Tag: empowered women

  • Women’s Number One Advantage in the Male-Dominated Workplace

    Recently I had a discussion with an older retired woman who started her career in engineering in the 70’s. She spent her college days and most of her career as the woman in the room. Shortly into our talk she brought up how her male colleagues would drive her nuts. It wasn’t how they acted but how they thought and did their work that frustrated her.Woman Assembling Puzzle

    When the male-dominated workplace has a complex task, it breaks the task down into smaller pieces and distributes the pieces to individuals to complete. The workplace assumes that if each person completes their task correctly then when all the pieces come back together, all the pieces will miraculously fit together. Those of us who have worked extensively with men know that never happens. We wind up with pieces that changed their shape and no longer fit. This creates crises as we do a lot of rework to make the pieces fit.

    The reason this happens is Autonomy. The male-dominated workplace encourages men to complete their task based upon their judgement. So men do their task based upon what works from their perspective. They forget their task is connected to other tasks and has to fit back into the bigger picture.

    This problem is further compounded when men aspire to have expertise. Expertise is how men gain status in the male-dominated workplace. But in order to increase their expertise, they continually narrow their focus as they dive down deeper and deeper into the task. As they dive into the depths of detail, they continue to break things apart until they get individual, stand-alone parts. Men in STEM are very good at doing this and this is what my friend continuously dealt with.

    Now that her colleagues had all of these individual little parts, they had to assemble them back into the big picture. This is where her male colleagues struggled – there were too many pieces and too much detail for them to connect.
    We always hear that to understand the big picture you have to be removed from it, to look at it from afar. And when we do that we will sacrifice detail. In order to understand and see detail we need to narrow our focus, see fewer parts. This is a male perspective – a perspective that is not good at multi-tasking, forming relationships, creating connections and working in groups.

    This is what drove my friend nuts. She could take her male colleagues’ detailed, individual pieces and assemble the big picture. But what frustrated her was that her male colleagues argued that she couldn’t do it. But she could because she was thinking like a woman. She remained focused on the big picture, connections and relationships. As the men broke the tasks down and created pieces, she naturally thought about how the pieces fit back into the big picture.

    This is a significant difference between men and women. Men break things down to increase individualism. Women join things together to create groups and big pictures. And because we can maintain a high level of detail across multiple tasks, we don’t have to sacrifice nearly as much detail as men when we create the big picture.

    Think about a mother who has to get her kids out the door for school and herself off to work in the morning. She understands how all of the morning activities have to fit together. She knows which kid has to be in the bathroom first and what time they have to be out by so the next kid can use the bathroom. She listens for the shower to stop running by 7:10, so she knows if they will have time to eat breakfast. She continuously listens for noises and checks the clock to monitor their progress. She knows her kids have to be out the door no later than 7:40 in order to get to school on time. And while she is managing her kids, she is also getting herself ready for her day, taking care of the pets and keeping track of her husband and his needs.

    The skills a mother uses to manage her home are directly transferrable to the workplace because workplaces function with a lot of simultaneous connected activity. This makes the workplace complex. Complexity is the opposite of Autonomy and the Achilles heel of the male-dominated workplace. Women work well with Complexity because our multi-tasking, attention to detail and group focus allows us to connect numerous pieces and parts back into the big picture. We have such a good relationship with Complexity that I think of Complexity as women’s BFF in the male-dominated workplace.

    When our male colleagues want to express their Autonomy and reshape their piece, we say “No” because we know how it won’t fit back into the big picture. When a piece needs to be reshaped, we immediately think about how it connects to other pieces. We know reshaping one piece will have a ripple effect requiring other pieces to be reshaped. Our brains are capable of managing this. We practice it every morning before we even come to work.

    This is why women make fantastic managers. We don’t expect all the pieces to just miraculously fit back together. We follow up to see how our employees are progressing because we need to maintain connections. When we see someone working independently, off doing his own thing, red flags go off in our minds. That person must get reconnected to the group and fit back into the big picture.

    The male-dominated workplace however likes to see people working independently because it associates independence with competence. But Complexity ended that association – independence now creates inefficiency, rework and chaos resulting in crisis management. Workplaces that allow men to work autonomously will struggle and ultimately fail. Complexity makes all of us rely on our colleagues to do their job right so we can do our job. All tasks are intertwined. All tasks are connected.

    Complexity now dictates that what is most important in completing a task is how efficiently all the pieces fit back together. This requires female traits.

    As Complexity increases in the workplace, female traits will be needed more and more. Our superior ability to work with and manage Complexity is the single most important trait women bring to the male-dominated workplace.  And the trait that gives us a significant advantage over men.

     

    Empowered Women Know They Are the Best Managers of Complexity in the Male-Dominated Workplace.

  • What Does Abstracts in Action Mean?

    Woman Integrating

    What do I mean by Abstracts in Action and Abstracts in Action?

    When we discuss what men and women do when assigned a task, we hear that men take off into action while women start talking and building relationships.  We get to action later.

    We learn to associate action and getting things done with men.  Men do tangible things and women – well, we have nebulous abstracts whose value is difficult to measure and quantify.

    But don’t women also act?  The women I know work, they work really hard.  They get things done better and faster than their male colleagues.  If I need three things done well in the next hour, I will assign it to a woman, not to a man.

    What Abstracts in Action means is that women forget about our action.  Instead we identify with ideas that are abstract in the workplace – talking, building relationships, nurturing, feelings and empathy.  We became associated with making everyone feel good not with getting things done.  As a result, the male-dominated workplace didn’t see our value.

    For years women were associated with Kumbaya moments because ironically, we couldn’t communicate how when we put abstracts into action we got big results.

    The two abstracts I put into action the most in the workplace are communicating and relationships but I use the active version of those terms.

    Instead of “communicate,” I use “coordinate.”  I don’t just talk to Bob and John, I coordinate what Bob and John are doing.  If I don’t coordinate their tasks, Bob goes off in one direction, John in another.  By coordinating their work, they each know what they have to do so the bigger task comes together properly.

    Instead of “relationships” or “building relationships,” I use “integrate.”  And this is so powerful!  Tom is working on a task and when he is done he will pass his work to Marie who will use it to complete her task.  But what typically happens?  Tom formats his work according to what works for him and Marie spends a day reformatting it before she can do her task.  She is then late getting her task done. The male-dominated workplace looks at Tom’s and Marie’s task as two individual activities but they aren’t.  There is a relationship between them.  Therefore, Tom’s work has to be integrated into Mary’s.  Tom must do his work so it can slide perfectly into Mary’s.

    Men can identify with coordinating and integrating work because it is similar to their “directing work” which they see as taking charge.  So even if we don’t interpret coordinating and integrating work as taking the lead, men do.  They see it as tangible action that gets things done.

    Did your workplace go through a period where “synergy” was the buzz word?  Did the idea come and go?  If so, it was because there weren’t female abstracts in action to keep it going.  Synergy requires coordination, integration and two other abstracts in action – collaboration and teamwork.

    It is up to us as women to decide how we perceive ourselves in the workplace.

