by Suzanne Doyle-Morris  (Read about her here.)

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Today, we’re going to talk about one of the most important skills a professional woman can have—the ability to read budgets and be fluent in figures—to take her career to the next level. As we all know, in organizations money talks. Knowing how to show the amounts you save or generate for your organization is a fantastic way to raise your profile.

When I wrote Beyond the Boys’ Club, initially some of the women I interviewed said they hadn’t always seen the political value of presenting these figures in the best light, and sometimes had to learn through trial and error. Angela Mohtashemi, a director at PwC, learned that presenting her budget figures in the right way determined how much she was given to spend on an ongoing basis. It also established her credibility. She learned through developing a strong and much-needed relationship with the finance manager. She explained to me, “The first year I was here, I didn’t understand how focused they would be on the numbers and I didn’t take it seriously enough. I thought if we performed well, the numbers would take care of themselves. My team consistently achieved, but the numbers were not representative of all we had accomplished. The finance manager began to explain to me some of the basics—like why it was better to have a larger number appear in a certain box than in another box, for example—and how important it was for a department to bill small pieces of internal work as well.”

Angela continued, “Or even making simple changes as to which day we billed a client, so that the credit showed for one month and not the next. Small changes made our numbers—the same output we already had—suddenly appear much stronger. What I didn’t realize was that many of my peers were getting that type of support; I just hadn’t known to ask for it.”

The informal training also worked well for the finance team, as they had received criticism that they didn’t communicate their services well enough internally. This gave them valuable practice and helped make others aware of what they could do for specific departments. Similarly, another woman I interviewed, Mary Hensher, head of IT at Deloitte, found the need to move out of always being in the IT department, an area in which she could have become marginalized because of its distinction from the main fee-earning areas of the global firm. She knew she needed to spread her wings and build relationships in other areas. Similarly to Angela, she got the wider-ranging contacts she needed initially by presenting budgets—one of the most important things she could learn to do in an accountancy firm. She said, “If you spend all your time in the IT data centre, you are not going to get to talk to the people who are your customers. You have to put a real effort into being recognizable. I don’t walk around with a screwdriver or a spanner, because there are others who can do that, others who are fundamental to the organization. You shouldn’t have the head of IT doing that.”

Learning to present your best numbers is especially important for women who are not in direct profit-and-loss roles. Most board memberships are given to executives with direct profit-and-loss experience in operational roles. This is problematic for many women who may want to progress to board level positions but work in marketing, HR, or even finance, which are less likely to have many directors visible and reporting to the board. Many women do not know that this type of experience is a virtually unspoken prerequisite to board membership. Some women may unwittingly hinder their careers by eschewing these types of responsibilities or not directly requesting this type of experience early on in their careers.

So, make sure you get comfortable with the language of budgets and spreadsheets so you can use them to your team’s advantage.

Listen to today’s podcast here.

Be sure to visit our site, WomensMedia to get Expert Advice for Business Women.

Or on our website, WomensMedia you should read:

Business Women Can Play in the Boys’ Club or

Budgeting: The “B” Word

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here.

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Women in Business.

Beware of some advice. Many people will tell you to deliver a criticism in Sandwich Style. That’s the: Start with a compliment, give the criticism, end with a compliment. I say, “Wait a minute, that may not be a great idea for many women, especially for a woman who’s dreading delivering a criticism.” She may be so uncomfortable with the situation that she lays on the top slice, the beginning positive comment, so heavy it’s like a piece of bread overslathered with mayo, it grabs your attention.

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Listen to How To Get Motivated

Listen to Salary Negotiation: How To Ask For A Raise

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Finally, and dramatically, public perception has changed!

Five years ago, anyone could say, “ A woman or an African American man cannot be elected President,” and it would be assumed to be true. Now, even though Hillary Clinton did not win, we can picture either type of candidate having a viable chance in the future. Imagine the change: Race or gender no longer eliminates you from becoming President of the United States!

This perception is percolating down into our business world with the outstanding performance of a number of female CEO’s. We have seen that a woman can successfully grow a small company into a major player, such as Meg Whitman did with eBay. She formed a fledgling Internet idea into a company with revenue of 8.46 billion dollars a year. She now has her eye on another arena—politics.

