STRATEGIC MOVES

Few new leaders take on big assignments without hoping to make a difference to their organizations and to the people in them. This refrain threaded through the remarks of the women we interviewed. But their hopes went beyond the changes they had a mandate to bring about. They wanted to make their organizations better ” anticipating future needs and inventing the future.

In this broader sense, making a difference is a work in progress. Contributions, once recognized, become the building blocks for other contributions. You can help the process along with three strategic moves.

• Engage strategic needs: With a multitude of pressing problems, it is easy to let the big picture slip from view. Yet by keeping organizational goals in focus, you can identify important opportunities and even reframe current ways of thinking about those goals.

• Fill unmet needs: The rearview mirror is not a good place to look for unmet needs. People often struggle with problems that they do not even know they have and that do not show up in reports or budgets . What synergies can you promote, what future demands can you anticipate?

• Make value visible: Value is created for an organization when strategic problems are engaged or unmet needs filled. As a new leader engages strategic problems or fills unmet needs, the value of that contribution must be made clear. And that value needs to be conveyed in a language that others understand, at a time when they can appreciate it, and in a way that fits who you are.

In a dynamic, interactive process these steps build on the strategic moves of earlier chapters. In calibrating results with the resources needed, for example, you get a better sense of where value can be added most efficiently . As you go on listening tours , you may stumble on unmet needs or unrealized synergies. The cooperation negotiated as you enlist buy-in for your agenda can be harnessed to create value. The "little wins" that gain resources or build team confidence increase visibility and lead to bigger, more visible contributions.

In earlier chapters our central cases have focused on how a woman in a new leadership position meets a specific challenge ”whether it be mobilizing backers, garnering resources, or creating buy-in. In this final chapter we depart slightly from that format and tell the story of one woman over the course of several years . ^{[ 10]} During that time she rotated through major functions ”both staff and line ”at a rapidly growing company and made a difference in each job. Although she made similar strategic moves in these assignments ”say, to add value ”she tailored her approach to the specific demands of the function and of the organization. What added value in merchandising would not necessarily contribute equally to marketing's productivity.

In May 1986 Staples opened its first store in Brighton, Massachusetts. A decade later, it had sold 5.3 billion paper clips and 240,500 gallons of correction fluid. The one-store operation had mushroomed to a chain with 557 stores and a market capitalization of $5.2 billion. By 2002 revenues had reached $11.6 billion. ^{[ 11]}

Jeanne Lewis joined Staples in 1993. She had interned at the company while getting her MBA, but turned down the job Staples offered on graduation. That was a decision, she says, she made from the "head and not the gut." She accepted a position with a financial services firm because everyone else was after it. "I figured I should want it." ^{[ 12]} By day two she was miserable. Before six months were out, she left to join Staples as a marketing manager in sales forecasting and field marketing.

A succession of demanding assignments followed. To prevent complacency from setting in and to keep its entrepreneurial edge, Staples had a habit of rotating people through different functional areas. By the time Jeanne joined, the tight executive team was devoting considerable effort to recruiting and developing talent to support the company's hypergrowth. Candidates had to show them a can-do attitude, competitive drive, and an eagerness to learn and stretch.

Within a year Jeanne was appointed director of New England Operations, with responsibility for fifty stores and a $250 million P&L. "I was put in charge of managing people who had all 'been there, done that' for years. They'd started out as merchandise managers making $18,000 and moved up the silo. . . . I'd never run a store, never rung a register." ^{[ 13]}

The next year Jeanne was moved to merchandising as divisional manager for furniture and decorative supplies . Again she found herself in unfamiliar territory. In what she calls the heartbeat of a retail operation, she had never bought a product. Yet she had to create a merchandising strategy and revive the failing category.

In late 1996 Jeanne landed in marketing, her first staff assignment in a leadership role and one where she was replacing Todd Krasnow, a company icon. That job was particularly challenging, Jeanne says. It was the first time that she had been called on to lead a business unit "that was not broken." Soon thereafter she was tapped to head up sta-ples.com. "Staples was in a catch-up mode," she says. In eighteen months, Jeanne grew the company's e-commerce business from $30 million in sales to $500 million.

In part, this rapid rotation was a function of the company's growth. It also fit Jeanne's personality. "I've been willing to raise my hand several times. . . for what others would perceive to be career risks," she says. Tracking Jeanne's strategic moves, we can trace how she turned those risks into opportunities that created value for her and for Staples.

Engage Strategic Needs

With the constant demands of a 24/7 world, new leaders have to be parsimonious about how they spend their time. The buck may stop in their offices, as the saying goes, but they also want to get the most bang for that buck. Attention naturally gravitates to problems that sound most pressing. But it is important to separate substance from noise. Even crises can be part of the everyday routine. It takes discipline to keep focused on the strategic and not get distracted by the noisiest. Strategic needs are those that impact the organization's business goals ”either this quarter or several years out.

