“Playing the Game” is Critical for Women in Procurement – Learn How To
Do all your skills, ideas and sacrifices ultimately mean nothing when it comes time to being promoted? Michelle King unearthed the ultimate career maneuver
Picture this. You’ve identified a game-changing opportunity to create a key component for your product through additive manufacturing. You’ve got a leading supplier onboard, and transforming this process could potentially save your company millions. This could literally revolutionise your category, and be an achievement that would mean everything for your career …
If only you could get it over the line.
As a woman at work, have you ever wondered how much your ideas, work ethic and ambition count? Have you ever wondered if your ability to ‘play the game’ might be as or more important?
It’s a worthy question, and one that gender equality expert, Michelle King, has pondered at length.
And her findings are as shocking as they are real for women in procurement everywhere. Michelle will divulge everything at length when she speaks at the BRAVO EMEA Launch and Information Session on the 28th April. Here’s what she discovered at a high level:
Masters at getting noticed
Many of us – women especially – begin and often continue our careers in the belief that our hard work will get us noticed. Unfortunately though, this simply isn’t the case.
Throughout Michelle’s 18 year career in human resources, she began to notice a strange phenomenon. Specifically, she began to notice that the same individuals were getting promoted or rewarded over their peers, and that these people were the ones that were better at managing the political aspects of work.
In order to discover what made these certain individuals so good at managing the political aspects of work, she interviewed 32 senior leaders.
‘These people [the ones that are the most successful] were masters at getting the support they needed for an idea, promotion, pay rise, project or opportunity. They had political skills. They knew how to “play the game”.
It likely comes as no surprise to women in procurement that the ability to build relationships, network, and collaborate is important, but according to Michelle’s findings, it is, in fact, one of the most important skills as it can significantly improve your performance ratings, promotion opportunities, reputation, and career progression.
Isn’t networking an even playing field?
Networking in procurement is critically important (hence why Procurious exists!), but aren’t those opportunities available equally to everyone?
Unfortunately they often aren’t, according to Michelle.
Michelle demonstrates this by telling the story of her colleague, Ryan (women in procurement, don’t we all know a Ryan?!)
‘Ryan, one of my male colleagues, was a master at office politics … he told me the key to his success was spending time with leaders or decision-makers. He would take every opportunity to have drinks, get lunch, or even go on bike rides with key leaders.
And while Ryan was charming, persuasive, and good at his job, he had one thing that women in similar positions did not: access. Ryan could go for drinks, lunches, and bike rides because he was invited.
This is male privilege in action. Ryan would always be accepted by these leaders because he looks, speaks and dresses like most of them. That made it easier for Ryan to bond with men who were in positions of power.’
According to Michelle, while women can undoubtedly be extremely successful in ‘playing the game’, the playing field is simply not an equal one, as men often have superior access to important decision-makers and leaders at work.
Admitting there is a problem is the essential first step
One of Michelle’s many issues with gender equality at work is that often people – especially men – believe there is ‘no problem’ when it comes to equality. In fact, there’s a whole industry dedicated to ‘fixing women’ to be able to better fit in with what is arguably a broken workplace with an unequal playing field.
Through her research, Michelle has interviewed many senior leaders who continue to profess that the only issue with equality is that women ‘choose’ to have children, hence meaning that they are less likely to be able to work full-time and focus on their careers.
Michelle is incredibly frustrated with this attitude, and believes it to just be plain wrong.
It’s high time that organisations and society stop trying to change women, Michelle believes, and also stop using children as an excuse for why women often can’t be as successful in the workplace.
Fortunately though, there are many things that leaders – male and female – can do to change these attitudes, and also transform their organisations for the better. Discover what these are in Michelle’s inspiring and eye-opening talk through our 2022 BRAVO Women in Leadership Program.
