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Pascal Lauener / Reuters
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos in this January 25, 2013, file photo.
Ever since the world got wind of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s new book “Lean In,” which landed on store shelves Monday, it’s been viewed as a sort of modern-day feminist manifesto of how women can get ahead in the corporate world.
And while it is that in many respects, it can also be seen as a good, common-sense approach to career advancement, for either gender.
Some academics are finding it's providing a good springboard for the discussion.
Pulin Sanghvi, assistant dean and director of the Career Management Center at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, said he liked Sandberg’s message of developing your own greatness on your own terms. Leaders are rewarded for their “spikiness,” he said, rather than their well-rounded skills.
Filled with studies to back up her anecdotes, Sandberg refrains from whining about workplace inequality. Instead, she offers dozens of techniques that can level the playing field faster.
She gives specific examples of changes that can be made by men (hire and promote women, share household chores with your spouse), companies (offer paid personal time off, engineer less rigid schedules) and government (support affordable child care). Mainly, however, it’s about how women (or men) can work the system even if it’s broken.
Here are some of Sandberg’s pointers:
- Seek a job at a fast-growing company because there will be more opportunities than at a place that is stagnant or shrinking. "If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don't ask what seat, you just get on," she writes that Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt said in persuading her to work at the company.
- Pay attention and make your own opportunities. Sandberg writes that “increasingly, opportunities are not well defined but, instead, come from someone jumping in to do something. That something then becomes his job.”
- Don’t talk yourself out of applying for a job if you don’t have 100 percent of the skills. Sandberg cites a 2008 study at Hewlett-Packard that found women only apply for a job if they think they meet 100 percent of the criteria. Men apply if they think they meet 60 percent of the requirements. “I want to do that – and I’ll learn by doing it,” is the more successful mindset.
- Women may have to ask for a raise differently than men. Sandberg cites a study that shows women touting their own success are seen as pushy. One trick is to advocate for yourself as a strong member of a team that deserves the reward. Say, "We had a great year," versus, "I had a great year." Here, Sandberg explains a central point of her book: "I understand the paradox of advising women to change the world by adhering to biased rules and expectations," but it's a means to an end, she argues, and it won't always have to be this way.
- Prioritize. In her “Myth of Doing It All” chapter, Sandberg quotes Dr. Laura Glimcher, dean of Weill Cornell Medical College, who admits to not keeping her linens perfectly folded all the time. “I had to decide what mattered and what didn’t and I learned to be a perfectionist in only the things that mattered,” Glimcher said.
- Don’t ask a stranger to mentor you. Instead, ask smart questions to get noticed. In one example, Sandberg notices a junior employee leaving a conference room armed with a succinct, casual-sounding question for a manager. She also cites a woman she met at a conference, Clara Shih of Hearsay Social, who followed up with a series of short emails with thoughtful questions she could not get answered elsewhere.
- When starting out, think of child care costs as an investment. While you may only break even at the start, eventually your salary will rise, making the child care costs a smaller percentage of your paycheck.
- “Employees who concentrate on results and impact are the most valuable,” Sandberg writes. One example she uses is from Lori Goler, who was then the senior director of marketing at eBay. Her job pitch to Sandberg was basically, “What is your biggest problem and how can I solve it?” Goler was hired to run recruiting at Facebook.
- Get more sleep to become a better problem solver.
Clara Shih, "The Facebook Era" author, discusses what it was like to be mentored by Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, and weighs in on how women can redefine their positions in the workplace.
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Women in my company get ahead by throwing men under the bus any way they can. Men have learned not to even hold doors for the ladies as this act of chivalry and politeness can be miscontrued as sexual harrassment.
Sad, but true. I have seen it again and again.
Sounds more like a reflection of your company culture than the people working there.
She needs to get to work as COO and plan how to get stock value up. NOT promoting her book and BS opinions !!
Sandberg is another example of blinded by power wealth brings. Shes a nobody who lucked out along with Zuckerbergs other Pals. Someone ask her why the IPO was ONE BILLION SHARES?????? So they could all be made instant billionaires on the backs of investors. Ask why she has all this time to be on TV and promote her sad excuse for a COMIC BOOK. She needs to quit smoking the HOPIUM and do the shareholders some good. HEY SANDBERG!!!! HOW ABOUT LEANING INTO YOUR JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!
