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Yesterday, I received a “Major Issues, Major Impact Questionnaire” from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), an organization breaking barriers for women and girls.  Answering the questionnaire is important since “AAUW research and education programs are used by federal, state, and local agencies and academics to address gender and gender gap issues positively.”

AAUW was the resource that the U.S. Congress used to pass the Lilly Ledbetter bill, the first bill signed by President Barack Obama.  According to an article “Obama Signs Equal-Pay Legislation” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg in The New York Times on January 29, 2009, “the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (is) a law named for an Alabama woman who at the end of a 19-year career as a supervisor in a tire factory complained that she had been paid less than men.”

The author goes on to write that “After a Supreme Court ruling against her, Congress approved the legislation that expands workers’ rights to sue in this kind of case, relaxing the statute of limitations.”  President Obama stated that, “It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness.”

Stolberg wrote that the president “was signing the bill not only in honor of Ms. Ledbetter — who stood behind him, shaking her head and clasping her hands in seeming disbelief — but in honor of his own grandmother, ‘who worked in a bank all her life, and even after she hit that glass ceiling, kept getting up again’ and for his daughters, ‘because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams.’

That was in 2009 and not much progress has been made on the gender pay gap since then.  The AAUW warned that, “Women have only gained 13 CENTS toward pay equity with men in the last 30 years.  At this rate, it will take another 60 years before we achieve pay equity.”

Women working full time earn 77 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men.  AAUW also stated that, “just one year out of college, women working full time already earn less than male colleagues, even in the same field, and that the pay gap widens as time goes by.”

Here are examples of the impact of paycheck inequity:  if he makes $10,000, she makes $7,700.  If he makes $30,000, she makes $23,100.  If he makes $50,000, she makes $38,500.  If he makes $70,000, she makes $53,900.  If he makes $100,000, she makes $77,000.

AAUW and other organizations are doing their best to help women earn an equal paycheck.  Enacting bills from the U.S. Congress on equity is not all that can be done, however.  It takes women, especially young women, to do their research before accepting a salary offer.  Often, it is the first salary you get that determines how much you will be making as you climb the corporate ladder.  So be prepared to state that you want to receive a salary equal to the one that a male would — a small but important step to end the gender pay gap.

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Sean McBrien

On the last days of December 1996, I took on a technology consulting assignment that was to last two-to-three days in the Marketing & Communications Department at Merrill Lynch & Co.  That assignment stretched out to over three years and I’m very glad it did.  In 1997, Sean McBrien began working in the same department where I was the Technology Trainer and Sean a Contractor.  Our work stations then were both on the same floor but in different areas.  About a year later, Sean was developing and managing Access databases for the Event group and I was sitting next to him in my role as the person who helped senior executives, individuals, and teams learn how to use databases and other programs.  I left Merrill but then came back soon as a technology consultant for the Merrill Lynch Archives while Sean continued his climb up the Merrill ladder. 

After my consultancy to get the Archives updated and through the 2000 assessment process, I left and started my own company.  Sean earned an MS in Information Technology and Project Management then applied his expertise in the role of deputy to the head of the Electronic Marketing Communications team, eventually rising to the position of Vice President of Electronic Marketing responsible for managing all internal and public web sites, advertising and communications for the capital markets and investment banking group.  Merrill Lynch was purchased by Bank of America in September 2008.  Unlike many others, Sean stayed through the merger and today is a Senior Vice President at U.S. Trust and responsible for strategy and tactics for all electronic platforms that deliver the U.S. Trust brand.

We kept in touch through the past eleven years and knowing what an effective role model he would be, I invited him to speak in front of my “Organizational Behavior” class at the Zicklin School of Business.  After his first presentation, I invited him back again and again.  During every presentation, he delivered a magnificent overview of his career path—pitfalls and potentials combined—and a detailed description of what he did to get where he is now.  He has the talent and ability to convey information effectively and at some point in his career, I hope he will become an Adjunct Lecturer.

Below are questions and answers that will help you learn more about this wonderful senior executive.

LH:  What were your career ambitions when you were in elementary school?  In college?
SMcB:  My career ambitions in elementary school, depending on which grade, spanned from fantasy to a form of ambiguous realism.  Up until around say the third grade, I think astronaut might have been my primary ambition.  From third grade to say seventh, I gave it little thought.  In eighth grade, with high school looming thoughts of being an attorney entered my mind, mostly at the urging of others.  While pursuing my undergraduate degree, I started with a major in English, Secondary Education with the intent of becoming a New York City teacher, but eventually changed my major to Political Science with the intent of eventually going to law school.  After college, I earned a certificate in paralegal studied and decided that a career in law wasn’t for me and set off into the world of finance.