    We can put our Abstracts in Action with talking, building relationships, nurturing, feelings and empathy.

    Or, we can put our Abstracts in Action with collaboration, synergy, teamwork, coordination and integration.

    But it is only when we put our Abstracts in Action that the male-dominated workplace will recognize us for making things happen.

    Empowered Women Put Their Abstracts into Action

     

    Leave your comments and share on Facebook and LinkedIn – Let’s spread the word about who empowered women really are!

  • Are You Part of the Male Hierarchy?

    I hear from a lot of women who don’t feel as powerful at work as they want to be.  They feel like the male hierarchy shuts them down or holds them back.  I understand exactly what they are talking about.  However, I don’t let my male colleagues and their hierarchy affect me.

    How?  Why not?

    Because I don’t consider myself part of the male hierarchy.

    If we use the perspective that women hold up half the sky then, men and women are side-by-side partners.  We have true equality.

    On the men’s side, the men gather themselves together in a line.  Sometimes the line is horizontal and they line up with labels – first, second, third…last.  Sometimes the line is vertical.  We think of this as a pecking order using labels – Alpha, Beta, Sigma…Omega.  Whether they line up horizontally or vertically, men can only see the men who are adjacent to themselves.

    On the women’s side, we gather in circles.  In our circles, everyone is visible and everyone has a voice.  Everyone can talk to everyone else.

    Now imagine the male vertical line next to the female circle.  From any position in the circle, women can look around the circle and see all the other women.  They can also look up and down the vertical line and see each and every man.  Because we gather in a circle we are not limited in our access to anyone – male or female.

    I have always had this perspective, even when I was in the Air Force at the very beginning of my career.  I never felt that I couldn’t talk to the Wing Commander because…ooohhhh…he was at the top of the organizational hierarchy and I was close to the bottom.

    I always made the distinction between the organizational hierarchy that identifies roles and responsibilities and the vertical male hierarchy.

    Men don’t make this distinction – they inserted their vertical male-hierarchy into the organizational hierarchy.  Decades ago when women entered the workplace we accepted their merger.  So, of course we don’t feel empowered – paternalism put us at the bottom of the male hierarchy.  And it doesn’t matter where we are in the organizational hierarchy we feel less empowered than our male peers because the male vertical hierarchy diminishes us.

    But who said we had to accept their merger?  Why can’t women keep their perspective?

    As women, we can go into the workplace and put the organizational hierarchy into our circular perspective.  We can visualize everyone in our workplace sitting around in a circle.  I can talk to anyone and understand their role and responsibilities to the workplace.  I can share what I do and understand how our roles come together for the benefit of the workplace.  That includes the top guy.

    I decided early in my Air Force career that it was more important for the top guy to have all the information he needs to do his job well, than to empower the male vertical hierarchy.  If I was sitting in a meeting (along the wall because I wasn’t important enough to sit at the table) listening to a discussion and I had a valuable piece of information that the Wing Commander needed and no one was mentioning, I presented it.

    Now, according to the male vertical hierarchy I should tell my boss, who then tells my Squadron Commander, who then tells the Group Commander who then finally tells the Wing Commander.

    But what are the chances that the Wing Commander gets the information?

    Nil to none.  And that is the huge problem with the male vertical hierarchy – it doesn’t communicate well and it doesn’t communicate timely. As a result, poor decisions are made or the results are never as expected.

    However, as a woman visualizing all of us sitting in a circle, working together, looking out for each other, with no ego to feed, I feel an obligation to speak up and make sure the Wing Commander has the information.  Because I speak up, a better decision is made and better results are produced.  Those better results benefit the Wing Commander, Group Commander, Squadron Commander and my boss.  So now they are all very happy and I get lots of pats on the back.  And they forgot all about their hierarchy because I made them look good.

    What empowered me to speak up was my female circular perspective.

    What would keep me quiet?  Seeing myself at the bottom of the male vertical hierarchy.

    Because I don’t make myself part of the vertical male hierarchy, I feel empowered and my workplaces perform better.  And for those of us who work in project environments, our circular perspective is the correct perspective – the linear perspective is one of the greatest sources of inefficiency.  When working in projects, we must include men into our circles.  And men love our circles because they can have a voice their hierarchy doesn’t allow them to have.

    Have there been men who want to put me in the male vertical hierarchy and push me to the bottom?  Of course.

    I’ve talked about being locked out of the Penthouse Suite of the All Boys Club even though I was more deserving of membership than most of the men in there.  And when they shoved me out the door, they expected me to take the express elevator to the basement.

    But I didn’t.  Because in the Purple Zone and in the female half of the sky there are no elevators!

    So, I just sat outside the door and waited – because I knew eventually a beer delivery was coming and that door was opening.  And in spite of what women are told about bringing coffee and lunch to the guys, if delivering beer gets me back inside, I will deliver beer…I will personally hand a beer to the most prominent man in the suite and introduce myself.

    Our empowerment begins with our perspective.  We don’t have to be part of the male vertical hierarchy – it is a male hierarchy.  We are women.  In my book I will expand on how men are equipped to deal with their hierarchy in a way women aren’t.  So, if men want to limit themselves by living in their hierarchy in their part of the sky, then that’s their business.  It means nothing to me because I choose to keep my female perspective.

    As women we gather and interact in a circle.  We keep our circular perspective because it empowers us to see ourselves as equal to men – all men – from the Omega to the Alpha.

    And if women want to sit in a circle, burn scented candles and hold hands while singing songs of love, peace and harmony, we can do that too.

     

    Empowered women are not part of the vertical male-hierarchy. 
    Empowered women work through interactive circles. 

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  • Female Traits – The Key to High Workplace Performance

    I haven’t written any blogs lately because I’ve been consolidating all of my ideas into a book.  It turned out to be more involved and comprehensive than I expected.  Now that I am in the editing stages, I am focusing on a central theme – How women’s natural traits are the key to achieving high performance in the workplace.

    This is a message we seldom hear.

    Instead society is still caught up in the stereotypes and the idea that men excel in business – the way men do business is the way business should be done.  But as I say in my book my first impression of the male-dominated workplace was pretty much “What the Hell?”  I saw chaos and crisis management all around me.

    I knew I could better and I did.  And the reason I did better was because I used my female traits.  I am very proud to say that I always outperformed my male colleagues.  I say this, not to brag, but so women know – Our traits bring tremendous value to the workplace!  Any workplace that balances male and female traits will outperform a workplace that only uses male traits.

    And what is so amazing, is that when we start using our traits, performance soars immediately.

    As some of you know I worked in an extremely male-dominated environment.  When I started, the workplace was on course to lose $7 million.  In 10 months, we were turning a nice profit of $3.2 million.

    How did I achieve such a miraculous recovery?

    I empowered all the women to use their female traits.

    Of course I know my profession extremely well and that is important.  But after trying to work through my all-male management team for three months and getting nowhere, I switched my attention to working through the women.

    The women who were project engineers, project coordinators and project administrators became the leaders.  The women led my male managers.

