Stuck at Mid-Level And Eager to Climb

With all that extra time, she purposefully carves out blocks to build relationships in other departments and integrate work between departments. And with that, she recently formed a sort of partnership between her team and an e-commerce team to test online marketing strategies. In the past, each department would have worked on a similar project, but separately.

"We weren't sharing with each other what we were doing," Behrens said. "Now we're making sure we're getting insights from each other."

Christine Dingivan, vice president of clinical research and operations at MedImmune Inc., realized her sticking point was that she had little knowledge about how to communicate. "I'm a surgeon by training, so I'm not used to being diplomatic," she said.

At first skeptical, she now loves the term "sticky floor." "It really does explain what I've experienced. You're not really artificially limited as much as folks believe."

Dingivan now realizes her old way of communicating was more like demanding. And the way she communicated was never adapted to her audience. So sometimes a good idea might have evaporated into the ether because her approach rubbed someone the wrong way.

Now, she has learned, it's the little things that are important: saying hello to people in the hallway, for instance. "I was intimidating, and I didn't think of myself in that way. I didn't realize they did," she said.

But she also learned that she didn't have to stop expressing her strong opinions (of which she has many). Rather, she needed to use them in a more productive way.

It worked.

At a large meeting not too long ago, she disagreed with something a senior person in the organization was recommending. The person became "rather obnoxious" about his stance, and it made everyone in the room uncomfortable. She noticed people were looking to her to take control.

Previously, she would have fought back in the same way he was fighting, and it probably wouldn't have ended the way she wanted. But instead, she was able to calm the situation and put the meeting back on track.

The reward came later: Two people who worked for her said, "That's why we like to work for you." It impressed them that Dingivan didn't sink to the other person's level. Now she feels that by being more approachable, her employees will rally behind her and want to do their best.

"Everyone likes to respect and be proud of the people they work for," she said. "You don't want to come to work when you work for a jerk."

Once she realized that, and how she could change things, she was able to unstick her feet from the floor. She was just promoted for the second time in three years.

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