In order to advance women in the workplace, women need solutions for the unique issues and challenges we face. That is why I started this website.
When I began, the women who had worked deep in the male-dominated workplace weren’t sharing the lessons they learned. So, through this website my original intent was to share a lot of “How To’s” such as:
How to get your voice heard and take command of the conference room when you are the only woman in a meeting with 25 loud, opinioned men who all want to be in charge.
How to prevent sexual harassment and what to do when it occurs.
How to get a lot of recognition for your achievements without being an obnoxious braggart.
How to recognize and seize the hidden opportunities in your workplace that will propel your career forward
How to deal with women in traditional roles when you are the first female manager and upset the decades old informal power structure.
How to be a leader as a woman.
How to be confident when you don’t have all the answers.
How to approach any job so you always out-perform your male colleagues
How to deal with very competitive male peers.
These are the solutions women need. However, as soon I began putting these solutions out there, I met resistance. I quickly discovered that women had a larger, more fundamental problem:
We don’t understand how the male-dominated workplace really functions.
Our perceptions about the male-dominated workplace are based on narratives written over 40 years ago. And these narratives have been repeated decade after decade. Consequently, young women today think they are facts. They aren’t.
What women don’t know is:
Those narratives weren’t written by women with any experience working in traditional male roles.
Even now when I speak to a group of women, I sometimes get lambasted by women who want to protect these old narratives. Meanwhile the women who have been “the woman in the room” as computer programmers, mathematicians, procurement specialists and statisticians are quietly sitting, nodding their head in agreement with what I am saying.
It seems many women are focused more on protecting the narratives, than on advancing women. They don’t want to hear how their bad workplace experiences come from the bogus narratives. They don’t want to know how the male-dominated workplace really functions.
We know that if we want to succeed in an environment, then we have to understand that environment.
Therefore, if women want to advance in the workplace, one of the first solutions we have to put in place is and understanding of how the male-dominated workplace functions.
Here are some basics:
Men and the male-dominated workplace are driven by a quest for Autonomy, independence and self-determination. (Women’s narratives say they are driven by a quest for power and domination over others.)
Trust and respect are paramount in the male-dominated workplace. (Women’s narratives eradicate men’s trust.)
Men fear blame. In some men that fear is intense. (Women’s narratives blame men.)
A good sense of humor is critical. (If you have never LMFAO at a Trump tweet, you will have problems working with men.)
The result of not understanding of how the male-dominated workplace really functions is having a devastating effect on advancing women. Too many women see themselves as powerless.
Consequently, too many young women accept that the only way women can become empowered, and advance is when men decide to give up some of their power and give it to women. Since this idea follows the dictionary definition of empowerment, women accept it as a real-world truth. We accept that this is the way the world works.
Out of all of the narratives this definition of empowerment is the most devastating to women. To remedy this woman must adopt men’s attitude towards empowerment:
I turned 18. I am a legal adult. I am fully empowered. Period.
Women need to understand that our full empowerment and equality already exist. They are just sitting there waiting for each of us to pick them up and do something with them. We just have to choose to do so.
As women we should never accept that we aren’t fully empowered. And when someone says we aren’t we should do what men do – challenge them.
But many women resist accepting this perspective on empowerment and equality. Why?
Why don’t women want to see our own inherent equality and power?
I found one answer when I first began talking about my career. I wasn’t cheered for my success. Instead, I was slammed with comments that I was lying or making it up. Women didn’t want to hear that a woman was successful in a male-dominated job.
Why not?
Because I could then turn to them and ask:
Why didn’t you try?
Why didn’t you go into a male-dominated profession where you could break barriers and shatter glass ceilings?
The truth is that the old narratives give women an excuse not to try. They give us an excuse to play it safe and stay in our traditional roles and protect our feminine privilege.
The fundamental, underlying reason women don’t want me speaking out is because I was willing to give up my feminine privilege in order to achieve equality and advance my career.
Feminine privilege says women can assume less responsibility in the workplace but still have the same pay and promotion opportunities as men who take on more work, responsibility and accountability.
But that is not how the workplace functions. Ultimately the workplace is merit based. So, we need to prove we merit the same opportunities, pay and promotions as men because we take on the same work, responsibility and accountability as men.
If we really want to advance women in the workplace, then the very first thing we have to do is give up our feminine privilege.
I know that the male-dominated workplace is a goldmine of opportunity for women. My blogs, videos and book can help women advance and achieve their full potential.
We just have to choose to do it.
Empowered Women Give Up Their Feminine Privilege To Achieve Their Equality.
Beginning in childhood we are taught that we can’t act on our own. We have to wait for permission from our parents and other adults with authority.
We are also taught that best people – the smartest, most educated and most experienced – rise to the top of our businesses, organizations and institutions. We believe that these people have earned the right to do what they want and have the power to control the actions of those under them.
We are taught to believe in top-down systems.
Women and other disadvantaged groups are told that we need to be empowered – that those at the top need to write laws, rules and policies that grant some of their power to us. They have to give us the right to have more self-determination over ourselves. We have to prove ourselves worthy so they let us move up.
As a result we were conditioned to wait for permission.
But what if I told you that while men support the top-down system as a group, they don’t believe in conforming to it?
Unlike us, men believe that as soon as they turn 18 and become legal adults they are fully empowered. They have self-determination. They don’t have to ask permission. Men will exercise their empowerment unless a law, rule and policy specifically limits it.
This is the complete opposite of what women are taught. We are taught that “the system” oppresses us and won’t let us exercise our empowerment.
But are you sure this is true?
Or is this just what you are conditioned to believe?
If you want to do something do you ask permission of the person in authority? What do you do if they tell you “No?” Do you immediately back down? Or do you challenge:
“Why not?”
“How are you going to stop me?”
From my experience working with and managing men, I can tell you that men immediately challenge any restriction because they interpret it as limiting their empowerment and self-determination.