    No one can tell me that female traits are not powerful. Been there, used them, got the results!

    So, all of this advice that tells us that to be successful in the workplace we have to act like men, needs to go away.  It is time for society to accept that women hold up half the sky.  We bring our own unique traits to the workplace and add to what the men are already doing.  When men and women work in balance with each other, then we hold up the entire sky.

    As I’ve written my book I refined my list of male and female balancing traits.  Why my book is taking me so much longer than I expected is because I am discovering how all traits interact with each other.  It is not just about each set of traits balancing each other but a group of female traits working to balance a group of male traits.  It is really pretty amazing.  And I am in awe of how powerful women really are.

     

    Male
    Female
    BLUE ZONE
    PURPLE ZONE
    PINK ZONE

    Autonomy

    		 Group

    Tangibles in Action

    Abstracts in Action

    Task Expertise

    Multi-tasking

    Done!

    Done Well

    Line
    Balance 

    Circle
    Ego Protection

    Dispensable Ego

    Train

    Teach

    Stress Limits

    Stress Endurance

    Power Over  Change

    Adapt to Change

    Offensively Aggressive

    Defensively Aggressive

    Energy Restraint

    Energy Projection

     

    For women to come into their own, we have to start by embracing who we really are. We should be proud of who we are.  We are not weak, powerless or inferior in any way.  We just haven’t been taught how to apply our traits in the workplace.  That, I promise you, will change.

     

    Empowered Women Know Their Value!

     

  • Re-Energizing Yourself Is Critical in the Male-Dominated Workplace

     

     

     

     

    How do you recharge yourself after a stressful day at work?

    I used to answer that question by saying I go running or I go cycling.  I also love massages and reflexology.  In one high stress job I got a pedicure every 4 weeks.  But in thinking about it that is how I got rid of negative energy which is different than how I take on positive energy.  There is a distinction between the two and we need understand that.

    So how do I recharge?  Well sometimes it is through cycling – I ride out in scenic areas and explore.  I don’t care about how fast I am going or if I am climbing enough hills.  It is a very different experience than cranking away hard and fast.

    I also work around my house – my house was a bit of a fixer upper when I bought it.  While the inside is almost fully renovated the outside landscaping needs constant attention so I can always go out there and “play”.  I walk in the mornings checking plants to see where the irrigation needs adjustment and to see which plants the bunnies, chipmunks and jhavelina made a meal of.  As I walk around I am joined by the hummingbirds who literally chat in your ear.  I also have hawks nesting nearby who swoop down to see what critters I send scurrying as I walk around.  It’s really cool to see them up close.  There is also the roadrunner who perches in the trees and is very noisy in his mating calls.  But by the birdfeeder amongst the doves, finches and quail, I also get the brightest reddest cardinals I have ever seen.  And just as I am writing this my dog lets me know the coyotes are sauntering across the driveway to return to their daytime resting area.  But the best part is that every night I have that perfect expansive view of the desert sunset which when I am home I always take a moment to enjoy.  I think all of this is pretty cool and it recharges me.

    Even though I enjoy the beauty of many landscapes, I love living in the desert where I can see mountains in every direction.  Some people enjoy the ocean or the lake.  For others it is the vast plains of the Midwest.  What is important is that we recharge ourselves and where we recharge ourselves from.

    We shouldn’t look to other people to recharge us – we should not take their energy and use it for ourselves.  Unfortunately this is often the case in the male-dominated workplace.  We go to work and instead of being energized we become depleted.  And while we go home and rest and attempt to de-stress, we don’t always recharge.  And it is important that every woman who works in the male-dominated workplace finds her way to draw energy from the infinite supply of the earth’s energy.

    The earth is our energy source.  Connecting with the earth was an essential part of spirituality in many ancient and Indigenous cultures.  Native American cultures believe in Mother Earth and Father Sky but western culture through its separation of science and spirituality has estranged most of us from our spiritual connection to the earth. The earth has become merely an object that is to be used for our own purposes. We no longer consider earth as a living entity so we don’t see it as having energy.  We have forgotten that Mother Earth provides us with everything we need and nurtures every level of our human existence.  And as a result we believe we have to pull energy from each other instead of the world around us.

    This may sound truly corny but whenever I think of this subject I am reminded of the opening scene in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music.  We all know the feeling we feel when we watch this scene and listen to the music and we know this is why the movie touches us so much.   The symbolism in this scene captures a woman completely connected to herself and the world.  Watch the clip, look at the scenes and listen to the lyrics.

    Julie Andrews comes into the scene opens her arms and twirls – she is connecting with the universe – she is both taking in the energy of the hills and sharing her energy.  This is what women do.  When we are happy we throw open our arms and let our positive energy radiate out.  For as much as feminism wants to put down the concepts of True Womanhood, they had it right – women shine bright light out into the world!  And we have the power to recharge that light as often as we need.

    When Julie is done connecting with the universe she then puts her hands in her pockets symbolizing that her energy is fully replenished.

    “The hills are alive with the sound of music with songs they have sung for a thousand years.  The hills fill my heart with the sound of music.  My heart wants to sing every song it hears.”  It is the hills (nature/universe) that fills her heart with the positive energy that she in return wants to express without limit or boundaries.  It is through women that the universe shares and spreads its positive energy.

    “My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds that rise from the lake to the trees.”  Women have the power of making connections and become part of the nature/the universe.  It is through our need to connect that we rise up.

    “My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies from a church on a breeze.” She wants to say what is in her heart but she doesn’t need to be loud or forceful.  When speaks from her heart the message is naturally carried and spread.

    “To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over stones on its way.”  We will have trips and falls as we journey through life but we laugh at them and don’t let them stop us.  We just keep flowing and bubbling along on our journey.

    “To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray.”  We don’t give power to fear but learn to ask for strength.

    “I go to the hills when my heart is lonely.  I know I will hear what I’ve heard before.  My heart will be blessed with the sound of music and I’ll sing once more.”  It is from our natural connection to the hills and nature that we find our strength and replenish our energy. We don’t get it from men or even other people.  When women connect one-on-one with the universe, the universe will give us what we need.

    So next time you are feeling depleted, play this.  Oh what the heck – play it loud, twirl and sing!

     

    Empowered Women Re-Energize Themselves

  • Staying Positive in the Male-Dominated Workplace

    The greatest female trait is our projection of positive energy.  But for women working in the male-dominated workplace it sometimes feels like our ability to do that is being shut down.  For reasons we don’t quite understand we feel under attack.  Sometimes it is the things our male colleagues say to us that logically shouldn’t upset us but emotionally do.  It is as if we know we are trying to enhance the workplace but they don’t see it, they don’t understand, they just don’t get it.  Sometimes it is an outright statement that they don’t want to hear from us and our point of view.  It makes you want to crawl into a hole so you withdraw.  Then when you do, it seems the men get mad at you.  And it makes you wonder- what they want from me?

    Your male colleagues want your power to project positive energy to overcome whatever negative feelings they have.  They want you to make them feel better.  Sound convoluted?  It is!

