The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table

by Minda Harts

Listen, many of the book’s basics like networking and advocating for yourself—all great advice. But networking and advocating for yourself look very different at work for women of color, especially if you are the only person of color in the office.

there’s some work that we can do to invest in our skills so when we take our seats, we will be ready to lead. Skills like self-advocacy and how to build your network. You might have graduated from a top school in the country or received a GED, but the short and long of it is, you still need to know how to get ahead. Your background will only get you so far.

There are biases, but we don’t have to be victims! There are mean girls at work, but we don’t have to turn into them because of our workplace broken hearts. My prayer is that you walk away knowing what is possible for you and your career—as a woman of color!

Early in my career, I worked my butt off hoping someone would take notice and my work would speak for itself (also known as expecting a system of meritocracy). Sometimes the right people will take notice, and other times they won’t. You must learn to be your own advocate.

When we build great squads, in turn, people want to introduce us to their squads. This is what some in the business world call “social capital.”

Who are those business contacts we need to help us advance in our careers?

I know y’all love a good example, so check this out. I was a guest on a podcast called Trailblazers. This is a favorite podcast for black professionals, hosted by Stephen A. Hart (no relation). I was in episode 60. How did I become a guest on this podcast? A man named Shawn Dove, the CEO of Campaign for Black Male Achievement, introduced me to Stephen. How did I meet Shawn? A man named Allan Ludgate from Deloitte introduced me to Shawn. How did I meet Allan? I approached Allan at a networking event and started to build a relationship with him. Eventually, Allan felt comfortable opening up his network to me (see the way social capital works?). Now here is the kicker. After being a guest on the podcast, I realized that one of my mentors in my head, Miko Branch, cofounder of the natural hair care business Miss Jessie’s, was a guest in a previous episode. Miko is an entrepreneur of color and one I have followed and admired for years. My company was planning our first Women of Resilience Awards to celebrate women of color in business. I asked Stephen if he would introduce me to Miko. Long story short: eventually Stephen made the intro, and we honored Miko at our event.

None of this would have happened without a network. We need one inside the office, and we need one outside. And it’s important to note that relationship building is reciprocal. I don’t just get what I need; I make sure to help my network get what they need too.

start to think of your squad in terms of two teams. One squad is your internal network (at work) and the second squad is your external network (outside work).

An important aspect of building your squad at work is putting yourself out there. And there are plenty of books about how to create a network, but what most won’t tell you is one simple but important factor: stuff happens after 6 p.m. Minda, what you do mean, stuff happens after 6 p.m.? Well… I’m glad you asked. Not every business decision occurs between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. After running career boot camps for almost three years, I’ve heard countless women of color say, “I don’t want to go to happy hour with my colleagues.” My response is virtually always the same. You don’t have to go to happy hour, but you know who is at happy hour? Becky. Becky is going to be at happy hour, having a great time, laughing at all of Bob’s jokes, and finding out the tea, while you’re at home watching old episodes of Girlfriends on BET, wondering how Becky got promoted. We have to put ourselves out there so our colleagues get to know us.

The happy hours, the BBQs, the birthday parties, this is where employees find out what’s coming down the pipeline. These are opportunities to shine outside the workplace, opportunities for you to learn more about the decision-makers and for them to observe you away from work. There’s a lot to learn about Bob, and you won’t always get the opportunity to fraternize at work; in order to find out, you have to get out of your cube and be seen at the places where Bob is doling out his intimate information, like the fact that he has five kids or what his favorite cake flavor is. If women of color don’t participate in after-work activities, then we will miss out.

Let me make it just a little clearer. Do you know why Becky brought in red velvet cupcakes for Bob’s birthday? Because she found out he loves red velvet cupcakes at the last team dinner you didn’t attend. HELLO, knock, knock, McFly, do you see a pattern here? Are women of color all over the country going to let the Beckys outshine them because they were too tired after work or because they didn’t think it took all that? Perhaps if more women of color shared a few laughs with Bob, they might have found out about this position that needed to be filled and positioned themselves for it, and then Bob might have been more prone to consider them for the role over Becky.

In my years in corporate America, I have found that white people want to feel like they know you. They want to feel like your “friends.” As black and brown women, we just want to do our job, do it well, and get the hell out of Dodge. And if women of color don’t act like we want to be “friends” in the workplace, then tons of assumptions are made about us—fill in the stereotype here. We are constantly fighting those lovely labels some of our colleagues like to adorn us with, so it’s important to take every opportunity to kill those harmful stereotypes that tend to follow us from workplace to workplace. They can’t say that we are aggressive or hard to communicate with if they experience us in different environments where we relax a little.