The Rules are Changing

You no longer have to dress like a man or act like a man to reach upper management—the level that was forbidden by the glass ceiling. You can act in a style that’s comfortable to you as long as you show others they can have confidence in you. My Tip of the Week shows you how to do this.

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

I’m not going to try to guess what type of project you’re wrestling with. Do you have more than one? You probably do. Today, I’ll talk about a way to organize—and simplify—a project that doesn’t involve managing other employees. The Group Project will be covered as another topic.

Think of 1 project you want to do. What if I said to you, “Right now, write a list of what needs to be done to perform this project beautifully?”  Would you sit in front of your computer with your fingers paralyzed, perched over the keys? If so, you may have the Perfectionist’s Dilemma—you may be expecting to see a neat, perfectly arranged document appearing on your screen. Don’t worry—in this case, you’re normal.

Wouldn’t you feel better if I directed you to type up a very rough draft of what needs to be done? And I’d promise that no one else will be able to look at it. Is the paralysis gone?  And wouldn’t all this be more doable if I gave you Five Easy Steps to follow? Good! Here are the Five Easy Steps.

Be sure to visit our website, www.WomensMedia.com, for Expert Advice for Working Women.

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

If you’re a working woman, chances are you want to be a success in your job and you want to

be a success with your family and your friends, and you want some time for yourself as well. Talk about a full bucket!

Well, there’s only so much time available in that bucket—we aren’t allowed to make it bigger. So the quantity of tasks we put into this bucket each day is limited. You know you could easily fill it tomorrow with any 1 of these categories:

• Job
• Family
• Friends
• Yourself

First, you need to know what works best for other working women. Our audience members at www.WomensMedia.com have tested our ideas and have saluted the one I’m about to tell you. Most of these women have agreed with us that they’re near a computer and would like to use it for their lists. We agree. This does make it nice and easy—and it looks good too! Aesthetics are important. Well, actions are too.

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

First, admit that you are indeed procrastinating on a task or project.

Get out your To Do List. Take a look at each item and ask yourself, “Am I procrastinating on this? Maybe just a little bit?” If so, put a “P” in front of it and go to the next item. Now, look at your list. Do you have a “P” in front of items that should be of high priority? That’s bad, admit it. Don’t beat yourself up too much. You’re beginning a reframing process and you’ll be better after you put into action my Tip of the Week.

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

We women know that we’re different from men, but (and here come the disclaimers), make no mistake, we’re not all alike!  And some men are very good with so-called feminine traits, such as emotional sensitivity and multitasking, among others.  And as I said in a previous podcast, a big part of why we’re different might be attributed to pressures other than genetics.

As for the current business world, it’s been structured in a manner that’s most comfortable for men. And the men have done a good job. Thank you! But the business world is changing:  Women are trying to fit in and other economies are coming into play with creative ideas. Our current business climate needs to weather the storm—with flexibility, cultural and emotional sensitivity, and speed. This is a perfect fit if business decides to make it easy to assimilate the traits—or talents, as I like to say—women have to offer. Here are the talents most often attributed to women.

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

In my blog posting, Work-Life Balance —Creating Boundaries For You To Follow, I talked about the priorities you have in your career and your personal life and the boundaries that you will follow. Today I’ll discuss the boundaries you can put in place for your fellow workers to follow. Now, won’t that be nice!

(Listen to it here.)

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OK, so we can run on a treadmill, while reading our email . . . and talk on the phone at the same time. And if we see someone—at the edge of our peripheral vision—about to do something dangerous, we can take action. Somehow women evolved with a heightened ability to juggle attention.

As Martha Stewart might ask, “Is this a Good Thing?”  My answer is, “Not always.”  The American Psychological Association reports that new studies reveal the hidden costs of multitasking. There is a time loss when switching from one task to another, and the amount of time increases with the complexity of the task. If one of those tasks is fairly new, your time loss is much greater when you’re multitasking. See how you can reduce the multitasking time loss.

(Listen to it here.)

Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

Comprehensive management studies are showing women outscoring men in many categories. Of course, my first questions are: Which categories? And why hasn’t this translated into the top two tiers of management?