Most new leaders are advised to "go for the big win." Pilar, the head of development at a major cancer research center, and Donna Fernandes from Chapter Three each went for big wins ”but only after thoroughly dissecting the range of options. Pilar launched the largest fundraising drive in her institute's history, but she made that effort contingent on installation of the necessary infrastructure. Donna revamped the Buffalo Zoo after warning the trustees that a huge commitment was necessary. Otherwise, they might as well give the zoo a facelift. Once Donna and Pilar committed to the big win, they had to follow through to the end.

Judging from our interviews, big wins like these are rare and harder to produce than the usual commentaries on leadership suggest. Most new leaders approach big problems gingerly, with great respect, and they attack them in incremental stages. An internal troubleshooter who specializes in turnaround situations within her company explained why:

You can't try to do the whole thing at once. That seems just Herculean ”even to you. It's downright scary to everybody else. Instead you break the big problem down into pieces and sequence them. That way you can show people, step by step, that things can improve because they are improving. That's good for morale . It gets them engaged in defining the process ”what needs to be done first. And then it creates excitement when they actually see improvement.

An incremental approach may be the only one possible ”particularly if you are new to leadership roles. Wherever you sit in the leadership ranks, you must build support for your actions and typically that is best done in small steps. This approach has an added advantage. If something goes wrong, the ship may spring a leak, but it is unlikely to sink.

Connect the Dots. Hannah, the financial services executive from Chapter Three, has converted the schoolbook exercise where kids connect the dots and form a picture to a finely honed leadership technique. She uses it to help top management and her own people visualize various pathways . Beginning at A, the present, what will it take to get the organization or one of its units to the desired endpoint ”the strategic goal? What are the alternative paths? The costs in time, talent, and dollars associated with each? The opportunity costs?

Foregrounding strategic needs, the exercise produces a road map for making organizational goals operational. "That's what execution is all about," Hannah says, "bridging the gap between vision and tactics." Sometimes the dots are connected with suspicious precision; at those points, she says, "you need to step back and challenge the picture." Recently tasked with a major strategic initiative, Hannah discovered when she connected the dots that she had two choices ”either secure more resources or extend her time line. Managers were accountable for delivering results in the present; the entire organization had quarterly earnings to meet. Long-range goals had to be delicately balanced against short- term needs. Hannah's initiative would play a significant role in shaping the organization's future, but it could only move forward if the pace was sustainable.

The dots also have a way of moving around. Outside market forces disrupt the patterns. Undetected flaws in internal processes throw the plotting off. At times like these a new leader can make a significant contribution simply by encouraging a rigorous examination of where and how plans veered off course. Hope's unit ”and her company ” stumbled badly in introducing a new produce into a radically changed market (Chapter Four). Rather than participate in senseless and unproductive finger-pointing, Hope engaged her people in a process of discovery. Starting with the disappointing endpoint, they tracked the dots back to figure out those critical junctures where the decision making broke down ”and why. By helping everyone understand the complexities involved in any new product introduction ”the many decision trees ”she made it far less likely that the company would ignore alarming data or changed market conditions in the future. ^{[ 14]}

Keep Testing for Congruence . Strategic goals and the needs they address constantly evolve . Market conditions shift. Organizations change ”people take up new assignments, new projects come online, and new technologies redefine communications with customers and with colleagues. Anyone taking on a new leadership position must constantly test whether the needs as currently defined fit with where she wants to go and with where others are ready to go. Cheryl faced this question when she considered whether to join Andrew, a very senior partner, in his efforts to launch an ethics practice at a major accounting firm.

This opportunity came up before the accounting scandals made ethics a hot topic. I had been in audit and had to do a lot of due diligence to weigh Andrew's proposal. What I dis-covered made me aware of the role this kind of practice could play across all areas of the firm.

Andrew, however, had an idea of how to set up the practice. As Cheryl tested for congruence, she uncovered a major point of disagreement .

He wanted to have training sessions in ethics that were no more than two hours long and that would cascade down ”from senior partners to junior partners to managers. I didn't think this approach was the right way to go. People are scared to death of senior partners ; they put them on a pedestal. That gets in the way of communication. I thought we should mix it up a bit.

Cheryl laid out her concerns. As presently configured, the program would not really meet the needs it was designed to address. She suggested that they try a pilot with multiple sessions that brought together senior and junior partners as well as managers across all lines of service. "That pilot was universally regarded as first class," Cheryl says, "and we were able to come out of the gate with a gilded program."

