Niven Postma on Corporate Politics: Why Women Must Play to Win

[00:00:00] Debbie: Hello everyone. Welcome back to On Work and Revolution, where we talk about what’s shaking up in the world of work. I’m your host, Debbie Goodman. I’m CEO of Jack Hammer Global, a global group of executive search and leadership coaching companies. We help find great leaders and then we help develop them into even better ones.

My main mission with all of the work that I do, is to help companies and leaders to create amazing workplaces. And I know this sounds like a fricking pipe dream, but I’m still here for that. And today I am really, really delighted, thrilled to have back on the pod for the second, maybe third time, I think Niven Postma. So here is the summary, the summarized version of Niven’s bio, cause it’s a lot. Listen up. So Niven is the foremost global expert in organizational politics. She’s author of the bestselling book, If You Don’t Do Politics, Politics Will Do You. This book is an absolute must read. It will completely change and blow your mind on office politics. Niven’s not just a consultant and a strategist and a lecturer. She’s had firsthand experience in the trenches. So that’s why she really knows what she’s talking about. There are few people I know who’ve had careers that have spanned publicly traded companies, nonprofits, and government institutions. Niven’s done all of this. And she’s also an international speaker, a contributor to Harvard Business Review, a LinkedIn top voice. She’s been awarded the Archbishop Tutu leadership fellowship. She’s now program director for them, as well as guest lecturer at London business school, tutor at Cambridge, guest lecturer at Stanford. And she has almost, almost got her PhD in organizational behaviour. She’s just submitted her doctoral thesis. And by the next time we speak, I will no doubt be addressing her as Dr. Postma, it’s got a kind of nice ring to it. Welcome Niven.

[00:02:06] Niven: Thank you, Debbie. Ja, it’s got a great ring for it. Um, it’s going to be a little bit longer than the next time you and I speak, but from your words to God’s ears and my hands.

[00:02:15] Debbie: okay. All right. Well, it’s in process as all things are. So today we are going to be speaking about some key insights around how women experience corporate politics differently to men and how this impacts their careers and what the hell to do about it. And for the men who are listening, welcome, this is for you too. We’re going to talk, be talking about the key differences, but also how everyone can be blindsided by politics in an organization. So this is a learning moment for anyone and everyone who works, in companies, with other people. Full stop. Okay. So over to you Niven. Firstly, can you share the key premise, the argument behind your thesis? Cause that’s the fresh insights that we want to gain here today.

[00:03:05] Niven: And so thank you, Debbie. I would actually expand. It’s not just for people who work in companies with other people. It’s people who work in organizations, be they companies or any other kind of organizational institution. And so essentially, I mean, where I started my thesis was with this question of, are office politics, are workplace politics different for women?

And let’s get really clear on what workplace politics are, first of all. Look, they can be the Machiavellian, the toxic, the narcissistic, destructive stuff. But the more useful, the broader definition is around they’re the informal, unofficial ways that things happen in organizations, the things that happen behind the organogram and the formal delegated roles and responsibilities, which I see you smiling is a big conversation in and of itself.

So my initial question was, are these dynamics, are these tools of influence and authority and reputation and networks, are they different for women? Well, I mean, it didn’t take very long, probably about the first eight months of research to realize, no, no, no, no. Um, it’s not whether they’re different, it’s how they are different.

And so again, take another step back. Look, most people are a little bit uneasy about this topic. Uneasy, maybe queasy, uh, office politics. Not sure I like the sound of that. But what comes up consistently in the research, and has come up consistently for years, is that when it comes to women, this unease and queasiness doesn’t just stay at an unease level, but okay, fine, I’ll get on with it.

Actually, most women, by and large, and of course this is not true of all women, it’s not true only of women, but most women have a real distaste when it comes to politics. And the quote that I keep coming back to from one of the articles was, we have a distaste that borders on moral repugnance.

[00:04:59] Debbie: That’s a heavy statement.

[00:05:00] Niven: Exactly.