    Men understand that women project positive energy and they need that from us.  So anytime we are not doing that they get nervous – they want to know what is wrong.  They wonder if they are the cause. If they believe they are, many of men have a hard time knowing how to fix it.  Because men don’t have a lot of experience working with women, they may reference back to their wives and/or girlfriends and that makes it worse because now they are projecting personal feelings into a work relationship.  They want to fix you, turn the fountain back on again but don’t know how.  This is where we need to learn how to do it ourselves and quickly because if we remain withdrawn, then the men will become defensive and suddenly you become the problem.

    We hear that women are unfairly criticized at work and wonder why.  This is why.  If men aren’t seeing positive energy flowing all the time then there is something wrong with us.  If we could be perky all the time men would be happy. I wish I could be perky all the time but so often it seems that the positive energy I put out into my workplace quickly dissipates and I feel like I am continuously trying to fill an empty void.  It is draining.  And if I am not careful I get depleted.

    Women need to constantly monitor their energy level and how the energy is flowing.  I dream – I fantasize – about those days when I come to work full of positive energy and give bit of it to the workplace and I see the workplace growing in its positive energy.  I dread the days when the workplace depletes me and I go home, try to recharge but can’t fully do it so I go back to work with less energy than the day before.  That cycle keeps repeating until I feel like I am running on empty all the time.  When this happens the question becomes if this is the right workplace for me.

    I will write a lot more on this topic because I am fascinated by it and I think it is the most ignored topic of women in the workplace.  I talk about Autonomy being critical to men in the workplace, well our ability to project positive energy is just as important to women.  This isn’t about giving men what they want, it is about empowering the essence of who we are, the most powerful part of ourselves.  Remember True Womanhood and its first virtue of Piety?  It said women shine a bright light out into the world.  They were right!  They also said that women couldn’t take that bright light into the male-dominated workplace because it would be destroyed.  That makes sense to me – I completely understand what they afraid of.

    So learning how to maintain the proper flow of positive energy from our source, through ourselves and out into the workplace is a female skill we need to get back in touch with.  Luckily, I think my friend Kat’s mission in life is to teach us how to do this.  Much more to come…

     

    Empowered Women Know Their Positive Energy Changes the World

  • Understanding The Male-Dominated Conference Room

    Instead of a blog, let’s get your thoughts.  I stumbled across this webpage and immediately thought it represented a lot of what I discuss.  Follow the link and give me your first reaction.  Conference Room Training.

    What was your first reaction?

    Mine was “Woah!”  this is a male-dominated conference room!  I bet this company is in the Blue Zone!  I understand what they are trying to portray with the photo but I don’t think my reaction is in line with it.

    I was immediately drawn to the guy up front doing the talking because he is using the Power Seat.  Notice he is not sitting at the table like women are told to do but pushed back as far as he can against the wall.  Notice all the space he has in front of him – he is commanding the room.  There is no doubt his ideas are being heard.  I know I picked up on this so fast because it reminded me of me in a meeting.

    If you want to know what the Power Seat looks like – there it is.  If a person was sitting where the projector is at the head of the table then this picture would show the complete power seat and meeting configuration.

    What also struck me is that this is on their careers page.  As a woman, does this company look inviting to you?  The guy who is talking is pointing.  How does that make you feel if you were looking for a job with this company?

    By now you’ve noticed there is only one woman in the room.  And where is she sitting?  She is not in a power position but more of a learning position.  At least she is not far back in the corner, notice there is another man in back there.

    Who are the power players?  The two guys sitting directly across from the speaker in the I-am-listening-to-what-you-are-saying-and-judging-how-it-affects-my-status pose.  Did you notice how similar those guys look?  Notice the other guy sitting next to them – he looks like a junior version.  What does that say to you about the company?

    Notice these guys are sitting with their back against the wall with no one behind them.  This makes me question the amount of trust there is between them and the rest of the people in the room.  Their position also doesn’t allow them to take command – to me they looked trapped in their position which makes me question if they are trapped in their roles in the company.  What does that say about the company?

    How about the guy in the dark blue shirt who is standing up?  He is slightly aggressive and ready to pounce because he has ideas and he is not about to let the speaker steam roll over his ideas.  He will be heard which is why he is standing.  The chair between him and the speaker is what is moderating him from pouncing.

    You probably didn’t miss the other guy who needs hard convincing – he is the big guy in the middle of the back table.  He is sitting forward and definitely ready to voice his opposition to what the speaker is saying.  I noticed him pretty quick because he looks very much like someone I worked with and I can read his expression.

    Did you notice that just about everyone is where a blue shirt?  Start tracking what is going on in your office when guys wear blue shirts – especially the long sleeve bottom up shirts like the two guys against the wall.  To me this shirt always means – I am open to listening today but I am still formal and not giving up my position.  In other words, just because I am listening, don’t think I am going to give your opinion as much weight as mine.

    Did you notice the one guy in the red shirt?  He intrigues me.  If I was in this room listening to the speaker, that is where I would be sitting – power seat number 2.  He can see the room and he has space to push back and claim floor space.  He is in a counter position to the speaker.  Actually, if I were in that room, I would probably be standing.  If I agreed with the speaker I would be projecting support.  If I disagreed I would be joining with the other guy who is standing and ensuring our objections are heard.

    If you have never been in a male-dominated conference room, this picture is a great representation of what it looks like.  Really think about your observations and how it made you feel.  This is what you need to do in every meeting – read the room!  Understanding the room, is critical to not being intimidated by it and giving yourself the confidence to take a leading position in the meeting.

    Empowered women are not intimidated by the male-dominated conference room. – they read it! 

     

     

  • How to Blend Male and Female Problem Solving Skills in the Male-Dominated Workplace

    I’ve probably mentioned this before but my biggest pet peeve at work is that people can’t problem solve.  Working in the construction industry where we come across problems on a daily basis this is especially frustrating.  Looking through some old notes this week, I found some examples of problems that were difficult to solve until I got some women involved.

    In the male-dominated workplace when a problem arises, solving the problem can take a distant back seat to being a competition of status.  The first concern is who is to blame for the problem.  In the autonomous, expertise driven Blue Zone, a problem occurred because someone did something wrong.  Watching men try to assign blame to each other is literally like watching a game of hot potato played around the conference table.  What they fail to understand is that the problem arose out of complexity and the inability of the male-dominated workplace to adequately deal with complex issues that require the integration of three or more parties.  No one person or team is to blame – they way men operate is to blame.

    Once blame is assigned to either someone who isn’t present or no longer with the company, then attention is turned to the generation of ideas on how to solve the problem.  I love this part!  Every man must voice a solution  or opinion or risk being considered irrelevant.  Some of the ideas can be fairly far fetched but at least he said something.  Over a period of time men will start dropping their idea in favor of adopting another man’s idea until there are two or three solutions left.  Now it becomes really interesting as they try to decide on solution.  Picking a solution really about picking a winner but the problem is that there is a 900 lb gorilla in the room – they know neither of the solutions is a complete solution.  The reason they problem occurred in the first place was due to a lack of coordination or integrating all parties.  Those same issues are preventing them from coming up with a complete solution.  If left to their own devices then no solution is accepted.  The problem just lingers on and on and on.

