The Guilt Volcano: Why Women Need Women Mentors

 

Guilt: Only one of the many reason why women need women mentors

I picked up Alison Pearson’s book “I don’t know how she does it “, the other day, (half price at St. Pancras), which I had read years ago. In 2011, somewhat incredulously the main protagonist, a Yorkshire lass, turned London Hedge Fund Manager, has been transmuted by Hollywood into a role played by Sarah Jessica Parker, in a movie by the same name, which I have yet to see, but stretches the imagination somewhat.

All that aside, this novel depicts really well, the daily angst that most professional women with kids go through. Although hilarious in places, there are details that most of us who have any career aspirations can relate to. I had great employers when my kids were young, who were incredibly supportive.They were ahead of the game in terms of facilities for working mothers, even setting up remote access via a modem, which in those days was the size of a small building block.

But I too, have made a client presentation with baby vomit on the back of my business suit. I have looked into the wide eyes of my toddlers as I have left them to go to the office. I have deflected the raised eyebrow “oh..not again” looks, as I explain that my son has been in yet another accident requiring emergency treatment. I almost qualified for validated parking at the local hospital; such was the regularity of the visits. Don’t worry he made it to adulthood!

Career hard hat area

And this is only a tiny cross-section of the debris that falls upon the heads and shoulders of the working mother which starts off as plumes of hot air, but swiftly turns into ash clouds, rocks, and eventually molten lava spewing out of the guilt volcano to engulf them. What happens then? Well many, if they can afford to, opt out, but many can’t and hard choices are made within couples. If the mother is a single parent then the balancing act is even more fragile.

For many women this is the professional danger zone. The career hard hat area.

New initiatives

Many HR policies focus on the practical aspects of encouraging women to return to work which is clearly operationally necessary. But I was heartened to read that organisations such as Accenture, Asda (which has recently launched a Mum2Mum Programme) Goldman Sachs, Citi-Bank, Sky and others, are beginning to introduce mentoring programmes for expectant mothers, matched with more senior women, who are also mothers.

Unfortunately, these initiatives quite often stop within a year. What I would like to see is an extension of these programmes so that women mentor each other through this entire critical phase in life (which is indeed only a phase) which can last longer. This will contribute to stemming the leak in the female talent pipeline.

Women look for mentors generally amongst their peers, very often in the same situation as they are. The dearth of female senior managers can make it challenging for many to find one within their own organisations. Unhappily, it can be as difficult to persuade women to mentor other women; in the way it might be difficult to persuade the UK to enter the Euro, or Obama to mentor Palin.

Women need to mentor each other

But women need to start supporting each other at critical times. More senior women have to lose the ” Suck it up, I did it the hard way” attitude, or worse still, convey a message that not having a family is the only route to corporate success, sometimes failing to encourage junior women or even worse still (is that possible?)blocking them all together.

Women, men and organisations, should all be looking for new ways forward without the necessity of harsh compromises, where all parties are the ultimate losers.

3Plus is holding a Career Booster and Mini-Mentoring Event in New York on October 13th at the Starlight Loft, Roger Smith Hotel, 501 Lexington, New York from 1800-20.30. CLICK HERE to register. Join us and have a great opportunity to seek career advice and mentoring from a panel of international business women. Also win a Personal Branding Package (value $1500) including a professional business photo taken on the night!

 

3Plus International Mentoring Program for Women

In November, 3Plus begins a six month pilot mentoring program for women. Six mentees will be matched with independent mentors noted for their impressive professional achievements and who have completed the 3Plus mentor training and certification program. If you would like to be considered for participation as a mentee in the pilot program, please complete the application form by clicking here. The form will appear below. Mentees will be selected and informed of application decisions at the end of October.

You can read about one of 3Plus International’s mentors by clicking here.

What is expected of mentees?

