Category: work life

humor, leadership, life lessons, management, Uncategorized, work life

E.T. Management – Part 1

mimijk

There’s a lot to be learned about management from going to the movies.  Much of what I needed to know about the basics of working with people, I learned from “E.T’.  To risk an attenuated blog (for a change), I’ll provide you with the abbreviated version.  We can write each other about it as thoughts come to mind…

1.  It’s the things we don’t know that scare us the most.  Once we face an issue head-on, it typically casts a more comfortable shadow.

2.  Don’t discriminate against anyone just because they’re not like you.  They may be better.

3.  The Platinum Rule trumps the Golden Rule – treat others as they wish to be treated, not necessarily in the way in which you think they want to be treated.

4.  M&Ms can improve a bad day.

5.  People communicate differently.  The first step is to figure out whether or not you understand what someone is trying to tell you and where s/he is coming from (ok, pun intended).

6.  Most of us have a Plan A; it’s essential to have a plan B.

7.  If you can’t get past an obstacle, enlist the help of others and try hitting it head on or jumping right over it.

8.  Love and profit can exist in the same sentence.

9.  If you go too far afield from your authentic self, compromise too many values and distance yourself from what you know is right for you, it’s time to get back to an environment where you thrive.

10. Phone home.

leadership, management, mindfulness, motivation, music, work life

The Rhythm Of Leadership (even if you’re tone deaf)

mimijk

“Where you lead/I will follow/Anywhere that you tell me to…”  Ah, Carole…I was a rabid follower – Carole, James, Laura, CSN&Y.  I followed them (and others) because I loved their music, their words, the way I felt when I sang along (some of my fondest memories include sitting in my friend Allie’s house eating Cadbury wafers and singing..she had a pure, clear soprano; I had a rich and sincere baritone, sorta).

I followed a speaker at a peace rally in NY after the Kent State shootings. He spoke Spanish (I didn’t), but the passion and conviction of his words crossed the barrier of my linguistic ignorance (ok, he was cute too).  Following him to the subway to head home, we both got pipe-whipped by some indignant construction workers – the commitment I had to him almost justified the consequences.  I will admit it was embarrassing to have to stop at my pediatrician’s office for some salve before heading to a production of ‘Damn Yankees’ at school that night (the closest I will ever come to being a baseball player).

I followed one of my professors from grad school as avidly as one might a guru.  He was so incredibly smart, funny, intuitive (a good quality for a psychologist) and persistently coaxed me to figure out how I was going to best care for my two splendilicious babies and myself in the face of some very real personal challenges.  He encouraged me to figure out how to re-take control of my life.  How do you thank someone for that?  Live your life well and pay it forward, I guess.

And I followed my boss for 22 years.  I was inspired by his confidence in me, relentless teasing, incredible work ethic, integrity and generous heart.  He wanted results and accountability and expected more of himself than anyone else, which somehow drove me to try and keep pace.  Lucky for me, he is now a dear friend who has also retired from the firm.

There is a nexus between the leadership qualities I learned from those whom I have followed and the music that plays in my mind all the time.  There is a rhythm to the dynamics between and among people, a way that we try to maximize the strengths and talents of our people so that together, the orchestration is full and rich.

If you supervise people and as such are responsible for leading others, do you ever think about those who you once followed?  Why did you follow them?  What were the qualities that you most admired in the people who shaped your professional success and enhanced your development?  What were the deal breakers?  If you strove to emulate any one of them, what elements would be of greatest importance to you?  Imagine holding the conductor’s baton gently and assuredly in your hand as the orchestra warms up.  Your job is to make the music of your work days reflective of the talents of those waiting for your guidance, watching for your timing and interpretation of the notes.  I was once compared to Mr. Holland, the character from “Mr. Holland’s Opus” – a higher compliment could never have been bestowed upon me in the world of work.  At least not for me.  The sections of the orchestra parallel the unique talents of those with whom you work.  Lead them with the qualities and dedication evidenced in those you once followed.  The magic of that music will always remain in your head – and theirs.

life lessons, management, mindfulness, motivation, work life

Groundhog Day – Again

mimijk

Some may think I get cranky because I’m out of estrogen – oh no my friends, no.  I got cranky long before my hormones became an acceptable excuse.  In fact, it’s entirely possible that my crankiness was the catalyst for my body’s ensuing wackiness.  It got tired of me railing at some of the more inexplicable, passive choices we make on a daily basis in the name of ‘doing our best’.