Actually most men don’t even ask for permission. They just go and do what they think is best. This is because men value their right to do what they want, how they want, when they want. They value being autonomous.
This is the real reason why men want to rise to the top in an organization. At the top they have more autonomy. To men this more important than having the power to control others. (Men know how difficult it really is to control other men so they don’t try.)
This is one of women’s greatest misunderstandings of the male-dominated workplace. Consequentlywe have given much more power to the system than it really has.
Even worse, we embolden those people who have control issues to abuse their positions of authority. When they do, it reinforces our beliefs in the power of the system and that we aren’t empowered. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Men understand how not standing up for their right to exercise their autonomy erodes their autonomy. Therefore, they look at situations by asking – How is this going to affect my Autonomy?
The real reason your boss or the person of authority tells you “No” is because if they say “Yes” then you erode their autonomy. Initially they may put your request at the bottom of their priority list hoping you won’t follow up. But as do follow up and question how they are proceeding on your request, you impact their priorities – you erode their autonomy.
For them it is often easier to tell you “No” right from the beginning or challenge you and make you drop your request.
Have you ever considered what would happen if you didn’t ask your boss for permission? What would happen if you exercised your autonomy to do what you think is best? Would your boss get mad?
Probably not. The male-dominated workplace follows the rule:
“It’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.”
It tells us we are empowered to act according to what we think is best. It assumes we are capable employees who sees something that needs to get done and will take the initiative to get it done correctly. If we screw it up, then we will hear about it.
For many women this type of autonomous behavior is difficult. We don’t like just going off and doing something on our own because we know whatever we do impacts our colleagues. We want to make sure we don’t adversely impact them. While this consideration makes us more hesitant to act, it is also a good thing. It is a concept that is needed in the male-dominated workplace where too many men act on their own and create problems for others.
Women recognize that we have to coordinate among our colleagues. This is something women are really good at. It is also beneficial to us because the male-dominated workplace interprets it as exercising leadership.
Acting with empowerment, autonomy and coordination, our leadership enables us to step up to solve problems and resolve issues. This in turn takes problems off our boss’s plate which he then interprets as us increasing his autonomy. He likes people who increase his autonomy.
As women, we have to abandon much of what we’ve been taught about the power of the top-down system because it artificially holds us back.
Instead we need to see our workplace through the autonomy and the right it gives us to step up, assert our judgement and do what is best. When we grab this empowerment, we also grab the opportunity to achieve. This makes us great employees and great leaders.
Should a woman quit her job after being sexually harassed?
http://www.123rf.com/ 24249834 –
Recently Trump stirred up some media controversy when he said that if his daughter Ivanka was sexually harassed at work “I would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case.”
This of course created a storm because it wasn’t the correct answer that states that a woman shouldn’t have to upend or disrupt her career because a male colleague is a jerk and an idiot. However, the idea of changing jobs isn’t something a woman should rule out or feel bad about. It can be the best decision.
After you report what happened, you know your company’s response. Hopefully, they will take it seriously and take the appropriate action. There are plenty of good men out there with values and morals. They have wives and daughters in the workplace and have no tolerance for harassment. It is important to know who these men are in your workplace even if they aren’t in your direct reporting line because they can help you.
However, there are still many workplaces that just want to make the issue go away. They ignore it. Or they “address it” by having with a “confidential conversation” with the offender and you know nothing will change. The offender now knows “what not to say,” but the attitude remains. You know there will always be an excuse as to why you don’t get the recognition you deserve or the subsequent new opportunities to advance your career.
It makes you feel angry and hurt and frustrated.
You want them to apologize. You want them to recognize what you do. You want to force them to change.
You then begin listening to outside commentary. They say you can’t let men get away with it. They have to pay! You need to sue! They tell you to fight on and get justice for yourself.
But this is where you have a choice.
This is where you feel your empowerment.
You get to decide how you want to expend your energy.
You can spend a lot of time and energy trying to fix your workplace. But to what end? Your career still won’t advance, your colleagues will be uncomfortable around you and you will dread going to work.
Is it your duty and responsibility to all other women in workplaces everywhere to fight on? Is there going to be a special place in Hell for you if you don’t?
If you don’t take a stand then will the company continue to harass and discriminate against women?
Maybe.
But maybe they won’t be hiring any more women…or men, because their business is declining.
Before you put you make the big decision on how to react, make a honest and realistic assessment of your workplace. Are they growing, stagnating or declining?
I’ve found that a workplace that allows women to be harassed has a slew of other problems as well. The same culture that believes men are superior also creates problems with clients, customers and other business relationships. It creates performance problems. My guess is that they aren’t a thriving and growing company. They aren’t the industry leader. If you make an honest assessment you will probably find yourself on a sinking ship.
So why stay with a sinking ship?
Why rescue a sinking ship?
Instead of expending your energy trying to fix your workplace, would your energy be better directed on yourself? Can you find a new job where your talents are recognized and rewarded?
What we don’t tell women enough is that we have the right to reject their workplace. We don’t have to make them see our value, we can tell them they aren’t worthy of our energy and efforts.
This is what men do. If they are mistreated, or not given opportunities they think they deserve they move on. So take a look around, are the men unhappy? Are the best men leaving?
My advice to any woman who is in a declining or stagnant backward workplace is to start looking for new opportunities. You don’t have to quit your job right away. Take your time. Find the right new job. It may take a year or two.
Contrary to what we are told by people who are zealous to make men pay, there is nothing wrong with prioritizing yourself ahead of your workplace. You aren’t upending your career; you are taking positive steps to move yourself forward. The sexual harassment may have just been the eye opening wake-up call you needed to make some changes.
What is ultimately most important in this situation is that we maintain our positive energy. By staying and fighting we attract and absorb negative energy which makes us angry, stressed and miserable. Are they worth it? Is the situation worth it? Can you make a point by having a group of people write negative comments on Glassdoor?
Only you can answer that.
Just remember your goal is to invest your energy in yourself and your future. It takes courage and strength to stand up for yourself, move yourself forward, and leave them far behind in the dust. That is what being empowered is really about.