LH:  What were three key events that helped you move from developing databases to working with electronic marketing?
SMcB:  I don’t know if there necessarily three key things.  I’d describe the process as a combination of natural evolution and the ability to recognize opportunity.  The databases I designed and built included both back end data store, but also the user interface.  As standalone databases morphed into online applications, I became heavily involved in user experience and information architecture.  When email communications began to be integrated with the web-based platform, I paid close attention to messaging and to ‘look and feel’ on landing pages.  All of these things eventually wrapped up into a full suite of marketing capabilities encompassing branding, messaging, user experience, call to action, etc.  Additionally, with my education and experience with back end systems, I have also developed strong skill sets around organization and operations.  I have a good sense of the “what” and the “how” if you will.

LH:  Your master’s degree of science is in Information Management.  How was this area of help to your performance at the banks?
SMcB:  Getting my master’s degree represented a great leap forward in my career, not so much by virtue of the fact that I have one, but by what I learned in the process of obtaining it.  Most of my classmates were experienced professionals like me, so we were able to share a lot of real world experience, but more importantly, I learned the process of developing a premise and conducting research to support that premise.  While my particular program did not require a final thesis, each class did require a minimum 25 page paper as part of the final exams.  Writing these papers helped me to better organize my thoughts and make compelling arguments, additionally, they helped me develop the skills I needed to plan, articulate and lead major initiatives be they marketing or technology based.

LH:  Project management is a growing field.  What three insights have you learned about project management from your years in this area?
SMcB:  I think there is one over-arching thing I’ve learned, and that is that everything is a project or at the very least, project management principles touch all business activity and even the most cursory review of project management theory can yield benefits regardless of where one sits in an organization.  Shortly after earning my master’s degree, I also obtained a PMP (Project Management Professional) designation – now since lapsed – from the Project Management Institute, doing so required an even more in-depth study into the practice of Project Management.  What I learned is that project management principles put rigor against the method by which a successful outcome can be achieved for any effort.  What had largely been considered intuitive in much of the business world in the past, perhaps wrongly, is now clearly spelled out.  Reasons for this could include new and emerging technology, development of virtual teams, distributed workloads, etc., but the point is that spelling out who your stakeholders are, your priorities, success measures, budget, teams, communications, etc. all help to ensure that a project is purpose driven and being monitored.  An added benefit of planning and review is that the process often uncovers things that would ordinarily have been overlooked.

LH:  As a Senior Vice President at US Trust, you interact with the CEO and other senior executives.  What advice can you share about how you establish and maintain these relationships?
SMcB:  Communicating with the “C-suite” definitely comes with a strong set of ground rules.  The first I’d say is to know your stuff, and that often means knowing more than just the materials you are presenting: know the how and why of what you are presenting.  Executives see things in the big picture and you may be asked about things that are relevant to, but outside of, your presentation.  Secondly, be brief, but don’t overlook the most important points and be sure to communicate them clearly.  Executives often process multiple threads of disparate information in rapid fire, so to make my point effectively, I try to use plain language and avoid jargon wherever I can.  I pay close attention to how my thoughts are organized and presented; this requires multiple revisions and importantly, practice – including standing up in my office and giving my presentation out loud.  As for maintaining the relationship, when you’ve proven yourself, executives will seek your input and you will rarely need to solicit their attention.  If you do need to get something in front of an executive, be sure to conform to proper protocols and processes.  Finally, don’t overstep normal cordiality.  Just because an executive sends you a thank you or ‘great job’ note, it is not an invitation to become best friends.

