Wingtips for Women: Success Without Compromise

At first thought, I would think of a mentor as someone to whom you look up, similar to a role model. However, after reading through the book, my thoughts have been influenced otherwise. Being from the latest generation, Generation Y, I have not been exposed to workplace mentors. In fact, prior to reading Wingtips for Women, I was almost completely unaware that mentors existed within the workforce. I had always thought of a mentor as someone to whom you simply look up, not necessarily learn from. The lessons I have learned throughout this book regarding mentors have been of great value. It appears that mentors are very beneficial in today’s workforce, as these mentors of prior knowledge lend a helping hand to their mentees. These mentors, professional or volunteer, share the experiences they have had and benefit their mentees by sharing that experience with them, whether good or bad.

Mentoring may be done either in groups, or one-on-one, but the key to making it a success is forming an ongoing, interactive relationship. In doing so, both parties feel comfortable sharing with each other. Whether the term be phrased mentoring or coaching, the basis behind it is incredibly beneficial. Taking senior knowledge and experience and passing it along to the next generation is of the highest value to a newly experienced worker. Mentors continue to help build confidence while making work more clear and concise.

As I began reading the book, it never occurred to me that mentoring would be of such value to the younger generation. However, after reading through the book, it has become very clear to me that we can’t do it all on our own, that some form of mentor will be of great help in whatever areas needed. As I continue my path into the business world, I look forward to seeking out a mentor, forming an ongoing, upbeat relationship, and rising to the next level. In hopes of success, I will take the knowledge I learn and reciprocate by mentoring for those in the generations to come.

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At the risk of jumping way ahead in my comments, I can’t resist noting a headline in a recent Wall Street Journal interview with Telestra Corp. CEO David Thodey (who, BTW, also started his career as a Systems Engineer for IBM). What caught my eye was the question about numbers. During our research for Wingtips for Women, we spent a lot of time (and a whole chapter) on the importance of numbers vs. nurture. Men usually hotly argued in favor of a command for the numbers as THE thing while women seemed to err on the softer side of nurturing.

Thodey’s situation is not dissimilar to that of many executives today. His industry (telecommunications – Australia’s largest) is in significant upheaval. Landlines are in decline and wireless is on the incline. Competition and regulatory restrictions are tougher by the day The WSJ asked Thodey about numbers and how critical they are to his and his company’s success.

“WSJ: There is a lot of data on customer behavior in your industry. Are you a metrics junkie? (March 15, 2010 – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704353404575114791966557902.html?KEYWORDS=IBM+CEO)

Mr. Thodey: Just like the markets and returns to shareholders, it is only the numbers that matter. You can talk strategy, you can talk culture, but if you don’t deliver the numbers then you really are not doing your job. (…) Mondays are usually a good day, Fridays tend to be a little bit slower. I look at calls into the call centers on a daily basis, I look at shop traffic. All these give you indicators of what’s going on but you’ve got to be careful to not to react too quickly.”

What we found in our research is that the answer to the numbers vs. nurture is both/and not either/or. And since there are still more men than women in the executive suite, women had better pay attention to what men think matters. Just a statement of fact. You always listen to the needs of your customer, right? And bosses are customers as much as those who buy your product or service.

So yes, nurture counts enormously, but so do the numbers. Ladies, have them on the tip of your tongue, not in the file or at the fingertips of your assistant or CFO. You need to be able to USE them in your daily walk, not just for talk. Get comfortable with the numbers and they will often show you where to take action you might have otherwise missed.

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If you have read “My Story,” posted earlier in this blog, you know that I was already in the work force before I learned that men and women were treated differently. Thankfully, my parents had protected me from that expectation-limiting message. I am the eldest of four children, two girls, then two boys. My parents held the same degrees (PhDs in physical chemistry–not for the faint hearted!) and the same jobs at the university. They were both fabulous cooks, campers, tutors, parents. I simply saw no differences other than my mother preferred sewing to my father’s gardening.

So it was a rude awakening and, quite frankly, very confusing to me when I encountered the first colleague to create the impression that the two of us were different in the eyes of the boss, the client and the world. Although I did not really understand why he thought we might have different opportunities, I was in no way deterred. In fact, it just made me more determined.

At the same time, I became aware of other women who had learned this message of difference much earlier than I and who had taken the comments on as not just chips, but boulders on their shoulders. Truthfully, I wanted to distance myself from those women as fast as I could. That is where attitude kicks in.

Women on successful career tracks don’t have to, and quite frankly should not, be like men to succeed. It is our differences that often make a team more successful than an all-male or all-female team. We do think differently. We act differently. We look different…but all for a good reason that the good Lord decided way back in the beginning!

But male or female, our attitude about ourselves and those around us speaks louder than our gender. No one wants to work with someone who lives assuming everyone is against her (or him!). So lighten up and be all that you were made to be. There are few limits you don’t have major control over.

The women in the book know who they are and they take the hill, day by day, always giving their very best, rarely thinking about gender. These women are the role models for both men and women coming behind them, beside them and one day ahead of them!