My HUGE mistake. 2.38 billion shares. You smell a rat folks??? Does not pass the sniff test. Another of Wall Streets fraud plays.
APPLE COMPUTER doesn't have one billion shares. Facebook. What a ridiculous investor ripoff.
Did you expect something straight up fro Zuckerberg? Natural thief that sells his own opinion that he is a visionary. No vision, he gets that from others and co-opts it to his benefit.
Judging from the comments above, obviously from men, there is still a great deal of hostility toward the idea of women as business leaders. Unfortunately some of these men will never catch up and I won't waste time trying to change their minds. Women have always taken advantage of networking and sharing ideas with each other as a gender strength and Ms. Sandberg's suggestions trade on that. Good stuff. With regard to men and women sharing more of the child rearing and household responsibilities... also good (and already happening in many American families). The one idea I don't see in her book is to challenge American business to value families occasionally instead of just profits. Americans take less vacation by far than any other developed country. Americans have less family leave of any kind. Our corporations demand more and more time from their employees so they can get more and more work out fewer people. American workers have been convinced that this is just the way it is and have allowed themselves to be enslaved. I remember my Dad coming home pretty much every day by 6PM and sitting down to dinner with his family. He was succussful in his business and well respected by his co-workers and his boss. Seems to me that companies were just as successful back then but didn't feel the need to force people to choose between careers and family or to squeeze as much out of their employees as they can for the least money.
No. The hostility is about guilting men about the absence of women that want to work as many hours per week.
mountainlady wrote "Women have always taken advantage of networking and sharing ideas with each other as a gender strength"
That's a gender stereotype. Men have proven to do that better in small and large business, be it corporations or criminal organizations. The big difference is that men have more ideas as evidenced by the male contribution to the US patent base in 2012.
BS MountainousLady. You are an idiot. Nobody cares who runs the show. But if you are going to, then do your damn job. Not prancing around like a giddy teenager with a huge bank account promoting yourself and your ridiculous comic book all while shareholders are waiting to break even. How about she "LEANS INTO " the grindstone.
This part "didn't feel the need to force people to choose between careers and family or to squeeze as much out of their employees as they can for the least money." Where did this come from? The business model from bankers from a certain middle eastern country.
Gee, a more pompous, self-congratulatory book would be hard to find, and there are plenty of them out there, believe me. This bimbo has the audacity to tell people to get more sleep to become a better problem solver? When the company's policies lead to waking up the "on-call" support person five or seven times a night? That is the same all over, but gimme a break! Being COO of Facebook will eventually have the same cachet as being COO of Myspace, or AOL, or SCO. Tell this prattling platitude dispenser to try to do some real work. Work that has value, not just to her boss, but to the company and the employees. But then, we are talking about Facebook here, one of the more useless enterprises ever created, whose sole purpose is to market ads to vendors by selling out their users.
You are absolutely right with your statement. THAT is one REASON.......I NEVER became a member of "Facebook". I will NEVER let a FAD....use my information....for their own selfish motives for PROFIT..on the backs of innocent pubescent young folk, who have NOTHING BETTER to do with their time but GOSSIP about other people.
This is what FACEBOOK is all about. I cannot find the TIME.......to use SOCIAL MEDIA, to see "what the other fellow is doing". And whether he DIED.....already.
Who gives a sh###t? I STILL say that FACEBOOK is the biggest CON GAME...other than that "other" J-boy" who is now in prison counting sheep.
Such hostility! You may not be a fan of Sheryl Sandberg's, but calling her a bimbo is way out of line. I would imagine that you would bristle if your mother/wife/daughter/sister was referred to as a bimbo and rightfully so. Words like bimbo are degrading towards women and have no place in a discussion about business.
Bimbo or not, he's right. She's talking out both sides of her mouth.
On-call and getting sleep do not go together.
