I am a huge fan of Grey’s Anatomy….just love the show. My friends point out the medical misses, but I love the show for its strong women characters who are smart, competitive, and just cool.

One episode which made me laugh was when the new heart surgeon Maggie tells the younger intern that she needs to know when to “bring the thunder” because she’s young and pretty. Basically, how to stand up for yourself and make the argument.

This is when you’re going to lose it a little because you believe in your heart and soul you are right. When every cell is telling you that someone is making the wrong decision. You’re going to bring the thunder.

Now, you can’t bring the thunder all the time. But if you never bring the thunder, what does that say about you?

Remember Jeremy Lin? Back in 2014, he made everyone sit up and take notice as the first American-Taiwanese player for the NBA, and he played for the NY Knicks.

Watch his incredible tiebreaking 3 pointer with less than a second to go.

His coach said: “You just watch and you’re in awe. He held it until five tenths of a second left. He was pretty confident that ball was going in, no rebounds , no nothing.”

But what he said, which I loved was “When you win, that solves a lot of problems.”

That’s true at work too. I recently presented to a group of folks who were struggling: they were relatively new, they were getting projects dumped on them, they felt people didn’t understand their value proposition.  The advice I gave them was: “Define what it means to win, and then go after it.”

Defining winning is the most important thing you can do as a leader. People want a win that’s authentic. No one is motivated by the “everyone gets a trophy” approach. Wain Kellum, CEO of Vocalocity has a great quote…”true happiness, especially in a work sense, comes from earned achievement.”

Winning is the best morale booster and retainer of talent around. Make sure you know what it means to win.

If anyone ever says, “I don’t know what women want in the workplace”, here is a succinct list of five things (according to a Center for Talent Innovation 2014 report on women and ambition): Continue reading →