• Identify goals or issues you want to address
• Participate in a 90 minute webinar on mentoring
• Establish and live up to agreement with your mentor about:

How often you meet, at least once a month for 1 – 1.5 hours
Length of engagement (3-6 months)
Roles and responsibilities
Mutual expectations
Assignments in between meetings

• Maintain a diary/log about your experience
• Provide feedback by way of a survey and/or an interview with a member of 3Plus International at the end of the pilot
• Agree to share your feedback publicly as determined by 3Plus International

This may include writing a post to be published on 3Plus International website

• Read Getting the Mentoring Equation Right on Whitney Johnson’s blog Dare to Dream. While we do not ascribe to the specific contract as written, we do expect you to respect the mentor’s gift to you and value the mentoring relationship in the manner described.

 

Powerful women: Leading with compassion

The Golden Rule and Leadership

We’ve all heard the biblical commandment “Love your neighbor as yourself”. Most of us concentrate on the love your neighbor part rather than loving yourself. I often speculate that this may be the problem underlying all the chaos in our world today. If you can’t love yourself – really love yourself, and acknowledge and accept all that you are – it is unlikely that you can really love other people either.

We as humans have a need to be cared for, and to care for others. We crave love and human companionship and, for the most part, we enjoy caring for others. My observation, however, is that our culture has trained us to rebuke ourselves for our shortcomings, and for not reaching the pinnacle of our perceived capability. This training has led to a nation full of highly stressed people who suffer from a confusion of self-hatred, anxiety, fear, feelings of failure, incompetence, vulnerability and a deep yearning for control.

Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong says in her book, “The Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life”, that “the Golden Rule requires self-knowledge; it asks that we use our own feelings as a guide to our behavior with others”. The irony of that is if we treat ourselves harshly, we are likely to treat others in the same manner. How can we, as powerful women, work to create this deep, inner knowing of who we are?  How can we help others as they seek to do the same?

Compassion is a deep acceptance of the wholeness of who we are, knowing that we are worthy, we are human, and we are capable of transforming the world as we know it.  This takes a huge amount of courage. In the words of the Dalai Lama, this act of “radical reorientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self” will allow you to give yourself compassion for being who you are, every day. You are then able to look outside your own world and reach your hand out to others in love, empathy and compassion.

Powerful combination

When we combine compassion with leadership, we step into the world in a powerful way. We lead and teach at the same time, helping those around us to feel worthy, to step into their humanity, and to ground themselves in who they are. They, in turn, lead others. This is the way back to the world we would like to see, where we care for others, and are cared for.

Georgia Feiste, President of Collaborative Transitions Coaching, Inc., located in Lincoln, NE, is a personal growth and leadership coach, writer, and workshop facilitator. She is also a Usui Reiki Master and EFT practitioner.  Her passion is success grounded in purpose and passion, standards of integrity and priorities in life. You can also find Georgia on her website, Collaborative Transitions, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Georgia may also be reached at (402) 304-1902 if you wish to schedule a 30 minute complementary consultation.

Just for Fun

 

Liza Donnelly is a staff cartoonist for The New Yorker Magazine and author of fifteen books.

Her new book is When Do They Serve The Wine: The Fun, Folly and Flexibility of Being a Woman (Chronicle).

You can visit Liza at her website and at her blog.

Career Clinic: Keywords

Hi Dorothy –  I’m just about to update my resume and have been hearing about keywords. What are they and where should I use them?  Gerri, Tampa, FL

Hi Gerri – Today it is estimated that over 80% of jobs are not advertised and that 85% of recruiters and search specialists source candidates via  keyword searches on professional  and social platforms or search engines. Even if you send your CV to a corporate connection it will probably be uploaded onto a HR data base and pulled out using similar keyword searches via an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)  So it has become increasingly important to effectively use keywords to raise your SEO ranking and to drive traffic to your profile. Now you don’t so much look for a job as make sure you are found. You need to make sure your resume or LinkedIn profile comes to the top of the pile by relevant keyword selection and usage.

Skill section

Keywords should be placed into the body of your profile, preferably incorporated into actual sentences rather than strung together as a list. The skills section of your LinkedIn profile ranks higher in search results where  you can add up to 50 skills, most of which will be keywords. I would even say adding a shorter skill section  (maybe 10 or 12)  to your resume would be fine too.

