Is LinkedIn different for women?

Several weeks ago I delivered LinkedIn Basics to the executives at an incentives company. I've been thinking about some of the similarities and differences in how the men and women were responding and the questions they were asking.

Both groups were very interested in using this tool in a more compelling way--

• Lots of questions and discussion on the best headlines and summaries
• How to conduct searches and research people
• Concerns about the etiquette and "rules"

It seemed that the women were much more interested in the connection aspects and the way this can be used to develop relationships and support each other. They seemed much more willing to open up their connections.

• Searching for commonalities in connections
• Sending personal messages
• Joining groups and participating
• Giving and receiving recommendations

The men seemed more interested in using it to create a personal advantage. They were reluctant to give up any information that might be used to take their business.

• Hiding their connections
• Hiding their identity when looking at people
• Finding other people's connections for a competitive edge

There was quite a bit of debate on how they would use LinkedIn moving forward. They are still in discussions even as they update their profiles. I am very much interested in where they end up.

I wonder if some of this might also be a generational issue as well. The most adamantly opposed to opening up and sharing were also the men who had been in business the longest. The younger crowd seemed more willing to open up. Maybe this is what experience will do to us - I hope not.

The old boys club

This morning over breakfast my dear friend shared a story of recent events that was so astounding it left me speechless (which is saying a lot).

They had finally found a highly qualified, proven, and experienced sales executive to join their team. The executive team convened to discuss the candidate. Oh BTW she happened to be a woman.

one guy's heated argument: we can't hire her! what will we do when we want to go play golf? this will totally mess up the team dynamics! 

CEO: do you hear what you are saying?

guy: but really, I am serious, this would really mess up the team and how we sell and what about when we want to go out drinking?

CEO: we are NOT having this conversation.

And this guy is in his early 40's.

I don't know if he ever did hear what he was saying. Or understood what it implied.

Makes me scared. and mad.

Do women take it too personally?

The last few weeks have been an emotional roller coaster. Moments of wild anticipation balanced by moments of utter dejection.

• My client doesn't call me; I think I must have done something wrong.
• I have a good meeting but then don't hear anything back; I am certain I must have said something disastrous.
• Everything is moving along brilliantly in a sales pursuit and then it goes silent; I agonize about everything I said and did that could have messed it up.

I have a tendency to assume that when things go wrong it must be something I did. I relive what happened and consider all sides of the situations... again and again... Is this a gender issue? If so, how much energy do we waste worrying about  and rehashing what is out of our control?

I want to continue learning and improving. But I wonder if we take it too far and we try to learn from experiences that are not learning grounds.

When it might be better to let it go and let things progress without the emotional energy tied to them.

I'm trying to relax and let things happen as they are supposed to happen. Everything always works out.

Competition and Collaboration

This weekend I saw "Easy A." I really enjoyed it - great lines, good acting, and just fun to watch. Made me wince as I remembered high school and the way we treated each other. When does this competition start among girls and why are we still dealing with it as adults? Or do we just move from the overt viciousness of high school to more sophisticated, covert competition as professionals?

I have wonderful relationships with my women colleagues. They are smart, talented, and great to work with. I enjoy working with them and we like to spend time together outside work too. But I have the luxury of picking my team and the people I work with. And I have often thought that having an exclusively female team might also have something to do with the dynamics.

Last weekend I listened to a group of women discuss how poorly their women leaders were dressed at a big-wig presentation and how distressed they were with the way they represented the company. I wondered if any of them had provided feedback with the women in question. It is disheartening to hear professional adult women speaking about their leaders in such a negative way.

Recently, we spent quite a bit of time coaching one of my recent women clients to have direct conversations and provide feedback when she repeatedly moved into speaking negatively about her women peers/leaders. It was a recurring pattern in this organization - quite a few women were in direct competition and were completely unsupportive of each other. The result was a lack of trust, cliques, and people "in" and people "out". A lot like high school.

I'm always surprised at the stories I hear about women who are reluctant to support other women, who are not pulling women along with them, or who are afraid of how it might look if they support women too much. And I love the stories of where it is working.

I have a friend who has repeatedly built strong and successful teams by promoting and coaching women. By putting them into stretch roles, giving them opportunities to fail, and consistently speaking positively about them. This happens to be a man. How can he be so good at this while so many women are lousy at it?

Networking tips

This morning's conversation with my daughter:

Amelia: Where are you going?

Me: Networking meeting

Amelia: What is neck working?

Me: It's a place to meet new people and make new friends.

Amelia: Why?

Me: It's important to have a lot of friends.

Amelia: Why?

Me: So that if you need help they can help you... and if they need help, you can help them.