I mean, we really find this stuff revolting. And so understanding quite how averse women are is, is really interesting. And then understanding how many of the processes and organizations are in fact political processes. Then to me and to my research just brought a whole new lens and dimension to this question that is a perennial question. Why are women not getting further in organizations?

[00:05:32] Debbie: Right. Okay. So many questions to come out of that, but I mean, for somebody who would consider, um, the, the forms of influence that we’re talking about to be morally repugnant, I mean, that’s pretty big obstacle standing in the way of engaging with those informal interactions, influencing factors that are important to learn how to engage with in organizations of all sorts and to say, well, that’s something that I find so abhorrent that I can’t even go there, no wonder it’s going to influence a person’s willingness to engage and then do what’s necessary to drive one’s career. Okay, So there’s a lot there, but let’s talk about the three stages of political maturity. You’ve referenced another, academic with regard to this, because I think that’s really interesting and relevant for this conversation.

[00:06:26] Niven: Yeah, so it’s work that was done by Eleanor Daldor in the UK, and it’s a really useful contribution to understanding political intelligence and political maturity, because so much of the research in the field, and there’s tons, and it’s a growing area of interest. So much of the research is all quantitative.

So, fill in a survey, tell us what you think about politics, tell us how you understand them, tell us how you’ve experienced them. And, you know, surveys have their place, but they are very static, they’re very one dimensional. And they definitely don’t get into the nuances, and they certainly don’t get into the nuances of the process by which people develop political will and skill.

And so, she did a study in 2017, was, to my mind, very useful, very groundbreaking, in terms of trying to understand this process, first of all, and not through a quantitative lens, but through a qualitative lens, so really understanding people’s stories. And she developed a three stage model, which absolutely resonates with my experience, having lectured on this, having experienced politics.

And the first stage is the stage of naivety and avoidance. So people are very loathe to engage in politics. They have a lot of these truths. You spoke about the obstacles that people, that stand in people’s way. I would say the obstacles with a capital F, because they really are huge. And when you are at stage one, naive and avoiding, you really do see politics as a distraction from your work.

That you see them as an aberration, never mind abhorrent, but an abhorrent aberration.

[00:07:59] Debbie: Mm

[00:08:00] Niven: And slowly you start to get to stage two, potentially, and there you’re about engaging with them, but reluctantly. So, you know, it’s, it’s not something you jump up in the morning to go to work to do. And I often joke about this in workshops.

Yay, I’m going to work today to play politics – said no one ever. That’s because we’re either, most of us, in stage one or stage two. So, stage two, yes, you’re getting on with it, but like I say, very reluctantly. Stage three is where it becomes really interesting. And then it’s about, uh, leveraging and proficiency. So, you get that it’s unavoidable. You get that it’s inescapable. But you don’t just passively accept that and grit your teeth. You actually roll up your sleeves and you get on with it and you recognize that this is how work gets done. And if you’re going to get your work done well, not just for yourself, but for your team, best you get smart around this stuff and get smart about it on your own terms.

So those are three stages. And what my thesis is trying to understand is why so few women are in stage three. Again, you know, that’s based on my experience, but it’s based on all of the literature. Most women are in stage one, so these naive innocent politicians, stage two a little bit more. But what they have seemed to find, and this is where I’m putting together a whole bunch of existing research and trying to supplement it with mine, is that one of the big gaps for women between stage two and stage three is the challenge with authenticity.

So people who make the transition from stage two to stage three, get over this question of authenticity. And when it comes to women, authenticity is a big thing. It’s a big challenge. Well, getting over or starting to engage with things that feel inauthentic, that’s the challenge. Authenticity is not the challenge.

[00:09:55] Debbie: Right.

[00:09:56] Niven: So, putting all of this together.