“Mediocrity is climbing mole hills without sweating” – Icelandic proverb

How much do we do just to get by?  How often do we attach the Velcro to the back of our hand, affix it to our forehead and sigh “I just can’t do one more thing?” (insert a consumptive cough here if you feel it will add to the drama).  How frequently do we invoke the words of some enthusiastic coach (“You can do it!  There’s no ‘I’ in ‘TEAM’!”) and act like an over-burdened pack mule?  And how quickly do we accept the status quo just because it’s easier.

Avidly pursuing LinkedIn chats, lobbing an occasional question on Twitter, reading the articles in journals written by and for business professionals – I see the same thing.  We are challenging ourselves to climb mole hills.  Do we keep re-hashing the same topics because we can’t take one more thing and feel that at the least we’re sharing ‘execu-speak’?  To take a line from Joan Rivers – “can we talk?”

Let’s go with some assumptions already – it’s time.  Everyone, on three – get out of your comfort zone and let’s start feeling a little itchy together.

Assumption 1 – If you don’t know how to effectively listen, engage and collaborate with other people, hear disparate views and opinions and encourage that kind of communication, then go back to square 1, don’t collect $200 and consider yourself very lucky that you’ve gotten this far without developing a critical foundation upon which to grow your career and your relationships.

Assumption 2 – If you are truly of the view that as the leader of your department, company, silo, etc your perspective is the only perspective with any merit – see number 1.  Bill Welch was a bastard and prided himself on being a bully, but when someone had the mettle to challenge him, he gave them a shot.

Assumption 3 – If you’re doing the same thing you did last year, let me remind you that Groundhog Day was a movie, not a lifestyle.  If your people are doing what they did last year, then they are doing less than they did last year – and that’s on you.

Assumption 4 – Not everything is confidential, even though it may be very exciting (and sometimes necessary) to create an ‘inner circle’.  The values of your department need to be shared.  The future career strategies for your people need to be discussed and developed with your people, not in a soliloquy you engage in on your way to work.   If you dig the whole bureaucratic, layer-upon-layer thing – fine.  I’m just saying that the plans need to be disseminated to everyone who has a modicum of responsibility for their disposition.

Assumption 5 – Just because people nod their heads and agree with you, doesn’t mean they agree with you, trust you or even have confidence in the direction you’re heading.  Their B.S. meter may just be registering at the high end, and they don’t trust you enough to respond differently.

Golda Meir said, “Don’t be so humble….you’re not that great”.  The only thing worse than inflated, insincere humility is sincere hubris.  At this point we have a long way to go before we can afford either affectation.  I want us to push past these tired conversations which find us opining in tired clichés and commentary that is becoming trite in its content.  Aren’t you a little itchy for more?  Wouldn’t you like to challenge the endless loop that plays and replays providing us with little more than one more stimulus to ignore as we do elevator music?  When are we going to look in the mirror, greet the image with a rousing ‘how the hell are you?’ and get excited about what we really can become?

anxiety, humor, life lessons, mindfulness, work life

It’s Your Choice

mimijk

Cash or credit; paper or plastic; wheat or sourdough; grande or venti; bootcut or straight-leg; warm or cool; volume or length; matte or gloss; MSNBC or CNBC…It’s not even 8AM and these are just a few of the decisions I’ve had to make just to get in gear.  And I’m retired now – what was my morning like when I was working?

If this is indicative of the ‘new minimalism’, I don’t get it.  I consider it a paradigm for insanity.  I don’t want to make any more decisions, it’s hurting my brain and making me cranky.  Perhaps this is why I find shopping malls so punitive – just parking is an exercise in over-stimulation.  And once you walk inside (choosing one of a hundred different alternatives for egress) there are too many stores, too many people, too many colors…If I go to Nordstrom, am I an ‘individualist’, ‘savvy’, ‘tbd’, ‘petite’?  Do I want firm control or moderate control?  Anklets or tube socks?  Yes.

