Expect to Win: Proven Strategies for Success from a Wall Street Vet - Hardcover

Harris, Carla A

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1594630518 ISBN 13: 9781594630514

Publisher: Hudson Street Press, 2009

Synopsis

One of Wall Street?s most powerful and lauded women shares her strategies for long-term success in any career

While climbing the corporate ladder, Carla Harris sought career advice from her mentors and superiors but found some of the counsel too nonspecific. As Carla?s career advanced, she discovered the key survival tools to business success and vowed that when she reached senior management and people came to her for advice she would provide them with specific, play-by-play answers about what they needed to do to fulfill their career potential.

Each chapter in Expect to Win includes Carla?s ?pearls?? lessons Harris has acquired during her twenty years of working on Wall Street that can help contribute to career success by aiding readers in navigating the day-to-day complexities and challenges of the workplace.

Carla Harris is a Wall Street veteran. She executed the IPOs for UPS, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and Redback, as well as the $3.2 billion common stock transaction for Immunex, one of the largest biotech common stock offerings in U.S. history. Expect to Win is a must-read for anyone seeking battle-tested tools to triumph over common career challenges and to achieve maximum success in any field.

About this title

About the Author

Carla A. Harris is the managing director of global capital markets at Morgan Stanley. She has been the recipient of many awards honoring business professionals, including Fortune magazine’s “50 Most Powerful Black Executives in America,” Essence magazine’s “50 Women Who Are Shaping the World,” and Black Enterprise’s “50 Most Powerful Women in Business.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

AUTHENTICITY

The Power Is You

There is only one you!

The day your company hired you, someone else did not get the job because you were the best candidate. They hired you because you had the best combination of skills, personality, and potential and a unique blend of values and abilities. Over any other person they interviewed, the company felt that you could best execute the job, fulfill their need for talent, and satisfy their specific need for a discrete skill set. You got the job because you had a competitive advantage over all of the other candidates. That important competitive advantage? You. No one else can be you the way you can; this is your source of power within the organization.

One of the keys to your long-term success in any organization is to own the person who you really are. If you bring that original, best you to work every day, the one that interviewed for and got the job, then you can maintain your competitive advantage in the orga nization now and, more importantly, over time.

Bringing the real you to work allows you to be free! Free to learn new concepts, free to be creative and responsive, free to take risks—all of which helps to enhance the professional that you are and makes you valuable to the organization. In today’s competitive environment, the person who learns new concepts quickly, who can adapt commercially, or, in other words, can apply those lessons in a way that can make money for the firm, and who is also client-oriented, is the person who moves most quickly in a company and is most handsomely rewarded.

If you are preoccupied with trying to play a role or trying to behave, speak, or act the way you think others want you to, your mind won’t be free to perform at your highest level, be flexible, and be able to adapt to changes. Putting on an act eventually becomes exhausting and uses up valuable mental capacity that could instead be directed toward making important contributions at work.

The reason that I am such a strong advocate for being who you really are at work is that doing so gives you confidence. When you are comfortable with who you are, you exude confidence, and that’s attractive to clients and to colleagues. Others want to listen to confident people; they want to hear your ideas, they trust your judgment, and they will buy what you are selling, whether it is a product, a financing pitch, or a decision.

When you are not being who you really are, at some point you will begin to appear uncomfortable to others. Especially in client- facing businesses, such as investment banking or sales, trust in relationships is an important element of success. When you act and speak with confidence, it contributes to your performance. If you appear to be tentative or apprehensive (which usually happens when you are lacking confidence), then you open the door for your clients to doubt what you are saying, you potentially lose the opportunity to win the business, and you open the door for a competitor to get the upper hand in a relationship.

A lack of confidence can also hurt in your internal interactions as well. When you are confident with who you are, it helps you to build trust in relationships with the people you work with. Especially if your work environment is very competitive or has a relatively flat hierarchy, which also tends to intensify internal competition, then it is imperative that you have confidence in who you are and what you are doing. If you are in a competitive environment where the rule is “up or out” (either you move up within the organization over a period of time or you have to leave the organization) and your colleagues realize that you are not comfortable with who you are or in your work, then they will actively try to find ways to make you doubt yourself.

