Gretchen Glasscock

In order to become successful in the workplace, you must think large, envisioning yourself as ready to step into the CEO slot on a moment’s notice. At the same time, when addressing your work tasks, you must think small. No matter how grand the task or crucial the outcome, you must approach it methodically in bite size chunks. In fact, one executive primer, when advising how to approach an overwhelming task asks: “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer: “One bite at a time.”  If we are able to envision large projects as made up of small, manageable pieces, they are not so daunting and we realize we can readily achieve them.

It is also possible to break down your career goals into manageable pieces.  Before Carly Fiorina became the president, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Fortune 500 Hewlett-Packard, then adviser to Repubican presidential candidate John McCain, she had worked as a secretary, a receptionist and taught English in Italy. Ultimately she went on to get a BA from Stanford, and an MBA from the University of Maryland and, then she realized, like a camel passing through the eye of a needle, in order to reach the top slot,  she would need one more credential and she went out and got it:  a Master of Science in management from the MIT Sloan School of Mangement.  When she joined AT&T, created the powerful eye-catching  red circular splash of color that was to be Lucent logo,  then  directed the company’s strategy and orchestrated its initial public offering (IPO), the most successful IPO in U.S. history up to that point in time, Fiorina beame a star with amazing firepower.

In corporate America continuing to increase your skills, experience and credentials are one sure route to the top.  In the world of small business, entrepreneurs often get to the top by their sheer grit and tenacity, by feverishly attacking every task in a business, working long and grueling hours and gaining hard won business insight and savvy along the way.

Ruth Fertel, founder of Ruth’s Chris Steak House, launched an $300 million restaurant chain throughout the U.S. Mexico, Puerto Rico and Taiwan by realizing she needed more money to send her kids to school and taking a flyer on a restaurant listed for sale in her local newspaper. She worked sixteen hours a day, learned to butcher, cook, do the books, mix drinks, wait tables and seat people. No doubt she had an abundance of stamina, perseverance and charisma to carry her on to success.

When you are an entrepreneur, launching a small business, the distance from the bottom to the top is not so great, and you are not only calling the shots as but proving yourself by your ultimate success . You are the CEO, as well as the chief bottle washer, from Day 1, so that is how you envision yourself and how others accept you.

In corporate America, it’s harder to envision oneself as CEO, because you don’t see many women in the CEO slot. It’s easier to think of yourself as reaching a pinnacle as executive vice president, or possibly chief financial officer. But you should never sell yourself short. Low expectations can be a self fulfilling prophecy.
By setting your own goals, it is possible, in corporate America, to replicate the kind of training Ruth Fertel and other entrepreneurs have, gaining experience in every part of the corporation – marketing, sales and operations – “by remaining open to cross-training and working with cross-functional teams”. When a women diversifies her work experience, she prepares herself to handle any task she’s assigned, an invaluable professional asset.

“According to Sandra Woods, vice president and chief environmental, health and safety office at Coors Brewing Company, the best way for women to promote themselves” is to accept challenges enthusiastically and not have a limited view of what they can do. They need to build a really broad base within the corporation” Woods advises. “Business today is saying Get out of your silos. See the way you interconnect.”
And remember the importance of being able to think big and small at the same time: Big ambitions, goals and capabilities – small, methodical steps to accomplish each goal, however large.  And, like Carly Fiorina, learn to project self confidence, radiate authority and dominate whatever stage you’re on.  As you succeed, your stage will get larger.