Time Warp Revisited

ran into a young female professional I knew at a women’s event hosted here in Silicon Valley not long ago. She’s the enthusiastic type and was eagerly participating in the program. OK, nothing particularly noteworthy here; it happens all the time.

Well, actually something about the encounter was quite noteworthy. You see, this woman was the subject of a previous posting called “Time Warp.” Time Warp tells the story about a young, well-educated, 20-something-year-old keen to make her mark in the business world. She had remarked at a casual lunch we enjoyed that she saw absolutely no need for a women’s initiative (WIN) and had no interest in participating in WIN-sponsored events. She just didn’t get it. The playing field was level; she had never seen (never mind experienced) any inequities in the business community; and was quite sure that her work alone would determine her professional success.

So why, pray tell, would she be participating—and so actively so—in a women’s networking event a mere year later? I just had to ask!

Well, it turns out that her boss, counselor and mentor (all the same person) had left the company during the year, and for her it was an epiphany. She had not realized how he had championed, even promoted and protected, her during the early days of her career. After he’d moved on and in the months that followed she began to see things that she hadn’t seen before: the men in her “class” were noticeably, disproportionately moving up in the ranks, and the women, she noticed, were somehow disappearing. She was finding it more difficult to get visibility and to be considered for other opportunities. She, well, felt alone.

In the previous posting, I wondered what she’d say 10 years from now. Well, it turned out this question was answered—and nine years early.

How about you? What was your epiphany?

Cathy

By blogger Cathy Benko, Deloitte LLP

Stars and Glitter

I’m heads down this week, feverishly working to be able to stamp “final” on the manuscript. (Yep, we did ultimately settle on a title—The Case for Mass Career Customization—more on this topic somewhere down the line.) Pondering what that one poignant phrase could be that sums up all the swirling feelings of acknowledgement leads to me think back to the last time I was searching for that one perfect phrase of dedication.

I recall the response from the editor when dedicating a previous work, Connecting the Dots, to Stars and Glitter. “Huh” was about all she could muster. But that phrase said it all.

Here’s the scene. I’m in a town car with the leader of our consulting business at the time on the way to visit the head of one of the big tech companies. His mind is clearly on business, prepping for the upcoming session, commenting on shifting market dynamics, etc. My mind, however, was in a different place—at home. You see, my son who was six or so at the time was displaying some ‘symptoms,’ shall we say, that were a concern to me.

Just as he was turning to ask my opinion of the market in Japan, I turned to ask him a question of a different sort: “Can little boys get bladder infections?” I said.  (Hey, why not? He’s a dad with a teenage son.) He looked a little stunned; perhaps a tad  uncomfortable as he squirmed a bit and cleared his throat. It was clear that he’d rather talk about Japan. He muttered back something to the effect of no, don’t worry about it. (Ever hear that before?) But I did, so right there in the town car I called the pediatrician who, remarkably, was available to take the call.

“Can boys get bladder infections?” The doctor’s response was that it depends. “Did you ask him what it felt like?” “Yes,” I answered, “he said it felt like stars and glitter.”  “Better bring him in.”

This little vignette is a snapshot of my life. What it looks like to be fitting work into life and life into work through an everyday exchange. How about you? Do you have any snapshots to share?

Cathy

By blogger Cathy Benko, Deloitte LLP

Silent Majority

Do you ever feel that, well, sometimes you just don’t get it? I think I’m reasonably on top of my game; am fairly perceptive; and have been around long enough to understand social dynamics. But sometimes, I still don’t get it. Yesterday was one of those ‘sometimes.’

A group of 30 or so colleagues (primarily men) and I attended a two-day session on mentoring and coaching. On average, each of us has been in the workforce for 20-plus years and in various leadership roles for the last 10 years or so. Surely not a rookie team—nor a bunch of wall flowers. Actually, we’re each somewhat outspoken in our own ways—it must be in the company genes.

I won’t get into the whole deal around the program—that’s a completely different matter altogether. Instead, I’d like to focus on a specific case within the workshop.  One of the scenarios for group discussion was a woman senior manager who was meeting with her mentor to tell him that she was has having difficulty powering through her work week (and often times weekends) while trying to balance her family responsibilities. She didn’t see any relief in sight and was contemplating leaving the firm. She simply couldn’t figure out how to make it all work. So far, so good.

Well, no, not really. I was fine, and actually, quite familiar with the scenario. It’s an everyday happening in corporate offices everywhere. What I wasn’t fine with was the stereotyping. Why did it need to be a woman senior manager in the case? Why couldn’t it just have been any senior manager? (This was, indeed, the only case in the two days that had any mention of gender.) So I politely (or at least I think politely) voiced my objection to the gender labeling. Women may have been the proverbial canaries in the corporate coal mines, I pointed out, but fitting life within work and work within life is now a significant, cross-gender workplace issue. The point was rather politely noted by the instructor, and we moved on.

Until. Until the afternoon break when a number of my male colleagues individually came up to me to say thanks for bringing forward the objection. That, indeed, they hear about this issue as much these days from men as from woman. So?