LH:  When did you first become a manager at Merrill?  Was this a smooth transition for you?  Why?  Why not?
SMcB:  I became a manager relatively early in my career, or at least back in the 1990’s it might have been considered somewhat early.  I began managing a team in my mid to late 20’s.  Of course at the time, I thought I did a great job, but looking back I was very green.  I viewed management as a very simple structure involving delegating work and simply getting things done.  Today, my view of management is much less tactical and more strategic.  A good manager, in my opinion, looks at the big picture, at least the picture within their circle of influence, and objectively thinks about how to achieve a goal, not just get things done.  In terms of delegating, as a new manager I simply pushed work down the pipeline, now I think more deeply about a balance of delegation and empowerment.  I also pay close attention to employee skill sets and career goals.  An awkward moment for me as a young manager was managing an employee that was 20 years my senior.  Again, I viewed management at that time as a top down construct and didn’t have the insights into the softer people skills that I do now.
LH:  What qualities did you then and now look for in potential candidates for positions?
SMcB:  One of the most important things I look for in a candidate is drive.  Of course I pay attention to skill sets, education, experience and all of the standard things that go on a resume, but if someone makes it to an interview, I focus on things like communications skills, including their ability to listen, understand and articulate their own thoughts as well as the ability to restate a thought or concept that I have raised with them.  Communications ability, enthusiasm and drive are things I look for in both junior and experienced candidates; however, experience and skill sets factor more heavily for senior slots than for junior positions.  Communications skills and drive are crucial to me when hiring someone that I am going to have to train and develop as an employee.  When someone asks articulate questions, is curious and enthusiastic, my job as a manager gets easier and we begin to build a professional relationship rather than a senior-junior relationship. 

LH:  What made you say “Yes” when I asked if you wanted to present for the students in my management class at Zicklin?
SMcB:  Aside from not saying ‘no’ to a friend, I was curious about what the experience would be like.  My wife is a teacher and my children aspire to be teachers, I myself had wanted to become a teacher while in college.  I’ve also entertained daydreams of teaching courses as an adjunct.  I viewed coming to Zicklin as an opportunity to get a first hand sense of what being at the front of the classroom would be like.  Despite apprehension, e.g. ‘what will I say’, ‘will they listen’, ‘will they find it useful’, I found the experience to be exhilarating.  I had wondered what I would talk about for an hour and a half, but from the first time I was a guest lecturer to now, I am always surprised to find that we run out of time.  I also had some concern as to what I had to offer the students, but I quickly learned that many students are keen to learn about what to expect when they enter the business world.  They invariably ask intelligent and thoughtful questions that directly apply to their studies, their experience and their future.  When I see that students are engaged, listening and learning and when I watch their reaction as something I say clicks with them, I get a strong sense of enabling people and passing on what I know.  It’s a fantastically satisfying feeling that I find hard to articulate, but I suspect most teachers will know what I’m describing.

LH:  What is your next step?  Your career ambition?
SMcB:  A very interesting question considering that I am at a kind of crossroads in my career.  I have very strong and senior level experience across marketing and operations, so I am at a juncture in my career where my path must break toward one or the other, that is, a Chief Marketing Officer route or a Chief Operating Officer route.  I am fairly close to the top of my organization, so a concentration in a particular area is the next step in my career path.  My lean is likely toward the COO path, but with a focus in a marketing organization for a large institution.  I see myself continuing to grow in my executive career, but I also see myself beginning to share my experience and strengths outside of my job.  I am active in volunteer organizations and I hope to broaden my experience in higher education.

LH:  What advice do you have for readers to begin and stay on their career paths?
SMcB:  That depends on where a person is on their career path.  In hindsight, I realize that a career path actually begins quite early.  At a minimum, I think a junior in high school should already have a good idea of what they want to do in life and that certainly by the end of undergraduate sophomore year a major commensurate with career goals should be set.  For those new in their careers, I’d say that a key element of success is recognizing that all projects are worthy efforts and opportunities for an employee to demonstrate their ability, in other words, look for projects and don’t turn any down.  Being successful at executing a project is a great way to get visibility and to be recognized, especially when managers are thinking about who their ‘go to’ people are.  For mid or senior level employees, I think it is important to have at least have a plan, i.e. to be thinking about what your next move is or how you are positioning yourself for where you want to go in the organization.  It is also important not to become stagnant, at least once, probably twice, I stayed too long in a particular position and while not really hurting me, it did hinder me.  Finally, for anyone at any level, I feel it is important to always keep relationships at the forefront of your career.  In my experience most of my successes had good relationships as a foundation.  I like to keep strong and positive relationships with everyone wherever possible, from the mailroom to the C-suite and with those on their way up or way down.

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Today is International Women’s Day, a day of events to bring forward and reflect on the women who have made a difference in the political, economic, social, and other areas of their countries.

There are two ways that I am ‘celebrating’ International Women’s Day.  One is to read the March 12, 2012 issue of Newsweek which includes brief profiles of “150 Fearless Women in the World” and an article by Amy Chua on “The Rise of China’s Billionaire Tiger Women.”

From the start of reading on page 3’s “Periscope:  Symbols and Strength.  Women in the World” by Tina Brown, Editor in Chief of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, to page 72’s “My Favorite Mistake:  Aretha Franklin on the hat that created a worldwide sensation” the magazine enlightens and informs readers on the contributions women around the globe have made.

