PowerPoint, Paper Trails & the Holy Spirit
I got all stitched up inside — you know that feeling when you need to do something but every part of you wants to resist. Well, that happened to me: I got all stitched up inside, and my skin practically crawled every moment I put off action.
In case you missed Part One, I am sharing my story of how I accidentally learned that women were being compensated less than men at my multi-national technology employer.
Review the Details
As unemotionally as I could, I went through the facts I had and started putting them on paper. I wrote multiple drafts until I achieved a clinical documentation of my story on a screen.
Create a Visual
I had a customer in the UK who I would touch base with twice a month. His team was always too small for his workload, so all cylinders were always firing for him (security at a bank — you do the math). Over the course of our cadences, we became friendly, and he told me his secret: “Frankie, I always make put it on a PowerPoint slide because when people can see something they stop asking stupid questions.”
I got to work and made a visual illustration of the facts.
This is the slide I made (former employer name & logo redacted):
FILE NAME
Company Sales — Gender Compensation Inequality
I shared this slide as my justification for the conversation — a presentation of my findings. I had received two raises already during my 2.5+ years with The Company, so seeing the base salary offer to a young man still in undergrad caught my attention and obviously was a major red flag, especially as a young pregnant mother who had been advocating for an increase in salary for months.
Talk to an Outsider
I scheduled phone calls with multiple mentors, both within the company (no one on my direct team) and outside of it, too, and reviewed the details and asked these types of questions:
Am I seeing this correctly?
If you were I, what would you advise me to do?
What are questions that I should be asking?
What else should I know?
Have you experienced anything like this before in your career?
“All roads lead to Rome,” and all calls led to scheduling that next meeting with my sales manager.
Create a Paper Trail
A significant piece of advice I was given during my “Talk to an Outsider” mission was to create a paper trail — document everything in emails so that both parties can see clearly what and how I am documenting.
“Be your own lawyer” is often what I tell others when learning to advocate for oneself, so with that in mind I approached my own situation forensically. At the time, I did not fully understand the importance of documentation in corporate America (unfortunately, I really did have to prepare for worst case scenarios — especially on my Government Affairs team), but I will share more on that in future publications.
Be Strong and Courageous
Accidentally uncovering that men were being paid more than women in sales at my company was not on the list of accomplishments I was hoping to have that quarter. Instead, I had been focusing on selling my software catalogue, growing on my financial services banking team, and fighting constant pregnancy nausea.
Amidst weekly traveling, throwing up in more airports than I would like to remember, and hustling on back-to-back calls, I had just closed one of the largest software deals in the company and earned the most prestigious sales award for being a top .01% seller in the company.
“Be strong and courageous.” Joshua 1:9
I do not last very long when I get all stitched up inside because over the years I have learned that this feeling I am describing is not guilt, pressure or religion. This specifically is how I often experience the conviction of the Holy Spirit when He is clearly directing me to act.
When I wrestle with God, I usually find my place — I am wrestling with the Creator of the entire universe who not only loves me, knows what is best for me, fathers me, and has good plans for me (Jeremiah 29), so it really is my desire to submit to Him and His ways.
Being courageous and strong in this scenario meant aligning myself with God’s view of women, “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), and choosing to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God” (Micah 6:8).
So, I sent the meeting invite and started paving my paper trail…
I want to hear your thoughts
Have you ever discovered a workplace in equity? Share your experience below in the comments or subscribe to the Manuscript and receive more stories on negotiation, confrontation, and advocacy.
Onward,
Frankie