So why couldn’t they just say so in the group? Why the silence in a room of generally vocal colleagues and then murmured acknowledgement in a quiet corner? Why not open recognition and dialogue of flexibility as a workplace issue—and no longer as a gender-branded one?

Well, as I as said at the start: I just don’t get it. Do you?

By blogger Cathy Benko, Deloitte LLP

Science Project

My son had a science project due earlier this month. He had weeks and weeks to work on and write up his experiment. Getting it done in an orderly fashion over those weeks, of course, was not the reality. Nope. It was a race up until the deadline with the final touches put on the report mere hours before the morning school bell rang. Procrastination—now that’s a blog-worthy topic, but one for another day.

I made a mental note of his response when I reminded him to put his name on his project. His retort: “We’re not allowed to do that, mom. We’re supposed to just put a number on the back. They don’t want any unfair advantage.” (Yep, this is a quote from a 12-year-old boy.) Hmmm.

Now fast-forward to last week’s blog entry, Raising Hay. I don't normally refer to blog responses, but I feel compelled to do so this time around. You see, one internally-posted response caught my eye, and when connected with my son’s innocuous comment, opens up a large-as-life issue. It stated: "Shouldn't we also make efforts to have our male counterparts buy into this?" referring to the rallying cry to be compulsively transparent about how we each do all the things we need to get done to keep it all going. So?

Well, I was interested that this responder assumed that the cry was solely for women. Hmmm, why would this be? I can see that it takes various types of messaging and forums to reach different folks, but does a message like compulsively transparent need to be divided down the gender line? Why this assumption? Don’t men also disguise their clever, self-crafted balance solutions? Maybe it’s to play golf (certainly the stereotypical ruse) rather than to drop off a kid at school or some other activity (although this is clearly changing), but the manner in which it’s couched is often just as elusive as women’s…shhh.

The National Academy of Science released a report that, in part, touched upon the intersection of these two seemingly unrelated snippets—the implicit bias we each hold. What’s this? It’s bias that we don’t know we have that affects the way we evaluate and react without even realizing it—and this bias applies equally to men and women (which I guess makes it a human thing). It shows up in all kinds of ways. For instance, the number of women musicians selected for an orchestra increased demonstrably when the musicians were put behind a screen during auditions.

Some biases have mini implications, like the blog response, while others have super-sized ones. So the question is what can we do about it? Well, I suspect my son’s school is defending against bias by putting numbers rather than names on reports. A small step for sure, but one that acknowledges the issue—and that’s a big step. Awareness is key, followed by a commitment to challenge ourselves at every everyday decision point to fend off this very human propensity.

How about you? Do you have examples of implicit bias to share? And ideas for how to fend it off?

By blogger Cathy Benko, Deloitte LLP

Raising Hay

Well, I guess raising hay, so to speak, comes with the blog territory, but I didn’t realize just how much ‘hay’ my compulsively transparent call to action would kick up. (Check out the original Compulsively Transparent entry.)

Some of you may be new to this community so let me rewind a bit. A trend heard from younger folks is that they don’t want to be like their predecessors. I guess this is something that each generation says about those that come before, but the scale and consistency of the message causes me to take particular note. The under-40 crowd wants more time for family (perhaps due to a greater sharing of family responsibilities—but I may be getting off track here), greater balance, choice, flexibility and the like. In short, their perception is that boomers don’t have these attributes and, by implication, don’t have any choice about it.

Come on, let’s face it—we relative elders (yes, I’m hesitantly admitting my advanced age here) have figured out some acceptable balance for ourselves or one of two things would be happening: we’d all be walking around like a bunch of drones or we wouldn’t be walking around in the corporate world at all.

So, in my mind, if each of us can sign up to being compulsively transparent about the self-crafted balance solutions and shortcuts we’ve come up with along the way, others can learn by example—a good thing to be sure. And who knows, perhaps we can even put on the radar screen what is today an acceptably below-the-radar-screen set of happenings. Why not get it out in the open when we bug out of the workplace to do a few needed errands, stuff envelopes at the elementary school, or take that afternoon-only extreme yoga class (or whatever activity it is).

Boy, have I been getting an earful on this one. Retorts like “we can’t give our secrets away on how we do it or it may be used against us” and “we’ll be perceived as slackers or not committed if we came clean” capture the mood. OK, OK, I acknowledge that giving away the decoder rings opens us up to some level of vulnerability, shall we say.

But don’t you think it’s time to provide some transparency into all the unconventional and even curious ways we each make it all work? Isn’t it about time that we gave ourselves credit for the varied ways we get it all done? Even walk with a bit of a swagger confident in knowing what we accomplish and insisting that we be evaluated on the accomplishment. Are we really that insecure? Apprehensive? Self-doubting?

If now is not the time to force a compulsively transparent culture, then when is? If we are not the ones to do so, then who? What do you think? Inquiring minds want to know…

By blogger Cathy Benko, Deloitte LLP