    An even worse outcome is when the men convince themselves a half-baked solution will work and charge full speed ahead down this path.  This always winds up generating new compounding problems that in my experience take an inordinant amount of time and energy to untangle and resolve.  So I am always glad when they decide to do nothing instead.

    Unlike other people I tell women not to jump in while every man is busy voicing his opinion.  Instead just listen to the ideas.  Then when the discussion simmers down and the men are vying for their idea to be deemed the winner that is when you start speaking up.  As women we are better at seeing the big picture.  By listening to all of the ideas, you start putting together the big picture.  It is like working a jig saw puzzle.  You know what information you have and you know there are missing pieces – you don’t know exactly what they are but you know something about what they look like.  So you start asking questions and integrating the ideas.  The men will continue to voice their ideas, if they have any – and that is a big if.  The missing information is often information no one at the table.  So now instead of the problem just lingering, there is a path forward.

    In my experience when it comes to problem solving in the male-dominated workplace men are good at generating the basic building blocks of ideas and women are good at assembling the blocks and driving the group to a decision.  This is a natural skill all women should practice and become very comfortable with.  Start doing this within your own peer group and you will find that the men are receptive.  Then as you grow in confidence you will find yourself doing the same thing in meetings with more senior managers.  We often make the mistake thinking that senior managers have better decision making skills than our peers but they often fall into the same trap.  Speaking up in front of senior managers and helping them come to a conclusion on a decision is a great way to get noticed.

    Having problem solving and decision making skills are the most important skills to have in business so those are what you need to hone.  A lot of your male peers will concentrate on building their expertise in the profession or trade and keep a narrow focus.  Women don’t do that, we always keep a wide perspective.  As a woman, you want to take the expertise of your peers and continuously bring it all together for planning, decision making and problem solving.  When you build that expertise, you are no longer in competition with your male peers, you compliment their skills.  This is also the foundation of leadership and you prepare yourself for larger leadership positions.

     

    Empowered women are leaders who use their inherent female traits to compliment the traits of their male colleagues for the betterment of the company. 

  • Why You Should Keep Personal and Professional Separate In the Workplace

    Work Life Separation - CroppedI can’t believe I haven’t written about this yet because out of all the topics I can think of, this is the topic I deal with the most – people using company cell phones, computers, office, desks and file cabinets as if they are their own personal property.

    I think I kept pushing it off because I kept thinking that people have learned to keep personal and professional separate.  But they haven’t.

    Years ago, my employees believed that our company couldn’t look into phone records, computer usage or even go into an office or cubicle without their consent.  I had to inform them “Sorry, it is all company property and the company can and will go through it whenever they want.”

    Management goes through computer usage, emails and phone records more often than most people think.  Yes, Big Brother is active – scanning and digging for dirt on employees.

    If you have dirty little secrets and you think you can hide them on your work devices, think again. 

    Management will discover them.

    Men are particularly bad about using company computers and cell phones to hide their secrets.

    I got a phone call from the accounting department about a few employees cell phone data usage.  According to the cell phone carrier, the data could only be explained by downloading movies.  That didn’t make sense.  I knew these guys are working and not watching movies all day.  Why would they download movies on their cell phone to watch at home?

    Call me naïve!

    When one of the guys quit, his cell phone sat on my desk for a few days.  Alerts kept going off.  There was a long string of text messages with a link to a porn site as new little videos were loaded.

    Many people don’t think about it but when you get a company cell phone, the number was used before by another employee.  At one company I was given a used phone number and started getting weird texts from a woman.  At first I thought she was texting the wrong number.  Then she got angry because I didn’t reply.  It took me a couple of days to figure out that the former employee was having an affair with this woman.  When he came back to work for the company and found out that I had his old phone number, he was embarrassed!

    Companies routinely monitor cell phone bills and look for employees who go through a lot of minutes.  If there are excess minutes, the company requests the detailed bill with all the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls.  Then it is just a matter of dialing the unrecognized numbers.  Management finds out who is going through a bankruptcy, collections and has legal problems.

    Generally I don’t dig into computer usage unless there is a performance issue with an employee.  If an employee minimized their screen every time I walk or stop by, you bet I am going to look into it. I want to know what they are doing instead of working.

    I learned when I got my first work computer in the mid 80’s to befriend the system administrators.  I thought it was always pretty amazing what they could do from behind the scenes.  While it used to be difficult and expensive to have monitoring programs, today, any company can shadow your computer any time without you even knowing it.  If your computer is on, it can be monitored.   Even away from the office.

    Don’t ever think you can hide how you are using your company computer!

    And don’t think any of your emails are private.  Your email account can be loaded onto anyone else’s computer and they have full access.  They can even send emails from your account.

    The good news is you can catch on when someone is monitoring  you.  Outlook tends to get a little glitchy especially if you keep thousands of emails in your inbox.   So if you’re having problems with your email and no one else is, don’t be surprised if it is being monitored.

    All of this is important because managers use work computers and cell phones to look for dirt on employees.

    That is how I got turned onto this whole issue – I overheard managers talking about how they were going through an employee’s email and phone records to see what they could find because they were mad at him.  Management knows that if they want to find dirt to document or substantiate their claims against an employee, then the computer is an excellent place to start.

     

    After hearing that, I made sure I never put anything personal on my work computer and I bought a personal cell phone.

     

    I’ve carried a work cell phone and a personal cell phone for years.  I keep them very separate and distinct.  I don’t give out my work cell phone number to friends and I don’t give out my personal cell phone number to work colleagues.   With the exception of my daughters’ phone numbers under ICE, I don’t keep any personal phone numbers on my work phone.  I don’t load apps for games, social media or my bank.  I don’t load my personal email accounts.  I make it so anyone who goes through my work cell phone, learns very little about my personal life.

    I treat my work computer the same way.  I don’t load my personal email account into Outlook or even access through the internet.  I minimize the use of my work computer for anything personal.  Years ago if I was going on an extended business trip I used to carry my personal computer too.  Fortunately smart phones, iPads and thumb drives have replaced the need to carry a separate personal computer.

    Also keep your work devices 100% professional.  Don’t send snarky texts or emails.  If you aren’t willing to stand up and make the comment verbally, then don’t send it.

    My objective was very simple: I made sure that anyone who went through my work computer or cell phone only saw work.  Dull, boring, professional work. 

    Always remember that after you leave your company your phone and computer will be reused.  But before it is, everything on your computer will be loaded onto another system or backup drive so others can access it.

    Don’t be like the guy who used his work computer as his personal computer while going through a messy divorce.  He kept all of his personal documents on the computer and used his work email to correspond with his attorney.   Every detail of his divorce and personal finances got scattered throughout the company systems.

    And don’t think deleting is a safe guard either.  It can all be easily restored.

    I extend the separation of professional and personal to Linkedin and Facebook respectively.

