The importance of female role models

After 25 years in the direct selling business, Mary Kay Ash resigned her position as a national training director when yet another man she had trained was promoted above her – at twice her salary. Her response was visionary. At first, she started writing a book that would help women gain the opportunities she had been denied. But soon she realized she was creating a plan that would do much more than give advice. It formed the foundation for a new opportunity where women could develop their talents and achieve unlimited success. At the time of Mary Kay's death in 2001, Mary Kay Cosmetics was represented in 37 countries, with the annual sales of over $2 billion.

Success Stories of female entrepreneurs like the story of Mary Kay Ash are rare. Although women won ground in a lot of business sectors, in the top management positions they are still rare to find. There is a bunch of possible reasons for that. One reason was revealed by the McKinsey study "Women Matter" (2008). The research team found that 64% of women in the US see the absence of female role models as a barrier to their career development. But would an increase in numbers of female role models really make a difference?

In the high-tech sector, where women are in all levels of the hierarchy significantly underrepresented, mentoring programs for women have proven already first results. For example the Distributed Mentoring Program by the University of British Columbia matches undergraduate technical women with female mentors during one summer research experience. During these months the female students not only learn the "hard skills" from their mentors, but they also experience what the reality of women researchers looks like and how they can assert themselves in challenging situations. The measurement of effectiveness of this mentoring program shows that fifty percent of mentored women go on to graduate school compared to about three percent of all women who earn undergraduate degrees in computer science. In other words, the presence of female role models increases the number of women in technical fields.  

Similar effects are found as the result of a Canadian program for teenage girls. At the University of Ottawa, the School of Psychology is exploring the benefits of the availability of all-female high school Computer Science courses. This initiative shows that computer classes lead by female teachers and full-female classes raise the participation of girls from 10% to 40%. The results suggest that these all-female classes have a positive influence on attracting women and maintaining them in technical fields.

These programs show that the presence of female role models is an important factor for the career development of women. Having a role model is so important because we can learn from their mistakes and successes. Rather than having to grope around in the dark, we have a roadmap put in front of us.

For a little career booster, look around at women you admire. Whether someone in your family, a colleague, a sports star, activist, public speaker, learn all you can about this person. You may be able to talk with her directly, or read her biography. How did she get to where she is at now? What mistakes did she make along the way? How can you use her advice or actions in your own life? How can you avoid the pitfalls she encountered? Keep your eyes open and find your role model.

A bitch in the office - Part 2

Did you think about what you would do if you were Clara? I asked my participants in the "Women in Business" seminar this question and got a lot of different answers. In this post I will share the results of their discussion with you, and outline the pros and cons of each option.
First of all, Clara could continue fighting with the bee. This means, nothing will change. Every day goes on as the former one, including bad gut feelings on the way to the office, bitter flavors during the day, and an exhausted Clara in the evening. My participants agreed, that this would not be a good option. A change needs to be implemented. But which?
Clara could just quit the job. Leaving all this stressful environment behind, starting new somewhere else. This could work. Getting rid of the bee this way, means also to quit a job that Clara actually liked. But for the sake of a more relaxed work environment, she could even consider this. But who guarantees her, that it will be better in the new workplace? Isn't there in each company a bee? Maybe quitting is not the ultimate solution. The safer way would be to solve the conflict.
Clara could analyze the situation in a first step to understand better the nature of her relationship with the bee. She could do this alone, with a friend, or a colleague. Questions to be answered would be: When did this competition thing start? Can she identify the origin? What in Clara's behavior could trigger the bee's competitive attitude? Who else is involved in this situation? Which colleagues are influenced by negative environment caused by the fights?
In a second step Clara needs to think about how to solve the conflict. Would it be possible to speak openly to the bee about it? Who could help to mediate the conflict? Can she talk to the management? My participants agreed, that going that open can be either very difficult or even more harmful. In many cases the bee is not a person that one could talk to and the management often doesn't want to be involved in such a complicated situation. But this depends totally on each specific situation and there might be situations, in which one of these approaches could work.
My participants preferred a different approach: Stop fighting! Just ignore the bee's attacks. Treat her "nicely" - not overtly nicely, but normal. Don't take the attacks personal. And be patient! This approach will mean a lot of endurance and energy. Because what will happen for sure? If the bee doesn't see any effect of her attacks any more, she will attack harder, and harder, and harder, hoping to finally hit the right spot. Choosing the "Stop fighting!" approach means, that the situation will become worse before it gets better. But finally the chances are good that this strategy works out. All my participants could tell a story like this and for them all it finally resolved by stopping the fight.
To end this series, I will leave you with the continuation of Clara's story: She goes to the kitchen and gets herself a good glass of red wine. Then she stares out of the window for hours. Finally she makes a decision. She will stop this stupid competition. She will just not enter it anymore. Ignore all attacks. One day the bee has to understand that she is beating the air. She will give it a try.
Next day during the coffee break the bee starts her first attack of the day: “Oh Clara, where do you get always these freaky cloths?!” Clara doesn’t react to it, neither looking angry, nor smiling. She just ignores it. The bee doesn’t give up, her attacks become worse. As she doesn’t achieve her goal, she tries harder every day. But after one month she starts to understand and her attacks become less. Over time she reduces the competition until one day after five or six months she just stops it entirely. And you believe it or not, today Clara and the bee are very good friends. This is a true story, and even though not all stories end as well as this one, it at least can give us a little courage. 

