While Tina Santi Flaherty was working on becoming the first female vice president of Colgate-Palmolive back in the mid 1970s, she learned a few things about the consumer packaged-goods industry. She learned even more about packaging herself. Today, as an executive coach and author of the recently released “Talk Your Way to the Top” (Berkley, $13), she’s helping others do the same.
“I made a lot of the classic mistakes that a lot of kids do,” said Flaherty, now 49, in an interview. “I refused to admit there was a corporate culture; I thought my culture more important.” That strategy worked while Flaherty was employed earlier in her career at Grey Advertising, but it flopped at Colgate. “I was oblivious to the fact that they were dressing differently than I was. Someone finally pulled me aside and said I looked like a Russian folk dancer at work,” she recalls, remembering when wide gaucho pants and scarves were the rage.
Mistake No. 2 came along not when Flaherty looked in a mirror, but when she opened her mouth. “You have to learn in business to talk like a man and think like a woman,” said Flaherty, quoting from a chapter in her book. “Women tend to use disclaimers: `You’ve probably already thought of this,’ or they say `Could you?’ instead of `Would you?’ `Could’ implies the person has a choice,” Flaherty said.
In her New York coaching business, Flaherty helps executives, male and female, polish their speech and presentation skills. She says there is a big demand today for advice like hers–from guidelines on dressing appropriately to writing a speech. “I was with someone yesterday on Wall Street,” she said. “This gentleman was from the South and he used `y’all’ a lot. He meets here with major players and it put him on a regional level. I told him this is something he should eliminate from his speech.” Using vocabulary that conjures up an image of a gum-smacking teenager is also taboo, she said, singling out “like” and “awesome” for special ridicule. “When you’re in a serious business environment you have to speak and behave like the others do.”
But is this always true? Business magazines are full of articles about how managers are trying to get better creativity from their workers, the notion being that by loosening the corporate reins, we may unleash better ideas. “You’ve got to know how it’s done before you can break the rules,” Flaherty says. “I know today how to get back on track after having some fun or a joke. You have to know how far you can go with something before you do it,” she said.
Just what are those rules, according to Flaherty?
– Look the part. Like it or not, appearance counts more than you know, she said, and Flaherty devotes a major portion of her book to the subject. The upshot: Avoid heavy makeup and don’t get carried away with business casual.
– Don’t get personal. “One of the biggest problems women have is getting too personal at the office. It’s a difficult lesson to learn because women bond through secrets and sharing information,” Flaherty said.
– Raise your hand. “I was always willing to make the toast, give the presentation or stand up and talk,” Flaherty said.
– No problem. “I never acted like anything was too big a deal for me,” she said. “A lot of people in life need extensive road maps; I never did. Today if someone is going to agonize over how they’re going to do something for me, I think to myself that I might as well have done it myself.”
– Stop apologizing. “Because many women feel personally responsible for most of what goes wrong in life, they wind up apologizing for things they have little or absolutely no control over,” Flaherty writes in the book. This diminishes your credibility, she said.
– Keep skating. Professional and Olympic ice skaters are judged on grace and poise. When they fall, they learn to get back up quickly and move on with their routine, even if they know the mistake will cost them a medal. Flaherty recommends adopting the same attitude when you make a mistake at work. In the book, she tells of a young advertising agency manager who took to the podium with the back of her skirt inadvertently tucked into her pantyhose. Rather than imploding and making the audience uncomfortable, too, the young woman made a quick joke that “exposing” a product difference is what good advertising is all about.
Flaherty stressed that much of her advice falls into the common sense category, but that even well-intentioned workers need reminders about the package they present every day at work. So keep that in mind the next time you want to end a business conversation with the word “Awesome!”
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e-mail: kiddstew@msn.com
