Gender

A podcast with Leaders of Transformation

By |2016-03-11T09:50:49-06:00November 20th, 2015|Blog|

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I met Nicole Jansen from Leaders of Transformation at a Small Satellite Conference. Nicole interviews successful Leaders of Transformation to help you gain the inspiration, education, resources, and leadership skills to transform your life and the world around you. I was thrilled with the opportunity to meet with her and talk about bringing forth the feminine in the workplace. It’s podcast #28 on her site. 

[button colour=”accent” type=”squarearrow” size=”large” link=”http://leadersoftransformation.com/podcast-2/” target=”_blank”]Head over to Nicole’s site to listen![/button]

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A podcast with CoActive Dreams

By |2015-05-21T15:10:27-05:00May 21st, 2015|Blog|

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I’m in a busy season right now, but not too busy to sit down for a few minutes with Cherrie McKenzie from CoActive Dreams. Cherrie blogs to help individuals or corporate professionals succeed at the intersection of career, self and family. She contacted me after she read a comment I posted on the NY Times website, and wanted to learn more about women building new structures in business. I was thrilled to spend some time with her and help cast the vision for women paving the way to create a better balance in the workplace for everyone.

[button colour=”accent” type=”squarearrow” size=”large” link=”http://www.coactivedreams.com/are-women-approaching-the-workplace-all-wrong/” target=”_blank”]Head over to the post on Cherrie’s site to listen now![/button]

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What the world needs now is more wealthy women

By |2015-05-19T14:43:14-05:00March 13th, 2015|Blog|

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What do Silicon Valley, the Catholic Church and the nation of Germany all have in common? If the articles I’m reading lately are any guide, the answer is an under-representation of women in leadership.

Germany has taken the strongest action this month, actually passing a law a few weeks ago requiring its major firms to allot at least 30% of the seats on non-executive boards to women. The same can’t be said about Silicon Valley, where a recent gender discrimination lawsuit is shining a light on a longstanding tradition of VC firms not including women in leadership (or funding them, for that matter). Meanwhile, the Catholic Church – despite some nice commentary from the Pope – may be the most entrenched organization of all. It’s unlikely to change its stance on women in leadership for centuries.

This matters. We need more visible women in leadership – because balance at work begets balance in life.

We will all experience more balance in our families, our social structures, our communities, our businesses when we first learn as individuals to value a balance of the masculine and feminine. We’ll learn that individual balance when we value and include women in every pursuit.

And we’ll value women more, when they have more wealth.

You read that right! Women having wealth is good for all of us. It changes social structures for the better. Women having wealth changes…

  • How our families operate
  • How we spend money
  • How our children are educated
  • Our business policies
  • Our political policies and approaches

There is a lot of resistance to change in most of our current corporate and political (and family and social) structures. More and more women are attaining leadership at Fortune 500 companies, for example – but the pace is far too slow. At our current rate of progress, we’ll reach parity – 250 female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies – in 411 years. I’m not that patient.

Putting more wealth in the hands of women brings the change we want. So how do we have women have wealth quickly?

  • Encourage them to start businesses – the willingness to trade creates prosperity
  • Encourage these businesses to focus on the long-term and the greater good
  • Encourage these businesses to seek a balance of the masculine and feminine – these will look, feel, and operate differently from what many of us know today
  • Match these business ideas with funding – from other women

Am I saying that wealth is the only way we can measure whether women are valued?  No. But it is a wonderful leveler of the playing field. Money knows no gender – some peoples’ money even has pictures of women on it.  Imagine that.

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Bye-bye to the Long-Hours Culture

By |2015-05-19T14:43:59-05:00December 11th, 2014|Blog|

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The title above was the subtitle of a recent article by Lucy Kellaway, a columnist for the Financial Times. This full-page piece ran in the Business section of “The World in 2015,” by The Economist. I was so excited to see a global periodical dedicate a full page of commentary to changing attitudes on work hours.

Why? Because women have been leading the way on this issue for years – but it’s not actually a women’s issue.