Empowered Women Can Choose to Leave a Bad Situation
For more articles on harassment and discrimination go to The Ugly Stuff article category
The tagline to my website is “Empowering Women to Lead the Male-Dominated Workplace.” Since writing it, I’ve been amazed at how controversial this statement is. This is because as a society we created a controversy instead of simply understanding the different perspectives men and women have about empowerment.
First, let’s understand what empowerment means. I like the definition in Wikipedia: “Empowerment refers to policies and measures designed to increase the degree of autonomy and self-determination in the lives of people and in communities in order to enable them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority.”
I like this definition because it uses the terms autonomy and self-determination. In my list of male and female balancing traits, I list Autonomy as the primary male trait. Men understand Autonomy – doing what they want, when they want based upon what they think is best. Men naturally think autonomously.
Men’s Autonomy allows them to empower themselves. As teenagers they couldn’t wait to turn 18 so they could become legal adults who no longer had to ask their parents for permission. Men believe that once they become a legal adult, they are fully empowered. Period.
Today, there is no reason why all women shouldn’t have this same attitude – that once we are an adult we are fully empowered. But many of us still don’t assume the empowerment that is rightfully ours. Part of the reason why is because we don’t have the same instinctual perspective about autonomy as men. We don’t see ourselves as an individual first. We see ourselves as part of a group. Unlike men, when we take action we recognize it impacts other people. Therefore we feel a need to check with others and validate that our action works within the group. We expect other people to give us feedback and tell us how the action we want to take impacts them. Women give us this feedback. Men however wonder why we are asking for permission or validation. To them, if we believe the action is what we need to do, then being autonomous and empowered we should just do it. If we ask for permission or validation, they will assume we see ourselves as teenagers and treat us as such.
In my senior year at Virginia Tech in the early 80’s I was explaining my career decision to an old male administrator. He got a very annoyed look on his face then yelled at me: “You’re free white and 21. You don’t need to explain what you are doing to me.” I was shocked by his statement for two reasons. The first was his obvious bigotry. The second is why I always remembered this moment. While I heard the statement before, I understood that it applied only to men because women based on gender had no rights or privileges of their own. In a shocking way, he told me I was fully empowered. He told me to think of my autonomy and self-determination exactly the same way any of my male peers would. I was a legal adult and I have every right to go out and live my life on my terms. Period.
And that is what I did. And my life on my terms put me in traditional male roles in one of the most male-dominated industries. Through my experiences I got to understand empowerment from both a male and female perspective.
Where women erode their inherent autonomy is in believing that we need laws, rules or policies to empower us. But, from a male perspective being empowered through permission makes empowerment an oxymoron. You can’t have self-determination if you have to ask to be granted self-determination. Our view of empowerment is backwards from how men understand and use their empowerment.
As women we need to reverse how we think of empowerment.
Once we turn 18 we are adults and therefore are fully empowered with the right to our own self-determination. It then takes laws, policies, rules and values to limit our autonomy and self-determination. This is how empowerment works in the male-dominated workplace. This is why we hear men at work say “It is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.” Unless you are explicitly restricted in your action, you are free to act according to what you believe is best. Women have to understand this perception of autonomy and empowerment in order to be happy and successful in the male-dominated workplace. The women that do, love working in the male-dominated workplace. They don’t create barriers that don’t really exist. The women that don’t get it, unknowingly hold themselves back.
Being empowered also means accepting yourself for who you are and knowing your value. This is how society truly works against empowering women in the workplace.
Our society values stereotypical or traditional male traits more than female traits. This is especially true in the workplace. Men don’t have to question their value or right to empowerment. But, for women, it is a constant reminder that the traits they naturally feel are inferior. If we empower who we naturally believe we are, then, we are empowering inferiority. This deters women from feeling the same empowerment men take for granted. After all who wants to stand up and proclaim “This is who I am and I am proud to be inferior!”?
The reason I started speaking out on empowering women is to tell women that our natural traits are not inferior in the workplace. Who we naturally are is powerful and very much needed in the male-dominated workplace.
From my experience I know that in today’s complex workplace, female traits are the most powerful and most underutilized tools the male-dominated workplace has at its disposal. Throughout my career I’ve proven that when I added my female traits to my male-dominated workplaces, performance soared. I know our female traits are the keys to success the male-dominated workplace has struggled for decades to find.
So, the foremost “measure” society needs to take to empower women is to stop promoting male traits as the be-all, end-all in the workplace. We must stop the constant messaging telling women that they must identify with traits our society labels as “male” in order to be successful.
Male traits represent only half of the equation. The other half is female traits. We must recognize that men and women are designed to work together, in balance and only when both sets of traits are present can there be sustained superior performance.
No law, rule, policy or other person can empower women as much as our own attitudes and perceptions. As women we must embrace who we are and understand how everything that we are told is “wrong” about us is actually right, valuable, powerful and transformative. Then we must grab ahold of our full empowerment that has just been sitting over there in the corner getting dusty. No one else is going to pick it up, dust it off and hand it to us. We don’t have to ask anyone’s permission and we shouldn’t assume we have to run through a blockade of men to get it. It is completely your choice as to whether or not you pick it up. It is completely your choice how you use it in your life. And because these are your choices, you are empowered.
Empowered Women Chose To Use Their Inherent Empowerment
I started this website to teach other women the concepts I successfully used in my career. Little did I know that I preparing myself for my biggest challenge yet into the male-dominated workplace.
I want to share this experience because I was in such an extreme condition and yet I dramatically changed the company in one year. I will not lie and say it was easy because it wasn’t – this was the hardest I’ve ever worked. Work consumed my life. But my experience demonstrates the capabilities of women when they are empowered to apply themselves. I am now in awe of what is in us to achieve.