Key words should be appropriate to, and drawn from,  your background and experience which might include: professional descriptions ( e.g. market development, supply chain management,  project management, etc)  languages,   academic and professional qualifications,  soft skills ( e.g. oral and written communication,  negotiation,  conflict management, team management etc ) Embed these throughout your CV.

Metrics

LinkedIn obligingly offer metrics on your home page so that you can monitor your results. Don’t be afraid to play around with them to decide which keywords generate the best results. Have fun and use Wordle.net  as I did to check out a visual impact.  It’s also important to stay flexible and change those words as required

Good luck!

African American Woman Leaders: The Mammy Archetype

I possess a curiosity about African American women leaders partially because I claim to be one and partially because I want to understand the complexities and/or challenges in becoming one. My goal, while searching for a dissertation topic, was to uncover the traits that build African American leaders of South Carolina. I was hoping that I learned could translate what I learned to a greater understanding of African American women leaders in general. I was not very successful in identifying the traits, but I did learn a few things.

The first thing I learned is that that social identity, the way we identity ourselves as either individuals or groups influences our behaviors. Okay, what does that mean exactly?  It means that how we see ourselves at work determines our actions and those actions maybe in direct conflict to how we see ourselves at home. This conflict may create stress. It means that an African American woman leader may seem unwilling to obtain a leadership role out of fear of antagonizing and alienating her mate or others in her culture.

If the woman is the leader, what does that say about her husband or significant other? Or more importantly, why should it say anything about her partner? Because, it appears that socialization and stereotypes still run rampant and many believe that leadership traits are masculine and therefore women should not be leaders.

Some women attempt to bridge this gap by emulating the Mammy archetype role.

Culture, socialization, and stereotyping have an influential impact in the way women in leadership positions are treated.

What challenges have you faced that may have been based on culture or stereotyping? How did you overcome them? What advice would you give others?

Doretha Walker is an adjunct instructor at the Art Institute of Charleston, frequent guest columnist in the Post & Courier, marathoner, triathlete, PhD candidate, and writer of the blog We Can Fly. You can also visit her website and follow her on Twitter @dorethawalker.

EDITORIAL: What do you get if you fish in a goldfish bowl?

Right goldfish!

Expanding the talent pipeline. Start fishing in the talent ocean!

Why quotas aren’t wrong

In a recent article, for the Harvard Business Review, Nilofer Merchant came out with all guns blazing. Not that board quotas are ill advised or badly thought out, no, they are simply wrong.

Now, notwithstanding that sensationalist headlining might play a role here, it does seem a tad extreme and I will tell you why! She cites 4 main reasons for this statement which bother me :

Quotas signal tokenism. Anyone who remembers equal pay and anti – discrimination legislation in the 70s could tell Nilofer, that the successful women did indeed have to endure comments about tokenism and needed to be twice as good as their male counterparts to succeed. Some organisations would have been more than happy to carry on paying one demographic less than another, because it saved them money. It is the efforts of women involved in those initiatives (I was one myself) who had to cope with ” she was only hired because she was a woman” comments, but successfully dealing with that snide sub-text has paved the way for women today to achieve professional success. So no, quotas simply signal the making of a forcible dent in an outdated business model, because a high number of organisations refuse to respond voluntarily. Change has historically been resisted by many in all fields, until it is absolutely necessary – so a gentle shove is well needed.

Groups don’t change dynamics until they decide to change their dynamics.” If change is imposed from external pressures, groups simply find a way around the new rules.” For sure this is what we are seeing , resistance to change. Why? Because life is cozy at the top and Nilofer is part of that club now! And good luck to her too! But with an effective selection process involving creative players outside the current business model thinking, there is no reason why this should happen more than it does now. There are all sorts of shenanigans going on in many organisations to avoid what is required, desirable or even legal. We have a wealth of superb female talent out there. There is no reason to hire men in skirts.