If you are constantly questioning your abilities in the workplace, then sooner or later your boss is likely to notice and their trust or belief in you will be impaired. And when your boss starts to doubt whether or not you can do the work or have the ability to sell your ideas, then you are very likely to be viewed as someone who cannot or should not move up within the organization or get the opportunity to have bigger or better clients or other responsibilities.

We all have strengths and weaknesses, gifts and talents. Have the confidence to play up yours. Be proud about what you do well and who you are. And work to improve your weaknesses whenever possible. You don’t have to wear either on your sleeve, but don’t suppress what’s good and interesting about yourself either.

Putting on an act eventually will manifest itself into appearing discontent, and if it’s at a really inopportune moment, such as when you’re presenting to an important client, it could cost you a piece of business, a new assignment, or a promotion. And if clients or colleagues feel they don’t know who you are, that you will lean any way the wind blows, they won’t fully trust you. When that happens, you have created a competitive disadvantage for yourself compared to the colleague who is confident, stands by their word, and knows who they are.

Know Who You Are

So how do you know who you are? It seems like an easy question, but many people have never really taken the time to think about it. If you haven’t, you need to ask yourself some important questions: What are your key strengths and weaknesses? Why are you in the profession that you are in? Why did you choose the firm that you chose? What are your goals at the firm, in that department, and for the specific job or seat that you are in?

You get to know who you are not only by asking these questions, but also by the experiences you have and by paying close attention to how you react in different situations and understanding why you are doing what you are doing. When you are comfortable with the decisions that you make and why you make them, then you are starting to get a handle on who you really are. Further, knowing who you are helps you to quickly identify when things go awry or when your career is veering off track, and it helps you to quickly identify solutions to remedy challenging situations. If you know who you are in an environment, where you belong, and how you fit in, then you will have the confidence to make changes or to speak up as needed to make sure that you are maximizing your success.

In order to stay focused on remaining authentic and being the best original you can be, you must first understand what your competitive strengths are and concentrate on improving your weaknesses. In any situation, you always want to both lead with your strengths and commit to making time to improve those skills that you think you need to work on. At all times, you must be able to explain why you belong in a particular position, why you deserve a promotion, why you deserve the raise or the highest tier of bonuses, or simply why you are so good at what you do.

Focusing on these questions will help you develop that all-important “elevator speech.” That’s the quick speech you need to have at the ready at all times; the one that explains to people who you are and what you want in the time it takes to go up or down the elevator. This is an important skill to develop. You never know when or where you will have the opportunity to talk to someone about your strengths and goals within a company. Therefore, you need to be clear about you, your goals, and your assets, and have your elevator speech about yourself ready to use at any time. Your power lies in putting your best self forward every day. If you are always focused on presenting your authentic self wherever you go, you will be able to automatically present a speech about yourself whenever the situation demands it, and you’ll be able to do so in a compelling and convincing manner.

The people who seem comfortable in their own skin and who are bringing their real selves to work generally also are the same people who can have an honest dialogue with their bosses, who have the courage to ask for the promotion, the bonus, or the new assignment, and who are quick to point out when someone or something is impeding their success. On the other hand, those who have submerged who they truly are, or, worse, have completely lost sight of who they are, are the people who typically are passive about their career, generally unhappy, and under the illusion that things will just happen for them without any effort on their part. These people generally don’t own their decisions, their positions, their career trajectory (the direction your career will take), or themselves. They are not the first to be thought of for new assignments or promotions. Their careers tend to stall and they are left behind.

Consider Peter, who outside of the office is a very charismatic guy. He is affable and comfortable with who he is; he loves to debate, and is extremely articulate. He builds relationships easily and loves to connect people in his network. He is also recognized as a “brainiac” among his peers because of his outstanding analytical and structuring skills. At work, however, Peter is a completely different person. He is quiet and in meetings often only speaks after everyone else has spoken. He never leads a discussion unless pushed by his boss and he has never articulated in a concrete, compelling manner what he wants from the organization or what he wants out of his career. He is afraid of rocking the boat.

Peter often develops creative financing ideas and shares them with peers, but he never steps up to take credit for or be recognized for his contribution, instead allowing his ideas to be integrated with those of others. Peter has been at his firm for eighteen years and has not had a promotion in more than eight years. Even though he does excellent work, he is not perceived as someone who can penetrate client thought, make and close a sale, or be solely responsible for generating revenue. He is not perceived as a leader; a solid citizen, yes, but not a leader.