This is my response going forward.  Yes.  Do with it what you will, but it seems far better to me than just responding negatively to everything and winding up with nothing and never leaving my house.  Yes.  I cede all decision-making authority to the salesperson, grocery store cashier and Starbucks’ barista.  It’s all fine with me.  I just want a cup of coffee, the perfect pair of jeans, a blush that brightens my face so I look naturally healthy and a moisturizer that erases wrinkles.  I want a handbag that holds everything and weighs nothing.  I want to know which is better – counting calories or protein loading.  Are we Lin-ing, Tebow-ing or Winning this week?  Yes.  Just tell me the lexicon-of-the-moment so I can feel like I know what is going on.  It’s fine.  I’m overwhelmed with choices and underwhelmed with the results.  So whatever you choose, it’s fine with me.

No wonder people don’t feel like working once they arrive at the office.  I always thought that the deferral of difficult decisions was a result of a collective abhorrence of provocative dialogue.  Wrong – it’s exhaustion.  It’s easier to have a cabal of ‘yes’ people around.  Ok – it’s exhaustion and ennui, but the latter is a topic for another day.  Of course here we are expending all of this energy just to get to wherever we  need to be, and if one pauses for a moment it’s clear that none of the choices made along the way really matter.  In hindsight, all of these decisions are elevated to a level of importance prompted by the urgency of the moment, not the urgency of the matter.  It’s all a bit embarrassing.  When I consider the offenses I may have caused by being thoughtless, I’m both rueful and redeemed.  I now have an excuse.  I had run out of mental energy.

So I guess this means that when we really need to step up to the plate and connect with the ball, it very well may be a swing and a miss.  I don’t want to miss the next pitch.  From now on it’s ‘yes’ to everything that really isn’t going to matter to me tomorrow.  And in response to the more thought-provoking questions?  I’ll get back to you on that.

Daniel Pink, management, motivation, work life

A Dirty Little Secret – Sort Of

mimijk

“There is an enormous number of managers who have retired on the job” – Peter Drucker.  Ah Pete, you’re killin’ me.  I’m not sure if anyone who falls into this category – or anyone supervising people in this category – really wants to be outed.  However, this dirty little secret is becoming more and more apparent.  The good news (if you want to call it that) is that there’s no need to worry – I’m not sure anyone’s going to get called on it.  It requires too much effort.  If you were expecting something more salacious – I’m sorry – but I also wanted to get your attention.

There is an interesting article in The Washington Post today about Daniel Pink, his reincarnation from political speechwriter to successful author and his perspective on the effectiveness of merit pay as an incentive for teachers.  Many jurisdictions are adopting this methodology, despite the data that underscores its ineffectiveness.  The research indicates that extrinsic rewards are successful when the objectives are simple and routinized.  “But for complicated jobs that require judgment and creativity, the evidence shows that it just doesn’t work well”.  Clearly those are expectations that the best educators embrace, and we as parents seek them out  as the teachers-of-choice for our kids.  I am not suggesting that we pay teachers less; I don’t think they’re paid enough.  Presuming equitable compensation though, is this an effective motivator?  Apparently not.

For the sake of this post, can we extrapolate these findings into the world of professional services, C-suites, management, for-profit organizations? As the need for creativity, energy, sound problem-solving and dynamism in management increases, it seems counter-intuitive to me that our tendency is to focus on process-oriented results,  limited provocative dialogue and increased structural layering that renders many positions narrower and more circumspect.  If you are involved in a different organization and structure, no need to read further.  You are in a marvelously unique situation that is not replicated with enough frequency.  Enjoy it and keep thriving.

Let’s get a little risky in our dialogues about what factors will distinguish the adequate-from-the-great companies in the years to come.  It’s just insufficient to nod to those who talk about their commitment to their people and reflect it by offering limited collective opportunities,  provide superficial exercises that are packaged as training and proudly aver that they’re ‘upcycling’ the strong performers when in fact their challenges and objectives have remained the same year over year (or worse, have been marginalized to the point where their talents gradually fade into the background).  What if the tenor of the conversation changed and our responsibility was to engage in and develop substantive strategies with our folks?  What if we didn’t take the easy out and refused to create any more versions of ‘Groundhog Day’ because of its expediency in the face of our other responsibilities?  What’s stopping us?   Have we lost our motivation and/or forgotten one of the most critical components of great leadership?  When was the last time you turned around to see if anyone was following you? I imagine it would be a serious bummer to realize that there may be no ‘there there’.