Testing for congruence is not a one-time thing. Changes in top leadership, a shifting economic environment, a merger or acquisition can quickly change the context for the goals of a project or a division. To keep your interests alive , you constantly need to measure the degree of congruence so that you can adapt to changing circumstances and not be buffeted by them.

Reframe What Is Strategic. For a new leader, it is tempting to take the strategic direction as a given and align your interests with it. This approach often works, but it has a downside. It prevents you from playing an active role in redefining what is considered strategic. Recall Bettina, the corporate foundation head in Chapter Two. Key executives within the corporation questioned the return attached to investment: in community initiatives. Good works they considered a cost of doing business. "They saw the foundation as a drain on the treasury ," says Bet-tina. "Our initiatives were part of the corporation's civic responsibility, but didn't make much business sense."

Bettina, approached to take the lead on a pivotal community undertaking in childhood education ”Success by Six ”designed the foundation's participation to supply that business case. She enlisted experts to help her reframe the case. She invited Michael Porter to speak to the board. The president and the chairman were well versed in Porter's work on competitive advantage, but were not up to speed on his bottom-line approach to inner-city revitalization. He got their attention quickly and reinforced their growing suspicion that Bettina's foundation work could open potential markets. Bettina then brought in Rosabeth Moss Kanter to talk about creative ways to partner in the inner city. Here key players saw real possibilities of attracting a more diverse labor pool.

Rather than focus exclusively on intangible benefits to the corporation's civic image, she quantified linkages to corporate results. These are the numbers of potential customers the initiative will reach; these are the corporate programs that will be affected. Here are the areas where business opportunities can be expanded. By demonstrating these synergies, she changed the perspective of key members of the organization. Good works could actually be good business. She reframed how the corporation defined strategic initiatives.

Soon after arriving at Staples, Jeanne Lewis was asked to volunteer for a cross-functional team. "Usually you roll your eyes and say okay, but that opportunity really opened doors for me," she says. The experience gave her a chance to see beyond the confines of market forecasting. Not only did she meet key players across the organization, she was suddenly immersed in how the major business units ”merchandising, marketing, and operations ”knit together.

A simple motto, addressed to the company's customers, drove all functions: "slashing the cost and hassle of running your office." Staples started by catering to a specific market: small-business owners who were paying 40 percent more for office supplies than large corporations. "People want to save money. They don't realize they're getting hosed," says founder Tom Stemberg. ^{[ 15]}

Stemberg's personality and vision permeated the company. "There's nothing mysterious about how I grew my business. . . . There were no accidents. Things just didn't happen by themselves . I made them happen." White-hot growth made it "difficult" to hire people who could "jump right in, pick up the rhythm, and grow with you. " ^{[ 16]} Jeanne fit right in. She shared Stemberg's passion for detail and connecting the dots.

• Whenever I go into a leadership role, I want to figure out what is underneath the water I'm swimming in. So I dive down into the details in order to figure out what I'm really dealing with below the surface. I always think of it as a kind of long, slow dive into the detail: control freak, driving everyone crazy, learning about their business, understanding them.... Then I come back to the surface, which is really where I'm most comfortable. But I only do that when ... I know what I've got in the way of challenges and opportunities and how strong the team really is. ^{[ 17]}

Jeanne's first leadership role took her to operations. Having never run a store or rung a register she was put in charge of fifty underperforming stores in New England. Jeanne had little time to learn the ropes . She had to "fix it and fix it fast. " ^{[ 18]} Due to a lack of leadership, the stores were not providing customer satisfaction. Sales suffered and the company's image suffered. Jeanne concentrated on the incongruence ”sprucing up the stores' appearance and directly addressing the lackluster sales staff. Over a short twelve months she returned the stores to profitability by replacing twenty-five sales associates and implementing the company's rigorous standards.

Jeanne was then transferred to merchandising, another function with P&L responsibility. Furniture and decorative supplies, potentially a profitable category, was losing money at a time when other categories were showing profits of 20 percent or more. Jeanne reframed the way the unit looked at its product line. She encouraged the group to look at more than gross margin in negotiating and buying. What, for example, did a product actually cost when you factored in handling in the distribution centers and the shelf space it took up? This reframing resulted in changing 75 percent of the product assortment and tripled direct product profitability.

Fill Unmet Needs

Any new leadership role is dynamic, constantly evolving. A job description captures the role at one point in time. Initial plans undergo frequent revision. Problems turn out to have multiple dimensions. But a newcomer, listening attentively and digging deeper, can sometimes discover needs that people did not know existed. Old habits may obstruct visibility and prevent colleagues from seeing impediments to productivity. Opportunities for innovation may be obscured. With attention riveted on current crises, people may not get around to issues on the horizon. New leadership roles call for creativity and flexibility. By being on the alert for the discrepancies around you, you can pick up on these signals and invent the role as you go along ”expanding it, redefining it, moving it in new directions.