    I am connected with only a few former co-workers on Facebook.  I don’t recommend you connect with current co-workers on Facebook – actually let me rephrase that – as a manager I implore you not to connect with your co-workers on Facebook.  Personal issues and drama will get dragged into the workplace and cause problems.  It will not reflect well on you.

    Unless you build the barriers and the separation, personal issues and drama have a way of seeping into the workplace.  There are a lot of people, including (male) managers who are titillated by drama.  If you leave the door open, even a crack they will walk right through it.  Even worse, there are a lot of managers who get off on creating drama as a way to sidetrack people from their own poor management issues.  Don’t be their source.  You will be used and pay the price.

    I used to think that I took a pretty extreme position on this issue but as I went higher in the management ranks my conviction to the absolute separation of personal and professional has only increased.  If you value your career and plan on moving up, you have to consciously build barriers and separation between personal and professional.

    In this super connected world, people are always looking for access to places they don’t belong and for an advantage they can use to advance themselves.  I know my strict policy has save me a lot of problems especially as I am breaking the glass ceiling and walking through the door of the All Boy’s Club.

    Bottom line: Don’t Trust and Protect yourself.

    Empowered women are always vigilant.      

     

  • Women Hold Up Half The Sky

     

    Recently I came across some essays written by Barbara Spraker that speak to the power of feminine energy based on the Tao concept that women hold up half the sky.

    She writes:

    “So claims an ancient Chinese proverb – “Women Hold Up Half the Sky.”  This amazing image doesn’t describe women sitting under the shade tree while men hold up the sky.  It doesn’t suggest women are competing with men to hold up the sky.  Not at all!  What it evokes is a picture of women fully bringing their unique gifts to the task, bringing their ways of holding up the sky.”

    Wow!  I find that so powerful.

    She goes on to discuss that through wholeness and completeness there is a commitment to the greater good.  “This greater good requires us to ‘let go’ of our ego and lay claim to our deeper personal power, rooted in our unique gifts, perspective and passions, as well as to our place in the universal wisdom stream.  This path enables us to understand that while we are individuals doing our work, our role in the sky is not about ego, it is about the common good.  So we ‘let go’ of comparison and competition and listen inside for that place where our unique contributions are called for.  When we are centered in our personal power, we are connected – connected to our highest vision, to others with whom we share our task, and to the continuum of wisdom and insight that is our birthright.”

    Again I find that very powerful.  It reminded me of the True Womanhood ideals of the 19th century and the first virtue of Piety which stated that women shine a bright light out into the world to balance the dark world created by man.  In True Womanhood, Piety empowered women to stand up for the greater good – they too, believed that women held up half of the sky.

    I find it interesting that ancient and more contemporary concepts acknowledge the power of female energy to balance male energy but our current culture has abandoned finding any value in female energy.  We have forgotten that is through female energy, we arrive at the greater good.  We believe that acts from ego will overpower acts towards the greater good.  So we tell women, that to find power, they need to adopt male energy and habits.  We teach that male energy overpowers female not that they work in concert with each other to achieve something greater.

    Barbara’s essays discuss Yin (female) and Yang (male) energy and their dynamic nature – how one flows to the other, how when Yang rises, Yin ebbs until the energies naturally change and Yin rises and Yang ebbs.  When working together, the ebbs and rises are gentle and natural.  She says “So those who are ‘holding up the sky’ are engaged not in holding tight to a pillar, but are engaged in dynamic, interdependent, co-creative dance – in relationship with colleagues and with the sky itself in its continual changes.”

    “And it is not just women.  The other half of the sky is held up by men.  This doesn’t come to the world as a new idea.”

    Taoism teaches that the Yin and the Yang are interdependent and continuously act on each other creating unity.  But Western culture has favored Yang energy for several centuries.

    • “Rational thinking (Yang) is of greater value than intuition (Yin)
    • Competition (Yang) is superior to cooperation (Yin)
    • Science (Yang) is more trusted than religion (Yin)
    • Initiative (Yang) is superior to responsiveness (Yin)”

     

    As a result, there is a disconnection, a separation of self from the whole.  This again goes back to what I talk about with men and autonomy.  Too much Yang energy results in autonomy.  It also results in “an energy that is assertive, externalized, hierarchical, oriented to power over others and which routinely uses force to achieve desired results.”  “Yang energy incorporates a belief in ‘objectivity,’ an assumption that ‘I’ am outside the system, able to observe what is happening rationally, with clear perception, and make judgments untainted by personal bias or emotion.”

    This is what my article Why Men Don’t Teach Employees To Problem Solve was about.  Men detach themselves from the workforce and come up with solutions on their own.  Because they are not part of the system, they believe they can make better decisions on how the system should operate.  This detachment serves to increase status and position in a hierarchy used to exert superiority over others.

    Yes, the male-dominated workplace is full of Yang energy which is why it doesn’t function well – it is working with only half of itself.  For every rise, there is no balancing ebb.  With no Yin energy to counteract the rising Yang energy, Yang energy keeps rising until it crashes back down.  If you think about every major crisis in the past few centuries and you will find Yang energy that went too far.

    This morning I was talking to my financial advisor about the oil industry and he said that the oil price peaks and crashes are inherent to the industry.  I said – that’s because it is the most male-dominated industry on the planet.  the construction industry has the same problem.  Male dominated industries or companies that have unbounded Yang energy wind up going through periods of feast and famine, great rises followed by great crashes.

    This is the greater good women can serve – bringing more Yin energy to prevent those great crashes.  We can maintain a natural balance.  We do this through creating the connections – through integration and coordination of Yang actions.  By creating connections, no one is allowed to stand outside the system – they become part of the system, part of the whole.  Ego is kept in check.  As the whole gains in energy, the greater good, the better results are achieved.

    As a woman, you will feel the balance of Yin and Yang working naturally together.  You will feel and intuitively know when they are in balance.  Likewise, I suspect most women, especially those in any STEM industry know how a workplace that is out of balance feels.

    But instead of correctly this imbalance, women are mistakenly being told that what feels wrong is their female energy.  As a result they are abandoning their feminine power and adopting too much masculine with the belief that male energy is more valuable or dominates over female.  Barbara’s second essay Women Hold Up Half The Sky: That’s Hard To Do When Your Feet Are Bound discusses how women have bound their own feet and are holding themselves back.

    “In this second essay we will confront some of the profound ways Yin energy has been dominated, discounted and silenced, and also consider what is required to shift that reality.  Other authors have engaged this topic, to be sure, but often as an attack on the dominant reality, and ironically, reflecting the same consciousness which they are challenging.  This ‘us versus them’ perspective is counterproductive to the healing and regeneration that is needed in the world today.”

    “To put it plainly, this is not about men silencing women.  This is about the beliefs woven into our cultures so deeply that they are usually subconscious.  Men, as well as women, suffer from the insidious assumption that one half of the citizens of the world is more valuable than the other half.”

    “Women as well as men must awaken.  As long as we ignore the profound nature of the silencing, our efforts to bring our gifts to holding up the sky will be inadequate.  We will not have the patience or persistence to step into our power.  We will not have the boldness or the courage or the creativity necessary to step up to our responsibility as full, first class citizens of the world.”

