Category Archives: Enabling Women’s Success

I Dumped Facebook: Disconnecting from the Constant Connection

Posted by Katrin Haldeman on April 21, 2011 1 comments

When I think of all of the relationships in my life, I generally start with my parents, siblings, children, friends, and co-workers.  On days when I contemplate the subject even more, I might include my doctor, my mail carrier, and my neighbors.  Recently I started to think about how much time I spend with all of these people.  Do I see all of them face to face every day? Do I call them every day and talk with them voice to voice, so I can listen to the emotion they might project in the sound I hear? No—and—no, I do not. 

I get up, text my youngest sister good morning, and receive texts on my way into work.  When I get to work I start my computer, and while I wait for it to load up, I check my email on my phone.  My home page was Facebook, so EVERY morning I would get a never-ending stream of other people’s status—some VERY personal, some funny, some offensive, and some sad.  I get real news from The Huffington Post, and fake news from The Onion.  I get spiritual messages from the Dalai Lama and political messages from every cause I have ever supported. 

I turned Facebook on in the morning and it was the last thing I saw before I went to bed at night.  With all the time I invested in my relationship with Facebook, we should have been engaged, or at least it should have been buying me dinner or drinks, whisking me away for a romantic weekend.  It had become my life partner.  Now, if FB was a person, a partner, a friend—and all I did was read, listen to, and participate with them morning, noon, and night – my family, children, and co-workers would be concerned that I was losing myself in this relationship.  And they would be right. 

If I WANT to know what is going on in my sisters’ lives, friends’ lives, or the Dalai Lama’s life, I can make that happen.  I can call my sister and hear in her voice that she has had a tough day. I can visit her and find out that something hysterical happened to her and I would hear her laugh AND I would get the opportunity to laugh with her—instead of seeing “lol : o”

When I started my relationship with Facebook it was to stay connected, to be informed about everything that was going on, and to feel like a part of something that was worldwide.  What I came to know is that connection no longer meant “personal” to me.  Everyone, everywhere on my “list” knew everything, not just about me, but about others as well.  My excitement and anticipation of the little red quote icon over my comments, messages, or invites started to feel the same as when I was a smoker and couldn’t wait to get outside to light one.  It felt like an addiction to a harmful substance. 

So I quit—cold turkey. As I write this, it has been 24 hours, 2 minutes, and 35 seconds since I posted my last status, and I can feel my connection to reality coming back.  I am now five times more likely to smile when I see you, 10 times more likely to laugh at the jokes you tell, and 20 times more likely to really listen to what you have to say.

Carpet, Red Riding Hood, and the Dark Unknown

Posted by Katrin Haldeman on April 8, 2011 None comments

It was April Fool’s Day. No matter what I was listening to, reading, or looking at, it was in some way referring to foolishness.  I was kind of annoyed and felt just a little bit smarter than all of the silliness going on around me; I was about to go listen to Elizabeth Lesser, founder of the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York—and she was no fool. 

So, off I went, into the big room with so many seats. It was very different from being in the earthy haven that Rhinebeck, nestled in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York, typically offers; this was structured, orchestrated, and heavily, heavily carpeted, maybe even on the walls, I’m not quite sure.  It was slightly suffocating.  I wasn’t sure what this experience would bring; it was already so different from the Omega campus, which oozed nature and life force.

Totally feeling like I was at a Michael Jackson concert—or like the nerd I was in college—I went (ran) up front, sat down with my pen and paper, and put my glasses on so I could actually read what I was writing. I was intent on absorbing as much as I possibly could from what Elizabeth was about to say.

She came to the stage and started to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood.  A photo of a red-cloaked girl, brilliant against the lush green of a partially lit forest, appeared on the screen in front of us.  I looked up at it, and Elizabeth’s voice carried the thoughts that accompanied my eyes down the path of the light to where the forest grew dark.  The cloak was stopped in the middle, stuck, seemingly paralyzed. Would it move forward, or stay in the sun, where all was known and all was familiar?

As the story of Red Riding Hood rose into metaphor and insight, the energy in the room expanded, the air became light, and the carpet seemed to disappear from under my feet.

The insight became clear:  we are all on a path, all finding our way between the darkness and the light.  What are we carrying? How close to or how far from the path do we veer? In the darkness, it is hard to see if there is light on the other side. For all of us, this is how each journey begins.  Are we fools to wander out of the light, off the path, into the darkness, into the unknown? Or are we fools not to?

Elizabeth said, “We must learn to embrace the unknowable.” That reminded me of Rilke: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.”

Embrace the question. Embrace the unknown.  Every day there will be an unknown; every day is unknown, and can’t be known until it is lived.  Attempting to control and know what hasn’t come is a fool’s journey. At the same time, only a fool will walk into the unknown to embrace it, to live it, and to learn.

