Category Archives: Scrappy Women in Biz Book

Men “Versus” Women…NOT! By Pat Obuchowski

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PatObuchowski“Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you’re driving at another.”
– George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950) “Pygmalion” (1913)

I spent many years of my career climbing the proverbial ladder in Corporate America. I did what I think is typical of so many women who want to succeed in their careers and be promoted into leadership positions. I looked at who was above me, modeled them, was mentored by them, and got promoted by them. The only problem was that these were always men. I was constantly trying to act less than myself and more like men, even if I would never admit this. Men were my only role models.

As a woman in business, I am always fascinated with the behavior between men and women in the work place. I picked up the latest book by Annis and Gray “Work with Me” in which they define 8 blind spots between men and women in business.

As they state, “There is a conventional wisdom that women and men are no different from each other, have the same aspirations, and are expected to achieve their goals in the same fashion.This is precisely why we are experiencing cultural breakdown today instead of the equality breakthroughs we expected by now.”

“Men and women belong to different species, and communication between them is a science still in its infancy.”
– Bill Cosby

As I do my work in many different organizations, I see that in chastising men for behaving as men, and trying to fix women to act less than themselves and more like men, we are perpetuating a cycle of miscommunication and misunderstanding.

We are not being authentic or honest to each other and more so, to ourselves. Annis and Grey bring an objective (as much as one can be objective) viewpoint into gender intelligence. They find women are not as content in today’s workplace as men are and that women feel valued differently then men. Women feel dismissed for their ideas and excluded from events and opportunities for advancement.

On the other hand, men are generally comfortable in corporate cultures. Their blind spot is not being aware of how their behavior in this primarily male-designed environment affects women. Women’s blind spot is in assuming men’s behaviors are intentional.

In a 2005-2011 Gender Survey by Barbara Annis & Associates they found some very interesting statistics:

  • 82 percent of women say they feel some form of exclusion – whether in business social events and casual meetings, in conversations, or in receiving direct feedback.
  • 92 percent of men don’t believe they’re excluding women.
  • 79 percent of men feel they have to be careful and indirect when providing women critical and timely feedback.
  • 82 percent of women say they want to receive direct feedback from men.
  • 79 percent of men feel appreciated at work while only 48 percent of women feel the same.
  • 82 percent of women want to be recognized for their effort in achieving the results.
  • 89 percent of men want to be recognized for their results.
  • 72 percent of men state that women ask too many questions.
  • 80 percent of women say they prefer to ask questions even when they know the answer.
  • 95 percent of men and women consider trust to be the foundation of a working relationship.
  • 92 percent of women say men earn their trust through caring and concern.
  • 89 percent of men say women earn their trust by showing credibility and competence.

WOW! These are not small percentage differences in culture.

I don’t offer any magical formula to fix this. I just know this needs to change as it is causing a lot of stress and unmanageability in the workplace which overflows into personal lives.

What I do offer is that it doesn’t have to be one side ‘versus’ the other. There are many ways to find the common ground and bridge these gender differences. We simply need to understand where the other gender places his or her greatest value and importance, and why.

“Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Pat Obuchowski is the CEO (Chief Empowerment Officer) of inVisionaria. inVisionaria is a company devoted to  helping people and organizations find and achieve their vision and their voice. She works with individuals and organizations that are looking for structure, focus and accountability to set and achieve their goals. She also works with people who are ready to make big changes in the their businesses and their lives and step into the leaders they’ve been yearning to be. People who are ready, willing and able to begin playing their “bigger Game” No kidding. Right now.

The approach to achieve this and create this alliance is individually based and is designed between Pat and each of her clients. She is also a contributing author to “Scrappy Women in Business: Living Proof the bending the Rules Isn’t Breaking the Law.”

My 3 Biggest Business Mistakes by DeAnna Burghart

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DeAnna-close cropStarting a business isn’t easy. I’ve done it three times now – twice as a sole proprietor, and once as a founding member of the ProjectConnections team. The process is fraught with tension, loaded with exciting opportunities, and rife with chances to make mistakes. Thank goodness! How else would we ever learn what works and what doesn’t?

I can’t claim these are the only three mistakes I’ve made in business. (I’ve made more than that since my first cup of coffee this morning!) But these are the three biggest mistakes I think I’ve made in any of those business start-ups. How many of them are you guilty of?

Mistake #1: Analysis Paralysis. I’m good at research. Really, really good. I actually research things for fun. That makes research a very safe place to run away to when I’m not quite sure what to do next. You get conflicting opinions, really smart people are telling you to make a variety of different choices, and you aren’t quite sure which one feels right. Research it!

To. Death.

Sometimes, we feel so insecure in our own judgment and experience that we spend weeks or even months longer than we should on “getting a little more market intelligence” or whatever we want to call our stalling. It’s the start-up equivalent of forming a committee to investigate options. Used properly, research is absolutely essential to success. Used excessively it will yield even more confusion and insecurity, not to mention lost opportunities because your competitors were out there doing things you were just reading about.

