Friday reflection
What is your "platform," anyway?
Closeup of a shoe with a high platform, that someone is wearing
If you follow Mighty Forces on LinkedIn, you saw my post earlier this week about Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh using her platform “on purpose,” as I like to say. I’m going to quickly recap here and then get into an invitation to recognize the platform available to you.
Recap
Screenshot of the article Michelle Yeoh wrote for the New York Times, showing a picture of her next to a picture of a woman refugee holding a child in her arms
Yeoh wrote a guest essay for the New York Times the day after she won the Oscar for Best Actress; in it, she said,
“If I can do one thing with this moment of my professional joy, it would be to point the spotlight on those who all too often go unacknowledged, the women who are rebuilding their communities, taking care of children and older people and putting food on the table. Let’s make sure they are not missing from the room when decisions are being made that affect them the most."
- Michelle Yeoh
Yeoh’s essay is a perfect example of why I call on all women leaders to build a platform on purpose —so that we can aim the spotlight where we choose, and get more of our sisters into the rooms where decisions are being made.
But this begs the question: What exactly is your platform, anyway?
Recognizing your platform
The word “platform” can be unclear. For some people, it connotes digital reach — how many followers you have. Others might think of it in terms of a candidate’s platform — a description of your beliefs.
For me, our platform, as women, is an array of qualities and resources that we can leverage to influence other people. And in my experience, many women are not fully aware of the platform they already have, which makes it challenging to use that platform in intentional ways, for their own sake and/or the sake of other women. Specifically, our privilege, position, and network, or community, are core elements of our platforms. Let’s take those one at a time… consider:
Your privilege: The more privilege you have, the easier it is to get corporate media interested in what you experience and what you have to say, even if you don’t have a big fancy title or work for a company that’s a household name. To overlook this is to overlook the structural inequities of our society and, in turn, to overlook your responsibility to those with less privilege.
Your position: The more elevated your role inside of an organization, the more access you have to that organization’s platform. I see far too many people who confuse work at a big-name company for power (“I work at Company X, therefore I must be important/ successful”), and yet, if you don’t actually leveraging that power in a strategic or constructive way, it’s actually just an illusion of power. Great, you work for (insert big name here); harsh truth: they could fire you tomorrow. So ask yourself, today: How are you using your access to their platform and the doors their brand will open not only for your own benefit but also for the benefit of women everywhere?
Your network or community: The people you know are part of your platform. It doesn’t matter if they’re someone you know from work, a neighbor, or a friend from college. If someone likes and/or respects you enough that, if you told them it was very important to you that they sign a petition or boycott a certain brand, they would — or, at least, they’d consider it strongly — then that is a form of power. …And yes, your online presence factors in, here: How many people do you reach on LinkedIn or Instagram? How many people read your newsletter? The quality of your connections matters, because if someone follows you but doesn’t really like or respect you all that much, they’re not going to be very influenced by what you share; at the same time, quantity also matters, because if you ever want to get the attention of traditional gatekeepers (publishers, conference organizers), your close relationships with 10 people will likely be less compelling to them than the fact that 10,000 people read your newsletter.
This last point trips people up: “I don’t have 10,000 followers and I never will, so I don’t have a platform, and I could never reach that number, so I might as well never even try to have a platform…right?”
Wrong. The people you know are a platform, and if you “only” know 10 people, maybe it’ll be harder to get a book published, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have influence within that group of 10. And if those 10 people each know 10 people… you see where I’m going. And if one of those 10 people knows someone who knows someone who actually controls dollars or other resources that could be reallocated based on something you said or shared…. do you see?
We’re so interconnected that every relationship is part of our platform, and even if it’s not with someone “fancy,” even if it’s not on social media for all the world to see.
So when I say to use your platform on purpose, what I mean is: Take stock of your privilege, your position, and your network / community. Focus on what IS there, not what isn’t; if you want more followers or subscribers, great, work towards that (sharing your ideas and experiences more consistently and authentically will help), but don’t overlook the platform you already have. And be intentional about how you use your platform: What information you share, whose stories you amplify.
Together, we are using our platforms to shape the world.
You are a mighty force -
Amanda