables with lampshades on their head. OK, raise your hand, but not too much. You want to volunteer for things, but not too much. You want to execute in excellence. Make sure you're including other people in the decision making. So that you show your collaborative and intentional on outcomes.
Lastly, this may sound controversial. I don't have time to deep dive into it. Align yourself with power. People with titles aren't always the one with power. Watch and see who has power. Serve everyone. Show up for everyone. But if you align yourself with people who have power, oftentimes they'll bring you with them.
And not negative power and not, you know, you know, I mean good power. You got that. OK Thank you. Love that. Deirdre so that brings us to the final question for our panelists. I'm also mindful about the time so that we can go to the A's. So to all panelists, if every attendee walked away today and did one small thing this week to advocate for themselves, what would that be.
If you can answer, you know, in a couple of sentences, that would be great. I can start really quickly, and I'll just be super succinct so that we're not we don't take up more than we should. One thing that we have not talked about is the power of your network. So I would like if there's one thing that I'd like you to do today to walk away with a task and an action point for this week is to contact one person from your network this week.
Not your peer, not your friend who you've had 15 lunches with somebody who, kind of marginally well, but who is an important person in the industry or somebody who kind of is who, who is meaningful for your career progression. And and just introduce yourself in a more meaningful way than just a LinkedIn invite without an add note and see if you can and see if you can actually kind of connect with this person meaningfully to learn about their job, to tell them about you with no ask.
That would be one thing I think network is, is, is, is one of the factors of my own success. And so I'd like to strongly recommend that everybody take advantage of that. Thank you. Julia, Meredith and Deirdre, anything you want to add. Any practical takeaways from today's webinar. Mine would just be to work on that reframing of the advocacy as constructive and positive and not confrontational or, you know, automatically difficult.
And maybe doing that by asking yourself, what makes you nervous about these types of conversations and this type of advocacy. Why does it sort of raise your temperature, and what are the ways that you could work on that for yourself, whether you have a live one or not to do, but just sort of working on the reframing in maybe the quiet space while you think about it. I would jump in and say, we've talked a lot about intentionality today, but what I did not get to bring up to you is, OK, so where is it that you have your passion.
Where is it that you are supposed to be in this world, as opposed to looking at someone else in this ideal of a career ladder. It's not pie. There's room for everyone. Your success may not look like someone else's. So know yourself so what journey you should be on. Competition and comparison is the thief of joy. Pursue your joy by knowing who you are and understanding the landscape in which you reside.
Thank you Deirdre. With that, we'll go to some of the Q&As. One of the questions that came in, how do you motivate yourself to speak up when you have been denied or rejected with opportunities in the past. Do you have advice for how to get over that fear of rejection.
Denial and rejection is redirection. Keep at it and persevere. Not thinking about what happened then, but thinking about where you want to be. And do not allow anyone to stand between you and your greatness and your success. You've got to want your success more than you want to sit-in, being comfortable and not having and continuously having those conversations.
I love that, and remembering that rejection on any particular thing is not equivalent to of a value statement about you or your worth. It might just not have been the right time, or the right opportunity, or the right fit. A lot of conditions can contribute to that, but just not equating that with a sort of self-perception that you're not good enough or you didn't make the cut.
It's it that's sure you can take it as a learning experience, but that's what can lead to, I think the fear of going back in and putting yourself out there again, is feeling like it was something about you that led to the rejection, and that's almost never the case. Julia, if you wanted to add something, we can. And if not, we can go to the next Q&A. I think that's sound advice.
I would also add that you also need to know when to cut your losses. Right? right. If there is, if at some point, like you've tried your best and there's just no. And this happens not because of you, not because of your manager, not because of your organization, sometimes circumstances are such that you cannot there's nothing available for you.
And so from that perspective, I think you need to know, like, OK, well that relationship has run its course. What other opportunities are there for me. I don't think there's anything negative about being realistic about that as well. Thank you Julia. And actually that resonates with the last question we just got. How do you approach seeking a promotion when there are limited opportunities for advancement within your team.
Look outside your team. Look and see where there are gaps in the organization or processes. I think Julia brought this up before. And build those opportunities. Say, hey, I see a problem, I see a gap, I can do this. Or again, Julia said, cut your losses. I know this is before, all of your times, but there's an old artist named Kenny Rogers says.
You gotta know when to hold em and you gotta know when to fold em. Yeah, I agree with all that. And also, just what we were kind of talking about before is just make yourself in the Meanwhile, as ready as possible and as good at your job as possible and doing as much as you want to do within your current role. And that might make you ready when something does open up on the team.
If you do choose to stay or it makes you better ready for the next thing if you move on from the team. I think one final question if our panelists have time, there are a couple of questions that talks about salary negotiations that comes with promotions. Any advice on those types of conversations.
I think you're on mute air here. No what is happening in the organization and how they do the pay structure, but also know what's happening in the market and be able to speak to that based on your competencies, based on your, you know, the length of your resume. And sometimes an organization, especially nonprofits, they may not be able to pay what you're asking. So what are some other things expand the compensation conversation to, well, can I go to this conference.
Will you pay for this certification. I'll stop there because I know we're at the end of time. And you ladies. Plus one on that. Yeah great advice I the only thing I would add is also just knowing what your stakes are for a salary conversation.
Is this a make it or break it for you. Do you have to get more or are you moving on. And not that you have to put that ultimatum on the table, but just knowing what it means for you. And to Deirdre's point. You might not always be able to get that. They just might not be physically able to give you what you want. So what does that mean for you.
Thank you. Meredith so as we wrap up today, a big Thank you to both Meredith, Julia and Deirdre. It's been such an insightful and also very engaging discussion with all our audiences. And Thank you all for joining us today. As well. We'd love to get your feedback to help shape future programming.
So you'll receive a brief evaluation form with the email. And there's a link in. There's a link also in the chat, so feel free to share your feedback. For more information on upcoming programs, please visit the SSP website. We'll also be posting the recording on the SSP website and all registrants will receive the link. Thanks again for being here and we hope to see you at the next webinar.
Take care. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Meredith and Deirdre. Nice to see everybody. Thanks, everyone.
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