Sharing your story - making connections

This week we facilitated a session to jump start the relationship between a new leader and her team. As part of this exercise, we spend time with the team talking about their leader and gathering constructive feedback.

We had a situation where a woman leader was managing a team of nearly all women.

While there was strong consensus that this person is a leader in her field, a role model, and someone to learn from...

She was reserved and quiet... 

We heard what I felt to be an unusual amount of concern about her shy nature...

• "We don't know the real person"
• "We don't know how to connect to her"
• "We feel like we are working with a robot"
• "We don't know what she does outside of work"
• "We don't know what she likes to do for fun"
• "It's hard to relate to her"

I had to wonder, is this the woman-to-woman dynamic? When women work together is part of the relationship built on sharing personal information about ourselves? Do we hurt ourselves if we are too private?

We have learned to share our stories as a way to connect to other women. This is the grease in the relationship and allows for the hard conversations and helps us handle personal challenges. It helps us create a sense of empathy and camaraderie with our peers.

So if we don't share these stories with the women on our team, are we creating an uncomfortable dynamic? I think we are. And I think we can foster a much more collaborative environment by sharing who we are. But the stories we share at work are different than the ones we share with our girlfriends over wine.

• Share decisions you are considering (school for the kids, new home purchase, new car purchase...) - these are non-threatening ways of talking about things in your life and gathering information from others
• Share events/activities you are planning (movies, theater, sports, hobbies) - again non-threatening and a way to share some things that are important or relevant to you

Remember though, this is how to work with relational oriented people. Most women are relational and want this level of connection. Most men do not. So these stories would likely bore and frustrate a man because it is wasting time before getting to what is really important - work!

Look for cues as to how much the women (and men) on your team want to know about each other.
Are they asking about your weekend? your kids? your commute? Are they telling you about something they did? Try asking them about something outside work before you start your meeting and see what their reaction is. This will indicate their style.

We need to play to our strengths. When we work with women we have an advantage - we know how to connect and build relationships. We know how to share our stories. Not only does it make everyone feel better, it helps us get things done and it creates loyalty and trust. Take advantage of it!

multi-tasking vs. compartmentalizing

I'm reading The Male Factor by Shaunti Feldhahn. I'm not very far into it and am already amazed at the differences she has discovered between men and women at work. Apparently men compartmentalize and when they come to work, they are AT WORK. And when women come to work they are still participating in their life as a whole.

The past few days I have been working from home. I feel like I have been really productive in meeting my client's needs, having some great business development meetings, and networking.

During my "breaks" (and conference calls) I have done the following:

• Fix the stupid remote control so I can finally use my TV the civilized way
• Find the problem with the garbage disposal so it works again
• Erase my old hard drive, load snow leopard, and install all my husband's data so he can use my old laptop
• Wrap the girls' christmas presents

Clearly, I don't compartmentalize.

While my husband appreciates this work, he sees me as primarily goofing off during the day. "When are you going to get a real job?"

This book is giving me a new perspective on what I have already been picking up on. I think this is important... I can be great at multi-tasking and I won't be sharing this with my male colleagues. I'm going to try the "all business" approach next week in all my conversations and see what happens.

Respect - how to get it

Today I'm thinking about women leading change. What is working and what is not. I keep coming back to leadership and establishing ourselves as strong and effective guides.

What gets in our way?

I think we are focused too much on whether we are LIKED and not enough on whether we are RESPECTED. What does respect look like? What does disrespect look like? How do you clearly articulate what you expect from your team?

Story #1
Sue was leading a meeting. Her boss, Steve, kept jumping in and rambling on and disrupting the group. After the meeting he came in to her office to talk. He said it appeared that she was frustrated with him in the meeting. She told him she was. They talked. She agreed to be more respectful in the meetings and he agreed to let her run the meeting without rambling on. Sue told me that this would never have happened if her boss was a woman. She said that there would be lots of griping to her peers about the situation, the lack of support, and how the boss doesn't support her.