If you’re out in front then this is your primary objective.  If the goal is to increase employee satisfaction,  realize a greater ROI, build an environment where people are jazzed and engaged, then let’s at least begin the hard work.  Turn around.

life lessons, work life

Step Away From The Mirror

mimijk

Careful now…slowly step away from the mirror.  It’s deceptive – whatever or whoever is staring back at you, I swear it’s an inaccurate reflection.  Consider this part of the karmic joke, but I promise you that none of us see ourselves in the same way as we are seen by others.  From the most intuitive among us to the most clueless, objects in the mirror are way more skewed than they appear.

I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I’m short.  I still can’t fathom what the hell people are talking about.  Ok, if I stretch with serious effort, I can make it to 5′.  Vertically challenged you say?  Perhaps.  What do I think?  I don’t get it.  Being endowed with reasonable intellect and a gentle grasp on reality, I’m aware that literally, I’m not exactly tall.  I know that with every step most people take, I usually take three.  I also am acutely aware that when I travel on a crowded train I’m usually nose-to-armpit with any other person standing (which is why I hate to take the subway).  When in conversation with an upright adult, my neck invariably begins to ache after a while.  And my kids eclipsed me before they hit puberty.  All of these are fairly strong indicators that I don’t measure up to the national average.  Got it.

But I don’t see myself as short.  Never have.  Just like I never thought my voice was deep, until I answered the phone at my parents’ house and the caller said, “Hi Jack” (my dad’s name). Don’t worry, I’m not completely delusional, though it is comforting to know that all is well in my own little world.

Extrapolate this thought farther though – to more meaningful venues and relationships – and the concept takes on new gravity.  How many performance reviews have I given in my professional history?  How many mentoring conversations, sensitive dialogues?  Easily thousands.  How many wrenching moments with friends and loved ones?  Too many to enumerate.  Rarely have I met the individual who grasps the variance between his/her self-perception and that which others see.  Before you insist that you are one of the exceptions to this observation, bear with me a little longer.

It’s easy to encourage someone to expand their technical skills, explore better time management practices, increase their production by x%.  Ask your spouse to empty the dishwasher, walk the dog –  it’s easy.  These are tangible, non-threatening observations and/or requests.  We can do those.  They don’t upend all that we see in ourselves.  They don’t disrupt the reflection in our mirror.  Suggest to a manager that more emphasis could be placed on fostering collective accountability, pointedly provide someone with example after example of how their behavior alienates their team, craft a conversation wherein you advise someone who is self-sabotaging – and you will be met with defensiveness, denial or disbelief.  I remember tearfully telling my husband that I felt like he didn’t ‘see’ me.  “How can you say that?!”, he said.  “I see you everyday!  Tell me what you want me to be looking at!!”  As we say in the South, ‘bless his heart’.

We really want to believe that we are there for each other, committed to doing the right thing (whatever that may be), approachable and at core, highly effective at that which makes the world go round – establishing, maintaining, and growing connections.  How many of us can really say that such talent is reflected in our work teams?  In our personal relationships?  When was the last time you asked someone to give you honest feedback about how you appear?  It’s a hard question to pose, for you need to ask someone whom you trust to tell you the truth and not provide you with assurances rather than insight.  You need to ask someone who’s holding the Windex, so to speak.

