Do you trust your instincts when they tell you to walk away?

Do you trust your instincts when they tell you to walk away?

By Michelle Meyer|2015-10-12T14:55:12-05:00October 12th, 2015|Blog|

This is my first post since May because the last few months have been so crazy-busy. I’ve essentially been working two jobs: First, continuing to pay the bills as a supply-chain management consultant, and second, getting a lot in place for Morf3D, the additive manufacturing business I’ve been developing with a business partner for the last two years.

So much was accomplished for Morf3D over the summer: Key agreements completed with equipment and service partners, a lease negotiated for a terrific new California location, and several major conferences attended to support business development.

Best of all, our new Chief Technical Officer found us. I’ve said from the very beginning that I wanted Morf3D to have a female CTO – and I must admit, I had doubts that we would ever find one. Then Melissa Orme sent us a letter telling us she wanted to join Morf3D. I couldn’t believe it! After years of hoping, here she is – and she is amazing.

Then, in late August, I walked away from it all.

An event occurred that caused a moment of complete clarity and absolute knowing for me – I’m out. There was actually a series of events that happened, all the previous ones of which I ignored, or reasoned away, or doubted my instincts. This one however, I chose not to ignore. I could not ignore that feeling of absolute knowing.

Have you ever had a moment like that, when you just know – no matter how it looks from the outside – that something isn’t right?

It might seem obvious to go with the option to avoid something that looks disappointing from the outside. Normally, to make things work, and do what would be expected, I can go into what a good friend of mine calls “Tetris mode” – I can spend my days constantly working to fit all the pieces together, trying to fix what I know in my heart cannot be fixed. This option can be quite seductive for me, since I’m really good at it. I know, because I have done it for decades. I know how to keep fitting pieces together. But I also know it’s a game that never ends.

That’s why, this time, I chose a different option. As soon as I knew clearly what was right for me, I chose to go with what I knew. And there was complete relief and calm in that. There was nothing to fix. I went with the option that works on the inside.

I invested a tremendous amount of personal, intellectual, and monetary capital in building Morf3D. And I got a great return for my investment: I met some of the industry’s leading executives. I learned a ton about a fascinating new industry. I met some terrific people I hope to come across again and pursue new ideas with in the future.

It just wasn’t going to work any more. So I chose happiness instead of what I knew was coming – that feeling of always having to make it work, make it right, when I knew it was wrong. That was going to leave me completely out of alignment and out of integrity with myself and with what I wanted Morf3D to represent. That, I couldn’t do.

It might seem unusual to walk away from my two years of effort. But I’m happy knowing it’s exactly the right thing to do.

I’m happy to be walking away. And I’m walking away to be happy.

7

Betwixt and Between

Betwixt and Between

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-22T19:55:22-05:00May 19th, 2015|Blog|

How do you get from where you are to where you want to be?

I’ve written a lot on this blog about the need for women to build new businesses – different kinds of businesses – if we hope to achieve a better balance in our workplaces and in our lives. But how does that happen? How do you live well in the world you have, even as you work to make a better one?

You live betwixt and between.

That’s what I’ve been doing. I spend my days moving between two worlds. First is what I have begun to call my “old world” – working independently to provide supply-chain management and large-program management consulting services, the way I’ve earned my living for a long time. Second is my “new world” – that of building Morf3D, a company of the type I’ve proposed women build in my GirlAuthentic blogs.

I’m spending 24-40 hours a week providing supply-chain and ERP implementation work, supporting a wonderful client I have worked with multiple times. I am also traveling and meeting with potential new partners and clients to help build Morf3D. It’s a common story you hear about many others who have started a new business: You use the current work to keep paying the bills and help fund the new business, “burning the candle at both ends.”

Living in both worlds leaves me feeling I’m not doing either very well. I am constantly working on one area while being asked to do something for the other, or thinking about the other. Some days it is exciting; other days it is exhausting.

And I’ve come to a conclusion: I just have to get comfortable with being in transition.