[00:09:59] Debbie: So that, I mean, really distils things into a great framework and I’m sure everyone here can identify with potentially where they are on that sort of ladder of, of skill proficiency because I think one thing that we’ve, we don’t really consider is that learning to navigate corporate politics, and you’ve actually said before, politics is actually the way that organizations run things with efficiency, however, we’ve had a lens of looking at it in a very negative context. But if you think about how any institution, or any organization runs, there’s the rules and procedures, and then there’s all of the other informal stuff. And if you can learn how to leverage all of that well, then that’s a skill that enables efficiency. Let’s look at it like that and so, if we were to see the development of one’s capability around politics, corporate politics, navigation, as just any other skill. Why then shouldn’t it be something that everybody would go, okay, this isn’t something that you learn at university, this isn’t something that you necessarily sign up for, so to speak, when you join a company. But if you knew that it was something that you were going to have to engage with and that developing a capacity, a skill and a proficiency in what’s part of your journey, Is that the lever to trying to develop authenticity or to not having the issue around authenticity, particularly for women?

[00:11:33] Niven: Wow, lots of questions in that question, Debbie.

[00:11:35] Debbie: Sorry, that was a hell of a long sentence, but anyway, you get what I mean.

[00:11:38] Niven: Yeah, roughly. No, I do. So, I love the way you frame it. Because that’s the way that I try to frame it in the work that I do. That on the one hand, the stage when naivety and avoidance is understandable, but it’s not helpful. On the other extreme to be completely cynical and disgusted and kind of occupy this moral high ground of, well, the only reason I don’t get in, don’t get ahead is because I don’t get involved.

And I’m too good a person to get involved. You know, that’s not helpful either. And in fact, I think that’s a space that a lot of women can fall into. I’m not going to demean myself and debase myself by getting into this stuff. I’m going to sit in this virtuous plane. I’m going to say my work should speak for itself. Well, it doesn’t. Yes, but it should. And you know, we can have this endless conversation.

[00:12:25] Debbie: Go around in circles. Yeah. Right.

[00:12:28] Niven: Somewhere in the middle is hopefully a degree of pragmatism, again, not selling yourself, but recognizing what I would change slightly about what you’re saying is that this is what makes organizations efficient.

I think if it’s done well, and if it’s done effectively by all people, it can make things more efficient. But this is how things work and how organizations run in reality. So we can keep staying in the idealistic space about how things should work, or we can recognize that this is how they do work.

And exactly to your point, if I can get over the political will allergy, and I can start to understand this, and I can start to develop the political skill, well, yes, let’s get going. And the metaphor I’ve started to use now is, look, you can choose to ignore this. You can choose to ignore what you’re saying, what I’m saying.

You can throw any call for pragmatism completely out the window. This is your choice. This is your career. Make whatever choices you want to, but for heaven’s sake, make them informed choices. And if you are choosing not to get involved in the political, informal, unofficial behind the scenes ways that your organization works, because it does work like that as well.

Fine. But then essentially, it’s like you’re playing tennis on half the court, cricket on half the pitch, rugby on half the field. I mean, whatever sporting metaphor we want to use. Um, you putting yourself, and let’s be really clear, cause this is what gets women’s attention often. You are putting your team at a profound disadvantage because this is not just about me, me, me.

This is about how I navigate the landscape, how I navigate the competing agendas, the conflicting priorities, the scarce resources to get my team the bandwidth, the air cover, and the support that they need to get things done. So, I think I may have answered some of your question, probably not all of it, but there you go.

[00:14:22] Debbie: I want to take this into like a practical example, because I think there’s a lot of, judgment and language around how playing politics is playing a game. It’s being inauthentic versus if you take that language out of it and you just go, okay, there are formal ways of doing things and then there’s all of the other informal strategies that need to be engaged with as additional supplements to the rule book, so to speak.

[00:14:50] Niven: yes.

[00:14:51] Debbie: So for example, I know that when we talk about board meetings as one example, there’s what happens in the boardroom and then there is what happens before the board meeting, what happens after the board meeting, what happens in terms of the private one on ones and very seldom are decisions actually made from end to end in that timeframe, in the board meeting itself. Okay, so there is a level of lobbying. There’s a level of advocacy. There’s a level of relationship management. Um, there’s a level of one on one engagement or sideline, you could call it behind the scenes, conversation dynamic that happens around every single board meeting. Now you can choose to see that, oh, well then I’ve got to like not play with the rules or you can see it, well, that’s just the way it works. And if I divorce myself from the entire ecosystem of the engagement that goes into how decisions are made in these board conversations, I’m then playing only on a very small portion of the court.