The second way I am reflecting on the roles of global women is by reflecting on the wonderful movie I saw last evening, “The Iron Lady.”  Meryl Streep won an Oscar for her performance as Margaret Thatcher, the first and only female British prime minister who is also the longest-serving (1979-1990) prime minister of the 20^th century.  Obviously, Thatcher was a strong woman to achieve such a high status in government.  Streep does a magnificent job of portraying Thatcher in her early 80’s but also as the younger woman during her years as the prime minister.  It is a movie worthy to see not just for her performance but to see the stamina it took for Thatcher to earn her role in British and global history.

Although I didn’t attend an event to mark International Women’s Day, I hope that by sharing these thoughts you will spark a reason for you to celebrate this day in your own way.

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Timeless leadership is always about character, and it is always about authenticity…To be authentic is literally to be your own author (the words derive from the same Greek root), to discover your own narrative energies and desires, and then to find your own way of acting on them.

When you are real in your music, people know it and they feel your authenticity.

Warren Bennis, in On Becoming a Leader, and Wynonna Judd describing her experience as a musician, are two descriptions of authenticity.

Authenticity is the buzzword of the twenty-first century according to Robert Doniger, in Michael Crichton’s Timeline as quoted in Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want by James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II.  “Authenticity is in the air.  You see it, feel it, all around you,” according to the authors.  However, “Most of what we experience in today’s consumer-oriented society revolves around issues of what is real and what is fake.”

A parallel trend that demonstrates authenticity is to develop story telling skills to get a job, pitch a product, or motivate employees.  Peter Guber’s book Tell to Win:  Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story, has a slightly different take on the power of authenticity at work.  In his chapter on “Are Your Motives Authentic and Congruent with Your Goal?” Guber writes:

Whether you’re a CEO, salesperson, volunteer organizer, or small business owner, your listeners will never fully connect to you, buy into your proposition, or join your parade unless they can trust you.  And only if they respect your motives and empathize with you as a fellow human being will they feel that trust.  To tell a compelling story, then, you need to be authentic in your passion for your goal, and that passion needs to be congruent with your experience and commitment.

Authenticity in the Classroom

My teaching style in the course I teach on “Organizational Behavior” is based around experiential learning, meaning that as one former student told me in class, “I chose this class because I couldn’t fall asleep.”  He is right.  My time is spent moving my students out of their comfort zones by asking questions, having them interact with their classmates by name, wanting opinions, and making them memorize and recite lines from Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” and “Hamlet” as an exercise in emotional intelligence.

During our 29 sessions together each semester, I tell stories about places where I worked in my career and personal experiences in order to bring up, illustrate, and reaffirm a topic in class.  In turn and in keeping with honoring the students’ disclosures, I am asked questions.  Most of the time, the queries are about an organizational behavior.  However, I am asked many personal questions to which I answer authentically—up to a point.  As the leader of a classroom, I am the authority figure and aim to earn the trust of each of my students.  I am not in front of a classroom to tell the details of my life’s story every session; I am there to further my students’ education and prepare them to be effective managers and leaders.

Authentic Leadership

We are living in an age of transparency—or at least that is what Google and Facebook would like so that they can capture and sell more data from their users.  How can someone be authentic and not transparent?  I’ve heard about a manager who when he was transferred to a district office suggested that the staff have a sleep over at his house, go to meals together regularly, and build a bond of transparency with everyone.  Is that relevant to the work that they do?  Does his version of team building build trust?

The class textbook, Organizational Behavior, 14^th edition, by Stephens P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge, describes the authentic leader in the section on “Authentic Leadership:  Ethics and Trust are the Foundation of Leadership:”

Authentic leaders know who they are, know what they believe in and value, and act on their values and beliefs openly and candidly.  Their followers consider them ethical people.  The primary quality produced by authentic leadership, therefore, is trust.  Authentic leaders share information, encourage open communication, and stick to their ideals.  The result:  people come to have faith in them.

Inauthentic Leaders

In a quote I found online, Coco Chanel, the French haute couterie, said, Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.

The global economic condition and fast moving technology innovations are stretching the borderlines of what authenticity really means.  And how inauthentic leaders have failed their followers.

Bernie Madoff is the poster boy for the financial professionals on Wall Street who like others escaped close scrutiny from the Security & Exchange Commission by a façade of authenticity, a façade that in this case led Madoff to being sentenced to 150 years in prison for the largest financial fraud in U.S. history.