Amelia: Ok. (whew)

So I reminded myself about why I was heading out the door at 7am (again, what is with these early meetings?). This is about building relationships so that I can help others and they can help me. A refreshing re-grounding.

Networking can feel intimidating and overwhelming so these are my tips to make it easier and usually more fun.

• Go with a friend if at all possible - strategize up front, separate to meet new people but stay in eye contact and rescue each other if needed. Don't linger with your friend - you still have to get out and meet people.
• Enter with purpose and head straight for the coffee - you can meet people while in line and commiserate about how early the meeting is. Use this to introduce yourself and get acquainted. And you have a reason to move on to meet someone else once you get your coffee.
• Leave everything except your business cards in your car trunk - you don't need to be carrying a purse or notebook (if you must take notes, put a tiny notebook in your pocket). You don't need your cell phone - it will only distract you.
• Don't claim your seat until most people are already moving toward their tables - this way you can get the lay of the land and find the right people to sit near. And don't sit down until the last minute - keep mingling.
• Only hand out your business card when there has been a solid connection and you want to follow up with the person. I see people handing out cards like crazy and I just think it is a bit cheesy. I like to think that it is more classy to have a reason to exchange cards.
• Eat before you go. There is no graceful way to mingle and talk while balancing your plate and cup and trying to eat and chew. And you can't sit down too early because then.. well really what is the point of coming?
• Keep moving. Don't get caught with one person too long. This is where your friend can come in handy - if you see her spending too long with one person, wave her over and introduce her to the person you are talking to. They you can move on.
• Go in with a positive attitude. On the way to the event, I like to think about possible best case scenarios - sometimes I meet a woman executive with a big budget who is about to launch a really big change and needs what I offer, and she is really funny and happens to have a couple of kids the same age as mine, and live in the same neighborhood, and it turns out that we know the same people. We really hit it off and immediately schedule a coffee date to talk about ways we can work together. - Wouldn't that be great? No reason it couldn't happen...

The goal is to mingle, meet people, and hopefully find a few people who you connect with - either they can help you or you can help them. Get these people's contact info and follow up. I think it is so nice to get a follow up email referencing something I said. Try to remember some personal story or something they told you so you can differentiate yourself.

Conflict Resolution

Last week I took a parenting class to learn how to help children resolve their conflicts.

conflict drama and trauma

• Have them sit down together.
• One child holds the "talking feather" and gets to talk about how they feel and what they want.
• The other child then holds the "talking feather" to respond and talk about what they are feeling. 
• Each child is asked to tell the other that they heard them and tell them what they heard them say.
• They are then asked to think of something to do to make the other child feel better. 
• No one can leave until the process is done.

While a bit time consuming - my girls always seem to breakdown when time is critical - it does work. I watched Amelia get KP a tissue and help her wipe her tears to make her feel better. I heard KP tell her sister that she was really sorry and would share better next time. It wasn't a perfunctory apology - she seemed to really mean it.

I think it is important that, as mothers, we teach our children respect and how to get along in an unfair world. And I'm watching with dismay how we resolve conflicts as grownups.

1. When some of our neighbors didn't agree with our community garden location, they showed up at the party and everyone started yelling and threatening each other. The children hid behind their parents and asked each other why the people were yelling.

2. Watching and listening to talk shows/interviews with their outrage and righteousness makes me angry - why do we want to be angry? why do we listen to people rant and yell and insult their guests?

3. I was at Target last weekend and watched two grown women start pushing each other and screaming because someone cut in line.

4. At my last book club, we started talking about politics and what had been a friendly discussion turned into a hostile, shrill argument with people talking over one another and no one listening.

5. Someone made a joke on our community yahoo group and several people posted their displeasure with it.

Our children are watching us and I'm getting embarrassed by what we show them. We need to stop being so hypocritical and follow our own rules. We need to step up as leaders and demonstrate to our children, our community, our employees, and our organization how to deal with conflict in a respectful way. We need to be clear about our expectations and follow through with actions.

• Don't say or do things that will hurt someone's feelings.
• Listen to the other person when they don't agree with you.
• Try to come up with a compromise (wow that would be great).
• It doesn't matter whose fault it is.
• Do something to make the other person feel better if you have done something to make them feel bad.
• You might not respect the other person but you need to show them respect.

I think we all need to lighten up a little bit, enjoy ourselves and others more, and try to be more curious about what is really going on. Get to know where the other person is coming from, give them space to really express themselves, and if it isn't really important... let it go.

Is our commitment holding us back?

Stephanie and I noticed that many of the successful and influential men we work with had developed important relationships while playing golf. OK that's obvious duh... but it got us thinking and talking.