I know this will be part of the “story” of building Morf3D that I can share in the future with other women and men who I hope will also make the leap to build the kinds of companies we want to work in – companies that are involved in changing the world, in making our workplaces places we all want to be. But I also I have a feeling the anxiety, stress, and excitement of building Morf3D is going to be around for a while. So, I better figure out ways to be with it.

And that’s not easy! Prior to this level of activity with Morf3D, I felt I was pretty good at quieting my mind, being still, relaxing. Now, I realize I have a lot more to learn about how to do this. Stillness has been a struggle – at a time when I need it the most.

But I realize something else too: Building Morf3D feels right. This is our chance to build what we have said we wanted to see in this world in terms of the opportunities we want to create and the type of company we want to give people a chance to work for. This is just the beginning of this journey.

It might be a lifetime journey. Does anyone who is involved in building something new ever feel “done”? Or do they just get comfortable continually building, knowing they are never done? Are we here only for the finish line – or is “betwixt and between” exactly where we ought to be?

What do you think?

2

Is your workplace built on love – or fear? Here are 2 ways to tell.

Is your workplace built on love – or fear? Here are 2 ways to tell.

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-19T14:45:19-05:00July 17th, 2014|Blog, Women and the Workplace|

We are embedded in fear – more deeply than we realize, much of the time. It’s ingrained, so we don’t even realize it much of the time. It’s become part of our autopilot at work – and in life.

If you want to see whether you’re operating mostly out of fear or out of love, there are two places to look: the actions you take and the language you use.

Fear actions:

Monitoring people’s time at work (because you’re afraid they won’t work otherwise)
Not talking about whether the women are being paid the same as the men for the same job (because you’re afraid of retribution)
Tolerating abusive, bullying behavior (because you’re afraid of being labeled a “whiner”)
Continuing to work somewhere where you’re not happy (because you’re afraid of the unknown)

Love actions:

Allowing people to manage their own schedules (because you trust they want to do good work and will get their work done)
Paying women the same as the men without being asked/coerced (because it’s simply the right thing to do)
Enforcing the “No Asshole Rule” (because you love others)
Moving toward what feels good or right in your career (because you also love yourself)

You can see this fear-versus-love dichotomy in the actions we take all day long – or you can look for it in the words we use. How do you talk about competitors, colleagues, customers, and other institutions?

Fear language aligns us against others:
Win, Beat, Dominate, Crush, Annihilate, “War on…”, Adversary, Knockout, Attack, Closed, Control, Kill, Defeat, Faction, Enemy

Love language aligns us with others:
Trust, Serve, Join, Collaborate, Share, Open, Transform, Build, Give-and-Take, Care, Seek, Generosity, Allow, Build, Partner, Connection

As we focus on operating from love, not from fear, we can create environments that help and support us. We may not know exactly how that is going to look – which makes us afraid. But we can have the faith that we are being presented with everything we need at the moment – which is living in love.

I believe we can use these perspectives, behaviors, and language to create the companies and social structures we all want to operate in. What do you think?

4

Closing the Gap

Closing the Gap

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-19T14:45:46-05:00June 12th, 2014|Blog, Uncategorized|

“We’re minding the gap, but how do we close it?”

That’s the question the Women Donors Network asked recently. A lot has been written lately about all the gaps that exist for women – in business leadership, in political leadership, in the imbalance of how many hours of taking care of our families women still shoulder even if they are working full time… and I could go on.

In many ways, all this talk is a good thing. It shines a light on the current state of affairs and encourages the conversations. We can only create new things through ideas and conversations.

I just wish we were creating new things.

All sorts of changes have been suggested in the current conversations to close the leadership gap for women – but almost inevitably, our ideas are tied to changing the current structures and barriers. We’re talking about having women behave in a certain way to try and succeed in the current structures. We’re not really providing an alternative – for them, or for the men they work with.

Here’s your alternative: Stop playing the old game. Create a new one.

GirlAuthentic is about helping women create new structures. What would give women the wealth and power necessary to build new structures and eventually – maybe – change the old ones? Women building significant businesses. We can build Fortune 500 companies faster in the next 40 years than we can ever hope to change the current business and political structures in any significant way.