Nine times out of ten, I would attend these birthday lunches, because (1) it signaled to my colleagues that I appreciated them, even if I didn’t; (2) my manager asked each of us to go, so clearly it was important to him; and (3) my attendance allowed me to learn the dynamics of our team and hear some of the office gossip that I would never have known otherwise. I don’t like office gossip, but it taught me whom I needed to connect with and whom I probably should stay clear of at work. I was also able to observe my colleagues in another light and learn who I could trust to add to my squad. As you consider adding your colleagues to your Top 8, it’s important you know who is for you and who is against you. Not everyone at work is your friend, and when you’re not in the room, who can you trust to advocate on your behalf if the situation calls for advocacy?

Even though I was one of the top performers on his team, me laughing at his jokes seemed to be what impressed him the most. Go figure! As you can see, going out with your colleagues might not be the most convenient and comfortable thing to do, but try it out.

Yolanda said, “I wish someone would have pulled me to the side and showed me that making the decision not to engage with my colleagues would hurt my chances to advance. I was already the only person of color in the office. I leaned out and that hurt me.”

So networking events outside work with your colleagues are not, I repeat, they are not, opportunities to get drunk and turnt up. They are opportunities to advocate for yourself.

you just need to be seen for ten to fifteen minutes, then break out! The point is—use this as an opportunity to find out how your colleagues perceive and engage with you and find ways to engage with them!

It is not the powers that be that need to get to know their employees, but us employees who have to position ourselves so the powers that be get to know us!

how do you network up?

A wise mentor of mine told me, “Make rounds.”

So, if I knew he would be in the office or had a standing appointment with someone else, I would “make rounds.” I would strategically plot when his standing appointment would leave his office and the door would be open, and I would slide by and say hello. This, folks, is face time. I would do this a couple of times a month if we were both in the office. Each time, the conversations got lengthier, and when the time was right, I asked if I could schedule an appointment to talk with him about some ideas I had. He welcomed it and from that day forward, he thought of me for committees, opportunities, and advancement; he created a seat at the table for me. But I had to put in the work. It took over six months before anything came out of these brief hallway chats. And as I was doing this, I didn’t know if anything would ever come of it.

In many cases, finding a mentor is a lot easier; that is something you could ask of someone, and most of the time, people love giving out advice so mentorship is not as daunting. Sponsorship, on the other hand—that takes some true relationship building.

My mentors are men and women, different races and ages—that diversity is a benefit for me. I might go to one of my mentors for salary negotiation advice, and I might go to another on how to gain buy-in from my colleagues or how to dress to impress. Everyone serves a purpose! They aren’t all necessarily people I speak to every day or even people who will stay mentors forever, but they are people I trust to have my best interests at heart.

I encourage the women who come to our networking boot camps to identify and secure a mentor and a sponsor as part of their winning squad.

Another thought: I hope you will find ways to mentor and sponsor other people as well.

I am a firm believer that we should build relationships with principal individuals that make hiring decisions and those who can help along the way, but don’t discount the people that work alongside you or in other departments. You should make it a priority to build relationships with your colleagues who will have your back from day to day and want to see you win. The people you can run to when keeping it real goes wrong

Relationship building is an art form, and following up is what makes networking—work!

to keep up with relationships I value, I must implement meaningful ways to stay in touch. A few that have worked well for me: I use a journal or calendar notifications to remind me it’s time to follow up.

At least once a quarter, I try to connect with the people that I consider to be in my Top 8. I value their input and care about what’s going on in their lives, so they are always top of mind for me. That means at least four times a year they should hear from me.

I am a super old skool kind of girl, and I buy a dope box of assorted greeting cards and some stamps and keep them in my bag. This allows me to drop folks a card when I think about them or, if I had an amazing meeting with someone, to send them a card in the mail right before they forget about me (instead of sending them a generic email that might get lost in the shuffle).

I don’t like it when I hear from people only when they want something from me. It’s nice to get a “Hey, just checking in.…” I like to know how folks are doing too. There are people in my life I haven’t physically seen in years, but I let them know what’s going on with me, and because they still feel invested in me, when I need something they do it because they know I am not just using them! We have a real relationship that I took time to cultivate.