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As we outlined the book, we soon came to the question of whom to interview. That led us straight back to one of the earliest secrets of the sales trade. Networking is not new to the last decade. The tools may be different, but successful sales people, male or female, have naturally done networking for millennia. Sure, it may go by different names, but whether you call it networking, social networking, netweaving (http://netweaving.com/heartOfNetweaving.html), connecting with people is an integral part of sales. After all, you need to get in front of people (literally or figuratively, physically or electronically) in order to sell your product or service.

So that is what we did. We reached out to our network of executives and within a few days, we had found and contacted most of the women we ended up including in the book. The simple act of asking friends and colleagues to help us identify women at the top of the corporate sales ladder was a great reminder that it is often who you know and not just what you know. At first, I thought women might respond out of ego to our request for an interview. But it was quickly evident from their responses to our questions that they were serious about sharing their hard won experiences with men and women just starting out on the sales career journey. And I do mean ‘men and women’ because most of these women never distinguished between men and women unless we asked the pointed question. That, in itself, is a key learning. These women know they are different from many of their colleagues, but they do not see that first and foremost. They see successful sales people, some of whom are women and some of whom are men. They treat everyone equally and expect others to do the same. That is not to say there can be different issues as a woman in sales, but those differences are to be embraced and not carried around as heavy chips on one’s shoulders.

But back to networking! Even at the highest rungs of the ladder, busy women responded to the requests of those who knew them and made a simple request for an interview with me, a complete stranger. They say we are separated by 6 degrees, but I don’t think it was more than 3 degrees of separation for any of the women in our book.

The power of networking is in the give and the take. If you are out there collecting emails or cards without giving value to your new contacts, you aren’t networking. You are collecting. And when the time comes to find your top 20 influential contacts, they won’t be there for you. So start networking now. Give first and they will be there for you when you need help.

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I have been working with Emma on the Wingtips for Women (WT4W) project for the last two years. I can’t tell you how much I have learned about how NOT to manage a publishing project, and on the flip side, I’d do another one in a heartbeat. I realized so many things about my workplace that I am thankful for. The Boomer women in the book talk about how they have created a flexible workplace full of training. They also discuss the role of Mentoring as a key success factor. I have been so blessed to have had an executive career full of great people. Aside from working with Emma (I am a big fan), I have had two gentlemen that were keys to my success: Randall McCroskey and Rick Higdon. They didn’t, and still don’t, seem to get hung up on gender and are still part of the key group of advisors I turn to when making big decisions. Now, back to my workplace, which is really the nearest Starbucks. How else would a caffeine addict survive? Coffee is a big part of our corporate culture and it supports our desire to have home offices and the ability to meet all over Atlanta. I have always been encouraged to choose the path that suits my talents and that I find rewarding. I have applied lessons learned in order to have a very flexible work day so I can spend great quality time with my twins and go to ballet practice and skating lessons. I have kept my mind engaged with enough consulting work and with great clients that I don’t feel like becoming a mom turned my brain to mush. I have never forgotten how fortunate I am to have the luxury of making that choice. My only hope is that I can pay forward that encouragement and add value to the young people I will have the privilege of meeting and working with in the future! As WT4W continues to roll out I hope you find value in the pages and posts to follow.

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Although we started the book with the focus on women who made it to the top of the sales organization, we soon discovered that many great women sales executives never made it to the top of the sales organization, not for lack of ability or success required, but often because they left to start their own companies and/or become CEO of a company. A success either way, I say. And a good fit for sales people, since both entrepreneurs and CEOs require fantastic sales and sales leadership skills.

My own story (see My Story page of this blog) includes a fast start in sales, reaching all the goals set before me, enjoying the award trips and celebrations, but then an exit to be a part of my first start-up. Going from selling at IBM where everyone knew we were ‘the safe choice’ to selling for a company that had not brand recognition and not even a full product yet, was a huge leap and demanded the best of what IBM had taught me about selling.

As we searched for the women we interviewed, we found more women who had been very successful in sales but who had taken those skills elsewhere. They had chosen to leave the corporate ladder and to apply their skills in a host of other environments from teaching to entrepreneurism to politics.

Two observations: First, selling is a skill needed in almost every job or walk of life—from motherhood to sales executive to CEO. Second, successful sales women, more often than not, can and do chose to ply their trade outside the narrow corporate track.

Why? The primary reason given was the life style and the money. Many of the women we spoke with chose to stay in sales, and not management, because promotions would cost them significant income opportunities and often increase the travel. Income and life style. Those who chose to move into other roles as entrepreneurs or who were recruited to run someone else’s company continued to rely on their sales skills to be successful, but their choices most often reflected a preferred lifestyle and income structure.

Think about it, male or female, what is not to love about the flexibility, the thrill of the chase, the money, the great awards and recognition of front line sales?!