She IS a bimbo of astronomic proportions. Makes Lindsay Lohan look like a Rhodes Scholar. Has anyone paid close attention to this clueless blessed by her luck idiots comments and non-philosophic diatribe? She hasn't a clue. All of these Search Engine based Executives have won The Mega Millions and Powerball. You take one genius, add a group of dedicated followers and voila instant millionaires and billionaires. They handed out shares like tootsie rolls. 2.38 billion of them. This is the largest fraud perpetrated on any group of Investors since the Market was born. Everyone that was Suckerbergs Pals were made instantly wealthy. She needs to spend some time at her desk and earn her BILLION. When the masses that invested in this Pig of a Company see the value start dwindling again its going to be interesting to see the outcome. Anyone who understands the Crock Market KNOWS this pig is being propped up the Network of Wall Street Clowns.
SueCambridge,I did not see his post as hostile.He' calling them like he see's it.I wouldn't resort to name calling but she is a sanctimonious and self promoting person who is seeking our approval.She's another Suzie Orman.
Another worthless read that just makes someone else richer.
I love how she claims that child care is an investment and that people get ahead of it.
Really?
Most people I know count the days until their kids can go to school so as to cut down on the cost. They don't count on career advancements to lighten the burden.
I'm getting tired of books written by men and women who have been lucky enough to make meteoric rises to the top. They are ultimately very very departed from the reality that the rest of us live with.
As another posted above, I'd rather see a return to 40 hour work weeks on wages that allow one parent to comfortably support a family, does not matter if that one person is the man or the woman of the household.
IT Ole,I agree with everyone of your comments.
What is a Feminist? A Feminist supports an increase in socioeconomic power for women (but not men) through social policies and employment programs that discriminate against men.
By and far, the data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that men on average work longer work weeks than both married and never-married women.
Why don't women have any fantastic business ideas? Facebook seems to be the perfect women's entrepreneurial idea, but instead, it was started by one white college boy. What are all of the smart and independent women doing at age 22?
Too many of these successful elite underestimate the amount of luck went into their success. Their egos tell them it was all skills, ambition, cleverness. There are a tremendous amount of very intelligent, hard working people who just never got the career break they so justly deserved.
It's at least 1/3 talent, 1/3 hard work, 1/3 pure luck.
While I have had a mixed bag of men bosses, sadly and most unfortunately every single woman that I have ever had as a boss/supervisor no matter how high up has been a disaster and I was in the work force for a very long time as a paid employee and as a volunteer. Even some women who have worked in supervisory positions as volunteers have not been the best. I had hoped things had changed, but from what I am hearing from friends in the work force things have not improved.
Some were absolute terrors who had allowed power to go to their heads; others were merely incompetent or poor managers/supervisors who lacked the people skills to manage or supervise well.
Case #1 -- an absolute terror of a woman who refused to give a woman who had just given birth a moment's rest and was constantly calling her up at home to demand her return to work a.s.a.p., a woman that even the men in the office feared for her backstabbing and mean-spirited ways.
Case #2 -- another woman boss badgered and mistreated an employee to the point the employee ended up in the hospital with ulcers. The employee quit.
Case #3 -- 2 women -- each a manager of a department who refused to protect their department employees and threw them under the boss whenever there were any problems; the employees got the blame for their mismanagement.
Case #4 -- a vice president who made it to v.p. because of her "friendship" with the president -- she allowed all sorts of bad behavior to happen -- one example the receptionist in the office began "chasing" a very attractive married man in the office to the point of harassing him. He spoke up more than once and when the v.p. refused to do anything and the president backed up the v.p. he resigned. The company lost a talented, intelligent employee and kept the receptionist.
Case #5 -- a woman manager of a department refused to fire an employee who didn't do her job and made all sorts of excuses for her.
Case #6 -- a woman who was truly a sociopath ruined an entire department and led to one employee after another quitting but her best friend was #2 in the organization (another woman) so nothing was done.
I could go on but it's depressing. I hope that whatever comes from this woman's book the discussions will center on training both men and women to be effective bosses, bosses who will be FAIR to all employees -- mentoring and promoting the best regardless of gender.
I've experienced the same thing. There have been some good women who were bosses, but most were awful throat slashing, back stabbing, individuals who happily threw people under the bus and didn't empathize with their employees very well. This was the worst in the public sector, but I've seen in the private side as well.
That's not to say that some of the men who were supervisors that I've worked with weren't pieces of work too, just that they tended to be much less corrosive to the work environment.