Google, Facebook, and other social media sites are fearless in making their users transparent—to a fault in some cases.  We are instructed to want to know everything about everyone and to display all there is to know about ourselves.  But knowledge doesn’t mean authenticity.  Knowledge is one aspect of an individual.  It is the individual herself that needs to be the author of the story of her authentic life.

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Out of 20,000 new hires, the failure rate was 46% according to Mark Murphy, founder and CEO of Leadership IQ.  His research on this topic revealed that the reason the failure rate was so high was because 89% of the new hires demonstrated a lack of coachability, poor emotional intelligence, mixed motivation (to do or to be paid?), and temperament.  In only 11% of new hires was a lack a technical skills a failure factor.

“Hiring for Attitude” was one in the series of Thought Leader Teleforums offered by Marshall Goldsmith and Patricia Wheeler at Leading News.  Guest speaker Murphy talked about what he learned writing his most recent book, Hiring for Attitude:  A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude (McGraw Hill, 2011).  He summarized his book by saying, “Hire for attitude, train for aptitude” because “companies want attitudes that perfectly match their unique culture.”

Hiring for attitude is applicable at all levels within an organization.  For instance, CEOs fail so often because they misread the organization’s culture, Murphy said.  In my previous post “The Price of Ignoring Workplace Culture”, I write about why Jack Griffin, Chairman and CEO of Time Inc., was forced out after less than six months of starting at the company.  The basic reason for his departure was because he didn’t closely read the organization’s culture but instead moved forward with his own agenda without consulting with his staff.

“Who do you want by your side?” is one of the questions an interviewer can ask employees at their company use to discover the attitude needed by a job candidate.  By soliciting input from the staff, it is possible to create a checklist of the needed attitudes because the interviewer is looking for the psychological characteristics of what the company needs on their team.  For instance, Murphy shared the example of ‘brown shorts.’  Southwest Airlines brought in pilots for interviews.  One of the first things the interviewers did was ask the pilots if they would change from their suits and instead put on brown shorts.  Not all the candidates were willing to change their attire.  And guess what?  It was those who did put on the brown shorts who continued to be interviewed.  The others were eliminated because they didn’t have a sense of humor, one of the required attributes of a pilot at the airline.

Murphy’s “Five Part Interview” was an eye-opener.  Here’s what the interviewer will ask the candidate.  1)  Think about your job before your current one, name a key person there, and spell out the person’s name.  2)  Tell me about that person; describe them.  3)  How could you have improved your working relationship with that person?  4)  What would that person say were your strengths?  5)  What would that person say about your weaknesses (like not being open to coaching?).  The purpose of this is to generate self-awareness in the candidate and personal reflections on whether he is a good fit for the new company culture.

Researching the corporate culture of the workplace to see if you will be a good fit is the key to having the right —and authentic attitude—when you apply.  Don’t try on brown shorts if that is not something you want to do at an interview.  Be yourself and you will find the culture that is a good fit for your career.

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“Are women less stable employees than men,” the authors ask in “Chapter 2: Diversity in Organizations” in the class textbook Organizational Behavior by Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge used in my “Organizational Behavior” class.  The authors were also interested in “What about absence and turnover rates?” 

The immediate answers for many people are that women are the caregivers and therefore less stable and more likely to change jobs than men.  And they are right based on the article “Challenging Conventional Wisdom About Who Quits: Revelations from Corporate America” in the Journal of Applied Psychology (93, no. 1 [2008], pp. 1-34).  “…evidence from a study of nearly 500,000 professional employees indicates significant differences, with women more likely to turn over than men.”  Additional researchers found that women have higher rates of being absent and are the ones who take time from work if her child is sick or needs to go to a doctor, wait for a delivery person or a vendor like the plumber, etc.

However, the roles women and men play are changing.  “The U.S. Census Bureau reported yesterday that “One-Third of Fathers with Working Wives Regularly Care for Their Children” wrote Lance Somerfeld in his blog post at www.NYCDadsgroup.com (Tuesday, December 6, 2011).  A quote Somerfeld used stated that “Among fathers with a wife in the workforce, 32 percent were a regular source of care for their children under age 15, up from 26 percent in 2002, the U.S. Census Bureau reported.” The statistics about fathers with preschool-age children was even more interesting:  “one in five fathers was the primary caregiver, meaning their child spent more time in their care than any other type of arrangement.”

Somerfeld stated that the recession triggered a significant increase in men staying home (he uses the term “mancession”).  But there is also the fact that “fathers genuinely want to spend more time with their children.”  Somerfeld’s opinion based on the approximately 500 dads within the NYC Dads Group is that men step in to be the primary caregiver as a choice.