Kellaway says it will soon be “cool” for executives to put a stop to unhealthy work habits and start working more efficiently between 9 and 5. Her piece describes the future like this: “Holidays will be holidays. The out-of-office email will no longer be followed by a reply from the ski-slopes. A spare jacket will no longer be needed on the back of the office chair, as going home will be all the rage. To get your work done by a reasonable hour will not be a sign that you are a slacker, but that you are working efficiently.”

I’ll take it! And Kellaway isn’t alone – there has been a lot of writing this year about how we need to adjust the culture that rewards workaholic behavior. I think the conversation starts by asking “why”: Why should taking time off work (for anything – children, sabbaticals, taking care of a sick parent, simply taking a break, whatever it may be) mean you automatically get dinged in terms of salary or promotions? Why do we assume that if you forego those activities you deserve higher pay or an earlier promotion? That simply reinforces a workaholic reward culture – or worse, it actually rewards a person for being less productive and less efficient with their time.

Of course, this piece was published in The Economist – a European periodical. Our friends across the ocean have been leading the way for a long time on healthier attitudes toward work. European workers take more vacation and work more reasonable hours than their American counterparts. How flabbergasting for us that they still manage to have global economies!

It isn’t just Europeans leading this conversation – it’s women. We’re lucky in a way – because this has mostly been framed as a gender issue or a women’s issue in the past, we’ve gotten to frame the conversation, ask the questions, and create something new.

What’s the something new? The idea that this is not a gender issue after all. This is a labor issue. Many men are looking for as much freedom from the old behaviors as women are – women have just been more vocal about it thus far. But this isn’t a “women’s issue” – it’s a human issue.

I love conversations like these, because they help us create a better future. But I still believe it’s going to take a long time to actually change the culture of unhealthy work habits – and I’m impatient.

That’s why, over and over at GirlAuthentic, we’re proposing a shortcut. Instead of waiting for the old businesses to change, we need to be about creating new businesses with healthier cultures that will bring sanity for those who want it.

Who’s going to create those businesses? Women, we need you to lead the way again.

 

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It Was the First Time There Was a Line

By |2015-05-19T14:41:51-05:00October 12th, 2014|Blog, Women and the Workplace|

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I was going to have to wait in line to use the restroom. And I couldn’t have been happier.

I’ve been attending my profession’s annual global conference since I was a junior in college in 1987 (I’ll let you do the math). There was often a line for the men’s room, but never for the women’s room. It was, we used to joke, one of the perks of attending our profession’s conference as a woman. You could get into the bathroom any time, no waiting. There just weren’t that many women in our industry.

And then, this year, it was different. I walked in to the restroom – and there was a line!  I was a bit taken aback. I had been so used to attending the conference, and there never being a line. Another woman and I just stood there looking at each other, realizing we were sharing the same thought.

This was terrific!

That moment, we knew, represented a turning point. It’s something I am proud of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) for helping to make happen in our field. And it didn’t happen by mistake.

I was lucky – I was part of the first wave of women who benefited from my profession’s efforts to create opportunities for women. And it did take specific efforts! Over the years, CSCMP has worked tirelessly to help advance women in our profession. So have many great companies. So have the terrific universities and professors that are educating the next generation of Supply Chain Management professionals.

What did they do? They started by having the right conversations and asking the right questions. What can we do? How do we attract more women? How do we support them? They do research to show whether women truly are advancing in the field, and they actively seek out women to interest them in their profession, their university programs, their companies, and the terrific jobs this field provides.

Contrast this with the International Manufacturing and Technology Show I attended with one of my business partners a few weeks earlier in Chicago. There were more than 113,000 attendees at the conference. But twice during the four days we were there, I found I was the ONLY person in the women’s restroom. (It was sort of spooky, really.)

Two professions – very different gender balance.

There is tremendous opportunity today for women – in both supply chain management and in manufacturing technologies. We may have made more progress in supply chain management today, but we can do the same in manufacturing tomorrow. We’ll do it the way we do anything in the professional world. We’ll work at it. We’ll make an effort.  And, women can lead the way by building these companies of the future.

