Tag Archives: career

woman balance work family

How to Keep Women Engaged in Jobs and Careers

Women are leaving the IT industry in droves, according to a recent article in CIO.

The article goes on to describe six things women want in order to stay engaged in any job.  Although the things they cite are important, they are not the full picture.

What are women looking for?

  1. Equal pay
  2. Flexible work schedule and paid leaves
  3. Female role models and mentors
  4. Recognition
  5. Opportunity for advancement
  6. Meaningful work that makes a difference beyond their job.

Although each of these items may be important, the discussion in this article, and in most conversations on this topic, ultimately revolved around women leaving to raise families, not being welcomed back after having children, or marginalized as they juggle both career and families. These are problems.

Yet, this perspective continues to perpetuate a stereotype of women not prioritizing work and career advancement as the cause of lower pay and career opportunities.  However, a study at Harvard Business School of alumni showed that high powered and well trained women, with plenty of career drive, still earned less than their male colleagues, did not rise to as high of positions, and were often left out of critical business deals necessary for their success–even though 93% of them never left the workforce to raise children.

As Sheryl Sandberg noted in a recent interview, how many men are asked how they handle work and family? She is asked this all the time.

Women continue to be underrepresented at the top of organizations–large and small.  We can continue to “fight” this, and probably should continue to make waves, until true equal rights have been achieved.

But more important than fighting this, we need to change the game.  How do we do that?

Actively look for ways to promote and support other women.  We represent 51% of the population.  If we put our influence in numbers behind each other, we can do more good than demanding changes from the status quo.  When Gandhi pushed the British out of India, he created force through numbers–rather than attempting to increase the power and influence of the Indian population within the status quo.

If women move their purchasing power, their investment money, and their own hiring practices to promoting women we could greatly shift the balance of power–within a much shorter time horizon than our current trajectory.

Look for women you can promote, mentor, buy from or invest in.  They are all around you.

Your choices can make a difference.

 

 

What do you REALLY want?

I often study Napoleon Hill’s work.

He wrote Think and Grow Rich and The 15 Laws of Success. Most of today’s self-help industry is based on Hill’s work in the early 1900’s. Although it looks like it is tied to money as a form of success, Hill really speaks to attaining your desires, whatever they may be.

One aspect of Hill’s work that I love is his revelation that of the 16,000 people he studied the successful ones (only 5% of the total people studied) all were doing what they loved!

How amazing is that?

My work, whether coaching women in business or personal areas, always starts with going deep into the question, “What do you really want?” For years, I could not even begin to answer that question, even about the most mundane things like what restaurant to go to. Why? Because my radar was tuned so strongly to my environment, keeping everyone else happy, and doing what others wanted as my means of getting ahead that I had lost touch with looking inside to find any answers—even those.

You, too, might be struggling to define what you really want. Without having a definite purpose or aim your life probably feels lackluster. Many women go through life like a ship without a rudder because they spent so many years helping others achieve their goals—spouses, children, even bosses.

If you have reached the point where you no longer have children at home, or you want to change your work but don’t quite know how then now is the time to invest in you and find your passion and create a plan to live it.

Carol Hagar and I create women’s retreats throughout the year to help women find their strength and live from it. Our beginning of the year retreats are always amazing because our focus as a culture is always keen on creating plans and making changes at this time of year.

I invite you to join us this year, as we bring together a group of kindred sisters and explore true nature of our inner wishes and find the means of expressing them in our world. We will meet near Austin, Texas, on Saturday, January 31st. If you cannot make it in person, we will have a live training online later in February. However, if you attend live you will get the added benefit of connecting with other women who can hold your intention in their hearts as you move forward into creating 2015 to be your best year thus far.

Stay-At-Home-Mom vs Career Woman

Choosing to work or stay at home can be a tough decision for women.  The original thoughts of feminism that we could do both and have it all, have become worn thin by the many women who tried the super mom/career woman track and ended up feeling burned out in both arenas.

Yet, most women still want to add value to the world outside of the tremendous value they are contributing by raising amazing children.  How do we find the answer?

I love how Sara Gottfried, M.D. puts it,”When we give birth, the bonding hormone oxytocin starts flowing. Maybe that makes women more discerning about the type of work we’re willing to perform, given the competition for our time when kids come into the picture.”

Rather than an either or decision of career verses motherhood, or the over-achieving attempt at both — perhaps our answer lies in this discernment Dr. Sara speaks of.  If the last 50 years were spent proving we could “make the grade” and were capable of many of the jobs previously denied women; perhaps the next movement will be in women designing the work life that feeds our soul AND gives us the flexibility to be truly present with our children and family.  Imagine the role model we’d become for our children when they see their mothers pursuing things that are adding value to our world, while at the same time we are happy and engaged in their lives.

Imagine what your life would look like if you created a job you truly loved and had time to deeply enjoy your family.  How would you create it?  What things might you do if your goal was to add value to the world and not earn a paycheck?  Play with it for a bit; you might be surprised that there is a way to do it and earn good money.

What things would you do with your family if you had more freedom? Fantasize yourself doing them.  Maybe there are ways of rethinking your schedule that will allow for more of this joy in your daily life –not by working later when the kids go to bed and waking exhausted each day!

