Episode 5: 3 things stopping minorities from being promoted

👋 Yo! Welcome to the next episode of How to negotiate where you learn how to grow your career and income with better negotiation strategy in less than 5 minutes. 

There are 3 forces that affect minorities in corporate America today. 

1. Code Switching 

2. Glass ceiling 

3. Glass cliff 

Code switching is the concept of switching your language/dialect to match that of the majority. 

It’s sometimes referred to as using your ‘white voice’. Code switching is popular in the workplace as a way to avoid discrimination. When I was a newbie on the sales floor, a piece of advice I received 3 times was to use a white sounding name or at least voice to increase my chances of conversion. 

Glass ceiling is a metaphor for the challenges women and minorities face when looking at higher roles of leadership in the organization. 

The idea is that you can see where you want to be, but something is stopping you from moving forward. This idea is also commonly referred to as the ‘broken rung’ problem in which you’re climbing the metaphorical career ladder, but you are missing rungs as compared to your white colleagues. 

In 2023, women’s median earnings were only 83 percent of mens’ median earnings, while just over 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies had women in CEO positions.

The glass cliff is a slight spin on the ‘glass ceiling’ concept where women and minorities are promoted to leadership positions, but intentionally so when things are not going well and they seemingly have no chance of being successful.

Examples from the article above:  

• Jill Abramson was fired in 2014 as the first woman executive editor of the New York Times, Marissa Mayer, after years of heavy scrutiny, is out at Yahoo, now Oath. There’s Ellen Pao at Reddit, Sheri McCoy at Avon, and Carly Fiorina at HP.

• Carol Bartz ran software company Autodesk for 14 years starting in 1992 and in 2009 became CEO of Yahoo, when the once-internet giant was starting to see troubles. She was pushed out after just two and a half years in 2011.

• “Listen, it is absolutely true that women have a better chance to get a directorship, or a senior position if there’s trouble,” Bartz said in an interview with Freakonomics earlier this year.

I’ve watched each of these play out from job to job throughout my career and hearing anecdotes from others. Recognizing the patterns is a first step, but we can do more. 

This is where sponsors, advocates and mentors come into play. Next week, I’ll share my approach to finding a sponsor, advocate and/or mentor to jumpstart your conversations. 

As always, feedback is a gift and I welcome any/all feedback on this newsletter - good or bad. See ya next week 👋 

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