Solve Problems People Don't Know They Have. People cannot address problems they do not recognize. Solutions go begging without awareness. That is why the needs continue to be unmet. A new leader can step into the breach ”identifying the problem and providing a solution. In the course of working through the implications of her particular change agenda, she often discovers that the answers have broader applications.

These " unintended consequences," exported across functions, can produce a win for everyone. The process is particularly painless for colleagues who did not even recognize that they had a problem to begin with. In Chapter Four, for example, Christine supplied comprehensive research to the sales organization in her financial services firm. Previously sales managers had been oblivious to the damage inflicted on the sales process when they worked with faulty data or incomplete information. Christine's solution bridged the opposition to her newly created unit, muting its force. Equally important from an organizational perspective, it increased the effectiveness of the sales effort.

Moreover, chances are good that your group is not the only one in the organization to experience a given problem. Janet, also highlighted in Chapter Four, wanted her group to learn from its mistakes after major contracts got into trouble. Janet's company designed and installed large information systems that were mission-critical for their customers. In debriefing sessions, they isolated points in the contract process where things began to go off track. Collectively, in internal dialogue and in talks with customers, they developed a step-by-step early warning program for delivering "platinum service" in the future. The early warning system incorporated in the " platinum " program met unanswered needs across the organization. When it was adopted company-wide, Janet and her group were seen as having made a real difference.

Promote Synergies. Unmet needs can be obscured because they fall through the cracks between functions or units. The silo effect in organizations isolates problem solving and makes it difficult to detect when problems are shared across groups. A leader who spans boundaries may be in a good position to uncover these common problems and find ways to help fashion a more systemic solution. When Bridget's entrepreneurial software company merged with an established database firm, the business press touted the potential synergies and investors rewarded a combination they thought would produce cost savings and revenue growth. After the dust had settled, Bridget was promoted to vice chair of the merged entity. Traditionally the role of vice chair in both companies had been to support the chairman while the executive vice presidents headed the separate functions like sales or R&D. "As vice chair ," Bridget says, "it is hard to have something that is your own."

New to the role, Bridget traveled around the country for six months, visiting every office and every plant. Instead of synergy, she saw chaos. "People were all over the place ”spreading themselves around like peanut butter." Members of her old firm, eager to ramp up sales of the latest software release, aggressively raided the customer list of their merger partner. Salespeople at the database company, however, were convinced that long-term revenue growth depended on expanding services and were equally aggressive in approaching the same customers. "There was no strategy, people were confused , and our customers were getting annoyed," Bridget says.

Bridget met with the chairman, who had been something of a mentor, and he told her to "do something about it." Bridget focused this rather vague mandate by convening a small group of thought leaders ”people who had a good sense of the market and of the strengths of the two organizations. She also brought in a facilitator so that she could participate in the sessions. She set one rule: they could not leave the room until they found an integrated approach to customers ”development, sales, and services ”and they had to reduce that solution to one piece of paper.

The group came up with a visual model that ranked clients by IT purchasing power and then linked that purchasing power to the software and services the client actually bought or might be persuaded to buy. In a second iteration, with the intention of poaching, they applied the same model to their competition's chief customers. "The beauty of the model, " Bridget says, "is that is easy to use."

You can see where there is redundancy you don't need and where redundancy is necessary but must be coordinated to make a big sale across functionalities. It applies to software, database management, or services ”or all of them altogether. Everybody is using it.

Before Bridget closeted the thought leaders in a room, no one had really pushed back on what it meant to merge the two companies.

A new leader can also play a major role in facilitating the transfer of successful experiments across boundaries. The "not invented here" syndrome plagues many organizations, and people can be reluctant to pick up an initiative that could add value simply because it was developed elsewhere. When synergies are built into an initiative, they have the potential to increase its impact geometrically . Not only do they improve productivity, they build organizational coherence .

Consider how Tamara in Chapter Four linked her fledgling diversity effort to specific goals in recruitment and marketing. More than experiments in political correctness, her programs could directly affect the talent the retail operation attracted and shape the image it projected in the community. The potential impact did not escape the notice of marketing or operations. Marketing saw in the programs a way to brand the chain's image and increase store traffic. Operations linked them to the perceived need to expand recruitment efforts. A diverse staff of sales associates would reflect the chain's broad customer base. Tamara's programs benefited each functional area; they also made a significant difference to the organization as a whole ”bringing its operational procedures into alignment with its image and mission.

