Please Sit Over There: How To Manage Power, Overcome Exclusion, and Succeed as a Black Woman at Work

by Francine Parham

Overview

The key to your career advancement is understanding how power works—who has it, where it hides, and how it’s used. Please Sit Over There teaches Black women the career skills they need to navigate an uneven playing field and achieve long-lasting professional success.

Black women continuously navigate systems that were never intended for them while playing by a set of rules they never agreed to or were ever trained for.

In this book, Francine Parham shares her knowledge as a Black woman and a former global executive of two major corporations on how to move up in the workplace while maintaining a sense of sanity. The key skill—one that Black women are rarely taught—is understanding the power dynamics within your organization and learning how to “shift the power” to your advantage. Parham shows how to use your voice, strategically build the right relationships, and support others once you have achieved a powerful position—tools any woman can use to increase her power and ensure a successful, fulfilling career.

Parham says Black women are already empowered; there is no shortage of qualified professional Black women in the talent pipeline. But it does not feel empowering when organizations force Black women to work every day to overcome biases, discriminatory institutional practices, and unwritten rules of power at play that hinder their career development and professional advancement.

Please Sit Over There honors the painstaking work being undertaken to deconstruct broken institutions and demonstrates how Black women can achieve their goals while those institutions still exist—effectively opening doors for all women of color.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781523001521
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	08/09/2022
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	516,875
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Francine Parham is the founder and CEO of Francine Parham & Co, a company focused on women’s leadership and the advancement of women and women of color in the workplace. She has held the position of global vice president for General Electric and Johnson & Johnson, and she currently serves as a senior fellow for the Human Capital Center at the Conference Board, a global think tank. Parham is a frequent public speaker, and she has been recognized as a women’s leadership and career advancement expert by the Women’s Media Center.

Table of Contents

Preface My Message to Black Professional Women vii

Introduction 1

Part 1 Where Power Comes From, Really

Chapter 1 Please Sit Over There 11

Chapter 2 What You Need to Know about Power 23

Part 2 Your Voice, Your Choice

Chapter 3 Stop Cleaning Up the Room 37

Chapter 4 What Is This Job Really Preparing Me For? 47

Chapter 5 To Be or Not to Be Authentic 61

Part 3 The Relationships That Will Make Power Work for You

Chapter 6 It's Never Too Early to Build a Network 75

Chapter 7 Who's Pounding on the Table for You, Francine? 91

Chapter 8 Place Her on the Flip Chart Over There 105

Chapter 9 At the Table, but Not Really 115

Chapter 10 Bullied, Backstabbed, and Boxed In 127

Chapter 11 Your Soul Is Not for Sale 139

Conclusion The Secret to Your Own Power 147

Afterword The Leader's Role in Helping Black Women 155

Discussion Guide 163

Acknowledgments 169

Index 173

About the Author 177

About Francine Parham & Co. 179

Editorial Reviews

Black women can’t afford to wait around for broken systems to be fixed. Francine Parham knows what it takes to gain influence and fight for inclusion in an unfair world, and in this book she shares her extensive experience and practical advice on how to overcome intersectional barriers and biases.”
—Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife

“Through personal anecdotes and lived experiences as a Black woman, Francine teaches us the importance of power, how to obtain it, harness it, and use it to your advantage—from the receptionist to the CEO and, most importantly, from within yourself. A must-read for women wanting to advance in their career.”
—Lisa Kaplowitz, Executive Director, Rutgers Center for Women in Business

“Parham helps set the table in Please Sit Over There to remind Black women they belong at every table and, most importantly, how to recognize when it’s time to find a new one.”
—Minda Harts, bestselling author of The Memo

“This book is a wonderful coach for any new careerist. At the same time, it is also a coach for those with long careers who want to get savvy about how to manage and continue to grow their careers. A great job by someone who has not only thought long and hard about these issues but has truly lived them and learned!”
—Bev Kaye, EdD, coauthor of Up Is Not the Only Way, Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go, and Love ’Em or Lose ’Em

“A must-read for all. Rarely do I come across books on careers that give a practical and close look at what happens behind the scenes. Power as a topic is so important and so difficult to capture from a nuance perspective. Francine has done a great job of sharing her experience and teasing out the nuance.”
—Pavan Bhatia, founder of the social impact venture GenWe and former Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, PepsiCo

“Packed with wisdom, insights, and practical advice, this book is a powerful and essential read for every Black woman—and all women of color—on how to navigate their corporate careers and achieve success in the workplace.”
—Aparna Ramaswamy, angel investor and Board Member, American India Foundation

From the Publisher