At this point you may be asking yourself why one would – or should – bother with such a quest for information.  At the risk of redundancy – because as a supervisor your people deserve your best and without a reality check, you may be failing them royally.  Because we are continually changing and adapting to our environment, and our partners need to clue us in to what our actions reflect when held up to our intentions.  Because we stare in the mirror far more often than we notice what others see when they look at us.  Self-absorption is carefully packaged in denial.  With such securely wrapped protections, how are we ever going to feel intrinsically good about who we are and how successful we are with the relationships we have – and need?  If we can trust each other enough to ask the scary questions, open enough to hear the uncomfortable answers and resilient enough to look at ourselves through someone else’s lens, ultimately our self-image will be much more reflective of the reality.  That said, please don’t tell me that I can’t reach the top shelf in the kitchen – I know, I know.

life lessons, work life

You’re Only As Good As Your Last Show

mimijk

If your company’s fiscal year end coincides with the calendar, then bonuses have been distributed, your new salary confirmed and you have received your annual review.  Assuming all were positive – way to go!  Congratulations!  Another great year has passed and you should be approaching 2012 highly motivated, ready to embrace the objectives that you established in concert with your supervisor.  You’re going to rock this year, right?

No?

The reality is that an external motivator – like money – lasts about as long as two pay periods, or however long it takes to adjust one’s budget to a new bi-monthly or monthly net.  If a person is being compensated equitably, salary increases and bonuses don’t drive performance in any long term way.  A friend of mine recently received wonderful news from her employer – her raise and bonus were exceptional, her review reflective of a reasonable awareness of the scope of her efforts.  Upon hearing this news, her significant other said, “Enjoy it – there’s your appreciation until next year”.  We laughed at the comment, though the truth behind its humor is far more worthy of a sigh than a giggle.

There is an ennui that arrives in January that comes on the heels of that absence of anticipation.  There is no further feedback to receive, all the adrenalin has been spent.  There are no more three day weekends to look forward to for awhile (though the Monday after the Super Bowl should be a federal holiday, given that statistically more people call in sick that day than any other in the year).  The new year by definition exerts little pressure to ‘bring it’ with the same energy that year-end activities require and the sense of renewal is limited by the sense of purpose.  The performance scale is re-set at zero – an enervating thought if ever there was one.  Yeah it’s true, you’re only as good as your last show.

Ideally, now would be a good time to take a vacation – a chance to restore one’s self and get outside the routine.  Given that many don’t have that luxury, I think we all need to find the time to take stock of our internal motivational index, pose the hard questions to ourselves that we have no time to consider when we’re consumed with work.  At the end of each year, I used to ask my boss whether we were going to re-up for another year.  Though the question was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to continue in my position if he was going to pursue a different path.  The exchange provided us with a chance to talk about the past year’s challenges and successes and ensure that were were in step going forward.  We continued this exercise even when we both had moved onward and upward at the firm.  The conversation remained an annual touchstone of sorts, checking in when either of our perceived realities needed confirmation.

Absent such dialogues, we still should take time for a little reflection.  Are you where you want to be in your career?  Are you being given the opportunities to develop and expand your skill set?  Does your position provide you with sufficient challenges and responsibilities?  Are you working in an environment that is supportive of your values and ethical construct?  If your efforts are Herculean and you have the professional muscles to exercise, that’s one thing.  It feels good to flex your talent, stretching towards goals that are both intriguing and substantive.  However, if the position has a more Sisyphean quality (to keep the analogy alive), that’s another issue entirely.  There is nothing more demoralizing than knowing that the damn boulder is going to roll back down the mountain as soon as you near the top.

Your answers should be the mental catalyst to emerge from the mental freeze of January.  If you are in an organization where you continue to grow and develop, where your future marketability is enhanced by the responsibilities you are given, then pause for a moment, celebrate where you are and ratchet up the output again.  You are in a terrific place on your career path and that in and of itself should be energizing.  If you’re not getting what you need from your current position and have done all that you can to alter that course, then you are doing a huge injustice to yourself in taking the path of least resistance.  No one should view the decision to coast as an empowering one.  You know too that ultimately, your malaise translates into performance issues which further complicate and compromise your position (literally and figuratively).  Considering other employment possibilities is an effort, and can be incredibly anxiety-provoking.  It can also be exhilarating to find an employer with values and expectations that are totally in sync with yours.