[00:15:59] Niven: Exactly.

[00:16:00] Debbie: I think there’s an additional potential challenge that has occurred to me is particularly for women playing in a man’s world. One is relatively safe in the context of a formal meeting. A formal board meeting, a formal engagement. When there’s the one on one additional engagement outside of that, I wonder how many women feel uncomfortable about the additional innuendo that may be, viewed both by themselves and by onlookers as inappropriate. So I want to throw that ball back in your court and say, is there any of that, that comes into your research?

[00:16:44] Niven: Not yet, but certainly in my work that I’ve done. I mean, you’re touching on such an important point here, Debbie. So, do women have the bandwidth? Do they have the appetite? Do they have the time? Do they have the wherewithal? I mean, these are all important questions, but then when they do engage in this stuff, how is it seen by them and by other people?

I mean, this is such a critical point, uh, and it doesn’t get highlighted enough. I’m really thrilled that you have highlighted it. I can see all kinds of ways that this has played out. And you know, I’m not sure that the podcast is the right place or forum for that. So I’ll park that for the moment.

But I’ll give you an example that maybe is more, more useful, or more telling. Certainly it was very telling for me. I remember this was a workshop about, probably about five or six years ago. And I was talking about a lot of the, uh, tools of influence and political skill and what it takes and all of the things that you’ve exactly said and I 100 % agree with.

And it was in this case a group of women and one of the women was saying, this is a lot of work. And I say, yes, it is a lot of work, but it is the real work. The more senior you become. And then another woman. I don’t think even, it even occurred to her what she was saying, and she was just being frank, um, not provocative, but she said, you know, this is really fascinating to understand.

And to, to get a glimpse of how some of this stuff works and could work and should work, you know, because I’ve always looked at women who’ve become very senior, and this was a fairly senior group of women. I’ve looked at women who’ve become very senior, and I’ve always just thought, well, they’ve slept their way to the top.

[00:18:25] Debbie: Ooh!

[00:18:26] Niven: Yeah. I’m so glad you had that reaction.  I really struggled to keep a straight face. I probably didn’t, knowing my capacity to keep a straight face, which is zero. But Debbie, I didn’t know what to do with a comment like that. I mean, if a man had said it, it would have been outrageous, and so outrageous he probably wouldn’t have said it. So for a woman to say that and to feel that that was an okay thing to say, look again, I’m glad that she said it, so that we could engage with it.

But I was absolutely fascinated that another woman in a leadership development program could have thought this for most of her career about other women, as opposed to they’re getting smart about this. So I think that adds a whole extra level of complexity for

[00:19:13] Debbie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, once again, um, this is a direction I hadn’t expected to take in this conversation, but we’re in it now. I remember in my early career, I made a very specific choice, around not doing wining, dining and schmoozing. I decided that I was going to win business in the meeting, and I wasn’t going to do the client entertainment bit. I also am not a golfer. That would have been an extremely embarrassing experience for me, so I wasn’t going to do the golfing, and I also wasn’t going to do the client entertainment thing of the lunching and the dinnering and the drinking, because I was in my thirties. And my clients were all men, and I was insecure about how to manage the boundaries around that. And so I decided to stay in your level one, avoid. I saw it, but I avoided it. And it has, it had certainly meant that I had potentially a slower trajectory in terms of business growth, uh, winning new business, securing clients than I might have, but I was very clear about what was going to be okay for me.

And it was just a murky territory that I didn’t even want to engage with. And I wonder what skills would I have needed to acquire in order to actually say, I see it. I’m not going to avoid it. I’m going to step into it and I am going to not be afraid of it because it’s all very well to talk about the hypothetical, but then you’re faced with the reality of being a woman in your thirties, forties, whatever, and not being afraid to engage with clients or new business or colleagues or peers and knowing how to handle yourself. And I think that that is a big fear that many women have.