Somerfeld cited another article that brought a new slant to caregiving.  Jobless Dads Get Quality Time With Children as Caregiving Rises by Joel Stonington of Bloomberg/Businessweek reports that “The recession isn’t the only reason (that dads spend more time as a partial or primary caregiver). Women are increasingly contributing more to family income than men, and there is a growing desire among men to take part in the lives of their children, according to Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of the New York-based Families and Work Institute.”

Fifty percent of women are managers, for the first time there are 18 female CEOs on the Fortune 500 list, and a growing number of women at all levels of companies are making more money than their husbands.  The fact that dads want to stay home is refreshing.  Mothers are freed up to develop their skills to climb the corporate ladder at one company while dads are able to stay home and care for their children.

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Ma’yan is a nonprofit research and education incubator that focuses a feminist lens on the cultural challenges and identity issues facing Jewish girls in contemporary society. Through research, innovative programming, and community events, we work with these girls, their parents, and their educators to provide resources that help all youth grow into critical, curious, and committed global citizens.

Around ten years ago during a Pilates class at the Jewish Community Center (JCC), I met Eve Landau, Executive Director of Ma’yan, a program of the JCC in Manhattan.  We have had many conversations through the years based around our shared interest in women’s equality.  Recently, I sat down again with Eve to learn more about the work Ma’yan offers to teenage girls, parents, professionals, and the Jewish community.

During our conversation, Eve gave me “Listen for a Change,” a brochure that began with “Why We should Listen.”  Based on some of the ‘listening’ research that Ma’yan had done, the brochure states that, “The girls most often served by Jewish communal institutions—many of them socially, economically, and racially privileged—are thriving.”  However, later in the text, I read that, “They (the girls) are surrounded by mixed messages about femininity and anger, affluence, beauty, and more.”  As Eve pointed out and the brochure states, listening to girls, rather than just adults, in order to serve the girls’ needs, “also models a kind of power sharing or partnership between adolescent girls and adult leaders, which we think is key to cultivating girls’ skills and capacities as leaders.”

At the end of our meeting, Eve suggested that I attend “Who is served by our community service?” a program where I could listen in person to the presentations by the most recent cohort of Research Training Interns (RTI), Ma’yan’s premier program for Jewish teen girls.  According to the organization’s website, “Based on the model of Participatory Action Research, the RTI engages Jewish teen girls in original research addressing issues that affect their lives and those of their peers.  Past cohorts have conducted a broad survey of Jewish teen girls and examined girls’ experiences of Bat Mitzvah.” 

Dr. Beth Cooper Benjamin, Director of Research at Ma’yan, led a cohort that started in late 2010.  Beth guided the girls in RTI to develop their critical thinking skills by picking a topic, designing a survey for their peers, interviewing administrators, summarizing their findings, sharing what they learned then seeking ways to act on their recommendations.

At the program, I was part of an audience of parents, siblings, and others who listened to the voices of nine teenage girls tell us what they learned developing and administering surveys on the topic of community service.  Eve told me that the “Girls are in line to be leaders in the community and the world at large” and I listened to the first presenter echo the future of the young women by stating the girls are “Starting a path to make a difference.”

One presenter said that during the community service assignments they sign up for in high school, “Teens aren’t learning…teens are dealing with symptoms of causes and not the long-term.”  Girls felt that not learning the depths of an issue impeded their ability to make an impact when working with those in need.  They radiated confidence, however, in their skills and ability to be involved on higher levels of service.

“We don’t need to have things sugar coated,” one presenter noted and agreed that “We are motivated to community service if we can love what we do.”  Some presenters spoke about their service at Habitat for Humanity, a school for troubled children, and building a community center in Africa.  The discussion then focused on how a community agency—or high school—can motivate teenagers.

Some ideas from the presenters included making community service more meaningful and effective, with greater frequency of service, regular placements, etc.  They suggested that volunteers should be matched up with an organization by interest and passion.  Teenagers wanted to build a relationship with the staff in a service program or agency and be given appropriate tools on how to be part of the service.

All the young women I listened to have great leadership potential.  Their voices were authentic ones, echoing their commitment to help save the world.  Ma’yan is poised to support the teenagers’ learning further so that they can, as the brochure states, “develop into compassionate, conscientious, and powerful adults of vision and conviction.”  The next step is to share the results of the research project with others, especially those who take action on the recommendations from those in Research Training Internships. 