When we talk about thinking strategically, it’s important to remember that this is an exercise best honed first when considering where you are and where you want to go.  You are so much more than a passive participant in your career – you are both driver and navigator.  Safe travels

work life

Me? The Terminator?

mimijk

When I landed in DC, my first boss was an  ‘interesting’ character.   I use the adjective advisedly, in much the same way as ‘incredible’ or ‘unbelievable’.   Shortly after I started working, she brought me a lovely Villeroy & Boch box for my desk.  She told me it was a welcome gift.  Given the environment in which I was working (HR Manager in a national law firm), I was struck by the thoughtful and gracious  nature of the gesture.  She was the least spontaneous person I had ever met.  In fact, she was my introduction to the world of challenging bosses – she was demanding, arbitrary, judgmental, obstinate and more than a little self-righteous.

A week later, she came into my office and told me to terminate G’s employment.  There was nothing in this woman’s file to suggest that she was skating on the edge of the employment abyss.  She was capable, experienced and had the tendency to arrive between five and fifteen minutes late a couple of days a week.  G was also quite confident and never really provided the administrator (my boss) with the deference she expected from everyone.  Of course, that really was the crux of the issue.  I wasn’t prepared to have such a dialogue with an employee who had never been spoken with about her lateness (or anything else for that matter).  So I offered to work with G, with the proviso that if I didn’t get anywhere within a proscribed and sustained period of time, I would do the deed.  The administrator relented – but not before reiterating that she didn’t like G at all and the likelihood of my success was somewhere between slim and none.

To abbreviate the story – G worked out her lateness issues and was more respectful of the administrator’s position in the office hierarchy.  I walked into my office one morning and found a $500.00 check in that beautiful china box, along with a note – “if you had gotten rid of her, it would have been $1,000.00”.  Pretty stunning (please see adjectives ‘interesting’, ‘incredible’ and ‘unbelievable’ above).  A single mom with two small boys; I needed the job even though I couldn’t stand the person to whom I reported.  Yet I wasn’t going to cave on these directives which occurred with far more frequency than I care to recount.  Suffice it to say I was there for two years ‘working with’ a ridiculous number of employees and receiving $500.00 checks instead of $1,000.00, before I was happily recruited away.

It really didn’t matter whether there was documentation to support these decisions.  It didn’t matter that she was exposing the firm to charges of unfair employment and/or discriminatory practices.  Her argument was that employment was at will, and at any given point in time she could decide that an employee wasn’t meeting her standard of likability or talent.  In the most simplistic sense, as an employer she was right.  If an employer is making decisions to hire or fire and those decisions have nothing to do with an individual’s protected class, both employer and employee are free to end their relationship at any time.  However, just as a realtor’s  mantra is ‘location, location, location’, HR people repeat ‘documentation, documentation, documentation’.  Arbitrary decisions more often than not upend peoples’ lives, adversely impact professional reputations and cost money (as they should, in my view).

I don’t like severing professional ties – or any ties for that matter.  I’m way too neurotic in my need to help make things better (as if I alone can do that).  Happily, I have never met a successful HR professional who enjoys the process either.  I maintain that if the time comes when such situations elicit no reaction – or worse yet, delight – it’s time to consider your other talents and re-career.  It is difficult, painful and disheartening to initiate these dialogues and I would imagine it sucks to be on the receiving end even more.

In an ideal world, every employee is stellar, productive, consistently enthusiastic, highly skilled and committed to team play.  All the time.  Oh – they’re also loyal, have the utmost integrity and remain motivated from the first day forward.  Did I also mention that every supervisor is killer smart, engaged, dedicated to their people, visionary…Ok, wake up now – the dream part of this blog is over.  Performance does not occur on one upward trajectory; performance waxes and wanes.  That’s a predictable and honest course of professional – and personal – life.  If a supervisor is offering consistent, regular feedback then an employee knows where s/he is on the performance spectrum (on a separate but related note – if conversations like this become the norm, the evaluation process wouldn’t be viewed with such derision).

After thirty years in this profession, I have arrived at a conclusion I can live with.  If I can say that I have done everything I can do to help an individual improve his/her performance, if I have mentored, advised and documented (and may I add that I can’t use the acronym P.I.P for I always think of Gladys Knight), if I have clearly articulated the expectations and consequences involved if they are not met – and there is no positive result, then I am not terminating the employment relationship – the employee is making that choice.  I realize that this is a little bit of a shift from the way we typically approach this topic.  Please recognize that I’m not suggesting that the employer is divested of responsibility, rather I am leveling the playing field so that these discussions leave no victims or passive recipients of terrible, life-altering information.