Anticipate Future Needs. Unmet needs may not be immediate. But a leader who is attuned to what is happening in the organization and is well connected can be very well positioned to hear about changes before they occur. With that information, she has choices in how to respond. Without it, she may find herself operating perennially in crisis mode as she tries to protect her unit. Recall Roberta in Chapter Two, the senior vice president who took over the IT customer relationship function in a large financial services firm. From her corporate vantage point, Roberta saw that consolidation on the IT side of the business was likely. IT people in the various business units could lose their jobs. The consolidation might also hamper some of the business units, which depended on state-of-the-art IT to deal with the volume of transactions. Anticipating the problem, Roberta worked with the units to help retain their best people, and she helped to arrange transfers for those who needed them.

It is difficult to predict what will happen in the next few months or even years. But when a leader cultivates critical relationships, she is more likely to see the changes that may be coming. Access to that information positions her to step in and respond. In the process, she both expands her purview and prepares the organization for the future.

When Tom Stemberg asked Jeanne Lewis to head up a strategic business unit, Jeanne did not think twice. Although the assignment was one anyone would want, Jeanne characterized the transition as "the scariest" she made.

Marketing was a staff position, not a line job. Jeanne would have a big budget but no P&L responsibility. Her previous assignments were turnarounds: revitalizing a group of underperforming stores and restoring a product category to profitability. Results ”progress ”could be measured daily. Marketing had no equivalent scorecard. Moreover, the department had been headed by a marketing legend; she was not walking into another turnaround situation plagued by a lack of leadership. "It's a lot easier to deal with a broken unit than enter an area that is doing just fine," she says. "I foundered until I could find a way to measure performance."

Because her predecessor, Todd Krasnow, was such a marketing star, no one suspected that Jeanne would uncover any problems. But during this period the Point Team was preoccupied with plans for a merger with Office Depot. ^{[ 19]} The Point Team, a tight group of top functional leaders, had been created to keep the company "on point" during its rapid growth. Distracted by the merger, its members lost some of their intense focus on sharing goals and information. Jeanne, not a member, detected hints of trouble in marketing. Internal goals were not always in line with broader corporate goals. Internal objectives were not even consistent within marketing.

In the months before Krasnow's departure , Jeanne worked closely with him to ensure a smooth transition. During this period she shuttled back and forth between her existing responsibilities in merchandising and those she would soon take on in marketing. On one detail, Jeanne was adamant. For marketing to accept her, she would have to sit on the Point Team. Otherwise the group would conclude that marketing was losing its voice. Krasnow, they believed, had been a vocal advocate there. Unless she had a seat at that table, her appointment would be interpreted as a demotion for the group. Jeanne knew she was bringing value to marketing and she wanted ”and got ”a clear signal sent. Before she moved into Krasnow's old office, she joined the Point Team.

Marketing included two relatively independent functions: marketing itself and an in-house advertising agency. Marketing built brand awareness over time while advertising concentrated on generating traffic in the stores. Jeanne discovered that a firewall had been established between the two. Everyone drew down on the huge marketing budget, but that budget was the only thing they had in common.

• No one knew what the other people were doing. You couldn't even have that conversation. No one really knew the marketing mix, how much we spent on each piece . . . either in terms of dollars or objectives. ^{[ 20]}

With no common objectives and no vehicles in place to talk about them, it was impossible for either marketing or advertising to benefit from the experience or expertise of others in the SBU . Store managers wanted increased traffic and worried when they saw flyers or promotional campaignsfrom the competition. Marketing aimed to leverage the brand and build the franchise. Some ideas, however successful in the past, had outlived their usefulness and could not be depended upon to drive strategic objectives in the future. Cross-channel communications, for example, tended to get overlooked even though they would make purchasing easier for the small-business owner.

To refocus everyone on shared of jectives and to promote the very real synergies she thought possible between advertising and marketing, Jeanne instituted a series of group meetings and one-on-one sessions twice a month with her direct reports.

The group staff meetings faltered. People had gotten out of the habit of sharing information or ideas. Jeanne discovered that she ended up doing most of the talking. She immediately changed the format. Staff meetings ” stretched to three hours ”would be held every other week. Jeanne circulated the agenda beforehand. She would have the floor for the first half- hour ; then staff members would talk about what they were working on ”what was going well and what was not. The interchange of ideas and information began to create a greater sense of cohesion among the group. But the process put a new kind of stress on individuals unaccustomed to sharing or being in the spotlight. Shared understandings helped bridge that uneasiness. If a particular group had to surrender money to another department, Jeanne observes, at least they had a basis for understanding why that decision was in the interests of the overall business. ^{[ 21]}

From her stints in operations and merchandising, Jeanne also realized that people on the line did not feel that marketing was always responsive to their needs. But again those needs were perceived differently. Operations wanted solutions and state-of-the-art systems that would attract customers; merchandising, on the other hand, lobbied for efforts that would increase brand awareness.