A bitch in the office - Part 1

Clara is a young business women who works in the marketing department of a multinational company. She is ambitious and is aiming at a leadership position in the future. She likes her job and the team and everything would be perfect if there wasn’t the b...ee. The bee is her colleague from the sales team and she seems to run permanently with Clara for a competition. Whatever situation allows for competition the bee will enter it. 

No matter how early Clara arrives in the morning, the bee is already there. Sitting at her desk, with crossed legs and a whipping foot, she shows her perfect long tanned legs. The high heels are brand new and were probably obscenely expensive. Her red fingernails run over the keyboard, the long shining hair falls on her shoulder. When Clara enters she looks up and says with a sugar sweet smile: “Hi Clara, you are late. Your highly important meeting about the half million Euros project started already. They agreed yesterday to have it one hour earlier. Oops, didn’t I tell you! Stupid me.”

You can imagine how Clara feels now. Big stone in the stomach, heart beating at triple speed. With her face red like a tomato she enters the meeting room. Her boss looks angrily at her. She falls in her seat and tries to follow the meeting. But her thoughts are somewhere else. She is making plans how she can pay back this mean strike to the bee.

At lunch the two meet at the cafeteria. Clara stands behind the bee in the queue and tells her: “By the way, was it your boyfriend that I saw yesterday evening with a blond women in the cinema? She looked so much younger than him!” Yes, that did hit. Clara can clearly see that she hit the right spot. Now the score is back to 1 : 1. You can imagine how this goes on during the full day. 

In the evening Clara is totally exhausted from the fighting. When she arrives home she just wants to take a shower and forget this terrible day. But tomorrow it won’t be better, will it? It has been like this ever since she can think and it will never stop. She goes to the kitchen and gets herself a good glass of red wine. Then she stares out of the window for hours thinking about her situation and trying to find a solution. If you were Clara, what would you do?

A caveman in the office

Did you ever ask yourself why men always have to talk so loudly about their success? Part of the answer is, because our cavemen genes still play a bigger role in our behaviour than we would like them to do. The evolution of our genes just cannot keep up with our social evolution. Actually, we could say that we are still cavemen, who got themselves an office.

Travelling back in history thousands and thousands of years ago we will find our ancestor women sitting around the fireplace, socializing and taking care of the children. Looking further around the cave, we will find the footsteps of our ancestor men; following them they will lead us far down to the savannah, where the men get prepared to hunt a buffalo. Having a closer look at them, we can see that they already spotted an animal. As we look at their hunting formation we can clearly recognize a hierarchical organization among them. There is one leader who is the decision maker. He distributes the different tasks and gives instructions. The youngest guy was sent out to collect leaves and twigs for the camouflage, which they are putting on right now. The guy with the wild look gets the task to distract the animal and the other men are sent out to surround the target. On command of the leader they attack the buffalo and bring it down successfully.

Proud of their success the men hang the animal on a branch and carry it to the cave. On their way home they seem to chat and laugh with each other about their great victory. But looking closer at them we see that each of them is gloating only about his own contribution to the victory. This is the most important part during the hunting event for them as it serves as confirmation for the hierarchical pecking order. Status is achieved by the demonstration of strengths and therefore the men enter a constant competition.