    Barbara brings up a point that I never thought of before in how we hold up the boy or the man as the standard.  We tell girls they can play soccer just as well as the boys.  We can achieve xxxxxxxx just as well as men.  It is a subtle message brought that is rooted in an historically patriarchal society that values male energy more than female.  As women we have subconsciously bought into this belief and that is what we must awaken to.

    Her second essay tells us to:

    Open our eyes and to see what we desire.

    Open our eyes and to see our own path.

    Open our hearts and feel – to feel the pain of the silencing we have felt for centuries.

    Open our will and act.  “To follow our inner wisdom and give our gifts with joy and compassion.  Part of seeing is recognizing that we are not helpless to help.”

    “We are ‘caring for our bound feet’ every time we accept other’s expectations of us without thinking, every time we fail to speak our own truth with respect, every time we make excuses for not acting on our own values, and every time we avoid responsibility for the health of our community.”

    I enjoyed Barbara’s essays and am including the link to them as well to a Ted Ed about Yin and Yang.

    As I have written more and learned more through this website, I’ve come to realize the first battle women must conquer is believing in themselves – that female energy is just as powerful and important as male energy.  Women have to believe that empowering their female traits in the male-dominated workplace is their key to success.

    I keep coming back to this issue because I know I can write about all of kinds of situations you will find in the male-dominated workplace and give suggestions on how to deal with them, but the advice does no good unless you truly believe that your feminine energy is powerful enough to deal with them.  You must believe your strength lies in your womanhood.  Once you believe in your power, then you can live up to your moral obligation to serve the common good.

    Women Hold Up Half The Sky by Barbara J. Spraker April 2008

    Women Hold Up Half The Sky:  That’s Hard to Do When Your Feet Are Bound by Barbara J. Spraker January 2009

    The Hidden Meanings of Yin and Yang by John Bellaimey

     

    Empowered Women Hold Up Their Half of the Sky

  • Your Attitude About You Is Critical in The Male-Dominated Workplace

    The blog-o-sphere is full of articles right now telling women how unfair the male-dominated workplace is towards women.  We hear about how much harder we work but get fewer rewards, pay and promotions.  We hear that women are viewed as abrasive and bossy.  We hear that if we are not bossy, then we are timid and don’t project self-confidence.  We hear that if women are confronted about their “poor behavior” we respond emotionally and irrationally.  We hear that our male co-workers manterrupt us and take credit for our ideas.  We hear that we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

    The overall message out there is that the world is working against women.  The more subtle message is that we are victims of the male-dominated workplace.

    My message to you is that you are not a victim and that you cannot view the male-dominated workplace as being against you.  If you do you will never get anywhere!

    I know all of the difficulties of being a woman in the male-dominated workplace.  This past week I was reminded again that I’ve never had the title of Sr. Project Manager even though I have carried 5 large projects at once and been in charge of a $100 million project which by any industry standards warrants the title of Sr. Project Manager.  While I was carrying the 5 projects, I had the company check my pay against the other Project Managers of my level and found that I was the lowest paid by 20%.  I was not compensated with a pay increase but only an additional stipend while I worked on those projects that brought me up to par with the average pay of my male colleagues.

    I’ve even been given a bonus of a pedicure and manicure for myself and my daughters while all of the men got trips for their families.  I had the same manager distribute the graphic write-up of a sexual harassment complaint to other managers who stopped him from including it as an attachment to a larger complaint to a client.

    I’ve been back-stabbed, front-stabbed and sabotaged by younger male colleagues overly-eager to take my job.

    When the young men take me on and try to take over my job, I’ve learned to step aside and tell them to “go ahead and give it a try.”  Each and every one of them has come back with the same words “I didn’t realize how much you do!”  I take my job back and in return I get their respect.

    I can empathize and share all kinds of stories with women who want to show that the male-dominated workplace is unfair.  But I never let that hold me back.  I didn’t let it affect my attitude about who I am or what I can accomplish.  I didn’t let it erode my self-confidence.  I know what I can do, I know that being a woman in a male-dominated workplace is an advantage – that I can outperform any of my male peers using the techniques I talk about on this website.

    It’s all about attitude.  I heard something on TV today about how men need to change.  I don’t believe I can wait for men “to get the message” and change the workplace. (I will be retired and buried before that happens!)  My attitude is that I and we, as women, already have the power to change the workplace – we just have to choose to exercise it.

    Choose your attitude.  You can be a victim, a passive bystander or a leader.  I have always chosen to be a leader and I believe all women can be leaders in the male workplace.  I believe the male-dominated workplace needs us to be leaders.  And I also believe we will be rewarded.

    In my career I have not focused on how I was treated – I focused on performance, making things happen and providing results.  This is why I figured out how as a woman to out-perform my male peers, in ways that are difficult for them to match.  My attitude is that no one can take away my accomplishments.  Oh, and yes early in my career a jealous manager decided not to write me up for an award.  My response to him was “I didn’t do all that I did so I could get a medal.  And not getting a medal doesn’t change what I accomplished.”  I own my accomplishments, they give me confidence in what I can achieve and that is what matters.

    So, please don’t buy into the whole the workplace is unfair to women mantra.  If you do, it can easily become an excuse that deters you from leading your workplace.  Believing you are helpless is how you hold yourself  back, fail to speak your truths, fail to live up to your values and fail to be responsible for the betterment of your community and workplace.  And as a woman in the male-dominated workplace, your responsibility is to project positive energy and provide leadership so the workplace becomes fair and so those who perform are rewarded and recognized for their accomplishments.

    Empowered Women Don’t Allow Negative Attitudes Deter Their Leadership. 

  • How To Train Employees In A Male-Dominated Workplace

    When you attend training, what do you hope to get out of it?  Do you expect to get step by step instructions or the answer on how to solve a problem?  Do you expect the person training you to be better at the task than you?  Is it Ok with you that person a professional trainer/instructor with no practical experience in the subject?

    There are many approaches to training but in the male-dominated workplace the primary approach has been for the more experienced, more knowledgeable person to train the less experienced, less knowledgeable.  The trainee watches and copies what the trainer does.  When I worked with trades, this was called OJT – on the job training.  In my office environments, I noticed female managers give their female employees step-by-step instructions which they were supposed to write down then replicate on their own to accomplish the task.  Female employees with a female supervisor are typically shown how to accomplish a task once, whereas male employees under a male supervisor are often placed with a sink or swim situation – if they need help, they have to ask.  In either case, most training seems to be rote and based on memorization of steps.

    I first became acutely aware of how we teach and train while I was in college.  We memorized formulas and equations and in which situations to apply them to.  If you could remember a homework problem that was like the test question, you used the same formula and applied the same sequence of events.   It seemed kids that were good at memorization were the A students.  To me, this was boring so I came up with a different approach.