Looking to the future, Jeanne knew, marketing would have to develop a plan that would allow its efforts to drive both sales and the Staples brand. She drew operations and merchandising into the decision-making process. Whenever a staff member came up with a report that affected their areas, she would make sure that the right people got a copy and asked for their feedback.

Make Your Value Visible

Any new leader has one prime objective in a new assignment: to create value for her organization. But for those contributions to have full impact, the value must be visible. And visibility can be a problem for women on two counts. First, as past Catalyst President Sheila Wellington points out, "women are in the wrong place, in the wrong jobs." ^{[ 22]} It is more difficult to make your value visible from staff positions, yet more than two- thirds of leadership positions held by women are in areas like human resources or public relations. Without P&L responsibility results are difficult to measure. Even with P&L responsibility, team-building efforts can be written off as "women's work" and not recognized as the driving force behind any uptick in productivity.

Making value visible galvanizes your group ”it validates what you are doing together. Recognition by the wider organization can serve as a springboard for future contributions. But claiming value can create double binds for women. If they make those claims vigorously, they can be seen as self-aggrandizing or pushy, yet less vigorous efforts may be ineffective . Value can be claimed subtly, but it must be claimed. Otherwise significant contributions go unrecognized with nobody inclined to build on them. Art and nuance come in selecting how, where, and when to claim that value.

Play on a Visible Field. Whether anew assignment is a staff or a line job, you want to have its accomplishments associated with you. To claim value is to have aspects of the role seen as something that you own and make happen. Rachel, the aerospace engineer featured in Chapter Two, ensured visibility when she and her boss worked out their division of labor. She became the public face of the leadership group ”walking the floors, talking to the engineers . When problems arose, they came to her, not to her boss. The clear definition of Rachel's role as the problem solver not only increased her visibility, it pointed to her accomplishments. It also differentiated her contribution from that of her co-leader.

This differentiation brings up a thorny point. When you are tapped for a demanding position, you can find that you report to one of the organization's stars, even a mentor. Unless you take care to establish your own identity, your contributions can get lost in your boss's achievements. Cheryl, discussed earlier in this chapter, faced this prospect when she joined Andrew in his effort to start an ethics practice in their accounting firm.

Andrew had this great idea. Everyone attached it to him. He had connections, built over time, throughout the firm, across all lines of business and had marshaled the resources to get the practice off the ground.

Starting out, the practice was clearly identified with Andrew. "He wanted someone to do the day-to-day work," Cheryl says. Cheryl recognized the potential risk to her and the practice if she was perceived only to be doing Andrew's legwork. Cheryl, however, had definite ideas on implementation. Specifically , she advocated longer training programs with participants from all levels of the firm. As the two talked and launched the pilot, their relationship began to change. Gradually it evolved into a partnership. The shift freed both of them. "This is yours to run with now," he told her. "You are the czarina of ethics here." Cheryl gained visibility as Andrew withdrew from active involvement and the practice gained visibility as it became a forum where thorny issues could be explored across all levels of the firm in a nonthreatening environment.

Show Value in a Currency That Has Currency. A ticket to a Yankees/Red Sox game, however prized, won't get you in to hear The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera. Organizations, too, have currencies they honor . To gain visibility for your contributions, you have to convert them into one of those currencies. Linda Green, featured in Chapter Four, not only completed the SEC audit on time, she reestablished the auditors ' confidence in the bank's ability to get its financial house in order. Everyone in the regulated organization knew the importance of maintaining good relations with the SEC. Jackie, the training executive from Chapter Three, knew that without the right support, people in the field would fail. It was up to her to make it happen. She also knew that using the Six Sigma process to support her request was the only way to have the case taken seriously.

Recall Bridget and her thought leaders mentioned earlier. After Bridget's captive group came up with the tools for a unified client strategy for their recently merged company, they presented the one-page diagram to the executive committee and requested comments. The chairman, about to leave on a European sales trip, asked that members give their feedback to Bridget. Over the next two months, as she took calls from senior people, she got to know the key players in the other organization better. And she became identified with the new strategy. With its firmwide implementation salespeople began to work together to sell the whole package and not just their particular product, and clients were not bothered by competing pitches from the same company. Everyone knew that Bridget had made this change possible. "Her" model was used everywhere. The growth in top-line sales that people had looked for from the merged company began to show up in all its revenue categories. Not only was Bridget's value visible, it was in a currency everyone recognized immediately.

Sometimes your currency is not immediately honored and you need to help others appreciate what you bring. Gail, the hospital general counsel from Chapter Two, convinced her boss that she had the gravitas he considered essential to the role by demonstrating her analytic prowess ”that was a currency he understood . But Gail went a step further and showed him that gravitas can take many forms. Initially he mistook her soft manner for softness and assumed she would not be up to the job. With Gail's studied coaching he came to appreciate the special value her gravitas had. Her openness and accessibility meant that people contacted her office earlier about potential legal issues. This currency, he recognized, had broad value for the hospital. Not only did it keep litigation costs down, it surfaced problems early.