This article long so read it when you have a good half hour. I dealt with a lot in my job and this article discusses only about 25% of the issues. I included music clips – the songs I associated with the issues and sang over and over again in my head to maintain my sense of humor. And as you will see, I needed my sense of humor!
I was recruited to be the General Manager of a construction company (I will call it DSC) because of my experience creating a process-driven workplace. I was a little wary about the job. Just because an employer says he wants a process-driven company, doesn’t mean he really understands what a process-driven company is.
Because this company was not in the U.S and not American, I wanted to make sure it was solid. I was assured the company which was part of a larger group of privately owned companies was profitable, functioning well and in a market full of opportunity. So, I looked forward to what I saw as an adventure.
My Job Won’t Be Hard!
Upon my arrival my boss welcomed me with a card showing a tranquil dirt road ascending a gently-sloped grassy hill. To him, this expressed the extent of the difficulty I would encounter in my new job.
That was my first hint. This is construction and there is no such thing as smooth roads. I suspected that dirt road was a bit bumpier than depicted. But, no problem, there’s a reason I drive a Jeep not a BMW.
By noon on my fourth day, I knew DSC had serious financial issues. Neither DSC nor the corporate financial department understood or used the basic principles of construction financial management. I thought back to a construction financial course I took many years ago and realized I was in the worst case scenario. DSC was projecting revenue it could not justify and didn’t know its outstanding costs. There was no way to know DSC’s true financial position.
Then as I do with every company I work for, I applied the Dollars to Doughnuts Concept. I discovered DSC had no idea how to make money in construction because there was no project management. This meant the entire middle section of the concept was missing. While a gap between the top and bottom section is common, within this corporation, they weren’t even aligned. The corporate level didn’t know what DSC did as a business, how they functioned or how they should function. And since no one within DSC had any project management training, they didn’t know how they were supposed to function either.
Dollars To Doughnuts Concept
DSC Version of Dollars to Doughnuts Concept
I thought about the four quadrants of knowledge. This corporation was in the “we don’t know what we don’t know” quadrant.
Or in layman’s terms – this is the blind leading the blind.
That gentle grassy hill just got very steep and rocky. I had to teach everyone the most basic fundamental principles of the construction business and how to integrate them into construction management processes.
My first DSC Theme Song
I didn’t need my Jeep, I needed a rock crawling Rubicon Jeep with a 5” lift!
During my first two weeks, I had a steady stream of people from the corporate staff and our sister companies inform me that DSC’s fundamental problem was a lack of accountability. I found this ironic because in the management meeting, anytime someone was questioned, they deflected by bringing up something DSC was doing wrong. I made a HUGE mental note of this. It seemed everyone liked that DSC wasn’t functioning because they used DSC to avoid their own accountability. That meant possible trouble in the future. Once I get DSC on track, how will they react when they can’t deflect onto DSC and have to address their internal performance issues?
By the end of that second week I realized a lack of accountability was merely a symptom of DSC’s real fundamental problem – Autonomy. DSC valued autonomy above all else. Each person did what they wanted, when they wanted, how they wanted. And they fiercely protected their right to do so!
Its excessive value for autonomy made DSC an extreme male-dominated company. DSC was so deep into the Blue Zone that it didn’t know there were other colors in the rainbow! Even the women were pure blue.
To understand DSC’s and the corporation’s culture you have to go back in time at least 60 years and forget all management concepts that have been developed since. (This job involved time travel too!)
I pulled out some old articles written in the 1980’s that discussed old management styles to refresh my memory. I read: “People choose which competencies to develop based upon their self-image. They develop an idea of what it means to be a manager and act accordingly.” I remembered one of my first articles, Understanding Why Being a Manager Is So Important discussed this passage and I pulled that out too.
DSC is a unionized company (yes, I hear the collective U.S. groan) and most of the current supervisors had been with the company for decades. They remember the days before professionals were needed, when their senior union supervisors ran all the work. Now that they were the supervisors, they wanted the same status and autonomy their predecessors enjoyed. They believed, and were corporately empowered to believe, that when it came to doing “the work” they alone could make all decisions. There was no need for management or technical professionals such as project managers, quality managers, estimators, schedulers or even engineers for design.
The union members had a pre-industrial revolution era concept of how to do work. (Now we are really going back in time to the days before building codes! Scary but true.) They believed in the master craftsman that independently decided how to construct the project and directed the trades in what to do. As a worker moved up vertically from foreman to general foreman to superintendent , he grew in status based upon his expertise. And because they didn’t have any horizontal perspective, the higher a supervisor was in the vertical hierarchy, the greater his autonomy – there were fewer people he had to answer to. At DSC Autonomy = Status. Listening to them I often thought of teenagers, anxious to achieve adult status at 18, and no longer be answerable to mom and dad.
The Autonomy of DSC Divisions
The DSC org chart depicted these beliefs. DSC did not have a central office and each division operated from client sites or various corporate offices. Each DSC division was its own independent company working an assigned territory and reported only to me. They did not trespass onto each other’s territory. There were no shared resources – they did not share personnel, tools, vehicles or equipment. Trade workers worked for a specific superintendent and were not allowed to work for another.
I continuously hired project managers and other professionals in an attempt to fill in the middle management ranks and delegate my massive workload. But every manager I hired created more work than he relieved. The reason – each and every one of them got pulled deep into the Blue Zone and continuously engaged in intense arguments with the union workforce. The union workforce did not want a middle management layer to erode the status they waited decades to attain.
I spent my days (Sundays and holidays were the most frequent) breaking up arguments and averting physical fights, leaving me to do my work late into the night. One night while working with Mad Men playing in the background I heard:
Don’t fight with the Pig in the mud.
You get dirty.
And the Pig loves it.
I replayed the scene several times – that described DSC! I made up signs and plastered that saying everywhere. But every male manager still wound up in the mud. They ALL also wound up at the hospital with stress related ailments. Eventually they all left.