The women are seeing them from far and await them at the entrance to the cave. Reaching the cave the competitive behaviour among the men becomes even worse as it also serves as a tool to impress the women. Only the strongest, wildest and most courageous ones will have free choice among the women… Now tell me, how much is this different from the actions that we can observe every day at our workplace? After all, it is just a caveman in the office. 

"Our struggling" - Part 3

If you read part 1 and 2 of this series you might already be at a point where you think: "Holy crap, seeing all these challenges, that we women face in the business world concentrated on one page are already enough of a struggling." But I have to tell you, it is not the complete list yet. Another big challenge that you probably have identified for yourself already is the double role, that we still have to play: Being business woman and mother.
Ok, society models are changing and luckily more and more fathers are taking over huge parts in the responsibility for the kids. But nevertheless it is us, who have the baby. And honestly, the decision about who stays home raising the children is often based on the salary: The one who earns less, stays home. And unfortunately that is in most cases the woman. So, for us the baby question often becomes a question about the fundamental decision between family or career.
But the good news is, that you don't need to make a decision. You can have both! If you want it. This might, however, include some reshaping of our original idea about how a family works. The romantic idea about spending afternoons with our little ones in the kitchen baking cookies, or accompanying them to school pick nicks is not working in this model. Having both, career and family, means that we have to get used to the idea, that big parts of our private responsibilities and roles are taken over by other persons. This help can come from persons that we "buy" like nannies or housekeepers, or it can come from inside our family like our parents or in-laws supporting us.
This might sound like a simple solution, but the biggest challenge of this solution is coming from inside of us. Not for every woman it is easy to give away those responsibilities. Many of us are suffering from accusing ourselves of being a bad mother or housewife when having someone else taking care of those things. If you are recognizing yourself in this now, consider the following: A long-term study conducted in the US since the 1970-ies and published in 2008 revealed that children of working mothers are happier, more successful and more resistant than children of non-working mothers. This is explained by the conclusion that working mothers are happier because they fulfill their professional dreams, and this happiness and balance is transmitted to their children. But careful: Mothers that decide to stop working because they find their fulfillment in being together with their children create a different case!

This series about "Our struggling" revealed a lot of challenges that we women face in the business world. But it also showed that these challenges have the potential to be overcome. In this blog I will come back again and again to these three main areas of our struggling and put them into a different light. I am looking forward to your comments and will enjoy discussing the different issues with you. Hope to see you soon.

"Our struggling" - Part 1

The business world is a place that is so familiar to us, but even so, we sometimes feel like strangers. We are playing the game, but then it seems there are new rules coming up. What if those rules don't just come up? What if they are there all the time and we just didn't find them yet, because they are no written rules? 
Hundreds of years ago, the business world was created by men. So, it is just natural that they applied the rules to it that suit them best. And because in the beginning the business world consisted purely of men, there was also no need for writing those rules down. But then women started to enter the business world and we would need some kind of manual for the game! 
Fortunately, there is this blog now. And over time I will share the most important rules with you. But before we start with that, we have to talk about some other factors that can create challenges for our success in the business world. Read about it in Part 2 and Part 3 of "Our struggling". 

"Our struggling" - Part 2

Women are not only challenged by the unwritten rules in the business world, we are also challenged by our education, or rather socialization, and by the absence of the right role models.
Think back, when you grew up, what kind of ladylike behaviors did your parents, teachers or whoever teach you? Being nice and well behaved, smiling, not being loud or cheeky, keeping your arms close to your body, and so on. All those small things that are considered to be ladylike. Now as grown-ups we do all of this unconsciously. After years of practice, those behaviors became just natural to us. And in the business world they turn into mistakes. Unconscious mistakes. All these ladylike behaviors have the potential to undermine our professional success. Because we appear shy, or not tough enough, we might be considered less likely for leadership functions or even just the next step on the career ladder.

And then there is another trap lying in front of us, so obvious that we don't see it. Our society obviously expects from us, that we are the embodiment of sexiness. Wherever we look, women that we see in television or magazines teach us one thing: How to be sexy. Nobody teaches us, how to appear competent. We are definitely missing the right role models. A survey by Catalyst confirms that 64% of women see the absence of role models as barriers to their careers. And not only that this absence complicates our career progress, on top of this we are working against our career, when we dress sexily at work. A study by Arthur Brief et al. from the Tulane University proves that women who dress sexily at work get less often promoted and earn less money than women who don't. These facts should make us think. And it is not the end of our struggling in the business world. Read what else is there in Part 3 of this series.