Attract Good People to Work for You. Successful leaders are magnets. They attract people who want to be on their teams . The CEO of a large consulting firm put it this way, "People have choices ”there are so many opportunities in our firm today. The person we look for is the one who can attract people to his or her service line. That's the mark of a leader."

That people want to work for you is a testament to your value. Christine, the software marketing chief featured in Chapter Four, was not an engineer, but she won over the skeptics in sales by creating a unit that had high visibility. She might not have been fully conversant with bytes, but she knew her customers and their dissatisfaction level with the current sales relationships.

I wanted to manage my teams differently. The going model was that the account executive controlled all the client contact. 1 wanted to change that to give everybody more client contact. The teams loved it. . . . It started to get around the division: "You should try a spell on Christine's team. She's doing something different." People wanted to work with me.

By being seen as a leader who is trying new things, who has a new vision for how work can be done, you make your value visible. Others in the organization naturally gravitate to leaders they think will make them more successful and, in turn, more visible.

Wait for the Right Time. Just as contributions must be converted to a recognizable currency, they must be claimed when the time is right. Throughout our stories, we chronicle ways in which women leaders created value for their organizations. Seldom was a strategic move made in isolation. Rather, the women linked their moves in coordinated campaigns ”mobilizing backers, garnering resources, and creating buy-in for their agenda. That agenda took time to move forward and claiming value takes equal patience. "Small wins" help generate excitement; allies and partners create a positive atmosphere. As one of our commentators pointed out: "There is a time for everything. People must be receptive." That receptivity is key both to creating value and then making it visible. Ming-Li, the CFO in a mutual funds company, attributes her success, in part, to her willingness to step into what she calls the "leadership vacuum ." But she also learned from one of her bosses the virtue of timing when she decides to take that step.

I remember saying to him, "Peter, I don't understand. There are things that I see that are broken. Why aren't you taking the lead infixing them?" He looked at me and he said, "Ming-Li, there is a time for everything."

She put that advice to good use and tempered her impatience in a potentially divisive situation. Her firm was involved in a major acquisition, and the president seemed likely to tap one of his prot g s to head the team.

When I first received the material from my boss, I spent four or five hours pulling everything apart. After that I had a pretty good idea about what we should do and what process would get us there. But I held back giving my ideas and waited. As expected, the president, gave the assignment to Bill. Bill's a nice guy, but he doesn't know this line of business very well.

Even though Bill did not report to Ming-Li, she offered her help. "This looks really involved. Let me know if you need any resources." Grateful, Bill admitted that he needed help and assured Ming-Li that he would call her. She let it go for a while. He struggled for several weeks, and his progress was slow. Noting the general frustration at the project's pace, Ming-Li asked to attend future meetings to help. Bill was delighted .

So now I am playing a major role in the project. I am training them and acting as a kind of adviser. What is so interesting is that because Bill and his staff bring up my name so much in front of the president, he has begun to see me as the de facto leader of the project.

Later, the president thanked Ming-Li for her efforts. She dropped a subtle hint: "Fine, as long as you don't forget to recognize the effort." Subsequently the president broadcast how well the process had worked. "Their learning curve just kept going." Recognizing that despite her technical skill, she had to wait to create value, Ming-Li had slowly made it visible to the president and others in the financial group.

This message ”and the recognition behind it ”underscored an important skill set Ming-Li was patiently trying to develop among key associates in her own group. Although the results of helping and coaching did not drop immediately to her bottom line, they contributed to the collaborative culture she wanted to cultivate. She devoted considerable time to developing talent and the organization as a whole valued that work.

In 1999 Jeanne Lewis was appointed president of staples.com. "Staples was in catch-up mode," she says. But to compete effectively ”and for the online enterprise to have any credibility ”Jeanne needed two things: an ability to attract dot-com talent and a way to defuse potential opposition from the bricks-and-mortar side. Jeanne outlined the dual problems to the CEO and the CFO. Tracking stock, the CFO suggested, might provide the right incentive for the dot-com contingent. Jeanne built on the idea, proposing that everyone, including the bricks -and-mortar folks, be able to participate in the IPO. The rapid deterioration in the appetite for IPOs, particularly Internet offerings, curtailed these plans, but Jeanne's objective was clear. "We'd rather cannibalize our own business than have the competition cannibalize us. But winning in [the office supplies] market begins with getting over the fear of cannibalization." ^{[ 23]}

Jeanne considered it dangerous to compartmentalize Internet strategy and bricks-and-mortar strategy. She had witnessed the long-standing competition between the stores and the catalogue operation, Staples Direct. Store managers feared they would lose control of their customers.