Ma’yan was founded in 1993 by Barbara Dobkin, the leading Jewish feminist philanthropist in the United States, and Eve, who became Ma’yan’s Executive Director.

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Today while reflecting on strong women who have persevered under dire circumstances, I remembered a woman who was the keynote speaker at the Women in Business: Pearls of Wisdom 2010 Conference at Baruch College—but I forgot her name.  Searching my blog for my post on the event—I was the moderator for the panel discussion—I found the name I wanted:  Diane Garnick. 

“About” on her Facebook page describes Garnick as the “Princess of Perseverance,” a good description based on her difficult past that included having her first child at age 15 and then finishing grades 9-12 at high school in two years.  She found work in a bank but could not be promoted because she did not have a degree.  Leaving the bank, she started college at Suffolk Community College, then went on to earn her a degree from Hofstra University then an M.B.A. at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  Her work at Wall Street companies such as Merrill Lynch & Co. earned respect for her intelligence and ability to manage the business.

When looking for more information on Garnick, I found “Diane Garnick Seeks Lift for Wall Street Women With New Firm,” an article written by Jeff Kearns and Margaret Collins published in Bloomberg Businessweek on January, 20, 2012.  I was very impressed by learning that the tenacious investment strategist had opened an asset management firm, a firm that Garnick hopes will help to balance the much needed gender makeup of Wall Street jobs.

The authors state that Garnick opened Clear Alternatives LLC with three other women and hopes to grow the company to 12 by the end of 2012—the same time she set a goal to have raised at least $500 million in assets under management.

“One of the biggest challenges is for women to find an organization that’s willing to accept them back after they leave the work force to raise children without taking a cut in compensation and responsibility….Our objective is to solve that problem,” Garnick, the active mother of two children, told the authors in a phone interview.

Garnick and Clear Alternatives will serve as a catalyst to hire and inspire women graduates from the best business schools to earn their way up the ladder to senior management roles in financial services.  My hopes are with her!

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Tomorrow, I am going to be speaking for a class of second year graduate students at Columbia University’s School of Social Work.  My topic is “The Learning Organization” and I’ll be sharing my experiences as a consultant helping a non-profit take a systems approach and become a learning organization.  My audience of social workers is not interested in clinical work but instead is interested in administrative work in the non-profit area, public management, human resources management, social and economic development, and global and transnational practice.  In addition to the presentation I’ll be making, I am going to recommend a book that will be helpful to this audience and the larger one as well.

The Organization of the Future 2:  Visions, Strategies, and Insights on Managing in a New Era is a collection of 26 informational essays written by great thought leaders, produced by the Leader to Leader Institute, and published by Jossey-Bass in 2009.  (Note:  The institute changed is name to the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute.)  According to the cover, “The book describes how tomorrow’s organizations can chart the path toward growth and prosperity in rapidly changing times and includes amazing examples of how organizations from different sectors have created cultures that are empowering their employees and transforming their industries and communities.”

Editors are two well-known leaders:  Frances Hesselbein and Marshall Goldsmith.  Hesselbein is the founding president and CEO of the institute named after her and is well-known known for her service as CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA for which she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Goldsmith is one of the top executive coaches in the world and was recognized by the American Management Association as one of 50 great thinkers who have influenced the field of management.

The Leader to Leader Institute was established in 1990, and was then called the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Non-Profit Management.  The more encompassing name furthers the image and the book “furthers its mission—to strengthen the leadership of the social sector—by providing social sector leaders with essential leadership wisdom, inspiration, and resources to lead for innovation and to build vibrant social sector organizations.”

There are five sections in the book:  Part One – Strategy and Vision:  Setting the Direction of the Organization of the Future.  Part Two – Organizational Culture:  Values, Emotions, Hope, Ethics, Spirit, and Behavior.  Part Three – Designing the Organization of the Future.  Part Four – Working Together.  Part Five – Leadership.

When I looked up ‘learning organization’ in the Index, I was referred to pages of an article in Part One “Managing the Whole Mandate for the Twenty-First Century: Ditching the Quick-Fix Approach to Management” by Paul Borawski and Maryann Brennan.  Borawski, executive director and chief strategic officer of the American Society for Quality, and Brennan, principal for Brennan Worldwide, write that “Organizations that rely on quick fixes don’t necessarily learn from their endeavors.”  They go on to state that, “To avoid making the same mistake, you need to share knowledge about what worked and what didn’t throughout your organization so that other functional areas with similar problems can apply the solution.”