Get out of your own way. Women of color can no longer afford to hold onto the tagline “I am not this type of person or that kind of person.”

something you might consider doing is going out to networking events in your industry or an industry that intrigues you and taking one of your friends with you. That creates a little less pressure than if you show up alone. Make it a fun game with one of your friends. You each have to talk to someone new or exchange business information with at least three people. This will force you to work the room, not just stand and sip cocktails with your friend all night. Many of the people I meet at networking functions keep in touch with me on LinkedIn or other social media platforms. Social media makes life a little easier: I don’t have to give out my number to strangers. The last thing I will say about networking is this: I try to go to a networking event at least a couple of times a month. I find them online and show up. Often I go alone because all my friends are “busy.”

I don’t believe we should get comfortable and put a cap on our network. Industries are steadily changing, and you never know who might be able to help you down the road or whom you might be able to help.

Use professional organizations or conferences to help you get in the rooms with the people you want to meet.

Think through the next few months and start building out your internal and external networks. Think through who might make a good mentor and who you might be able to establish a relationship with that might one day become your sponsor. And don’t forget that relationship building happens on both sides. Don’t be a leech! Start creating, maintaining, and building today. Make Oprah proud!

knowing how to finesse the office politics will make or break your career. It’s crucial women of color understand how to overcome a rigged system so we can create seats.

The conscious and unconscious bias inflicted on women of color in the workplace factor directly into some of the decisions women of color have to make on whether or not they will “play the game” with hopes of advancement or disrupt the rules and change the way the game is played!

Our counterparts Sally and Becky will never know what it’s like to wake up in the morning and have to make the decision to bring their full black and brown glory to work or a modified version. They get the privilege of using Becky or Rebecca, and it won’t dictate the jobs they can apply for or make hiring managers uncomfortable. As women of color we check all the boxes and play all the games, not for a promised corner office or increase in salary; we do everything for the sheer chance of getting ahead. Women of color have a lot of burdens to bear just rolling out of bed; our names and hair shouldn’t be among them!

Unfortunately, in the beginning, some of us can’t show up at 9 a.m. unapologetically anything, without being met with opposition and ugly biases. My advice for women of color is to continue to knock it out the park when it comes to your performance at work, and then slowly show up in your full glory. With that said, don’t forget that as women we can also decide not to work for companies or organizations that focus on blowouts over braids. We can and should make decisions that we can individually be comfortable with. I can’t tell you what’s right or wrong for you—maybe you can’t stomach taking your time to show your full self at a company, or maybe you feel like you can change things from within. The choice will always be yours!

That is one form of office politics. It’s not always the most experienced or talented people who move ahead in their careers.

here are a few lessons that I have learned about office politics that have served me well: Don’t burn bridges. Jared’s situation is a textbook case of how not to treat people at work, because you never know when you might need them. From the janitor to the CEO, you don’t know who you might need down the road, and it pays not to be a jerk.

Don’t be the office gossip. Spilling the office tea is not your part-time job. People will kiki with you all day about some good office gossip, but trust me, nobody respects the office gossip, nobody.

Manage your behavior. Emotions run rampant in the office, and the key to navigating office politics is to manage your impulses. When you are interacting with colleagues with different backgrounds and personalities, from various departments, it’s easy to want to take on a fight-or-flight mentality. American psychologist Walter Cannon coined the term “fight or flight.” Essentially, an action triggers the release of hormones in your body that make you want to stay and fight over the situation or run away. And if you are a person of color at work, you have to learn very quickly to manage your impulses, or you would cuss somebody out seven out of the eight hours of the workday. I am not saying let people run over you, but what I am saying is, think first and then choose the best way to respond. There are so many battles that don’t require you to react. You are a big girl. Learn how to regulate your emotions, or you’re going to be reacting to every little thing, and if people see you as combative, that’s no bueno for your career.

Learning to manage office politics will make you a better leader and manager and help you preserve your sanity.

Remember to be strategic when aligning yourself with coworkers, and don’t forget that you have to make choices for yourself that you won’t need to spend tons of money on therapy to correct later down your career path.

I know the game is exhausting and we are tired of playing it, but we have to play it long enough for a takeover (smile)!

The empathy gap between white women and black and brown women is wider than ever.

At a young age, I had to learn not to take everything white women did to me personally, or I would probably have started therapy as a child.