Quotas don’t necessarily increase the right kind of diversity. It’s possible to improve the gender ratio of boards without improving the diversity of the conversation. I’m sure this could be true. However, it is incumbent on women who have already achieved these senior level positions to direct changes in the conversations,  to avoid maintaing that party line. It is also about the search process itself,  which should involve both creative thinkers and women, going beyond ” copy paste selection“,  which simply taps into the same old talent pool. Many organisations prefer this route because it’s easier and more comfortable.  But after all, if you fish in a goldfish bowl you are only going to get one kind of fish.

Quotas de-emphasize qualifications. I think this depends on how we define qualifications. We are pre-conditioned to look at a certain prescribed type of background and experience and any search or talent management specialist will tell you,  that profiles can often be significantly inflated. We are constantly being told to “think out of the box”, well perhaps the box needs to be bigger or even changed and now is the time to be creative and innovative. Does failure to innovate suggest a leadership lacking in vision? 60% of graduates are women – how can they be under qualified?

Agreement

One area where I do agree with Nilofer, is that creating a gender balanced talent pipeline starts way downstream with strategic career planning and development from the outset, so that women get the right kind of experience, especially outside sectors and functions which are becoming increasingly feminised. It’s not just about bumping women onto boards willy-nilly. But to do that successfully, we need to get out of the goldfish bowl and start fishing in the talent ocean, where there is real and diverse choice and to mentor women at critical points in their careers.

And women themselves have to take charge of their own careers and move out of their comfort zones. Inroads are being made into organisational systems, but only they can make the complete breakthrough.

Do you pay into the favour bank?

Too junior for strategic networking?

An intern in one of our offices recently sent an email round, explaining that she would like to learn how to network and that she is looking for some good advice. She said she finds it difficult as a graduate to get in touch with senior people, as she thinks she has nothing to bring to the table and doesn’t know how to approach people. Which made me think: Why is networking so difficult? Do universities prepare their students for the business world reality – or do only certain departments teach the art of relationship building to their students? It struck me that people working in financial services, and graduates of finance or business related subjects, are particularly good at valuing the importance of networking, and the value of building your own profile. Is this because they understand the transaction business better than other students? Or because they realise that they have to build their own brand, and have to go out there and “sell themselves”?

Have you heard of the Favour Bank?

I asked the intern whether she had heard of the notion of the favour bank. It’s a very common principle in the US, treating networking like any other business transaction. It means that when someone helps you out or does you a favour, you pay the favour back at some point, if you don’t want to lose that person as a valuable link in your network. This could be by connecting the person to someone in your network, or by sending that person an interesting article or other piece of information that is relevant to them. Staying in touch while it doesn’t matter, and showing a genuine interest in that person’s professional work, makes it that much easier to contact them when it does matter – and this is particularly relevant to graduates and other job seekers.

Join the party early on

Now she might think that she doesn’t have anything to put to the table, but that is not true. Networking is a long term investment, and identifying high potentials at an early stage of their career pays off for every senior networker. Again, in financial services they do this very proactively: connecting with young talent at industry events, career fairs, networking evenings, “women’s bond clubs”, the university’s careers service, after work drinks, or through post-grad internships. Being well connected at the beginning of the career can make the first step onto the career ladder so much easier, and can avoid the career pitfall “from student to taxi driver”. So if you are a grad student, make sure you get out there, build your profile and help some senior people out – if you pay into the favour bank, it will pay you back!

by Imke Schuller

Imke Schuller is Senior Creative Innovations Manager at BrainJuicer Group, based in London. She has extensive experience in front end of innovation work for major fmcg clients. Alongside, she is a keen networker and an advocate of discovering and nurturing fresh talent.

Work/life balance now taught at business school

Business School changes curriculum

The Wharton School is teaching increased integration of careers and personal lives to future leaders?

No way.

Yes way.

Management professor Stewart D. Friedman teaches that leadership potentially exists in everyone, no matter his or her job level, and extends to all aspects of their personal life.

What a breath of fresh air.

A concept of 24/7 leadership that I can embrace.

Core Values And Leadership

My heart (and brain) sings at the thought of some business schools teaching that core values:

• ought to permeate a person’s life
• need to be aligned in all actions at work, at play, at home, in one’s community
• are parts of leadership and we all can be leaders no matter what are job.