Lesson: When your research stops turning up new insights and information, stop! Adding one more voice to the “me too” stack isn’t going to tell you how you feel about the information you’ve uncovered. You won’t be able to take successful steps forward until you understand that critical piece of information, and you won’t find it in anyone else’s books or blogs. You’ll only find it by being honest with yourself about what you’ve uncovered.

Mistake #2: Not Speaking Up. In my adventures in the business world, I’ve frequently enjoyed the luxury of being in a room full of really smart people. I know just how fortunate this makes me, and I revel in it. But there’s a danger as well. When you’re in a room with that many smart people on a regular basis, it’s easy to be a little intimidated by them. And from there, it’s a small step to suppress your own misgivings when everyone else seems so sure of themselves. There’s a powerful temptation to “go along,” and by doing so to seem wise and well informed. This is understandable.

It is also a mistake. Stifling that little voice, or that feeling in my gut, has cost me precious time, money, effort, and opportunities. No one can see everything, so if one person is holding back, the group is missing valuable information – even if the person holding back is you.

Lesson: That little voice in your ear, or that feeling in your gut, knows more than you give it credit for. I’ve learned to listen and to speak up when it’s bugging me. I’m not always right, of course. Sometimes I just need to hear others address my concerns, and the feeling goes away. But it pays to speak up, even when you don’t have the final say.

Mistake #3: Not Listening. This is the flip side of #2, and it’s an easy and dangerous trap. I usually find myself falling into this mode when I’ve finished a few rounds of “I told you so” in my head. Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud. Stopping to really listen – to my CEO, my colleagues, my customers, my competitor’s customers – has opened doors that would have remained forever closed if I’d focused on speaking (or worse, on selling).

Lesson: Listen when people talk to you. Don’t spend the time running a script in your head of what you’re going to say in response – you’re throwing away valuable input and connections with others when you shut off like that. Open up, sit back, and really listen to what’s being said. Listen like your business depends on it. It probably does. And note that this is probably a good step to take both before and after speaking your mind.

You may have noticed that all three of these items – communication, intuition, connection – all relate to the so-called “soft skills” (they aren’t necessarily) that women are supposedly so good at (we aren’t necessarily). But as dicey as generalizations can be, I think women who end up in entrepreneurial spaces are often more driven and perfectionistic – and thus more inclined to these particular flaws. Or maybe these flaws are just more visible and damaging in the entrepreneurial space. Either way, they’re mistakes worth looking out for. I continually remind myself to listen to others, speak up about my doubts, and above all to do something! No one was ever successful in business by doing nothing at all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

DeAnna Burghart is content editor at ProjectConnections.com. Prior to joining the founding team in 1999, she was a successful software training consultant, and helped launch a web design and SEO firm.

Going the Distance by Sue Lebeck

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SueLebeck(Originally posted at Sue Lebeck’s blog on www.innovatingsmart.org, August 1, 2011)

This past weekend, my husband and I had the pleasure of hosting guests from London who came to town to participate in the annual San Francisco Marathon.  As a former three-miler (make that two) and a current hill-climber (the urban kind), I fell naturally into a state of awe and admiration. Twenty-six-plus mile-markers to be overtaken by foot in the terrain of the cable-car seems extreme, if not unachievable.  How does one even begin?

Sometimes the quest for sustainability feels like that.   According to leaders of the world’s largest businesses, the roadmap to a sustainable future includes forty-plus non-skippable mile-markers. Reaching the mileage requirements for the current decade alone will require us to collectively pass a wide variety of milestones:

  • new measures of success
  • long-term financing models
  • business models that integrate all actors
  • costs of renewable lowered
  • value chain innovation
  • closed loop design
  • integrated urban management, water efficiencies, more agricultural R&D
  • and more

Tired yet?

Whatever your field of play, seasoned players know that success begins by choosing a direction and taking a step at a time.  Capacity and endurance is built consistently and increasingly, always working to a conscious plan.  This year’s seminars-for-marathoners (pp 11-13) offered this further inspired advice that sounds right-on to me:

  • Set high expectations:  “If you put your mind to it, you will surprise yourself by what you can accomplish” (It’s All in Your Head)
  • For best results, attend to what goes into and out of the whole system (Nutrition for the Endurance Athlete and TrainingWell™)
  • A centered frame of mind is key (Running with the Mind of Meditation)
  • What begins as a stretch goal can quickly become a way of life (63 Marathons in 63 Days)
  • Having succeeded over time, you will want to playfully step up your game (Charity Chasers)

Yes, like a marathon, sustainability is a long-term achievement — one which can at once protect and transform our lives.  So let’s get our support systems in place and get ready to go the distance.

Which sustainability mile-markers will you be helping us cruise past in victory?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sue Lebeck, is the Founder and Director of InnovatingSMART.  You can contact her via sue@innovatingsmart.org

Sue Lebeck is an innovation management specialist working to advance smart, sustainability-driven systems. A researcher, product management and development specialist and innovation manager, Sue brings her diverse background in software, psychology, media and collaboration to the work of sustainability innovation.

Sue is also one of our authors of the Scrappy Women in Business book.

Helping “Scrappy Women” Achieve Their Dreams by Kimberly Wiefling

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As a woman studying chemistry and physics at Wright State University in the early 1980s, gender bias was somewhat of an unknown to Kimberly Wiefling.