Status was important at the corporate level too. Going back to my old reference article, a passage read “It suited the self-images of the managers that they were superior, the brains for others who could only supply the brawn.” This fit the corporate culture! Most of the corporate staff was located in another larger city where “higher quality people” could be found. The town and area DSC operated in was industrial, “dirty” and a blue collar working town, (think Hunger Games, District 13) not a desirable place for professionals. Our physical separation enhanced the distinction in status between blue collar and professional.
The corporate staff did the strategic planning – the highest level of thinking. It wasn’t until my last couple of weeks that I understood that as a general manager I was under/inferior to the corporate staff. In this hierarchy they did not need my input. According to them, they were responsible to audit and evaluate (critique) DSC performance.
It always seemed odd to me that I didn’t discuss what DSC was working on with anyone. In management meetings the corporate staff gave detailed reports but the operating company GM’s (those of us who actually produced revenue) had only 5 minutes once a month to list our top projects. But if you understand that the corporate staff didn’t believe they needed our input to do their jobs to support us, it makes perfect illogical sense.
As I was writing this article I came across another passage I marked back then: “To managers employees were considered expendable, factors of employment, no different from machines. Managers demanded an allegiance they did not return. Workers responded by developing an allegiance to their unions.”
No wonder I marked it – that is DSC and the corporation in a nutshell!! I often thought to myself: Welcome to the 1950’s!!
At the corporate level, they were obsessed with returning DSC to its past glory days of being the local contractor who successfully competed with the big out-of-town general contractors. For decades DSC successfully grew without any project management or professional support! But that was 10+ years ago and a very different business climate.
The Corporate Theme Song That I Sang Several Times a Week!
Back then it was simple – Clients’ big oil money flowed like water. DSC did their work on a time and material basis – they went out, did the work, made whatever changes to the scope they wanted and got paid for every dime. This was construction project and financial management at its absolute simplest.
But then the environment changed dramatically in 2009. Oil money no longer flowed like water – oil companies competed for investors who expected higher returns, forcing them to crank down tight on budgets. DSC’s simple environment suddenly got complex – safety, construction management, quality management and financial controls were now required. But DSC didn’t evolve; it didn’t learn how to operate in its new complex construction market.
Complexity is the ultimate enemy of Autonomy and it beat the crap out of DSC! The complexity of construction project management put DSC on life support but without financial management, no one even realized it! By my third month I realized DSC would not survive another year without drastic and immediate changes.
DSC, who used billable rates established in its contracts, was losing money on every man-hour worked. Their billable rates were so far out of date they did not cover their costs. I “joked’ that their project manager rate was $20/hr. lower than the rates I used 12 years ago!
Because no one understood contracts, no one read the contracts so no one knew the contracts allowed for an annual adjustment of overhead costs. (I thought: ever hear of inflation?) Their oldest contract hadn’t updated overhead costs and non-union wages in 9 years! Even worse, that contract was about to quadruple in work. Do the math: lose $7 per man-hour for 60 men working 10 hours per day, 365 days a year! (7*60*10*365 = $1,533,000) Ouch!
Luckily the time to increase rates was upon us. I recalculated rates and increased the rates as much as each of our Clients allowed (It gave me something to do every night from 11:00 pm to 3:00 am for two weeks) I also restructured the profit calculations to capture more profit. They collected $2.50/hr. profit on regular time rates of $54/hr., overtime rates of $80/hr.and double time rates of $106/hr. I was shocked – $2.50 profit on costs of $106! I told them that was just plain Un-American!!
Rates were only one issue – DSC was hemorrhaging money everywhere. Another root problem was the women’s lack of clout. At DSC “the girls” as they were called didn’t carry the job title of Project Administrators as they do in most construction companies. They were Administrative Assistants. DSC hired girls with a clerical backgrounds believing the girls simply filled out forms in Excel and administratively cleaned up after “the guys.”
But their responsibilities weren’t that simple any more. Project Administrators are the first line of defense in protecting the financial integrity of projects. They watch over the financial and contractual processes and for this reason, good construction companies empower Project Administrators. Without any clout the girls at DSC couldn’t resolve issues. The filled out their Excel forms the best they could, then built walls for autonomy and to protect themselves from accountability for the incomplete work.
Without communication and teamwork issues remained unresolved. The associated costs mounted into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then because the issues seemed too complex to resolve, the costs were routinely written off.
Early on, I hired a phenomenal young woman to help me clean up the mess. She quit after 3 weeks and confided in me why. She worked with one of the men before (he recommended her to me) and didn’t want to work under him again. She felt that with her college degree and her experience she shouldn’t be “his girl” who cleaned up the mess he made of projects. She was burnt out from doing that with her previous employer and she knew she deserved more professionally. Because she was close friends with this man, she didn’t want to get into a power struggle as she asserted herself and ruin their friendship.
I felt bad for her because she was so capable but like the women of DSC she was pure Blue and that is what she really struggled with. She acted like a man thinking that is what she needed in order to get ahead but no matter what she would always be “his girl” and personal administrative assistant. (I always got a kick out of listening to her cuss up a storm while her little Prada handbag sat daintily on my desk.)
Her story emphasized just how deeply male-dominated the culture was. After she left, I really had to think about my strategy to move DSC to the Purple Zone.
I already began separating people into two groups – those that were willing to grow and learn (“Roundies”) and those that weren’t. The ones who weren’t willing to grow, I started calling “Flatties”. They believed the world was flat and that if we sailed too far in the direction I was taking DSC, we would fall off the edge of the earth into the abyss. When I discussed new processes, you could see genuine fear in their eyes! Their fear of the unknown, of losing autonomy and of having to acknowledge what they didn’t know would always prevent them from reaching the brave new world of the Purple Zone.
My Second DSC Theme Song.
The Flatties resisted change with everything in them. One woman was anointed as the head of the resistance movement. Her tactic was to resist until you gave up in complete frustration and backed down. In construction men often resolve conflict this way – he who backs down first loses. I was fascinated that a woman was so effective in this technique with the men. I secretly liked her for this and hoped she would become a “Roundie”.