I have worked for both good and bad male/female managers. I think it comes down to the person. I think some of her advice is good. I was the lone non-VP in my group, same job, same pay scale, hit/exceeded all of my goals. I just had to bring that fact up to the powers that be to get the promotion. They won't do it if you don't ask.
be careful......she was called one of the world's most powerful women.............she might start thinking she is......lol
She is a Harvard grad (not from a family legacy either). She has held positions at the World Bank and has served as Chief of Staff at the United States Dept. of Treasury. Her commencement address for Barnard College is inspiring. Bimbo she is not.
rrr,She is self promoting her book because she doesn't feel validated by her career,marriage and wealth.She is smart but I can bet you she is not a happy camper when people aren't patting her on the back.
All self-help books such as these are self-promoting. The difference is, if it's written by a man, we don't call him a bimbo. We don't vilify him for his advice. We print t-shirts and give him a lot of money on the lecture circuit. It always shocks me when women use such language against other women.
I don't happen to agree with her point-of-view. I am a feminist which means I only want to be able to lead my life the way I so choose as an equal human being without hinderences based on my gender and to not be pushed down by law, culture or religion into a subservient role. I also hate those nasty euphamisms uttered by men and women against women based on their sex. It makes me sick. Ms. Sandburg may have her opinions and you may not agree with them, but such epithets are beneath you.
I had a career that I loved. I made the choice to walk away and be a wife and a mother. According to Ms Sandburg I am not ambitious enough, but I know that I'm not. I worked damned hard to have the career that I did. It just wasn't one I could do forever. So in that regard I think she is off base.
Personally, I feel very successful as a wife and a mother. I may have walked away from my career, but became Lola3, CEO, CFO, COO, MD, PharmD, RN, EdD, PhD, Esq. Because as a working mom, I am all of the above at any given moment. Not ambitious, my arse.
Watched her on 60 Minutes last night. Holier than thou woman with no clue how regular people live. It's easy to give advice when you have nannies raising your kids, maids cleaning your house, and assistants doing your chores. I have no problem with your success/wealth but don't lecture the rest of us on how to live.
I have to agree with ice, I have three kids 18,13,and 9, I work all week and weekends and still have to find time to wash, clean and go to games. I can't afford nannies , house keepers and chefs. Most of us are just middle class hard working Moms trying to make ends meet, she has NO idea what hard work is!
I am Happy for her that she is successful but she should not lecture" REAL MOTHERS" who actually do, DO IT ALL!!
As a man, taking career advice from women is generally a mistake. It's not to say that they always want to do you harm, but they have their own realities that they often have a difficult time comprehending, and they rarely can tell you how to use your own strengths to your advantage. Thus reading an article about receiving career advice "for both sexes" is a joke to me. A lot of the advice makes sense but it's best to hear it from another man.
I always see the same kind of comments from men on successful women. That being said, as a female I would think long and hard about working for a female boss.
What kind of advice are women expecting from this rare woman? How to be an executive without putting in more hours, more years and inventing more than a man while also having a more fulfulling personal life than a man?
I'll admit there is a bit of a workplace bias against women, primarily because they don't want to work more hours. Sure, some do, but most women honestly believe they are smarter than men and are able to complete the same job with no overtime. The rest of the bias comes around to a lifetime of conditioning to the lower worth of men. Women use their femininity to manipulate men and see no need to reduce that personal power in the workplace. When men treat women as indifferently as other men, women take it as lack of recognition.
I watched her on 60 minutes last night.In reality it is not easy for the average man or women, no matter how intelligent or hard working they are, to make it up to her level of employment.In every company there are always more worker bee's than managers.She is self promoting herself and has no idea what the average American goes through day in and day out juggling their marriage,kids and jobs.She and her husband are both married to their jobs.Their combined wealth from their careers will not buy them the things that really matter in life and that is time spent with your family and loved ones.All in all,I'd rather be me, cleaning people's toilets than do what she does for a living.
Bottom line: Whenever possible I want a Man Boss. Women bosses, is not enough that you get the results, they wanna know how you do it, they wanna "mother" you, they wanna "get into your head" they wanna know "how you feel" Men, get it done, talk to me if you have questions, otherwise text me when you are done. Simple.