I can hear your rumblings in cyber space.  Certainly, there are mandated economically driven RIFs where there are truly victims and I have been the harbinger of those awful messages more times than I would like to recall.  That’s a topic for another day, I hope.  And yes, there are really lousy bosses and ineffective supervisors and employees let go for reasons that elude them and employees who aren’t let go for reasons that elude everybody else.  Perhaps that too is a future subject.  For now though, let’s go back to where we began – you couldn’t pay me to terminate the employment of someone without trying to improve the problem.  You couldn’t pay me to engage in this exercise if I didn’t have the employee’s buy-in to do the necessary work.  When it fails, the individual is making a decision and a choice and when it succeeds?  To paraphrase MasterCard – it’s priceless.

work life

Where Are All The Mentors?

mimijk

I love people of my gender.  I love being a woman.  I listen to the original cast album of “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” and belt out ‘I’m a Woman’ with pride of ownership (as a side note, I never liked Helen Reddy’s  ‘I Am Woman’..what can I say?  It’s a taste thing).  I applaud our ability to balance conflicting priorities, the way we check in with each other when someone is having a tough time and how we ask good questions.  I am constantly impressed with how hard we’re willing to work on our relationships, career paths and still remember birthdays.  I like how we think and how we love.  And I’m calling us out.  Meet me at Starbucks at noon.

What is it about women at work?  Where are the mentors for young women?  Why aren’t we bringing our younger colleagues along with the same commitment with which we focused our efforts on our own growth?  Yes, this is a generalization – don’t get defensive if it doesn’t resonate with you.  Nonetheless, I submit that there are fewer successful women directing their attention to those just beginning their climb up the ladder than there are women who will strategically place the heel of their stiletto on those manicured hands if they get too close.  Hattie McDaniel once said that “…there are only eighteen inches between a pat on the back and a kick in the rump”.  I watched this happen all the time at the firm.  Women protesting the paucity of female leaders, decrying the absence of opportunities and protecting their areas of expertise with the ferocity of a nursing lioness.  Classic approach avoidance  – ‘come here – no, go away’.

I get it – perhaps it took more work for us to get ahead.  Perhaps we escalated professionally without the guiding hand of another woman and with a man’s hand groping our butts.  It can make a person jaded, territorial and defiant – all with good reason – but why do other women bear the brunt?  I have had a supervisor harass me sexually and watched as women in more powerful positions than mine shake their heads with disgust, pat my shoulder with sympathy and do nothing to help me stop it.   Ironically, the person who took action was a man.  My best professional role models and most ardent mentors were men.  I have been honored to work with some of the brightest women in the legal profession and marvel at their passivity when asked to share their experience in a meaningful way with younger women.

I think there are a lot of reasons for this, including our fundamental ambivalence with competition.  When competing with men, the permission is overt and our actions will parallel theirs.  Men are comfortable with competition and reflect that comfort from an early age.  In these situations we can explicitly acknowledge that regardless of how level the playing field may or may not be, we will be formidable opponents, and will go toe-to-toe to capture the flag.  We aren’t comfortable competing with other women – there’s too much wrapped up in the fine print of the rules.  We are supposed to ‘play nicely’ even if we don’t like our playmates.  Girls clamor for friendship and affiliation.  They want to be part of an accepted group, regardless of their feelings for these cohorts.  Thus the schadenfreude of a homecoming queen stepping on her dress and tearing it, the most popular girl being ‘outed’ as a bitch.  As much as we feel for their exposure, we love it.  So when we share a professional arena, we compete with a complicated, implicit agenda.  We want to win and don’t necessarily trust that another woman can complement our efforts without simultaneously diminishing us.  We embrace our colleagues with our fingers crossed behind their backs.

We can and should do more.  At the end of the day. wouldn’t we want this for our daughters, nieces, grandchildren?  To benefit from the guidance offered by successful, experienced women who have climbed the ladder and know where the stress points are, which areas require gloves to avoid getting splinters and what to do when one slips and falls (as we all inevitably have).  Can we move past our history to enhance another woman’s future?  We can – we’re that good.  We’re women.