Unlike the men who engaged her in the Blue Zone and failed, I engaged her from the Purple Zone. No threats, no hostility. I gave her a firm explanation of why procedures were changing and expressed my excitement as to how much better everything will be! (In the new world is it sunny, warm and we drink mojitos all day!) As she resisted, hoping to wear me down, I didn’t budge and maintained my chipper attitude. I responded to each and every email she sent – I could not allow her to have the last word. I kept responding and it took hours, if not all day or two days, until she gave up. The Flatties were no match for the American Dream Team! (That’s what the Flatties called the Americans in the company)
Over several months, most of the Flatties eventually left on their own. A lot of people were scared about the Flatties leaving because they were perceived to have the power and knowledge base – if they left then DSC would immediately fall apart. I’ve heard that same fear mongering many times and always found that once the bad apples leave, the good people who were pushed into the back corner step forward and flourish. And this is what happened at DSC. (Baby and Johnny tore it up on Kellerman’s dancefloor!)
I will admit that I was surprised how much so many people blossomed. They literally became different people!
With a lot of the resistance gone, I concentrated on closing out hundreds of projects with hundreds of unresolved problems. I gathered “the girls” from all of the divisions together to create a cleanup team. Some of the girls hated each other threatening to quit if they had to work with each other. To turn DSC around I had to start with the women and get them to the Purple Zone first.
I never imagined I would have to lead women from the Blue Zone and train them how to work in the Purple Zone. I encouraged and empowered their female traits and praised their use of their female traits. Soon, they all started talking and chatting away – the girls became women and a team. I used our clean-up process to train them on project change management. I encouraged them in their role as the protectors of project financial integrity. I expected them to speak up whenever they saw something wrong. They now had the clout to stand up to the men and correct them when they didn’t follow processes.
My New DSC Theme Song
And the men responded as most good construction men do – they loved the support! There was no fighting in the mud!
Empowered Purple women led the men to the Purple Zone. Hallelujah! At times the women ventured into the Pink Zone and I was surprised by how Pink some of these formerly Blue women could be. It was actually refreshing to see women be natural and true to whom they really are.
About the time we started the clean-up process I hired a new cost analyst. He was phenomenal. He knew construction financial management, he understood processes and he worked in the Purple Zone! He didn’t get dragged into the Blue Zone and fight in the mud. He took an enormous burden off of me and he was an amazing asset in growing DSC.
Mid-way through the clean-up process, we finally moved into the new central office. Standardizing processes was about to become so much easier! With everyone in one room the DSC divisions were finally forced to work together. To prevent problems, I assigned the cubicles. When everyone got situated I realized a huge mistake on my part or maybe it was just a glaring reminder that this was still a male-dominated organization. The office had rows of cubicles, two of which I considered the core rows – one with the Estimating/Planning staff and one with the administrative. In other words, one row of all women and one row of all men.
(As The Woman In The Room, I hung my head in shame!)
I had to fix this! There was one woman in particular I wanted to move over to the Estimating row. I had mentored her for months because she was in a non-traditional role. When hired, she was treated and paid like an administrative assistant and her real abilities were ignored. (I will write more about her in a separate article) I wanted her to work closely with a young man in the Estimating row because they had opposite professional weaknesses and strengths and they needed to learn from each other. Over the next few months a couple men left, and I moved her. That was the beginning of the real transition. I hired a planner – another young woman. Then, another project coordinator, also a young woman. The row was now this beautiful mix of 3 men and 3 women. Purple!!
The administrative row had a vacant cubicle so one of the superintendents used it when he came to work in the office. After a few more movements, the entire office was a wonderful Purple Zone workspace!
The project management process chart we developed together was printed large and hung on the wall. We had a small conference room where I met with the project coordination staff to review projects. My cost analyst met with the admin staff regularly to ensure DSC financials were on track. I designed a new organizational structure that addressed the realities of the limited labor pool and the DSC skill level. We were beginning to function.
For the first time in several years DSC was profitable! Our new work made good margins because we were following our processes and people were empowered to speak up when they questioned something. We started to come together as a team and one project administrator arranged pot luck lunches for celebration. We still had a very long way to go but we were moving in the right direction. I was so proud of my purple team!
Remember how I said that the corporate staff liked that DSC functioned poorly because they used DSC to deflect issues from themselves? For a few months, I was quietly saying that the time was coming when DSC would start functioning and that the corporate departments would also have to improve their performance. That time arrived.
I don’t remember what triggered it, but I came up with a somewhat tongue in cheek theme for DSC: DSC- Not Quite the F*ck Ups We Used To Be!
The multimillion dollar question was whether or not the corporate departments could accept the new emerging DSC. Were they willing to admit to their “opportunities for improvement” and take action to improve their performance too? Or would their pride stop them?
Department 1 had always been difficult to work with. I reported to HR several time that Dept. 1 management and personnel were demeaning to DSC employees. There was one project administrator in particular they openly denigrated in public and she got to listen to it on a regular basis. It was cruel. During our conference calls I felt like answering their questions with “because we’re stupid, that’s why.” After the calls, I could see the hurt on the faces of my team.
Dept. 1 was developing a new system for DSC which was several months behind schedule and plagued with issues. Dept. 1 said it was the fault of my administrative supervisor. But the underlying issue was that Dept. 1 didn’t understand how DSC operated and went forward with designing the system without a process map. The first system we reviewed had the process backwards.
The system highlighted the new complexity of our work. Completing the system took a long time not because the DSC admin supervisor was being…I will say it…a Bitch…but because Dept. 1 didn’t consider all of the administrative components outside of DSC that had to be integrated into the system. The problem was not a person; it was not understanding the complexity of the process.
As we moved to another issue with Dept. 1, DSC and a sister company proposed the standard industry process which was simple and easy. Dept. 1 rejected the process and instead came up with a cumbersome process that still didn’t do what we needed. It created a new mess! I will admit that I called their process “stupid” because it was. I told them we would be humiliated if anyone in the real world knew this is how we handled the problem.