[00:21:14] Niven: Such an important point. Look, I think a couple of things, I think if you choose to sit out that part, so for example, I’m working with an insurance client at the moment and one of the women is Muslim. So, I mean, you know, in a context where insurance is a lot about relationships, relationships on the golf course and drinking, she’s not only a woman for whom that’s not necessarily comfortable, but she’s a woman wearing a hijab.

She does not drink. And so for her this question of how do I compensate without overcompensating becomes quite a personal thing and she’s figuring that out you choose not to get involved in the socializing and the Entertaining and whatever it is. You are entitled to make that choice and just recognize that every choice has trade offs So that choice will have trade offs. Choosing to get engaged may well have trade offs. Choosing to follow the way that things are traditionally done will have trade offs. Which trade offs are you prepared to live with? Which trade offs are you most comfortable with? more comfortable with, because you’re not going to be thrilled with many of the trade offs, but you’re going to have to make some.

So I think that’s the first thing, is whatever I do here, there are going to be trade offs, there’s going to be consequences, which ones do I live with? I do think, secondly, that as you get older, it becomes easier to hold your ground, to know what you will and won’t accept. So for younger women, I think it becomes pretty difficult.

And that’s where you want a few mentors. And you don’t want female mentors. You want some male mentors as well. You don’t just want mentors. You want sponsors, people who can speak for you when you’re not in those rooms, and it’s not appropriate for you to be in those rooms, or you’re not going to be in those rooms.

And those are both the formal rooms and the informal rooms. So I think that’s where a network gives you all manner of leverage, not just in terms of giving you access to opportunities, but when those opportunities need to be informally lobbied for and they need to be closed, they’re in that room for you. So I think that’s the second thing.

And I think the third thing is. I remember, knowing someone years ago, I mean, we both knew the same person who, would often bemoan the fact that she wasn’t taken seriously. And so she would wear glasses with clear lenses as a way to be taken seriously. And, I don’t know, I really struggled with that. And look, it may have been personal. I struggled with that because I thought, I’m not sure that you take yourself that seriously. And you laugh and you get annoyed when you’re called Jessica Rabbit. But you also play into it. There are consequences to being Jessica Rabbit. And if this is your choice. Go for it. Be the best damn Jessica Rabbit you can be. Don’t be disingenuous about some of the things that are happening as a consequence. And so I think for me as a woman as I’ve gotten older, very happy to wear lipstick, very happy to wear dresses, very happy to feel like a bombshell and to feel like a goddess.

Because I think as I’ve gotten older and as I’ve gotten clearer on who I am and who I’m not, that then radiates out from me. And it’s that idea of resilience, or in this case, appropriate behaviour, is not about hardening your heart, it’s about strengthening your core. So it’s not about not wearing a dress, not about not putting on lipstick, not about not going to the party, but about being really clear.

And this is where I’m drawing the boundaries. And again, you know, I think this is an ongoing thing that we navigate. I see it with a client now. I’m taking over from their previous consultant and that consultant knew them for 30 years. He would drink until two o’clock in the morning and then be a little bit worse for wear in the morning.

I can’t do that, partly because it’s just not how I’m made, and partly it’s not going to go down as well with a woman as it will a man in his 60s or 70s, and that’s just the way that it is, and it wouldn’t go down as well with me. As much as with anyone else. So yeah, number of thoughts there.

[00:25:10] Debbie: Right. Okay. So you consult on this type of work to corporations and nonprofits and organizations, out there. Where’s the course? The onboarding program, the orientation session for the women and men on this particular topic. Do organizations pay any attention to this?

[00:25:34] Niven: I suppose that brings us back to one of the points that you were making earlier. This has got such a negative connotation. I remember at one of the business schools, which shall remain nameless, I was invited in to lecture and run a whole day workshop. And this was in direct response to what a cohort had been begging for.

So they said, perfect, we’ve got the answer. Niven Postma is your person. And I, mistakenly now, I realize, reached out to the CEO of their company, it’s a well-known company, it’s a big company, saying I’m delighted to be doing this because I think it’s such an important thing. I didn’t realize, because he never took it up with me, but how that then got so seriously shut down at the business school.

