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Excerpts from Cracking the Corporate Code

Elynor Williams learned the hard way how to build the support necessary to sell an idea. "At AT&T, one of my first corporate jobs, I developed a wonderful corporate-wide program. My boss liked it so much, he said, 'I want you to present this to the executive committee.' I knew this was an important opportunity, so I worked hard on my presentation. I did a tremendous amount of research. I was terrified, but I felt ready for my moment. Well, instead it was a painful experience. There was no support for the program around the table. In fact, when I was presenting the research and benchmarking efforts, the senior vice president for human resources boomed, 'What research? What experts? You haven't talked to me. I haven't seen any of this.' I learned about giving people 'ownership' and about getting feedback and support before entering a meeting. Believe me, that will never happen to me again. To make matters even worse, during my next performance review, my boss used this failure against me. In hindsight, I find it strange he didn't tell me along the way that I needed to review the material with certain people, walk me through the process of getting a program approved.

"This turned out to be only one of the lessons I learned at this company. I was only there three years, but I felt I got a PhD in corporate power. You must make your boss look good as much as possible without undermining your values or your own career. Never allow your boss to be blind-sided. Give him or her credit for adding new ideas to the process, and keep him or her involved in your projects. At the same time, parlay what you're doing to gain visibility. Hiding your talents will get you nowhere. Seek out and develop several allies and supporters. Never align yourself with only one person, because if and when that person disappears, you disappear, too. In essence, I learned to play the corporate game, because you either play the game or become a victim. You also have to be on the alert for new rules, because the rules of the game can change at any time. But through all this, you must stay true to yourself, your values and beliefs. Always remember who you are."