There is not one of us who is not a fool in some way. We move through life, or we watch it go by.   Do we embrace the darkness to find a greater light, or do we stay in the light we know, afraid of the unknown, destined to wear grooves in a path already walked?

I have never wanted to think of myself as a fool—and I have never looked at another as a fool. In this place on this 1 April, the room was filled with beautiful fools, all of us there because the edge of the darkness was not far enough for our journey.  Into the picture, onto the path, out of the light, into the unknown we go.

Seven Things Organizations can do to Enable Women’s Success

Posted by Judith Katz on October 16, 2007 None comments

katz_judith.jpgRecently while reading an e-newsletter from a professional organization, I came across yet another article about a mentoring program for women in the workplace. Although the article itself—about an approach to mentoring women in the workplace—was useful, I found myself upset, not by the content, but by the underlying mindset and approach.

For over 20 years, organizations have been implementing mentoring programs to support women’s and people of color’s ability to succeed in the workplace. Yet it is still quite clear that women of color, white women and men of color have not attained the level of success of their white male counterparts. With all the effort, you’d think we would be doing better by now – and although women and people of color have had some success moving into more senior leadership roles, we are far from having equity in the workplace.

The real issue is that we continue to misdiagnose the problem, leading us to use programs and approaches that only address a small part of the challenge. You can’t stop a boulder with a pea shooter and in many ways that is what we have been doing as organizations have worked to address the “women” and “people of color” “problem.” Although this blog is focused specifically on the question of systemic barriers for white women and women of color much of the same could be said about the barriers that men of color experience as well.

I was pleased to see a recent Harvard Business Review article that spoke to this very issue. ”Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership” discussed the fact that calling the barriers that women experience a “glass ceiling” actually is a misnomer; that the real experience is a labyrinth—a maze in which every twist and turn presents challenges and obstacles to success. By mislabeling or misdiagnosing the issue, we have been formulating simplistic approaches to a much more complex set of challenges. Many of the approaches focus more on tactics organizations and individual women can use rather than addressing the systemic issues of organizational policies, practices and structures just don’t work to enable and foster women’s success. Combine that with biases about women’s leadership styles, the lack of flexibility in many organizations and a lack of recognizing the real barriers that still exist for women and a maintenance of systems that are mired in the past without much hope of real change.

While mentoring is important, mentoring is only a small part of the solution. Women’s roles, styles and leadership are still often relegated to second-class status in the workplace and mentoring simply will not change the systemic structures that perpetuate this disadvantage. While organizations do need to consider how they can allow, support and have the flexibility to value and recognize differences, the real question for organizations is “Are you really committed to having a more diverse workforce and making the structural changes needed to support women and people of color to succeed?” If so, it will take radical change and a very different set of assumptions about flexibility, what constitutes a career, leadership styles and contribution.

Here are seven things an organization needs to do if it really wants to enable and support women’s success

1. Focus on output and added value rather than on fitting in and face time. Evaluating individuals based on contribution rather than how well they fit or how much face time they can offer can provide the needed flexibility to enable women to excel and succeed.

2. Assure that policies and practices in place create flexibility. Flexibility can be increased through support for on and off ramps in one’s career; part time and job sharing positions while staying on a career track. Create policies that enable women to contribute while recognizing that, at different stages of their career and life, they may need a career track that enables them to address both work and life responsibilities.

3. Develop competent managers who know how to coach and mentor a diverse workforce. Ensure all managers have the skill set to coach, mentor and develop women in the workforce. This includes their ability to manage flexible work arrangements and to support individuals’ career growth in career paths that are cutting edge in the 21st century.

4. Make sure women are working with colleagues and leaders who actively support them. You know who your supportive of a more diverse workplace leaders are—make sure women in the organization are not teamed or paired with leaders who will not actively support them.

5. Broaden the perspective of an effective leadership style to include styles that foster teamwork, engagement and collaboration. Leadership styles need to recognize and reward the different style and approach that women bring.

6. Understand and address that women of color and white women have a differentiated experience. Assure that approaches to women’s success examine and address the differentiated barriers that women of color experience from those of white women.

7. Remove barriers and biases that impact women differentially than men. Some actions to overcome these barriers include ensuring that women receive “stretch” assignments at the same rate as their male counterparts; aggressively auditing women’s and men’s career paths to see if men are progressing more rapidly through the organization; and, auditing compensation to ensure women are receiving equitable salaries. Make sure there are no overt or covert biases impacting women’s success. For example, are women penalized for taking time off for maternity leave or family time?

The conversation about women’s success in organizations has been going on for over 30 years. Many organizations are moving along the path with respect to their desire to retain and promote women, but it’s time to both diagnose the challenges appropriately and to create comprehensive approaches to achieve real and sustainable change.