How dare you have a course on navigating office politics. We don’t have office politics where we are. It’s almost like a slur. It’s a sign that there’s something wrong with us, that you’re bringing in someone like this, because we’re a meritocracy. Well, it doesn’t matter how much of a meritocracy you are, you’re still, as you said, made up of human beings, and in human beings behaviours and systems, it’s going to be informal stuff.

So I think that’s a big part of it. No, no, no, no, no. God forbid we admit to this stuff, because then it’s almost a sign that there’s something wrong with us. And then even if we were to admit to it, Rosabeth Moss Kanter at Harvard Business School said it in the 70s, Debbie, and here we are in the 21st century, 50 years later, that it’s easier to talk about money and sex at work than it is to talk about power and politics.

So we don’t like to admit it. We see it as a judgment. We see it as a failing. We see it as a sign that something is wrong. No, look, bad politics are a symptom of a bad culture. That I will 100 percent grant you. But politics are a part of every culture. And if you don’t understand it, that any kind of effort or intervention or acknowledgement that it happens, is seen as a failing and so people don’t go, then they certainly don’t equip people. And that’s part of where I think the work that I do is so critical. Cause, but even when I do it, I’m not sure that people always get the memo. I remember somebody at one point in a course saying, but why doesn’t HR teach you about this stuff? And I’m like, well, HR gives you the formal stuff and that’s HR’s job. They don’t give you the informal stuff. This is where the stuff sits.

[00:27:43] Debbie: Yes. Okay. So we’ve got a lot of listeners, women, and I hope there are still men who are listening at this point in the session, but I hear this from people that I coach from women that are shortlisted for very senior C level roles that our company works on. Reasons why they would leave a company, cautionary views on joining another company, women who are just feeling discouraged by the political dynamics in their workplaces. What’s one, two, maybe three pieces of advice that you would offer them in helping them either from a coping point of view or from an actual, like, this is what to do in relation to the informal stuff, because that’s really where all of this is sitting. It’s in the unspoken, informal, under the radar, but nevertheless so critically important space. So, we’re looking for words of wisdom now, from you.

[00:28:49] Niven: Change your language. So, don’t call it office politics if the phrase makes you want to scream or run away in horror. Call it informal influence, managing my stakeholders, getting effective in the informal space. Because how we frame things matters. Framing makes all the difference in the world. And one of my most tried and tested framings of all things in life is moving from this, I’ve got to – to I get to. I mean there really isn’t anything and I’m not being toxically positive. I’m not being a nauseating cheerleader, but there really is not anything yet in my life that I haven’t been able to change from I have got to, to I get to. And I mean that very seriously and sincerely. I mean my dad was dying last year and it was long and protracted and incredibly difficult and immensely painful, and I could still genuinely see the truth in the fact that I get to say goodbye to my father.

It’s not it’s not A horrific accident where he’s here in the morning and gone in the afternoon and it’s too late. So I think change your language, change your framing through energy and use those words to think about this stuff.

[00:30:07] Debbie: Yes.

[00:30:08] Niven: The second thing is get smart about this stuff and educate yourself. So my article around the five myths of office politics is called You Can’t Sit Out Office Politics. It’s an HBR article. Access it freely. Go read those myths and understand that all of the myths that women especially hold, particularly this myth that I can either be a decent human being or I can play politics, are wrong. They’re wrong. Okay. So educate yourself. And then the third thing is start getting strategic about the stuff.

Start getting intentional, start figuring out what do I want to achieve? And strategy is then always about a how, you know, a goal is one thing, but it’s not a strategy. What do you want to get to? Is, is important to understand how you’re going to get there from a political point of view, from a political strategy point of view, these are questions you must ask and answer, and they are deeply personal.

What are you prepared to do and what are you not prepared to do? What are you prepared to sacrifice? What are you not prepared to sacrifice? And when you are clear on that, and you understand the why of what you’re doing. And you have reframed that, the, what you’re doing with a word that gives you energy.