Rather than trying to elbow our way into this arena (which frankly would be too embarrassing anyway), we thought about networking while doing things we like. Shopping. We both really like shopping. Shoe shopping in particular. We thought this would be a really fun way for women to get to know one another, build relationships, and get some new shoes too.

We started running it by some executive women (our target audience). Unanimously positive feedback - what's not to love about shoe shopping and noshing? But when we asked them if they would commit to attending...

"I can't take that much time off during the day"

"I can't leave my office for three hours during the day"

"you won't find any female executives who will go shopping during the day"

"I can't be associated with such a girly event" 

 .....

"...unless you maybe tie it to some sort of charity?"

So apparently we are still working in the 1950's. 

We will volunteer our time and energy for a good cause...but a fun event to network with other women executives, make connections, learn something, and even make contacts that could help us become better leaders... can't take time during the day to do that. 

Now I understand why most of my women networking events are at 7:30am. UGH.

We have such a strong and passionate commitment to our work, our teams, and our results. This is a wonderful characteristic and is what makes many women successful in getting into management. We will get things done. We will pick up the slack and make up for any weak areas. This is what works.

Unfortunately, without that same commitment to ourselves, we are missing opportunities to continue to grow and learn, to expand our careers, to create deeper and more meaningful professional relationships that can ultimately make work easier and more enjoyable.

friends conspiring (or collaborating)

• Networking is important - take time to get to know people outside your company
• Do things you like to do or are really interested in - life is short, don't waste it (Stephanie and I got to know each other when we took our kids to the zoo - we talked business the whole time)
• Sometimes it is hard to meet new people - smile and listen, and find the connections

I'm afraid we aren't taking care of ourselves - and we aren't finding our work fulfilling enough. Too many of us are burned out and irritable. Work (and life) is so much more fun when you have friends supporting you.

Atlanta's book of lists - where are the women?

Last night I was reviewing the Atlanta Book of Lists. While I was gathering information and creating my spreadsheet, suddenly, I realized that I was seeing page after page of white men. I couldn't resist the urge to start counting the faces. Here are the stats (note that I was only looking at pictures so I did make assumptions on the race).

• best places to work (large) - 2 women out of 10 execs (all white)
• best places to work (medium) - NO women out of 27 execs (all white)
• best places to work (small) - 7 women out of 29 execs (all white)
• fastest growing private companies - 5 women out of 26 execs(looks like there is one hispanic man in the mix)
• top 25 private companies - NO women out of 25 execs (all white)
• top 25 public companies - NO women out of 25 execs (all white)
• top 25 highest paid executives - top 24 are men, #25 is a woman

Now I don't want to jump to any conclusions here, but this seems a bit skewed to me.

my best friend Beth and me 1986

I remember when I was in college and we were so optimistic that there were women in front of us paving the way. We thought for sure that we would be right behind them breaking through and getting to the top. That was 25 years ago. This weekend I heard a group of young women explaining that the reason there were not more women yet in representative numbers in leadership roles was simply a pipeline issue. That was the same story I heard 25 years ago. Seriously.

sweet and happy 

What will I tell my daughters? Will they be hoping for another big pipeline influx? Will they encounter these same stats? I sure hope not.

Stephanie and I are launching an executive women's networking event next month. Our hope is to encourage women to help each other - through introductions and information. We want to see powerful women building new relationships.

Building a team - dealing with intimidation

I’m working with Elizabeth, a senior executive in Finance. She is responsible for completely reshaping the accounting organization – outsourcing, segmenting roles, restructuring, raising the skill level and expertise…

She is incredibly smart, funny, and professional. She also sees herself in a bigger role someday. She was surprised when she found out that people were intimidated and afraid of her. Even her direct reports were not willing to ask her questions or tell her what they were thinking.

Elizabeth took this personally. She worried about how to engage better, how to be less intimidating, what could be causing this. She swung between “I don’t care, I just need to get this done” to “what can I do to relate better with my employees”. She thought about situations where she might have said something differently, and other situations where she did something that seemed to engage people positively. 

This thinking was taking up a whole lot of energy that would be spent better on other things. And I realized that I hadn’t ever had this conversation with the men executives I had worked with.

• Women executives are more likely to deal with issues with intimidation because of the degree of power and authority they have. 
• Women have a need for a team to really collaborate with – people want to work with people we like and people we trust. 
• Women are more sensitive to how they are being perceived. And it is harder for us to separate the personal relationship from the professional relationship. It hurts our feelings when people don't like us or say mean things about us (and it really ticks us off).

So we spend a lot of time trying to be less intimidating, pulling our team together, and worrying about what people are saying and whether they like us or not. It is frankly quite exhausting.

