In my last article, The Woman In the Arena, I quoted an excerpt from Teddy Roosevelt’s “Citizenship In A Republic” speech that he deliver in 1910.  When I wrote the article I looked up the entire speech and found another excerpt that has tremendous meaning for where our culture and ec

One of the traits women are most credited with is improving collaboration. We get more people to open up and participate in conversations and problem solving. The result is a more complete solution to a problem. Sounds great – in theory! The issue many women face is that coll

Have you ever noticed years that singers have their biggest hits when they sing songs that they pick or write themselves, not what the industry tells them to sing? They do best when they connect with a song to express who they really are. When I think about this Garth Brooks

Monday morning I was finishing up this article as the news came on about the Boston Marathon terrorist attack. I decided to re-write it since I talk about a study I did on terrorism several years ago. Back in 1985 when I was an Air Force 1st Lt. I had a project dumped on me. Orig

I never really liked my tag line “Empowering Women for Success in the Male-Dominated Workplace.” To me it sounds kind of blah-blah, boring typical professional language. I always felt it was missing something – that it wasn’t exactly hitting the mark of what I needed to say, but I

Have you ever been called infuriating? I have – many times – “You are the most infuriating woman I’ve ever known!” Even though it was meant to belittle me, I take it as a compliment.  My reply is simply “Thank you.” The scenarios in which I’ve been called infuriating are a

It seems every discussion lately about working women is tied to the term "work-life balance." Having been there, done that - I don't get it! I don't know what the issue is or what point women are trying to make. Are women trying to justify leaving work to watch the kids at socc

In my last few articles I’ve danced around an issue and now I am just going to put it out there. Is corporate America using female employees as a ploy in their business development and marketing? And even worse, are women blind to it?

A magazine published an article about the advances women are making in construction. To my surprise the article featured a former co-worker of mine and painted a pretty rosy picture. Reading the article it sounds like women have finally achieved parity with men in construction. The

An article titled “Another Woman Makes It In Construction” caught my attention. The article was about a woman who was retiring after a successful career in construction industry. Cool! As I read further into the article, I learned that her career was not as I expected. She was the

We are told that to rise to the top 1% you have to be very aggressive…cutthroat even. A week ago two billionaires –Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman - went at each other live on CNBC. It was re-aired several times, billed as the “Clash of the Titans” or “The Battle of the Billionaires”.

Every working woman needs to watch Hillary testify before the Senate and House of Representatives on the Benghazi attack because she epitomizes working from the Purple Zone. Given our political climate, there is no doubt that some congressional members were posturing and trying to di

I came across a letter that I want to share with women. This letter is VERY Blue Zone and meant to inspire the overwhelmingly male managers within the company to achieve the 2013 financial goals. I am curious as to women’s reaction to this letter. Does it inspire you? This is th

I came up with the concept of Swamp Wars about two years ago. It stemmed from my work experiences and for a while I thought it was unique to my industry because we have so many classic Alligator Slayers. But as I wrote this series of articles (Swamp Wars and The Rachel Letter) the nat

Last week while I was in that semiconscious state of falling asleep with the TV on, I heard the TV characters talking about Odysseus and how he was the classic hero. The characters went on to discuss how humans love heroes. Then one character questioned the other “What do heroes alw

When we discuss women advancing their careers we cannot assume that all women have the same challenges.  Our challenges are defined by who we are and the culture of our work environment I introduced the Purple Zone, as an evolution beyond thinking of men and women in terms of pink and

Last week Meghan Casserly of Forbes published an article – Every Man You Work With Thinks You Want to Sleep With Him. This article raised some eyebrows. Is this true? Do the men we work with look at us sexually even though we have platonic relationships? And is it true that it doe

Women discuss their work and family conflicts but we often forget this is not just a female issue. The reality is that men today have many of the same family and life conflicts as their female co-workers. How many of your male coworkers and managers are divorced or have a working wif

When women entered the male dominated workplace we were confident we had the fortitude to climb the corporate ladder with our kids and family life slung over our shoulder. We knew we were great multi-taskers and time managers. So, there should be nothing barring us from climbing the c

One of the biggest critiques we hear is that unlike our male colleagues, we don’t self-promote enough. We are told we need to let our managers know what we accomplish because that is what our male colleagues do and unless we do what men do, we can’t compete with them. But this advic