Unless you are willing to take the time to visualize how you would genuinely enjoy your life, you will continue to create what you are creating today.  So even if my questions seem absurd in light of the bills you have to pay, the commitment you have to your job, the requirements you have to your children’s school and extra-curricular activities and even your relationship with your mate — the future will never arrive unless you start to envision your ideal situation and take little steps towards it.

So just let yourself start to daydream all the possibilities; no matter how impossible they appear.  Find a paper and pen right now and begin to write down any and all ideas.  Let your ideas flow.  Don’t ask how you could get there; simply write down anything about your life you would love to see.

Some people find it easier to see what is wrong than to visualize what they want.  If you feel blocked, first write down what frustrates you about your current life.  Then take another piece of paper and write the exact opposite of that.  How would it look, what would be different if this specific problem did not exist?  Be as creative and detailed as you can about what it would look like if it was as good as it could get.  Burn the one you don’t like and read the one you do like each day.  You will be pleasantly surprised at how ideas and opportunities begin to flow naturally into your life to help make this new dream a reality if you put your attention on it.

 

3 Ways to Leverage Employee Engagement for Career Growth

Are you a go-getter career woman, who somehow keeps moving so fast you leave a wake behind you instead of a following of supporters and a network of people you can tap into?

You are busy getting ahead in your career. You probably stay late and work weekends to make sure your projects come in on time and with all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted.

But do you take time to notice how much you engage your employees?

When I first moved through the ranks of IBM, I was loved by my bosses because I got things done, got them done on time, and could be counted on. My peers disliked me most of the time because my achievements routinely made them look bad. It was a hard lesson I had to learn—gaining people’s support at a peer level actually could be as important as those above you. In fact, I later learned that my teacher’s pet mentality was costing me more than I knew.

But my saving grace was I always listened to and took care of my employees. I made sure they got projects they wanted, got opportunities to shine, and loved what they did. When they didn’t enjoy their job we worked on designing a new angle to the job that improved their satisfaction or I got them transferred or promoted into something they would love to do. I was hard in reviews and made sure employees knew where they needed to improve, yet I always was fast to praise what they did well. My relationship with those who worked for me is actually what helped propel me at IBM, later in the cellular industry, and finally in my own companies.

Today, it is called engaging your employees. Nicole Alvino wrote a great article on why it pays to engage your employees in Forbes. What you call it does not matter. The three keys to creating a great employee base that promotes you as a boss and your company’s brand are the same.

First and foremost, listen. Knowing how employees feel about their jobs, about the company, and about you will only come through listening. Not during an annual review where you officially ask them, but over coffee or lunch. Notice whom people listen to and follow, then talk to that person. How much do you know about the people who work for you? The bosses who know the most about someone’s personal life are also the bosses who know what will inspire and motivate someone. Get involved with your people, not as a weekend drinking partner, but as someone who truly cares about them beyond what they can do nine to five.

Create goals and even jobs together. Solicit ideas with your employees rather than just give them a job. This second key to employee engagement is easy, but often overlooked due to time and budget constraints. We think we cannot afford to take the time or probably cannot do what they will suggest. However, when people feel ownership of what they are doing they produce better results in less time. I have always been amazed at the solutions my employees find to challenges when I turn it over to my team, rather than give them directions on what to do. Sometimes they come up with ideas we cannot afford or just won’t work, but the times they come up with a winning solution it is always better than anything I had yet conceived—usually at much less expense or much higher returns. Bottom line? Participation creates results.

Lastly, the key to successful teams is honest and detailed feedback. When employees do not know how they are doing, they drift. Even though it is hard to give someone a negative review, it is tens times easier than firing them. And any disgruntled employee barely doing their job will sooner or later quit or need to be let go. We all know the costs of employee turn over—hiring time, training time, efficiency curve, the list goes on and on.

Although it is important to have regular reviews that employees can depend on; it is equally, if not more important, to give immediate and frequent feedback on the little tasks and projects as they progress or are completed. Don’t wait for a formal review to call someone aside and let them know what a great job they did, or how you would like to see things improve on the next one.

Even critique can inspire an employee if you do it with an attitude of concern and desire for the employee’s best interest. And this brings me full circle to my first suggestion to engage your employees. Listen. When you are giving reviews and critiques you are not interested in excuses and employees should know you do not want them. Yet, you are interested in how the job or project is going for them. What would make it more interesting for them? What are their goals and how could you develop projects that help them achieve those goals?

Give yourself a review, today!

  • How well do you engage your employees?
  • When was the last time you listened to their input?
  • How much do you know about your employees outside of work?
  • How many jobs are being done that employees have helped design and how many are handed down to them?
  • Do your employees know what your immediate goals as a company are?
  • Could they talk about the company’s mission? How involved are they in formulating your company’s goals?
  • How are you at giving employees constructive feedback?
  • Do you have objectives for their jobs they know they should meet?
  • Do you praise employees when you see something they do well?
  • When was the last time?

Don’t put your personal review off until tomorrow. Improving your ability to engage your employees can make or break a small startup, propel an established company to significantly higher profits and make everyone’s job more rewarding—including yours!