"Seek a job at a fast-growing company because there will be more opportunities than at a place that is stagnant or shrinking." Much of this advice is at least a couple generations old -though it mostly applied to men only back then. The REST of the traditional advice that went with the quote from that article is to seek to work under the boss above you who looks to rise fastest in the company. When I first worked as a research chemist for a mining chemical company, the VP in charge of mining operations was the big deal. Then Chile nationalized the mines owned by the company - and the guaranteed large sales ended. The company, to compensate, sent down from New York headquarters to our Baltimore plant a VP to take charge of a new organic specialty chemical line. I could see that mining chemicals were going to struggle to hold on and specialty chemicals were where the company would expand. I got myself assigned to the specialty chemical VP and within a year I was named assistant chief chemist of process development - including mining chemicals - for that branch.
I don't believe these strong women in the media this week really have a firm grasp on what the general population is dealing with. Luck is a major factor to their success but how is the regular working mom supposed to happen upon these flashes of genius? Work day is 12 hours factoring in travel- no we do not have gophers to get our groceries or dry cleaning, and then it's home to cook dinner, clean the mess, homework, getting our kids and ourselves ready for the next day. Sandberg actually expects us to believe she goes back to the office? This is an incredibly unfair portrayal of what success is supposed to look like. We have to sleep and rest- albeit if only for an hour or two- AND not with the helpers Sandberg probably is accustomed to- and we can't possibly compete so we are to believe we are automatic failures. Shame!!! Let us know when you come back to the reality most of us face- lousy husbands or none at all, not enough money, and an ever increasing shortage of time :-(
I have three kids 17,13 and 9. I don't have nannies, house keepers,and chefs doing my job! I work hard all week and weekends and still have to find time to clean, do laundry, make dinner, go to sporting events and be a loving, nurturing mother. ALL THAT is still part of my job!
I am Happy for her but don't preach about something you know nothing about.
The year that I graduated from Rider University, my son graduated Nursey School. During my last year of school, I got a job in a CPA company as a secreatary; eventhough they wanted a Jr. Accountant. After time, I became that Jr. Accountant. When I graduated, I interviewed for a job and the Supervisor asked me if I would miss my pots and pans. I became a Assistant Controller. Was any of this easy? After 35 yrs., I will tell you that it is still a man's club. The biggest offendor is other women who don't want you to succeed. Until women unite, it will continue to be a uphill climb. The only way that I got as far as I did was due to a smart man who saw my potiental and it was to help his career. My son was parented by phone most of the time and child care provider all of the time. Career and parenting isn't easy for women, BUT it has been going on for generations; there is nothing new about this.
I agree with the pointer's she is giving except for one. The one that says women don't apply for jobs unless they believe they are 100% qualified for the position where men will apply with only 60% qualifications. I have to say lately I have been applying for jobs I want versus those I am 100% qualified for and I have gotten no where. The reason is resume scanners look for key words either in your resume or cover letter and want to find those keywords X amount of times before they even pass your resume on to HR. I am not going to lie about my past experiences just in order to get a job. But I do have the same feeling as the men, I want the job, I can learn the skills later. i just wish hiring companies and managers would take a chance on people like that.
What is most offensive about Ms. Sandberg's comments (I haven't read her book, just saw her on 60 minutes) is the blame game on women not doing enough for themselves to promote themselves. What Ms. Sandberg's limited view of the world doesn't understand is that there are few opportunities when a woman has the opportunity has the ability not to accept the first offer, or, if she doesn't accept the first offer, the job may be rescinded and passed along to someone else. Ms Sandberg has been educated at one of the top universities; she has an advanced degree; she has had every opportunity available, and she has had immense support along her journey. She does not "support" women how to survive in a hostile environment; she schools women how to do it like she did it when she had every possible advantage at her fingertips, and it seems every support available to her. I mean, it's not like she lived through the '70s and had to fight for some of the most basic of rights for women. I found her approach telling women what to do arrogant, supercilious, and "I got mine, now let me tell you how to get yours" despite the fact that you are all pathetic. I find her approach to other women, and her lack of compassion towards women who do not have the opportunities she had troubling.