In our next meeting to figure out how to make this process work, Dept. 1 came up with an even more complex system that required extensive system reprogramming. (WTF? They haven’t even gotten the other project right yet.) So, my Cost Analyst asked our boss if our initial solution was open for discussion. The response was ugly. (On the upside we learned our quiet and polite Cost Analyst had some brass huevos!)
Even as DSC greatly improved its performance we did not gain Dept. 1’s respect. They always reminded me of the "smart" kids in school who always had to brown nose the teacher for attention.
Department 2 whose support was critical to DSC projects refused to work with us. Even though they worked under DSC contracts, they proclaimed their complete autonomy and that DSC could not direct any Dept. 2 actions. Even my requests for support were met with “we will take it under advisement.” DSC managers and supervisors complained constantly that Dept. 2 personnel did nothing all day and never went out to the projects.
In construction, conflict between Dept. 2 and construction personnel is common but it is usually because Construction feels Dept. 2 is being too zealous in its duties. This was the first time I ever encountered Construction complaining that Dept. 2 was not being zealous enough.
Part of the conflict was due to the different pay structure between Dept. 2 personnel and DSC’s union personnel. During a typical work cycle, union personnel were paid for 15 hours more, even though they worked the same number of hours. This angered Dept. 2 personnel so they weren’t anxious to be proactive in their duties and they had very high turnover. Dept. 2’s solution was to hire women for the job because they won’t argue over pay like men do. (Yes, you read that right!)
Two years earlier, Dept. 2’s lack of diligence caused DSC’s largest client to shut down all work. Even after this Dept. 2 only did the minimum required to get DSC back to work. They did not continue to grow their functional expertise. Their current Sr. Manager, a self-proclaimed Intellectual, stayed at the 30,000 ft. level, and only associated with Dept. 2 through his manager – he didn’t associate with the working class.
The Dept. 2 Manager did not believe in the new stringent industry principles for this function and often thwarted them. (The cause for so many arguments with DSC management). His attitude put DSC, its personnel and our clients at risk. Until his attitude changed and Dept. 2 became champions for their function, clients would continue to limit DSC work on their sites. The bottom line is that DSC could not grow until Dept. 2 got their sh*t together!
Elevating issues to our mutual boss did not help DSC. Dept. 2 had one responsibility that DSC complained for years that Dept. 2 was not doing. For six months I followed up monthly directly with the Dept. 2 Sr. Manager and Manager requesting the reports. I was always promised them but never got them. I finally went to our boss to ask for his help. The Dept. 2 Manager was standing right outside the boss’s office so our boss asked if the reports were being done. The Manager replied that they were. End of story.
Our boss was very young for his position and inexperienced in industrial construction; he was more suited to the scope of work of one of our sister companies. One of his flaws is that he couldn’t deal well with problems. So, he just always wanted to hear that everything was fine. If you told him all was good, gave him the thumbs up, he didn’t dig any deeper. Managers used that to their advantage – an autonomy preservation techinique.
In early August DSC had an issue (yes we screwed up) that required Dept. 2’s support. At first Dept. 2 didn’t even respond. When they did they made mistakes, then more mistakes which upset the Client and gave DSC a big black eye. The Client requested Dept. 2 to produce the same reports I had been requesting. It took days and when Dept. 2 produced the reports they were incomplete and filled with obvious errors. Now the Client was extremely upset and the stuff hit the fan! This was the same Client who shut down work two years earlier because of Dept. 2. So there was a lot of stuff hitting an industrial sized fan!
Our boss realized he had been misled by Dept. 2.
DSC personnel were embarrassed and hurt that after all of our progress, Dept. 2 could bring us down. Our mistake was recoverable but Dept. 2’s errors…maybe not. August became a miserable month – it seemed like everything fell apart and that it was all beyond our control.
Complexity was once again, crushing DSC. Even though DSC could internally make vast improvements we were not autonomous. We relied on corporate departments to do their functions well so they could support our work. They failed us.
Internally, I questioned if we fighting a losing battle to save DSC. My gut told me that I had taken DSC as far as I could.
DSC’s future hinged on whether or not the corporate functions could learn from their mistakes and now admit that they needed to improve their performance too.
Because my boss wasn't experienced in the industrial application of Dept. 2's function, I explained to him how my previous employers exceled in this area – they got "Religion!” Our client has "Religion." Our Client is waiting for us to be born again!! We need to let them know that we have seen the errors of our ways! We will confess our sins, we will atone and go forward into the shiny light and glory! Are you with me brother? Let me have an “Amen!!” Sing it! Do you feel it?!
Can I get that Amen?! Nope. My boss is agnostic.
The first week of September we forged forward anxious to get back on track. Later that week, my boss walked into the DSC office, looked right down my beautiful Purple rows and tells me he doesn’t like it. (Somebody wants to asserts himself.)
The next week I briefly met with him and he says he doesn’t like my organizational structure. He wants to go back to the old hierarchal structure that he and my predecessor designed. (You mean the structure that failed and had managers fighting in the mud?)
Call me naïve. But, up until that meeting, I thought the DSC I was fixing was the screwed up company my boss inherited. I thought I was helping him out. But I was wrong. I was correcting the DSC he created. He created the overly-empowered union members who fought with managers. He created and encouraged the gap and misalignment between the operating companies and the corporate office. He believed in and reinforced the vertical hierarchy. He believed in Autonomy – he had Autonomy Religion!! He was the one entrenched in the Blue Zone.
He never wanted the process-driven company he hired me to create. Our early conversations were not about a process-driven company but always about how soon I could fire two individuals. Get rid of them and the Glory Days return! All this time he and I were on different pages!
Nonetheless, I kept getting things back on track. DSC still hoped that our relationship with Dept. 2 would change dramatically. After our boss realized they lied to him about producing the reports, we thought he would finally listen to us and we would get the support we needed.