Story #2
Melinda, a finance executive, met with her direct report, Karen, to explain her new role. She thought the meeting went well. Then she started hearing from other people that Karen is bad-mouthing the project, rolling her eyes in meetings, and is disrupting the transition. Melinda doesn't know what to do to fix this behavior. She tried to encourage Karen indirectly and continued to monitor the situation. What would a man do? I think he would immediately call Karen in and tell her - hey this is what I've been hearing, what is going on? I don't want to hear this again.

Story #3
Darla, a new leader recently promoted to manage over 100 people, has been working with her teams to get them engaged and motivated. She is incredibly insecure about one of the teams because they don't like her. She has heard that they perceive her to be a "bitch." Now she is nervous and is doing all she can to make them see how wonderful she is. I think a man might say "so what? as long as they respect me we are fine".


I'm worried that we aren't good at having direct conversations about how we work together - and calling people out when they aren't behaving appropriately. We should expect people to treat us with respect - even if they don't respect us. We should know what this looks like and be able to identify disrespect quickly and deal with it immediately. This is what we need to do if we want to be seen as leaders.

women managers need sponsors not mentors

To get to the top levels in an organization, we need a sponsor in the executive ranks. 


This means someone to advocate for us, to position us in high visibility roles, to introduce us to leaders and help us forge relationships with these people, to help us navigate the politics... someone who will use some of their own political capital to pull us along.


The Center for Work-Life Policy (CWLP) is releasing a study next month in the Harvard Business Review showing that women are not making it to the top ranks of leadership because they don't have the powerful backing required to push them there.


I've been calling these advocates "mentors". My coach and marketing guru has argued consistently that we can't have good mentors inside our own organization. I finally get it (thanks Mike). What we need are not mentors, what we need are SPONSORS. Mentors give advise and perspective. Sponsors aggressively pull you into the leadership ranks. Definitely need both... but mentors alone will not get you to the highest levels.


The CWLP says that having a sponsor boosts your prospect of advancement by 19% for women (and 23% for men).


So what is keeping women from getting these sponsors to help us along? 


Theory #1 - this relationship looks sketchy


I forwarded this article to my colleague and said I saw her having a very solid sponsor behind her in her last job. Then she reminded me of another situation...

She had a great sponsor... an influential leader, well networked, and able to pull her along to the highest visibility projects. He spent a huge amount of time with her, coaching her, introducing her formally and informally to the "right" people, supporting her through rough situations, providing air cover as she learned, and continuing to be her advocate at the leadership levels. This required a lot of time. Unfortunately one of his peers assumed they must be having an affair and reported it to HR. I can't imagine the embarrassment on both sides as they defended themselves publicly and privately. 

So the typical sponsor relationship can look a lot like an affair. A lot of wonderful opportunities are missed because men and women on both sides are reluctant to be perceived in this way.


But if the risk of people making incorrect assumptions is keeping us from forming these powerful relationships, how else do we get ahead? Can we make it less risky?


Theory #2 - we aren't comfortable creating these type of relationships


Having this sort of sponsor relationship will make us stand out as something special. We will get attention from our peers and our bosses. For women who have been trained not to brag and not to stand out from their peers, this can be really uncomfortable. It just takes a "who does she think she is" to make us wonder if it is worth it. 


I've seen women try to balance this by being totally self effacing about the relationship to the point that it is embarrassing. They won't take any credit for being worth this effort or even wanting to have this sort of attention. 


I wish we could be thrilled for ourselves and for our colleagues when one of us manages to get this level of support. This is good for all of us.

Learning from bad experiences

This week I was thinking about some of my more painful and unfair experiences...and what I learned from them.

Years ago, I decided to leave my big, fancy, high-paying job where I was well-positioned and well-loved. I went off to join a small and rapidly growing start-up firm run by two of the smartest men I knew. I adored the insane hours, the travel, the incredibly intelligent people, the feeling of being part of a family, and the personal and professional learning.

After a few years though, I realized that things were not quite right. The partnership grew and then retracted, but only the women partners left.