“I was treated with so much dignity and respect and included equally and fairly, I never even perceived that there was a gender issue,” she said.

Wiefling would face a completely different reality following her 1984 graduation from Wright State.

In graduate school and the high-tech world of Silicon Valley, Wiefling quickly realized that women were not always welcome at the table. It’s a blemish on corporate America she still sees today.

“I know from research that companies that have higher participation rates of women in their leadership and senior executive ranks make more money. There’s really a financial benefit to companies that do include more women, and yet, there’s still a bias,” Wiefling explained. “My intention is to help eliminate that bias. Let’s have women participating and contributing equally.”

After spending 10 years at Hewlett Packard followed by a few turns at several startup companies, Wiefling founded her own company, Wiefling Consulting, in 2001. Today, business is booming, with much of it coming from Japan, where Wiefling travels almost monthly to advise Japanese companies on global leadership and management.

In addition to her consulting business, Wiefling is the author of two out of the five guides in her Scrappy About series of books, including Scrappy Project Management and Scrappy Women in Business: Living Proof that Bending the Rules Isn’t Breaking the Law.

Wiefling co-wrote Scrappy Women in Business with 11 of her “scrappy gal pals” to describe their real-life experiences as women in the world of business. It also inspired the name for a scholarship Wiefling has established at Wright State the Scrappy Women Scholarship Fund.

The granddaughter of a coalminer and daughter of a welder, Wiefling was determined to achieve a college degree despite her lack of financial means. Following her high school graduation, Wiefling entered the military so she could attend college on the GI Bill. Scholarships also helped pay for her education.

Wiefling hopes the Scrappy Women Scholarship Fund will help women from similar backgrounds who may think a college education is out of their reach.

“I’d like to make that possible for some woman who comes from that kind of scrappy, hardworking family,” she said.

The scholarship is also a means for Wiefling to give back.

“None of us made it to where we are today without help,” she said. “We got here through the help and generosity of many other people. It’s our responsibility to continue that flow of generosity.”

Wiefling was initially surprised to find out that it only takes a small financial commitment to establish a scholarship. To fully fund the scholarship, she has made a bequest in her will where a percentage of her estate will come to the university. Wiefling, however, has already endowed the fund with current gifts so she can provide one scholarship a year to a worthy student.

“No matter how much you have, you can always share something with people who don’t have as much,” Wiefling explained. “What brings real happiness is not the money or the wealth itself, but the ability to share it with other people.”

ABOUT the AUTHOR:
Kimberly Wiefling is the founder of Wiefling Consulting, LLC, a scrappy enterprise enabling individuals, teams and organizations to achieve results that seem out of reach or nearly impossible through leadership and project management excellence. Vigorously scrappy, she reemerged, consulting on leadership and project management worldwide – from Armenia, to Tokyo, to the Silicon Valley. Kimberly is the executive editor of The Scrappy Guides®, a regular contributor to the “Project Connections” newsletter, (70,000+ subscribers weekly), and her radio show, “The Scrappy Dialogues®”, airs occasionally on www.wiefling.com, and she is the lead blogger at www.SVProjectManagement.net.

 

A Big Risk That Paid Off Big

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I’m a concert buff, surfer, and self-proclaimed adventurist. While attending college I had one of my biggest adventures when I worked as a receptionist for a private investment banking firm engaged in mergers and acquisitions, where we provided our clients with national registered agent services. One day, I came into the office and it had been emptied out! It turns out the people I worked with had been involved with some unsavory activities and had suddenly fled the country.  Fortunately by this time I had become familiar with the national registered agent services we offered our clients, and knew that they could be easily provided. There were very few companies that offered affordable packages to small businesses. I saw an opportunity, and I saw a solution!
Even though I was only 17 years old, I founded my own company, InCorp.  using my university scholarship money to fund my first direct mail campaign. This was a huge risk, but now, we are a company of over 65 employees and 100,000 clients worldwide. Since then I have founded two more companies, a business entity formation service, MyLLC, and, most recently, DocRun.
My aim is to lower the barrier of entry to the small business market for entrepreneurs by providing them with access to attorney-level legal documents using DocRun’s  adaptive software solution. In addition to being a serial entrepreneur, I’m a small business writer. I had the privilege of writing “Limited Liability Companies for Dummies” for John Wiley and sons. I am also an active public speaker and small business consultant.
Risking my university scholarship was a big decision, but as Ghandi once said, we must “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
– Jennifer Reuting, CEO and Founder of DocRun, I am a small businesses and corporate structuring expert, as well as a serial entrepreneur. I founded InCorp.com, the third-largest registered agent service provider in the U.S., and MyLLC.com, a business entity-formation
service.
Author: Jennifer Reuting

Who Inspires Me? My 98 Year Old Grandma!

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Written by: Bethany Wood, Director, SEI International . . .

I grew up in suburban Washington State, in a 1960s rambler on a quiet cul-de-sac. My dad had the same job for thirty years and my mom worked part time at an elementary school.  Life was about family and church.  It was quiet, just like my street.  Every woman in my family circle was either a stay at home mom or worked with children.  Continue reading→