I can’t wait to wait in more lines.

 

 

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Three reasons “leaning in” won’t work for women

By |2015-05-19T14:47:36-05:00December 12th, 2013|Blog, Persevering, Women and the Workplace, Women Leaving a Legacy|

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Since I started GirlAuthentic, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about Sheryl Sandberg’s book and ongoing conversation “Lean In.” Sandberg is the COO of Facebook and one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World; her book is loaded with advice on how women can achieve their goals and realize their leadership potential.

I tell people her advice is fine – if you’re satisfied with what’s behind Door Number One.

If your goal is to become a female senior executive in one of today’s corporate structures – a statistical long shot, by the way – then Sandberg is for you. I have 3 problems with the “Lean In” conversation:

 

It’s a gender-based conversation. 

“Lean In” is a discussion on how women can conform in order to excel in today’s masculine environment – a corporate world built by men, for men. What we need is a discussion on the absence of the feminine and how to bring it forth and have it be valued in the workplace.

 

It’s not news to a lot of us.

What Sandberg doesn’t seem to understand is that a lot of women have spent a couple of decades saying NO to what’s been expected and what she’s proposing. We’ve taken a good look at what’s behind Door Number One. And our response has been, “You want me to “lean in” to that?! No way!”

This rejection of the status quo is sometimes couched as women being “less ambitious.” It’s the opposite. Many women are MORE ambitious than men. We have been quietly building a new model of “having it all” – a whole and complete life, with time for our families or personal interests, for personal well-being, AND for a fulfilling professional experience.

If Door Number One means giving that up, let’s see what’s behind Door Number Two.

 

It doesn’t work.

For the majority of women, “leaning in” won’t work – and we have the data to prove it.

In 2011, Catalyst published a study called “The Myth of the Ideal Worker: Does Doing All the Right Things Really Get Women Ahead?” Their study included a hefty list of the “right things” to do to get ahead at work – what Sandberg calls “Leaning In” today. You can read the list on page six of the full report – it includes some obvious things like “develop a career plan” and some zingers like “communicate willingness to work long hours and weekends.”

But here’s the kicker: Catalyst found that while using these strategies worked great for men, it didn’t have the same payoff for women. Women who did the “right things” were more likely to get ahead than women who didn’t (barely). But men were still more likely to find success – “right things” or not.

So in answering the study question “Does Doing All the Right Things Really Get Women Ahead,” the answer was a resounding “no.” The problem isn’t women. We don’t just need to try harder or conform more. Leaning in won’t be enough.

We need a different world to lean into – a world that works for women and for men.

That’s going to mean more women building their own businesses, businesses where the culture is different. That’s what it means to look behind Door Number Two.

I’m ready to open that door. How about you?

 

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We See What We See

By |2015-05-19T14:48:12-05:00November 12th, 2013|Blog|

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Look at the Girl Authentic logo above. What is it?

We see what we see. Until last week, every person I asked told me they saw a man’s tie first. That’s what I saw first, too. Moments later, I also saw a woman’s dress.

Some people never see the dress until I point it out. Did you?

We see what we see. We are conditioned to see a certain way – by our media, by our historical structures, by our societal structures. If most of us see a tie first, I believe that indicates something specific about our cultural norms. We see what we see every day. We see what we are told. We see what, historically, we are used to seeing. It’s what we are conditioned to see.

Guess what? Conditioning can change.

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the historically high rates of young girls enrolling in forensic science programs at school. It’s being attributed to the strong, powerful, female roles in various forensic science programs like “CSI”, “Bones” and “Crossing Jordan.” We see it in art and media – then we see it in real life.

See Jane, the programming arm of the Geena Davis Institute, has done the research to show what we actually see in the media. The numbers are not particularly stellar – the percentage of women shown in professional roles in television and film is disproportionately low. But it’s creating a deeper discussion about having more television shows and movies that portray women as computer scientists, engineers, and in other professional roles we don’t see a lot of yet. A change in what we see on the screen could mean a change in what we see in real life.  The art often comes first.

I’m ready to see that. Are you?

 

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