I was a VP along with a handful of others. As I was planning my maternity leave (still traveling and leading the largest engagement for the firm), I was asked to consider coming back as a director. To be clear... this was a demotion.

I was stunned, confused, angry...

The obvious question, what had I done wrong? Why was this being suggested?

We still hadn't even defined any real roles or job descriptions or performance metrics for the different levels, so no one could give me a performance based reason as to why I should consider this move.

But several partners told me that they thought it would be easier for me when I had a new baby...

Have a baby = get a demotion

I also noticed that I was the only woman in the VP ranks...

Partnership = all white men

VP Level = all white men

This all seemed mighty odd...

So I simply ignored the "suggestion" when I came back after my leave. I went to our HR leader and told him that until someone could give me a performance based reason for taking a demotion, I would still be considering myself a VP.

Then I left... to go out on my own. Where I am doing the same work at a higher level with more creativity, having more fun, and I got rid of the pressure to prove something to a boss.

What did I learn?

• I do believe now that people really were trying to be helpful; but we couldn't have a good conversation because I was so insecure and angry
• If I stop worrying about what other people think about me, I can focus on the important things and free up energy to be more productive and have more fun
• I don't have to prove how good I am to anyone else
• I like to learn and want to learn but I don't need to feel inadequate to be a good learner

Now I notice when my ego is taking over. I notice when I am feeling defensive and angry. I pay attention to and trust my feelings. I try remember that all of us are doing the best we can.

And best of all, I know I can step away from the situation and be fine. What a terrific learning.

Learning from other women - WIT WOTY winners

Today I had the pleasure of attending a panel discussion with the winners of WIT's Woman of the Year Awards. What amazing women and so inspirational.

I loved the camaraderie in the room... the humor... the feeling that we are all in this together.

Sue Ellen Reager, the CEO and founder of @international Services, who told us about her career choices presented to her in high school. She could be either a secretary or a school teacher... but she had a bad attitude. She then went on to travel the world, learn 11 languages, teach herself to program. She has received an innovation award for her inventions. And now she oversees a virtual company with people in 70 countries.  but best of all? she met William Shatner. WOW. very memorable.

Barbara Carkenord, chief curriculum and strategist at B2T Training... who is getting married soon. Sharing the need to have direct conversations - YAY. Right after my own heart.

Sallie Graves, head of IT at ING, who loves college football, fantasy football, and all sports. Good thing she has boys!

Lisa McVey, VP, CIO at McKesson, who told us her big a-ha was when she found out that the executives didn't know all the answers and that their meetings weren't much different from the ones she had been going to.

Julie Untener, Director of Enterprise Applications at NCR, who grew up with seven sisters learning the power of girls and also how to navigate and get along.

I loved the themes that came out from all these women and the open, candid conversation. The way they shared funny and personal stories. The way they played off each other...

Here are some of the things I took away today.

When were you passed over and how did you handle it?

What struck me was 1) no one said - I haven't ever been passed over and 2) the answers were all about finding innovative and creative ways to deal with this situation.

Sue Ellen said that her bubbly personality was seen as cute but no one was buying from her. So she went on-line, signed her name as S. E. and ended up being very successful. Then by the time they met her, she already had the credibility.

What gets in our way?

The confidence theme kept coming up. We are good planners and we want it all planned out before we will raise our hand to take on risk. We are uncomfortable leaping without knowing we can do it. We see there are other experts out there who know more and can do it better... and we let them. As these successful women all stated... we need to get MUCH better at raising our hand and taking on the challenge even when we don't know if we can do it, we don't know how to do it, and we haven't ever done it before. We are smart and we can figure it out.

What do you do when you don't get supported by other women?

Have a direct conversation about it. Wow. This is something really hard for us to do. But what a great idea. It is so much easier to complain about it, gossip about the person who isn't supporting us, but wouldn't it be fantastic to have an open conversation about it? I think we need to hold each other accountable for having these conversations and not let one another get away with this behavior.

These are amazing women. These are women who want to help others. They are all actively supporting other women. LOVE IT!! What great role models for all of us.