DM Coaching and Development

When it Comes to Equality....Look at What Companies Do, Not What they Say

As part of the promotion for my new book "Beyond the Boys' Club" I have been asked by more than one journalist to name which companies "have got it right" when it comes to equality. My answer? Look not at what companies say is their policy, but rather what they are proactively doing to retain and develop their women. And indeed it is hard to sometimes see beyond the lip service. As an article in the Observer entitled "How Can Britain Have So Few Women on its Boards?" explained: "Few companies would boast of their reluctance to promote women. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of the top 350 listed on the FTSE claim to have equal opportunities policies in place.  But in business, as in politics, it's worth paying attention to what people do, rather than what they say. Of the same FTSE 350 companies, women occupy only 232 out of 2,742 board seats. The proportion holding executive directorships is smaller still: 34 out of 970. Those figures, from new research published in the Observer today, confirm what many women in business have long suspected – the old glass ceiling is intact."

Business Insight in Addition to Badges...Girl Scouts Moves On

After reading the Washington Post article about a Girl Scout "Camp CEO" that pairs traditional scouting activities with lectures on business from Washington area business leaders, I wished I could go back to my scouting days!  Local business women joined the girls for a week of fun and business knowledge to help them think how they will manage work- life balance and break the frontiers still left behind by the current generation. As explained by the writer Jennifer Buske:  ' "The women at camp included chief executives, law firm partners, judges, doctors and entrepreneurs. Howard University's senior vice president and a chef who once cooked for Julia Child also attended the camp. The professionals taught the 13- to 17-year-old girls lessons on leadership, teamwork, persistence and confidence. This camp is different because it's not just fun, but it's also helping you plan your future," said 15-year-old Kristina Chin of Prince George's County. "The message I will remember is there will be struggles, but even if it seems everything is going downhill, there is always an upside."

Challenges of Being Mr. Mom

As more women take up the helm of being main bread-winner, a greater number of men than ever before have taken to being "Mr. Mom" in an effort to save costs on childcare and allow a still-employed wife to focus on her career. While I personally cannot stand to hear bemused people ask a father if he is "baby-sitting" his own children when his wife is not around, I do recognise that this demographic shift will take some getting used to for many. As written about in the article "Tough Times Leave More Men to Become Mr. Mom":  'Dennis, who used to work 50-hour weeks as a human rights attorney, said a stigma is still associated with being a stay-at-home father. He said a lot of people think he's a slacker. "We talk about equality of sexes but I certainly don't know a lot of fathers who want their daughters to marry stay-at-home dads," Dennis said. "It's not something people accept." Dennis said he dreads telling his former law school colleagues about his new role. "Telling them you're a stay-at-home dad is not something all law school colleagues will accept," Dennis said. "The only thing that softens the blow is that half of those guys are unemployed, too." '

Ready to Invest in a Knock-0ut Work Outfit?

I just got back from Guernsey where on Friday, I had the pleasure of teaming up with Kate Starkey of Kate Starkey Couture, to speak at a "Polishing Your Corporate Profile" event about the lessons for working women from my book before Kate showed off the latest designs she had created for professional women with a workwear fashion show. I am so glad to be pairing up with her as I have lamented before how few designers are doing work-specific clothing wear - even though most career women I work with and know need to wear professional clothes more than anything else! Her designs are fantastic, flattering and are made to measure, with a service as good as the one Jermyn Street designers have been offering men for years. 

Female Managers More Likely than Office Juniors to be Sexually Harassed

I found this new research about women in leadership positions from the National Institute for Mental Health in Washington  DC, which was quite surprising. It seems I had not been alone in thinking that the most low-ranking women within an organisation would be most vulnerable to sexual harassment. Well, it seems that quite the opposite is true - it is women with supervisory responsibilities who are up to 137% more likely to be harassed than junior women. As explained in by the main researcher, Heather McLauglin in the article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: " When sexual harassment was first exposed as a workplace issue in the 1970s, the assumption was that women in lower positions, who were more economically vulnerable and had fewer options for walking away, were most at risk of being harassed...." Instead it would seem "Men are using harassment as a workplace equalizer, to strip women in these positions of their power, prestige in the workplace. Harassment isn't about sexual desire or wanting to establish a romantic relationship, but more about control and domination."