Well, go forth and conquer. And if that’s not enough, there’s tons of stuff on my website. It’s all free. Go watch it. Go listen to it.

[00:31:22] Debbie: Okay, great. Let’s just, right here and now your website is?

[00:31:26] Niven: nivenpostma.com

[00:31:29] Debbie: So there are free resources there. I mean, I think that one of the key takeouts from that, aside from the changing languages, I wish that every person that I coach, could think about their interpersonal dynamics as stakeholder navigation, it’s such a neutral term. There’s nothing manipulative about it. It’s relationship management. That’s part of this whole dynamic that we’re speaking about. Getting clear on the trade offs. Yeah, that’s a biggie, I think, and is once again, very personal to every individual. But you, what you spoke about earlier is what I’ve seen in how people advance men and women is around relationships that they build informally and sometimes formally, but it’s usually the informal ones around sponsors and mentors. And I know we’ve spoken about this previously, but in case people listening haven’t yet thought about what that is and what that looks like and what that means. Do you want to maybe just unpack that a little bit and the difference between a sponsor, mentor and how people might go about finding these individuals who can help them along their way and help with this particular scenario of the stakeholder navigation?

[00:32:44] Niven: So a mentor is somebody who can give you advice on how to do the job. They’ve done it before. A sponsor is somebody who’s in the room when you’re not there. Who will advocate for you, who will lobby for you, who will make things happen for you. They’re not mutually exclusive, but they are different things.

And so when it comes to your political capital, and other people’s political capital, actually a sponsor is far more important because a sponsor is visible and their success is tied to your success. And conversely, obviously, if you stuff up, they’re going to take the knock. Whereas a mentor, I mean, I could be a mentor with you over a coffee and no one needs to know.

And it’s behind the scenes completely. The sponsor is much more visible. So those two are distinctly different and there is actually an exercise that I’ve started bringing into my workshops is called Your Personal Boardroom. If you Google it, you’ll find it’s two British women who have identified in fact 12 roles that we all need in our boardroom.

Some are around information, some are around development and some are around power. So three categories, four roles in each. And it’s a fantastic, also freely available resource. And I’ve started bringing it into my workshops to get people to audit their network. And what you inevitably find is a massive concentration risk.

So you’re relying on a few people for everything. Or if you look at these roles and disaggregate them the way they invite you to. Actually, I don’t have anybody doing this. I don’t have a person who’s sponsoring. I don’t have a person who’s influencing. And so particularly for women, I find that there’s huge gaps in their power roles, the four power roles.

And thirdly, if you take out your friends and family, who am I left with? You know, so my professional point of view, yes, of course friends and family are brilliant with development. They’re the people who love you and have seen you through many iterations and versions of yourself. That’s fine. But when it comes to power roles, unless you’re working in a family business, you need people at work who are doing that.

So I would, that’s the first thing for me is, is do an audit. Just actually understand who do I have in my network and who don’t I? Who do I need relative to what I’m trying to achieve? And who do I have on my side to do that or don’t I? And again, who’s against me and why? And how might I get them on my side?

And with that very personal, very contextual analysis, well, then you can start to get clear on, well, how am I going to get the right people? Because it depends. It depends on who you need and who they are. You know, some people are very happy. You reach out to them. Can you help me? Yeah, sure. Other people, you’ve got to be a bit more subtle.

Some people are very happy with the direct approach. Other people want to be buttered up a little bit. So it depends on those people. Depends on the context. Depends on the culture.

[00:35:30] Debbie: All right. Well, we only got to like two of the 10 questions, oh my goodness, we’ve run out of time. This has as always been absolutely superb, amazing with some great takeaways and action items for anybody who’s listening you can find Niven, with all her resources on her website. And Niven, I probably will speak to you again, hopefully by the time you are a doctor, but if that process takes too fricking long, then you’ll be pre doctor again. This has been amazing as always, and thank you so much for the work that you do.

[00:36:11] Niven: Thank you, Debbie. It’s such a pleasure always.

[00:36:14] Debbie: Okay. Bye now.