zora-alice.com

In a recent post, we discussed whether we should be in or opt out of the corporate group. Well, about that…In my years in the corporate environment, if there’s one thing I learnt, is that high school never really is over…Not even when you graduate out of college and get your first real job. Not when you spend upwards of 10 hours at work interacting (or not) with your co-workers, bosses and management. Not when you ponder over what to do to belong to the corporate group instead of feeling constantly excluded…Because this is high school all over again, except we’re older, better dressed, and we all have cars..

click

You either click, or you don’t! No matter where you work, or what type of office environment you are or will be called to professionally evolve in, groups and group-think are still the norm. Just like in high school, you either belong to the group, or you don’t. And if you don’t happen to belong to the group, you’re potentially in professional danger; so you either have to try to find ways to belong, or ways to get out…all in one piece! Sounds scary? Yup, but it’s true…and for women, especially minority women, the reality is even bleaker. Faced with a leadership that is largely male and non-racially diverse, getting in to the group, and by the group, I mean the leadership group, is a real challenge! So no wonder many of us opt for getting out, most times to our own detriment…

lonerwolf.com

It’s all a facade! My sister is a clinical psychologist, and every time I recount to her some unfortunate “corporate” stories, she reminds me that in corporate as in many professional environments, it’s all a facade! We have our true personalities, and we have our work personalities. While these may naturally intersect for the most authentic among us, for the rest, they do not meet anywhere between the hours of 9 and 5. Translation: most people are pretending at work! Pretending to care, pretending to be genuine, heck, pretending to be at work for that matter! Just like in high school, some of us pretend to be cool so we can hang out with the cool kids, and not be associated with the geeky loner (except when we need help with homework of course)! So what are we to do with all this pretense? Just like in high school, we learn to spot it, adjust to it, and make it work to our advantage, not by emulating it, but by not being fooled by it…

It’s the survival of the (mentally) fittest! If high school is a jungle, the corporate world is its bigger, meaner, better dressed big sister! You know, the one who smiles in your face as you walk by in your Manolos just to better trip you? Yup, that one…And if you could at least see an end to your high school dilemmas, now that you’re immersed into the corporate way of earning your livelihood, the light at the end of the tunnel can look pretty…dim, to say the least! And rightfully so…Now that you have to survive in the midst of all the economic crisis, the raging unemployment, not mentioning the slew of natural disasters, your career may look more like a marathon than the rapid sprint past the glass ceiling. Meanwhile, as your brain is being bombarded on the daily with life’s incessant noise, you still need to be a top performer in a challenging corporate space. And this is where mental endurance comes into play, as you pick your battles, re-focus daily on your goals, shut out the noise around you and keep moving along. Just like in high school, when you didn’t quite make it into the “Popular Girls” club but kept persevering and working those grades, and 10 years later, guess who’s working for you? Yup, the entire “Popular girls” club…

The Corporate Sister.