Why build businesses? Because building businesses is the fastest way to acquire wealth.

Why is wealth important? Because wealth creates power and the ability to create social impact.

We can close the gaps faster if we build the businesses to function in a balanced way, and control the money and the power. Stop playing the old game, and start creating a new one.

0

Step one: This conversation.

Step one: This conversation.

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-19T14:46:07-05:00May 13th, 2014|Blog|

Step one: This conversation.

A few weeks ago I had the honor of speaking at Penn State University’s wonderful “Powerful Women Paving the Way” conference. I love the conference name. I love that it was organized by a student organization, Women in Business. And I love that there was a diverse mixture of women and men both in the students and in the professionals and sponsoring organizations who attended.

But most of all, I love that conferences like this are the right first step. They are the conversation.

If we want a work environment where women can be authentic, we’re going to need to create that environment from scratch. That means more women building businesses – significant businesses.

It’s going to happen in three steps.

Conversation.
Conferences, discussions and interactions – even online, on websites like this one – are creating the possibility in many more women’s minds of building significant businesses (businesses that strive to be the Fortune 500 companies 40 years from now). I believe we can build these businesses faster than we can change the current corporate structures, which don’t really want to change. But first – we have to talk about it.

Creation.
The second step is development – generating ideas and building business plans. Now the conversation is ready for action.

Commitment.
The third step is about funding the launch of these new businesses. Women will have to put their money where their mouth is! We have money, but we are not oriented to putting it in to vehicles that will invest in women-led businesses – because there are very few today. We are going to have to create new investment structures too.

These three steps are what GirlAuthentic is about – being the platform for conversation, facilitating the development of ideas, and finding funding for the ideas and businesses that are ready.

It all starts with conversation. We need to be talking about women building significant businesses – women who are just coming out of school, and especially women who have two or three decades of experience under our belts. When they do they will create workplaces that are in balance for women – and for the men who seek that same balance, but have an even harder time asking for it!

We can make a different world together. But we start by imagining it together. We start in conversation.

0

I call it the Art of Coming and Going

I call it the Art of Coming and Going

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-19T14:47:07-05:00January 13th, 2014|Blog, Women and the Workplace|

I call it “coming and going.” I have set up one form of it for myself, and I have seen others with many variations on the theme.

What do I mean? I mean the ability to “come and go” from a job place, a company, a profession – even from work altogether. The ability to choose to work for periods of time, and NOT to work for periods of time.

Why do we have this notion that we are supposed to work at least 160 hours per month for 45 years? Tolkien said it best – “not all those who wander are lost.” People who “come and go” pick up all sorts of new experiences and perspectives. If they leave a work environment and choose to return, they do so with so much more to offer. So why do policies discourage this?

What if we simply stopped viewing “coming and going” as a bad thing?

I have. I was lucky enough to garner a set of skills and work experiences that let me work independently as a consultant – which means I choose who I work with, and when. I know many who’ve found similar ways to work. It’s a trend in many professions, in fact – from journalism to various areas of computer science. And, with new national health-care policies that mean your healthcare coverage doesn’t have to be tied to employment, I think we’ll see even more workers empowered to indulge their “wandering” side.

Many are beginning to talk and write about how we are all heading toward being “free agents.” Don’t miss the key word in that phrase – “free”. What if we could fashion careers, professions, jobs, and companies that helped more of us embrace this freedom? What if we operated in a way such that we knew people would want to “come” to a job or a profession for a while; “go” for a while; and perhaps come back? Whether that is to pursue personal interests, care for family, children, etc. – for both women AND men.

When that happens, we take our power back. I read a comment once that we had become lazy – most of us had traded our freedom to corporations in exchange for security. But we’ve learned that security was an illusion, and the price was often too high.

So how about reclaiming some freedom instead?

Your true job – and mine – is to be happy. But to do so, to feel good about what we are doing, we may have to take our power back. I choose what I do, and when, and with whom. That’s the kind of world I want to live in. That’s the kind of businesses I want to see us building.

How about you?

1

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

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

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

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?

0