    I dove into understanding the formulas.  I asked myself “why” continuously until I understood the relationships and how each element worked and its limitations.  I tell people this is why I don’t understand electricity – I got down to asking “why” does an electron excites the next electron – what makes that happen?  Since no one could explain, I gave up on understanding electricity and consequently did not do well in that class.

    But my other classes turned around.  I was no longer bored, I was applying myself.  My approach was to understand the fundamental principles then apply them to a problem – understand then think my way through to solve a problem.  I became a lot more involved in my classes – I started asking more questions and my professors ate it up.  They came out of their trance and started explaining their theories, their thoughts and their logic.

    We were thinking.

    But at work, we try to train employees by memorization of steps without ever explaining why.  As supervisors and managers, we do the thinking and we tell employees what to do.  Isn’t that what makes us managers – we think for the doers?  Isn’t that how we distinguish ourselves – through our intellect?

    Last week I was on a webinar about training employees.  The consultant’s concept was that as a manager, your job is not to give answers to your employees but to lead them in thinking and solving the problem on their own.  He said to do what I did in college – ask “why”.  Ask employees how they would solve the problem then as they go through the steps, ask “why” and keep digging deeper and they will refine the answer or change it altogether for a different approach.  Employees who are not accustomed to coming up with answers will produce less than ideal answers and according to the consultant that is OK.  As a manager you are the trainer and you need to accept the less than ideal solution or keep asking “why” until the employees arrive at an acceptable and workable solution.

    This is the same concept I use in my Process Meetings.  I let my team develop the process as a team and my role is to guide them, ask questions and make them delve in deeper.  The concept requires that as the manager, I stand back, if not subordinate my position and let my team take the lead.

    However, the problem is that many managers get frustrated with the less than ideal solution, take over and start providing THE answer according to themselves and employees are expected to just follow the manager’s instructions.  As a result employees don’t learn how to think, problem solve or be creative.

    There were a lot of men on the webinar that struggled with the consultant’s concept.  One man was even bold enough to say he was writing a “book of answers” for his company.  He was listing all of the conceivable problems his company could come across and THE correct solution.  To date he had over 200 problems and solutions identified and he planned on distributing his book to all employees.  He was taken back when the consultant said this was the wrong approach.  Actually, the consultant didn’t answer right away but we could hear his thoughts loud and clear “Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?  This isn’t about you and your knowledge, this is about letting your employee think.”

    The male-dominated workplace embraces the concepts like Mr. Answerman proposed and it wasn’t until I attended these webinars that I realized how bad it was.  On the next webinar which discussed applying this concept to construction, I thought the consultant and I were on a different planet than the other men.  It made me think back to the previous webinar – what was the Answerman with the “book of answers” really after – improving company performance or impressing everyone with his superior knowledge?  The guy gave me the creeps!!

    The problem with THE solution is that it only applies to one particular situation.  The next time THE solution is used, the situation is not exactly the same, it may be similar but there will be variations.  So, the ideal solution is no longer so ideal.  It needs to be modified.  Who does that?  Who comes up with the new ideal solution?  Does all work stop until it goes back to Mr. Answerman and he comes up with THE NEW IMPROVED solution?

    I kid you not, but there were men on this webinar who would say “yes!”

    But the answer is “no.”  Employees need to be capable of solving problems on their own.  “Ideal” solutions developed by experts in the remote vacuum of their experience and intellect work until they hit the Reality of the actual workplace.  This is a difficult concept to get across in the male-dominated workplace.  Even in trying to find a picture for this article, teachers and trainers are portrayed at the front of the class, while students/trainees sit and listen.  I was looking for a picture that shows employees solving a problem while the manager stands back and the one I used is the closest I found.  I think that says a lot about our perceptions of training and learning.

    As managers we need to help employees do what I did in college – employees need to understand the fundamental principles of their job and tasks, then think their way through their application by asking “why” in order to solve the problem. Understanding and thinking that leads to creativity!

    Whenever I discuss this subject I think back several years when I saw a T shirt that read “Think – It’s Not Illegal”.  I didn’t buy the T shirt but periodically, I make a BIG sign for my office that says just that!

    One final thought – have you asked “WHY” the male-dominated workplace approaches training and problem solving this way?  Why aren’t employees taught to think and solve problems?  I will answer that is my next article.

    Empowered Women Encourage Their Team to Think and Teach Them to Solve Problems

  • How To Solve A Problem You Know Nothing About

    During the Ebola scare I noticed that our government leaders felt compelled to project that they had answers even though they clearly didn’t.  They could not admit that they didn’t have the answer.  They believe this gives us confidence in them.  I recognized their behavior because I recently dealt with a situation at work where my boss could not admit he didn’t know how to solve a problem.  He and I disagreed that admitting he didn’t have the answer was the best first step in finding the answer.

    Personally, I don’t have confidence in people who project false confidence because I see them as acting out of fear.  They are afraid to admit they don’t have all the answers because they rely heavily on previous experience to tell them what to do.  This means they have to live and work in safe little boxes and they never venture out into the unknown because they don’t know how to solve problems that they haven’t solved before.  So, what they are really trying to hide is that they don’t know how to solve new problems.

    I thought my opinion was in the minority until I was on a self-development webinar last week led by a leading international Lean business consultant.  According to the Lean consultant, the male-dominated workplace believes they have to know and must always project that they know how to make something happen.  The male-dominated workplace is uncomfortable with uncertainty.  This is because our culture believes that the higher up in an organization a person is, the more knowledge and experience they have – so therefore they must have the answer.  The fear at play is vulnerability – if they don’t have the answer, then why do they deserve to be in that position?

    The consultant advocates that managers and leaders admit what they don’t know and then apply a scientific way of thinking and problem solving.  When faced with a problem we don’t know how to solve, then the best thing is to just try something.  If it is wrong, then it will fail quickly and you learn from the failures.

    The less you know about how to solve the problem the smaller the step you take.  Again, if it is wrong then failure will come quickly.  As you grow in experience in an area, you can take larger initial steps.  Again, it is all about being comfortable taking action when there is uncertainty and not being afraid to fail.  Failure should be an accepted part of learning.

    This is a scientific approach to problem solving – you come up with a theory and try it.  How many iterations of the light bulb did Edison go through before he came up with a solution that worked?  Anyone who has ever invented anything new, has known failure and has not allowed failure to be labeled a “personal weakness.”

    Don’t be afraid to fail early, fail fast and fail often.  Just learn from the failure and try again.  As the old saying goes, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

    The consultant’s comments were geared towards the very male audience who were taught to project an answer and stick with it, try to make it work in order to prolong the admission of failure.  For women we have a slightly different problem implementing this approach – we have to learn to act quickly, not plan and collaborate extensively first.  I realize I use this approach and have taught it to others by a comment I make “I don’t know if it will work, but give it a whirl and see what happens.”  I realize in writing this that I use this approach in cooking… a lot!!

    So when you have a problem you don’t know how to solve, don’t be afraid to admit it and don’t be afraid to come up with an idea and give it a whirl!  See what happens.  If it doesn’t work, then you learned something and you just try something else.

    Empowered women aren’t afraid to fail and learn from the failure.