There is a distinct difference between inside-the-office Peter and outside-the-office Peter, and unfortunately that difference is costing Peter in his career. The outside Peter is an influential thought leader. He makes compelling arguments and leads people to his way of thinking. Yet he does not bring that Peter to work with him every day. He is not his authentic self in the work environment, and as a result his career has stalled. If he would exercise his voice, leverage his outstanding structuring skills, and sell them internally, he would move quickly within the organization. He clearly cares about his work, but he hasn’t approached his boss and outlined what he wants from his career, from the organization, and how he can get there. Since he has submerged that part of who he is, he is not realizing his full value in the organization professionally or economically.

Owning who you are really are will give you the confidenceto speak up for yourself if you think you are not being treated fairly or not being properly recognized for who you are and your contributions to the organization. I often find that people who think that the organization is not recognizing their contributions, are in fact not really exhibiting the skills, strengths, or traits that they think they are. Before you start to blame the organization for not seeing what you offer, ask yourself, Am I showing them that I can penetrate or influence client thought? That I can win client business? That I care about being promoted? Or am I assuming that the organization should know this or observe this on its own? Am I bringing my contributions to the table in a visible and compelling way?”

Authenticity Transcends the Personality

When I say to bring your authentic self to work, I am not saying that if you like wearing jeans and T-shirts and the code of attire at your workplace is conservative button-down suits that you should come to the office wearing your casual attire. Part of being authentic is choosing a job and an environment that you are comfortable working in, one where you know that you can comply with both the written and unwritten rules.

Consider the code of attire within financial services. The common code of attire at all of the big brokerage houses is expensive, conservative suits, shoes, scarves, ties, and so on for both men and women. While still largely the same, things have relaxed a bit in recent times with the introduction of casual business attire. When I made the decision that financial services was the industry I wanted to pursue a career in and an environment that I wanted to work in, I asked myself whether I was willing to put on that uniform every day. Did I understand the financial commitment that I would be making to my wardrobe to play in this game? Yes! It was part of the territory, and it was a territory that I wanted to do business in. It was also consistent with who I am. I like nice clothes and in most cases I am more of a conservative dresser than not, so it was easy for me to do. I do not feel like I am getting up every morning and putting on a different Carla, somebody who I am not. I may not dress this way on the weekends or at parties, but I did want to work in an environment where this type of uniform was required every day.

Every industry has a code of conduct, including attire, a persona for its professionals. There are expectations for how you should behave or what your predominant skill set or perspective should be. For example, a banker is expected to have strong quantitative skills; a trader should be able to spot money-making opportunities quickly, to be nimble and a quick decision maker; a lawyer is expected to have great oratorical skills; and a consultant should have outstanding analytical skills. When considering the right seat for you, you have to ask yourself whether these expectations are credible and easy for you to satisfy.

The expectations of an industry or position have to be consistent with who you are on a fundamental level. If you think it will be a struggle for you to meet them, then you should seriously consider whether or not that profession, career, or job is the right one for you. In other words, if you are a quiet, introspective thinker with creative skills who hates to make presentations and prefers to work alone, then working as part of a sales team at a pharmaceutical company probably is not the right job for you. Conversely, if you are an analytical thinker who loves to crunch numbers and analyze deals, you probably wouldn’t do well working in the creative department of an advertising firm.

Life is way too short to walk into a job every day feeling like you are not operating at 150 percent and excited about doing a great job. If you are resenting your environment or your job, then your authentic self will get lost in that company, as will your competitive advantage. Further, it’s likely that your career trajectory will stall and not move upward, or, worse, will head downward.

If this is the case for you, if you find yourself unenthusiastic about your job or career, stop and ask yourself what would change things. Figure out what you need to help you to feel good about walking in the front door of your office building every morning. What would have to happen for you to want to spend eight to twelve hours in the same place every day? Consider your strengths—the ones that got you hired in the first place—as well as your weaknesses. Do you have an opportunity to showcase those key strengths every day? To leverage them? To use them to build value for your company? Are you getting an opportunity to improve your weaknesses and to add to your skill/experience tool ch...

Edition details

• Publisher: Hudson Street Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1594630518
• ISBN 13: 9781594630514
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 223