I invited my boss and the Dept. 2 management to a meeting with my staff. The meeting went very poorly. In the spin, DSC got blamed for the Dept. 2 not being able to produce the reports. (Wait a second! If you are saying that DSC prevented Dept. 2 from doing the reports, then you just admitted that Dept. 2 abdicated their job! Do you get that? No.) My staff pushed back like I had never seen them push back before. They asked direct questions but got NO answers.
After the meeting, it was the first time I heard my staff openly blame my boss and say he was part of the problem. Before the meeting, my boss said he wanted to build a bridge between DSC and Dept. 2 but in the meeting he burnt that bridge down.
The next time I met with my boss and Dept. 2 accusations were launched at me. I understood how my managers had felt, being enticed to get into the mud for a fight. I kept my responses short and direct, I was not going to get dragged into the Blue Zone. I felt like I was supposed to submit to the corporate staff, accept their abuse and DSC’s lowly position in the vertical hierarchy.
Sorry guys. It just ain’t in my nature to be submissive and you know that! !n this case everything in me screamed not to submit. This is the wonderful thing about being a woman – you pick up on so many signals that men will tell you are not real, but they are! My instincts told me not to trust them. Something’s up.
My boss and Dept. 2 had to avoid all personal accountability to the Client for the way Dept. 2 messed up in August. If the Client believed the accountability was at the corporate level, (as it really) then there would be huge ramifications to the entire corporation.
So, right from the beginning they openly made DSC the scape goat (and I suspect me directly). But that in turn had even bigger consequences which I don’t think they understood. I knew that being the scapegoat placed me in a precarious situation. Any issue in the future could result in legal consequences to me personally. I do not want to wind up in court in a foreign country. I could not submit. No job was worth that.
I was dismissed.
I was told “There were many complaints about you,” making it sound like everyone in all the companies complained about me. From his tone I was supposed to interpret that I was a horrible person. (Sorry I need to wave the Bullshit flag! I understand that you may want to hurt me but I know who I am, what I have accomplished and what my team thinks of me.)
I will always remember my body language when I asked the question – I was very relaxed like a friend just told me a funny story. I was even smiling. So, "People in DSC complained about me?”
Pause and stuttering. “No. The complaints all came from Dept.2 personnel.” Then it was something about “not being on their team.”
I didn’t say anything else because I knew it would do no good. He was coached to say nothing else.
In a male-dominated, hierarchal, status-driven organization, the person on top gets to decide who will be held accountable for anything that goes wrong. It is the opposite of ‘the buck stops here.” It is the opposite of process driven company. In a company like this, that values autonomy, an individual’s independent actions are to blame for problem. One of my fellow GM’s described our boss’s management style as- fire the right person and problems go away; hire a new person and all is wonderful again, until it isn’t.
So, after working 100 hours per week for weeks and on end, the inevitable question is: Was it all worth it?
Yes! Because I learned that the concepts I discuss really do work, even in the most screwed up, archaic, male-dominated company! I now have enormous confidence in myself and my concepts. This experience put all of the concepts of The Woman in the Room in one environment and I saw how powerful they are! I know everything in my career has built to this moment and I know my mission is to empower women to lead the male-dominated workplace.
And one more thing – God bless America! I am so glad to be home!
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 national political conventions were held and politics fills the “news” media. Over the past year, I’ve seen huge similarities between what I experienced at work and what I see happening in our politics. I am now convinced that Swamp Wars is more than just my unique work experience – it is part of our society. Swamp Wars is a recent phenomenon and something women need to understand because it is having a significant impact on our ability to advance at work. (more…)
In the season 3 finale and the season 4 premier of Friends, Ross and Rachel decide to get back together. But Rachel has one condition – she writes Ross a long letter in which she describes everything that went wrong with the relationship and Ross has to accept full responsibility. Ross, anxious to get back together with Rachel lies and says he read the letter – twice – and agrees to everything in the letter. As he learns what he agreed to he is unable to keep up the charade. Ross finally comes clean and admits that he fell asleep reading the letter – it was 18 pages long – front and back!
Women understand Rachel’s letter. It is a pure pink female masterpiece – long, citing every incident no matter how trivial in exacting detail.
Believe it or not our ability to write these types of letters comes in handy when working with men. I have written several business “Rachel letters.” It is one of the few times I get to venture towards the Pink end of the spectrum and frolic in my female characteristics with abandon. (more…)
Baby boomer men make up most of the senior management ranks. As a baby boomer myself, I grew up with these men and know what they were taught. We were raised with a societal framework that shaped our expectations for our lives.
It is important, especially for younger generations, to understand baby boomers because they have driven our society and businesses to where we are now – driven to achieve status above all else. (more…)
I read another one of those articles on a post from the Harvard Business Review stating that women often don’t get what they want or deserve because they don’t ask for it. Does anyone else feel like me after I read these types of articles – here’s another thing I’m doing wrong. Here’s another article that makes it sound like women aren’t cut out for the business world.
But who decides what is and isn’t right?
I read all this stuff about what I am supposed to do and get the impression that when I go to work I am supposed to be all about Me. Me, Me, Me, Me, Me. But those aren’t my values – being all about Me, isn’t Me. (more…)
I was working at an on-site construction office and I kept hearing rumors that I wore high heels to work. I had 2 pairs I wore, one black and one brown. To me they were boring 2″ heels and definately not sexy. They were “office shoes.” If I went out on site, I had another pair of site shoes that I wore.
One day while sitting in my office I heard another PM on the phone whispering “She wears high heels to the office.” OK time to correct that misconception. (more…)
In the military the lowest of all ranks is 2nd Lieutenant. As a 2nd Lt. you are given every crappy project that no one else wants to do. But sometimes in these assignments you learn something that is so significant it provides the foundation for every success in your career. (more…)
Beginning in childhood we are taught that we can’t act on our own. We have to wait for permission from our parents and other adults with authority.
To learn more about how women can grab their empowerment, check out my 