This viewpoint isn’t original. I taught workshops in the late 1980s and early 1990s based on Stephen R. Covey’s books The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle-Centered Leadership.

But, I think the precepts are being embraced at a different level than they were previously.

Why Teach Them Now? What Changed?

First, business schools are integrating courses like Friedman’s into their curriculum. During the course, students talk about the importance relationships to their lives.  Relationships. Not just business theory. Not just business processes.

Second, the importance of core values and relationships are being taught as more than concepts. They are being identified and discussed through experiential learning exercises and supported outside the classroom and after graduation with networking groups, alumni coaches and mentors.

Third, the business climate is ready for it. They’re ready because as Allan R. Cohen, the dean of Babson College’s graduate business school says “We have seen a lot of unethical leadership, and all of a sudden devoting your career to just making money isn’t looking so attractive. So different kinds of courses become more interesting.”

All these points are valid.

I also believe the change in emphasis related to leadership is marked by a different attitude, overall, of the younger generations – Gen Y and the millennials. They don’t accept that career takes automatic precedence over family and personal life. With the new workforce having different ideas about the number of hours one should be expected to work and how employees should be treated while on the job, businesses are forced to change.

Couple that with more women in the workforce who, for the most part, have different attitudes about the importance of relationships and collaboration.  They recognize their value to productivity and success.

Just ask the women of 3 Plus International.

by Cherry Woodburn

Cherry is owner of Borderless Thinking LLC, a paradigm shifter, welcoming a world of possibilities, Speaker on Women’s Issues. Connect with Cherry on Twitter.

What Works for Working Mothers

Indra K. Nooyi, accomplished mom and CEO of PepsiCo, spoke at the BlogHer ’11 conference last month in San Diego.

I nearly ran to the session.

What could this mother of two children, a woman who came to the United States with $50 in her pocket, and became the overseer of brands like Tropicana and Pepsi and leader to 300,000 employees, teach other working mothers about solving the work life balance dilemma?

Maybe Nooyi would answer the working mothers career riddle, something I craved as I sat thousands of miles from home. I was there both as a professional and as a working mother.  While the “professional me” was excited to connect with women writers while on assignment, the “mom me” was guilt ridden.

Mom, Follow Your Dreams

Days before I boarded the 737 to San Diego, my son asked me to quit my job so I didn’t have to travel.

I explained his suggestion was not plausible for many reasons. Chief among them: I enjoy my work. Still, I was torn.

Nooyi told the BlogHer crowd she knows the feeling.

The question of work/life balance is both agonizing and genuine, she said.

“We all play so many roles…It’s not easy.”

She recalled how she missed Mother’s Morning Coffee at her daughter’s school several times.

Her daughter would remind her of the slight.

Nooyi asked her daughter if she wanted her to quit and stay home but her daughter did not answer as she assumed she would.

She told her mother to follow her dreams.

“I have never forgotten that answer,” Nooyi said.

Nooyi’s hope for other working mother types is that the blogosphere will become a support system to share ideas on this issue.

Solving the Work-Life Riddle

So what does work for working mothers?

Here are some suggestions:

• Erin Tierney, an international sales and marketing executive based in Massachusetts and just back from Rome, uses Facebook and Skype internet video calls to keep in touch while relying on a strong family support system. “When I am away I will Skype home and be able to see and speak with my daughter. This past trip I also uploaded photos on to Facebook so my parents could show her where I was and what I was doing/seeing.”
• Career strategist Jacqui Barrett Poindexter, based in Texas, encourages clients, many of whom are working mothers, to delegate and to let go of things that can wait or that others can do for you. One client, for example, chooses to outsource certain personal and professional responsibilities like marketing communications or house cleaning so she can spend real, unfettered time with her kids, Barrett Poindexter said.

“She still steers the ship of decisions behind articulating her personal value proposition and delivering on her business commitments, but she also entrusts business partners to return to her chunks of time and energy to take care of her primary priorities of family.”

What works for you?

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