CHAPTER 4Perspective: From Casualty to Creator
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
—Albert Einstein
“I just met with my leader, and she's promoting two of my colleagues, but not me. One of them has even been with the company for less than a year!”
Nikki had good reason to feel she'd earned a promotion. She'd been in charge of creating a new dashboard for tracking progress with the company's diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, which was so well regarded that the chief human resources officer had given her a big shout‐out. And the retention initiative she spearheaded was praised by senior leaders. But her boss told her she wasn't ready for the next step up, senior director position. That triggered her to start doubting herself. “I started questioning my value and my trajectory, and I started thinking maybe I just wasn't worthy.”
You can probably relate to how Nikki felt. When your contributions are clearly valuable, and even more than your peers’, and yet you're not advanced appropriately for them, you feel undervalued. This was the second time she was passed over; she was beleaguered and angry.
“Why is my boss promoting people with less experience than me? Why is this happening to me?”
When it seems like bad things are happening, I have a go‐to question that puts me back in power. I encouraged her to consider this question:
How might this be happening for me instead of to me?
This question immediately shifts your focus ...
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