Developing a systems approach can foster a learning organization in large as well as small companies.  To make it happen and change to a systems approach to management, the authors of the article describe a process of three stages:
—Decide you believe in a systems approach.
—Help your organization build broad support to view the organization as a system by preparing for an investment of time to learn, experiment, and learn more, and making a commitment to a journey toward performance excellence that will take years.
—Craft a plan on how your organization is going to move from its current state toward a systems approach.

Tomorrow, I am going to recommend the article I referenced and the over 300 pages of other articles in the book to my audience because although a little dated, I believe the thought experts can help the reader learn how to lead with intelligence in order to effectively manage the organization of the future.

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Great By Choice:  Uncertainty, Chaos And Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen (HarperBusiness) is the latest of best-sellers on the topic of organizational excellence.  Other books by Collins include Good to Great:  Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t; Built to Last:  Successful Habits of Visionary Companies; and How the Mighty Fall—And Why Some Companies Never Give In.  These well researched and written books contain valuable contributions for CEOs and other executives on how leaders can manage effectively in good and difficult times. 

“Collins on Chaos:  It’s one thing to rise to greatness.  It’s another to do so in a time of upheaval, disruption, and economic turmoil (hello, 2011)” was Fortune Magazine’s cover story on October 17, 2011, a great introduction to the choices that leaders have made for success and that led them to failures.

The bottom line is that no matter the temptation, you can choose to be great and not let events you can’t control impact your pace and your plans.  As companies choose to get the right people on the bus, executives can choose habits that will help their companies be built to last.

The authors of “Great by Choice” identified “The Steady Seven,” top companies that survived successfully in a depressed economy.  “Different companies exposed to the same set of circumstances achieve vastly different results,” Collins writes.  Why?  “Part of the answer lies in the distinctive behavior of their leaders.”

The seven companies that “outperformed their industries by a wide margin” were:

Amgen:  a combination of creativity and discipline
Biomet:  dedication to new iterations of its products
Intel:  moving forward ignoring economic climate
Microsoft:  updating relentlessly and not overextending financially
Progressive Insurance:  not sacrificing underwriting profit for growth
Southwest Airlines:  discipline to hold back in good times
Stryker:  demanding 20% annual net income growth

Twenty-Mile March

Twenty-Mile March is the term Collins uses to define the concept for companies to keep a steady pace no matter the environmental factors.  The analogy Collins used was about the results of two teams led by Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott in 1911 who wanted to be the first ones in modern history to reach the South Pole.  Amundsen and his team survived while Scott and his did not.

Collins writes that, “The 20-Mile March is more than a philosophy.  It’s about having concrete, clear, intelligent and rigorously pursued performance mechanisms that you keep on track.”  Both teams were led by men of around the same ages and same expertise, the teams were similarly outfitted, and they started their hopeful roundtrips of 1,400 miles almost at the same time in the same weather as each other.  It was the behaviors of the leaders that made the difference.  Amundsen made the roundtrip home with his crew; Scott and his crew lay frozen near but not at the South Pole.

What was the difference?  “Amundsen adhered to a regimen of consistent progress, never going too far in good weather, careful to stay far away from the red line of exhaustion that could leave his team exposed, yet pressing ahead in nasty weather to stay on pace.”  The pace he followed was between 15 and 20 miles a day.  Amundsen arrived at the South Pole after keeping up a regimented daily pace in good and bad weather that averaged 15½ per day.

Scott, on the other hand, “would sometimes drive his team to exhaustion on good days and then sit in his tent and complain about the weather on bad days.”  He was erratic about keeping any sort of regimen, responding instead to the climate and energy.  Scott’s behavior led to him and his team not making the trip home.

Five Business Lessons I Learned

1. Set a pace for your company.  How much can you achieve in a quarter? a year?  How will you meet the goals you set?  Stryker CEO John Brown set a 20% net income growth and while he was in charge met that goal more than 90% of the time.

2.  Don’t compete as much as attract.  Many companies want to be number one in an industry.  Attract customers by being the best in what your company is capable of doing, like Southwest Airlines.

3.  Keep growth in the picture.  If consumers aren’t buying your product at the rate you expect, ask yourself, “What area of growth can be developed to offset that income reduction?”  Biogen created new iterations of their products.

4.  Be a leader who is authentic and open to growth.  Was Scott comfortable with marching in spurts and not a consistent pace?  Did anyone on his team lead up and suggest to Scott that there was a better way to make the march to the South Pole?  Did he listen to or ignore any suggestions?

5.  Assess current offerings to see if time to update while not overspending the way Microsoft did.

What are your lessons on the 20-Mile March?