• Get out there and talk to your “team”. Instead of staying in your head, take action. It’s your job as a leader to get your direct reports playing well together.
• Tell them what you want to achieve, share your stories. Find out who they are, what they really enjoy doing, what brings them to work each day.
• Talk about why you need them on the team. What do they do that you like?
• And most importantly, tell them what you like and don’t like. We tend to focus on the job and tasks at hand. Elizabeth needed to tell people her criteria: that she hated to be surprised about problems and concerns (hearing them in the hall drove her crazy) – she wanted people to tell her directly. She also liked well thought out options and ideas when people were presenting problems (people coming in to vent and complain irritated her). This helped people know what to do to build their credibility and relationship with her.
• Finally, if you have someone on your team who doesn't fit, make a change. I've seen women keep a person because of a skill/experience level but who was disrespectful and sabotaging their efforts. Is this making life better? easier?  

When we run into these challenges – rumors, intimidation, relationship-related issues – I’ve seen a tendency, especially with women, to hope it will all work out. To think if we keep plowing ahead, ignoring the problem, and making progress, the problems will somehow sort themselves out. But we can make our lives and our work so much more enjoyable by dealing with these challenges. Telling people what you expect helps. Getting to know them and sharing your own stories helps. 

Building relationships and trust takes time and it may mean we need to be uncomfortable for a while.

First impressions

This month our BiblioBabes reading group discussed “What Queen Esther Knew,” by Connie Glaser and Barbara Smalley. The story of Queen Esther – another violent and intriguing biblical tale -- used to share leadership lessons. The key points for me:

• Character, convictions, courage, and responsibility are the foundation for becoming a strong leader
• First impressions are critical – dress the part all the time
• Mentors are required – search them out and find people to help
• Play to your strengths
• Celebrate when you do something well

First impressions are what continue to come up for me this weekend. We spend so much time worrying about what we look like, what we are wearing, who is looking at us, what people are saying about us... that I am amazed that we are still reading entire chapters of books dedicated to how we dress and present ourselves. 

At my "other" book club Friday night, we spent a LOT of time discussing our looks and talking about how poorly a group of women partners presented themselves at big, influential event. Apparently, they all looked frumpy or slutty. And these were women in high powered positions who made a lot of money. Why are they not getting support to get themselves cleaned up? 

Meanwhile, I spent some time looking at the before and after airbrushing pictures of models/celebrities we see everyday. Shocking. Everyone should be looking at these pictures - and if you have daughters, make sure they are seeing what people really look like. Jezebel.com. I struggle with the messages we are getting and how this influences how we present ourselves.

I know it is all about confidence and presence. But seriously - it is also about being pretty and youthful. If you aren't attractive, you better have a GREAT personality and be double smart if you expect to keep up. I'm getting more and more discouraged. 

Character, values, and where the heck is this all going

I attended the monthly Turknett, Women in Leadership, event yesterday. Guido Sacchi, an old friend and colleague from Deloitte presented - great stuff as usual. Reminded me of the need to have some sort of compass as we travel through life. We talked about character and values.

'would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

'I don't much care where--' said Alice.

'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

'--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.

'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'

I know people (very intimidating - and frankly annoying) who always knew what they wanted to do when they grew up. I always freaked out (still do) when people ask me "so...what do you want to be when you grow up."

So if I don't have a "destination" am I destined to walk and walk? The more I think about it, that sounds OK to me. As long as the walk continues to take me to places that are interesting and rewarding. So there must be some criteria guiding me - the things that help me make decisions and determine the next move.

Makes me think about how I define myself and if I can really say who I am?

How can I be an effective leader if I am not clear about who I am and bring my whole, authentic self into my work? I think this is something women in particular want in their lives. The ones who get it right are so much more confident and interesting to work with.

The thrill of learning

Last month I watched my little girls head off to school. Each day they are so excited and eager -

KP: "Is today a school day?"
Me: "yes"
KP: "yay Yay YAY!!!"

They want to get in there and learn with all their heart. And they will work and work and work with a focus that astounds me.

Amelia, my older, is learning to be a leader. She holds Katie Paige's little hand and guides her sister off to her classroom before heading to her own. She is terribly proud of how "big" she is and how she can influence the little kids.

So I started wondering... when does the thrill of learning and leading turn into more mundane day-to-day work? Why is my "learning" today just another to-do that adds more activity and burden to an already crazy schedule? Why is it the last thing I get to at the end of the week? And why do I feel so guilty when it keeps showing up week after week as an unchecked item on my list...

• Read business book.
• Read leadership article.
• Attend networking event.
• Get on panel.
• Research ideas for next article.

I want to be excited everyday by all the new things that I might learn! How do I get that back?