Resilience Strategies—Time Perspective

Full Disclosure. This is a resilience strategy that I do not like and I do not like to use it. For the record, I am not a patient person. I was born in the fast-food generation, and I want it now, thank you very much. And if I don’t get it now, I get discouraged, downtrodden, and depressed. Seriously. I am not good at waiting. And I don’t do it patiently. But I also recognize that in many cases, the situation is out of our control. Really?!? Control again??? But I like to think I’m in control of everything!!! That’s right, sometimes we do our best, but there are other factors we can’t control. There is no alternative but to be patient. Ugh.

Friendly reminder, what happens when we fail? If it’s me, I automatically jump to the conclusion that it’s my fault and I’ve done something wrong. And that may be true. But it may also be true that the failure really had nothing to do with me and my abilities. It is possible there were circumstances beyond my control (ugh, control again) that influenced the outcome I was so heavily invested in. In these cases, patience is the best strategy.

In 1995, I completed my doctoral dissertation on women and relationship selling—the primary sales tactic used in business-to-business sales at that time. The premise of my work was that if corporations wanted to build relationships with their customers to increase sales, they needed to look at hiring women. I proposed the idea that women were naturals at building relationships and would be excellent salespeople. Keep in mind, this was 1995. At that time, there were virtually no women in outside sales. Just 10 years earlier, I wrote in my MBA notes that women cannot be in sales because they can’t travel. Don’t ask me to explain that one. I just wrote down what I was taught.

As you might guess, my dissertation research went absolutely nowhere. Nada. I barely got one publication from the data. No one was interested in hearing that women might be different from men and have unique skills that would benefit them in top sales positions. At that time, equal meant the same and my research suggested that women might have an advantage in certain situations. I was told by journal editors and sales executives—all men, I might add—that I couldn’t say that maybe, just maybe, women had innate skills that might make them especially good at relationship sales—because men and women were the same. It was unfair to say that women might have an advantage over men in some aspects of selling. Grateful I didn’t get burned at the stake for heresy, I gave up on researching women and sales, and instead turned to topics with a greater chance of getting published and getting tenure.

Fast forward to 2023 where businesses are desperately trying to diversify their sales force, especially in terms of hiring women. All of a sudden, my research and focus on the unique set of skills that women bring to the sales process are in high demand. The insights that I discovered years ago when researching my dissertation, instead of being ignored, are now valued. Corporations seek my advice and pursue my women sales students for lucrative sales positions.

What changed? Circumstances beyond my control. My passion for getting women into upwardly mobile, predominately male, industries like B2B sales has not changed. But society has changed and, thirty years later, my work is finally getting recognition.

My students find a patience strategy especially useful when applying for jobs. For business students, landing that first job out of college is serious business. In addition to the first job, students are also searching for internships and co-ops so the job search starts early in their college career. Students get interviews and call backs from companies and are sure they got the job. And sometimes they do. But sometimes they don’t, and in many cases, a reason for the rejection is not offered.

Like most of us, the first thing students think is that they’re not good enough or they did something wrong. And after talking with them, practicing interview skills, and reviewing their resumes, in some rare cases, that is true. The failure was their fault, they fix their mistake, and go back out on the job market. But in most cases, the job rejection has nothing to do with them and their abilities. There are a multitude of factors that come into hiring—especially after final interviews have taken place—and most of them are out of the applicant’s control. I keep reminding students that getting a job is like dating; it has to be a fit for both parties. But the hurt and disappointment when not receiving an offer that you thought was eminent is painful. Even if you can rationalize that it wasn’t “a fit,” it still hurts.

In one resilience paper, a woman wrote about her job search process at her dream company. She met the company recruiters at a career fair, aced a telephone interview, and was flown to company headquarters for the final round of interviews. She thought the job was hers. She did well in the final interviews and assumed an offer was eminent. But the offer never came. And when the rejection letter finally arrived weeks later, she was heartbroken and started blaming herself and beating herself up for not being good enough.

Thank goodness she remembered this strategy. The reality is that she had no idea why she didn’t receive the offer. It could be that the position funding was pulled, there was a hiring freeze, or the president’s nephew applied for the job. In fact, there are any number of reasons why, after a good interview, a job offer didn’t materialize. In this case, she decided to be patient. She knew her resume was solid and that she interviewed well. She had confidence that if she was patient and kept applying for jobs, she would eventually get an offer. And she did. And it was an even better opportunity than the one that rejected her.

The key to staying patient is remaining active while waiting. Once again, I am not a patient person, so as my father would say, “don’t do as I do, do as I say” but even for someone as impatient as me, staying active while waiting helps. Girlfriend, I have wasted way too many hours waiting for the phone to ring with the man—or in the case of junior high, boy—of my dreams to call. Enough waiting. Stay active while you wait patiently.

After students report their excitement about a promising job interview and a potential offer in process, I remind them to send thank you notes and keep applying for jobs. Keep yourself busy while you wait. While waiting for people to understand the value of my work on women in sales, I kept busy researching other areas. While students are waiting for a job offer, they stay busy applying for other opportunities.

Perhaps, even if you did everything right, it just wasn’t the right time. Your prediction was accurate, but your colleagues were slow to see your vision. The interview went great, but HR is taking its time processing the approval. Sometimes you must wait patiently for the outcome, confident that you did what you could.