Is the City Too Ruthless to Attract Smart Women?

I recently found an article on www.hereisthecity.com written by a city insider who counters the charges that women aren't smart enough to make a career in the city with a stunning riposte that it it the hostile atmosphere and the 24/7 culture which puts women off, not the "high standards" for intelligence as some have speculated. The article Where are all the City Girls? explains:  "No evidence indicates that banking attracts the brightest people. The unspoken assumption is that society’s highest-paid individuals are the smartest, and thus, if the City is filled with men, men must be smarter, unless women have a good excuse for being absent. Naturally, banking - like all very well paid jobs - attracts highly intelligent people, but only the ones with certain personality traits. Those traits might be more common in men. Maybe girls simply don’t find the number-crunching, inside-trading, hostile-takeover games of investment banking as fascinating. In the same way that you never find any female dictators, perhaps females just don’t have the killer instincts it takes to bulldoze their way to a questionable sort of 'City success'. Surely, ruthlessness and mathematical talent are not necessarily correlated. So why should anyone be shocked to find that most mathematically-gifted people - including women - would flee from the idea of spending their waking life working amongst the City’s abrasive predators?"

Enter the IOD East of England Businesswoman of the Year to Raise Your Profile

The process for finding the next IOD East of England Businesswoman of the Year starts this week, and is a great opportunity to raise your profile if you live in the region. A former client of mine, Leigh-Ondrea Bendall, won the grand prize last year, so I am very excited to promote it. There are 3 categories: The Businesswoman of the Year Award which is for women who are directors, partners or senior employees in a company, professional practice, the public sector or a not-for-profit organisation with turnover in excess of £1 million, The Businesswoman Entrepreneur of the Year Award which is open for women who have developed their own business with turnover of £500,000 upwards. Demonstrable entrepreneurial spirit is as important as the current size of the business and finally the Young Businesswoman of the Year Award which is aimed at women who will be under 30 years of age on 31 December 2008 and who are now running their own business, whether established or recently launched. For more information, please visit www.eebw.co.uk

Are Women Better Bosses?

I am often asked about this question in panel discussions on professional women in managment, and while I believe you can have a great boss who is either female or male, it is interesting how we love to see the debate hashed out with one gender being deemed as the inherently the "best managers". It also hugely depends on your version of what "best" is. I was leading a mixed group at the University of Cambridge on the topic of gender difference in teams, and some of the male participants said their preferred style was to "be left alone" receiving no feedback unless their was a problem - virtually the opposite of any of the women in attendance, or indeed that I know. I recently saw the New York Times article which pits some of the most credible experts from both academic and the corporate sector to weigh in on the big question. For their opinions, read "Do Women Make Better Bosses?"

Got Your Copy of "Beyond the Boys' Club"?

The career bible for professional women who work primarily with men is now out! "Beyond the Boys' Club: Strategies for Achieving Career Success as a Women Working in a Male-Dominated Field" features the challenges and successes of senior career women in a range of industries. You can order your copy from Amazon.co.uk  or Amazon.com  To get more information about the book and Beyond the Boys Club Career Development Programme, created for companies and individuals, visit www.beyondtheboysclub.com

Women, Sex, Science and Darwin

As I live in Cambridge, I am surrounded by the paradox of some of the world's smartest women, living, working and studying at a University that did not even grant them full degrees until 1948. This year, I am also surrounded by the influence of Charles Darwin as it the 200th anniversary of his birth...much cause for celebration in this erudite community. However, one project is shedding light on Darwin's opinions on women. According to Science Magazine: "The University of Cambridge will transcribe letters to and from Darwin’s 148 female correspondents to reveal more about how he helped change the scientific playing field for women.[This is] a side of Darwin that you wouldn’t necessarily know about,” says project director Jim Secord. It’s true that Darwin still believed that women were best adapted for carrying out domestic tasks, acknowledges Secord, but unlike others at the time, he was “quite open minded to women having an intellectual role” and took the work of female scientists seriously."