Jeanne set out to prove that they were not playing a zero-sum game. "Many of our customers shop across all three channels ”stores, catalogue, and Web site. And, when they do, they spend on average 4.5 times as much per year as customers who shop only in the stores. Multiple channels generate enormous buying power." Unconstrained by shelf space, the online Staples could offer a broader selection of hardware and accessories with an even greater selection of software titles.

Moreover, the online site could help the stores and merchandising, whose biggest headache was old stock. "Old Post-it notes aren't much of a problem; old PCs are." On Jeanne's watch, the Internet became a channel for clearing inventory. She wanted to prove that "they were in this all together."

Right after she took over at staples.com, she gave a speech to three thousand general managers.

• I talked about the Internet and then I told them to look under their chairs. I had had chocolate boats made ”half said Staples, the other halfstaples.com ”and put one under each chair.I asked everyone to pick up their boat and see if they had the right one. There was a lot of confusion. I let it go on for a bit, then said: Stop. We are all in the same boat. It was a real Ah-ha moment. People saw how silly the worries about cannibalization were.

Although Jeanne took great care to establish synergies across the channels and functional disciplines, she also wanted to establish an identity for staples.com. Meg Whitman was on the Staples board and Jeanne went to school at eBay. Electing to remain in the same building that housed the bricks-and-mortar operations, she created a new environment for staples.com. Walls were painted white, instead of Staples brown. Separate offices became open cubicles. And cookies were put out to welcome everyone. The changes fit the Internet culture. Everyone she was hiring was under twenty-five. Communication became direct. Once the cubicles appeared, Jeanne's e-mail and voice mail dropped precipitously. People talked to each other, face-to-face, accelerating decision making. In fourteen months, staples.com went from $30 million in sales to $500 million and turned a profit two years ahead of schedule.

After nine years with the company, Jeanne resigned in December 2001. "For eight and a half years it didn't feel like work." Coming full circle ”to where her style and interests align with the culture ”she is now part of an international consultancy that both advises clients and executes critical strategic, business, and financial initiatives on their behalf . ^{[ 24]}

Some of our commentators searched hard to find an organization where they could make a difference, one that fit their values and the difference they wanted to make. Ming-Li, the chief financial officer who claimed value patiently, took what appears, from a cursory look at her r sum , a circuitous path . She, however, sees a logical pattern.

When I move I always have reasons for the move. I don't move for money or title. That's secondary. Each move validates a piece of you. I knew what I could do in a function ”say, in accounting or finance. What else could I do? What is my potential? Where are my limits? Could I excel in something I have never done before? Try it out ”that has always been my goal. I call it self-growth ”recognition of a career as a work in progress.

Leadership ”like a career ”is inherently a work in progress. It is a process of constant adaptation and growth ”experimenting, keeping what works and jettisoning what does not. Each strategic step taken leads to another just as the difference you make becomes a springboard for other contributions.

^{[ 10]} Jeanne Lewis, our subject, participated in the Michelle A. Rosmarin Executive-in-Residence Program at the Simmons Graduate School of Management in the spring of 2003. This account draws on personal interviews, presentations, and discussions that took place during her residency. We have supplemented these sources with articles on Staples and founder Tom Stemberg published in the business press. Jeanne was also the subject of a three-part Harvard Business School case.

^{[ 11]} Bob Weinstein, "Supplies in Demand"; "How We Got Started: Tom Stemberg."

^{[ 12]} Amy Bodow, "Risk and Reward: Jeanne B. Lewis."

^{[ 13]} Harvard Business School. Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (A).

^{[ 14]} In organizations decisions are influenced by previous decisions. The need to justify project funding decisions can skew future decision-making in favor of continuation so that "sunk costs" can be recovered. Individuals can also surrender to "group think." See B. M. Staw, "Knee-Deep in the Big Muddy: A Study of Escalating Commitment to a Chosen Course of Action" and Irving Janis, Victims of Group Think .

^{[ 15]} "How We Got Started: Tom Stemberg,"

^{[ 16]} Weinstein, "Supplies in Demand."

^{[ 17]} Harvard Business School. Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (A).

^{[ 18]} Harvard Business School. Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (A).

^{[ 19]} A federal judge scuttled the merger on antitrust grounds in July 1997.

^{[ 20]} Harvard Business School. Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (A).

^{[ 21]} Harvard Business School Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (B).

^{[ 22]} Michelle Conlin, "The Glass Ceiling: The CEO Still Wears Wingtips." Wellington was talking specifically about paths to the CEO job, but lack of visibility hampers progress in senior management as well.

^{[ 23]} Ramon Ray, "Interview with Jeanne Lewis."

^{[ 24]} Amy Bodow, "Risk and Reward: Jeanne B. Lewis."