Debra Condren, PhD is the author of a great new book entitled “Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word.” The self-described goal of the book is to act as a “woman’s guide to earning her worth and achieving her dreams.” The book is based upon many interviews with career-oriented women, as well as Dr. Condren’s experience as a business psychologist, executive coach, and career advisor.

One of the central ideas in this book is its philosophical stance regarding the topic of ambition. Today most successful women shy away from calling themselves ambitious, for fear of being labeled as the “b” word. There is good reason for this since, historically, ambitious women have been viewed as evil and unfeminine, e.g., Hillary Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martha Stewart. In an effort to not be villified for their ambition, most women have not only stopped calling themselves “ambitious,” but have decided that ambition in and of itself is wrong and immoral. This creates an inconsistency for many successful women who clearly have an ambitious drive to succeed, but at the same time believe that ambition is unethical.

This book argues that it is now time  to make peace with this historically loaded word, “ambition,” and learn to accept it with open arms.  Why do we hate this word so much? What image does it invoke in us? According to MSN Encarta’s dictionary, being ambitious simply means that “you have a strong desire for success.” Being ambitious doesn’t mean that you will become a sadistic monster who will hurt anyone who gets in your way.  Rather, ambition is an extraordinarly useful human drive that can give rise to extraordinary achievements. It is no coincidence that the most prolific and notable scientists we have met, including several nobel laureates, have also been extraordinarily ambitious people. If we don’t learn to use and cultivate our ambition, we are throwing away one of our most useful tools for achieving success.

In addition to the philosophical aspect of the book, Dr. Condren offers a multitude of practical tips for being successful, from learning to confront coworkers that sabotage your work to getting paid what you are worth. One important lesson we learned from reading this book was the importance of taking credit for our ideas. Something that we have observed in the lab environment many times is the propensity of people to not credit ideas properly. Here’s an example:

Let’s say that you give someone an idea for how to get their chemistry to work- perhaps you know a better route to a synthetic target, have an idea of a better reagent to use, or know a technical trick to use at the lab bench. Let’s say your advice solved the problem, but the person you helped fails to credit you for your valuable input in front of the boss, implying that it was all their doing. Do you just let this person get away with this? No. Using as much tact and humor as possible, you need to let your boss know that you were instrumental in solving that problem. You don’t need to make a huge show of it, but you could just say something in front of the boss like “I am glad that the synthetic route I suggested to you seems to have worked well.” If you never take credit for your contributions how will your boss know that you deserve a raise, promotion, or authorship on a scientific paper?

Dr. Condren’s book is full of real-world examples that serve to instruct the reader on both the right and the wrong way to handle obstacles, along with the outcomes of the approaches taken. Although many of the examples are in the context of a traditional business office, the problems are the same as those encountered in the laboratory and in academia. We recommend this book to any feminist chemist who has ever been faced with obstacles in her workplace that she didn’t know how to handle, or who simply wants to prepare ahead of time for the inevitable.