So maybe there isn’t really a problem that there are so few women in sales executive roles, since many are where they are today by choice. Perhaps the real problem is that there are some extraordinary leaders and mentors in the chief sales executive role and because their numbers are so few, there are lots of Gen X and Y people who will miss the kind of leadership and wisdom they have to share.

But more on that later!

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Maybe this is a good time to back up and tell you a little about why we wrote this book. I say ‘we’ because if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a city to write a book! The idea was birthed out of an innocent lunch in which my friends and colleagues, Laura and Daryl, jokingly (I thought!) suggested that one day I should write down all the things I had learned about succeeding as a woman in business and put it in the form of letters to my then teen-aged niece. The idea was to pass on the lessons learned to the next generation.

A couple of years passed and another business acquaintance suggested the same thing. I was beginning to get the message. When the third person gave me a numerical (data) reason to write the book, I knew it was time. The stats he quoted to me were astounding and compelling. His particular area of interest was women in sales. And his question was: If 25% of the people in sales are women, but only 1% of those women make it to top leadership positions in sales, where did all the women go? And why?

As I thought about this, I checked some other stats. It isn’t just sales leadership that is short on women; the shortage is in the board room and the C-suite across the board. And my mother thought her generation had waged and won the battles for career women of her daughters’ generation! Sadly, and fortunately for you, the frontiers are still plentiful.

The wonderful part of our pursuit of this book was learning that many women who have done well in their careers truly care about sharing their experiences with the next generation—and not just with women, but with men, too, who are climbing the career ladder.

So, while the women we interviewed for the book are each the top sales executive in their companies, the wisdom they share is mostly sales-neutral. That is, the lessons can be applied to any function and any organization, for-profit or not-for-profit, business or education.

The book is our way of helping you to learn from some extraordinary, yet ordinary, women who love what they do, who have made successful careers in the midst of a mostly male world and who have not compromised who they are as women, mothers, wives, mentors and executives. The book provides you access to women who know what it takes to reach the top rungs of the executive ladder without losing yourself.

Did we find out why so many women don’t make it? Not quantitatively, but there are some qualitative findings that we will share along the way.

Listen and learn from their experiences, the good and the not-so-good!

The book will be on Amazon in the next few weeks, so watch for Wingtips for Women coming your way. In the meantime, visit the blog as often as you wish and let us know what is on your mind. We want this to be a resource for you, not just a writing exercise for us!

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Not only do we speak different languages, but we also have very different expectations and lifestyles. Fortunately or unfortunately (you be the judge), young women and men just beginning their careers are not nearly so single minded and career driven as some of their elders. In fact, many are postponing even beginning their careers by taking on average 7 years to complete college (though I wonder if the current economic tide won’t change that!) or by traveling for a while before settling into a job. Even a job once taken, is often only for as long as it takes to find some new adventure or better opportunity. Loyalty, as Boomers know it, is a bygone tradition and thus requires a new way for Baby Boomer leaders to lead a new generation.

Gen X and Y workers have much to teach Boomers about how to enjoy life to the fullest without being the “dull boy” of the old proverb about Jack. (All work and no play, makes Jack/Jill a dull boy/girl!) In fact, many of the Boomer women in our book seem to have learned this Gen Y lesson far ahead of their generation.

What does this mean for the way Boomers share their knowledge with younger workers? Sometimes our expectations are not even on the same planet! Does being in the office or in front of a client meant that is the only time you are truly working? Or can you be working on your career while climbing Everest?

One of my long held beliefs is that executives who never take vacations, in fact, pride themselves on the fact, will see constantly diminishing returns on their hours at work. It was my husband who first taught me this while I was burning the midnight oil at IBM. I was in my early twenties and already not taking time to refuel my brain and my body. It is amazing how many problems can be worked out sitting on a beach or cycling down a Vermont road!

Alas, no single generation has it all figured out. These differences are some of the things we want to further explore on this blog, so please join us.

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As we interviewed the women for our book, we discovered that the way in which these women share their hard won lessons to the up-and-comers depended a great deal on the age and generation with whom they were sharing. Let’s face it; Baby Boomers speak a totally different language from that of Gen X or Gen Y.

It is somewhat akin to visiting a foreign country where you are supposed to be the visiting expert. The people you meet want to learn from you, but if you don’t speak their language, you can have the best intentions and the greatest wisdom to share, but it never reaches your audience. Without an interpreter or learning the language, the wisdom stays stuck in your head while your audience is craving to know what you know. A friend of mine says that is sort of like sitting on a ham sandwich starving to death! All the wisdom is right there in front of you, but you cannot access it.

One of the most enlightening things I learned about cross-generation communications is that young people no longer expect to “be seen and not heard.” They want to participate in the conversation, not just quietly listen to their “elders” expound on their experiences, no matter how great the lessons learned. They have great ideas and want to challenge and add to the body of knowledge from Day One. I don’t think they believe they are yet peers to the C-suite, but they do expect to be participatory in the learning conversations.

This is an area I would like to learn more about from our blog visitors—how do you think Boomers can best “speak” the language of Gen X and Y rising stars? As I said above, we can’t share our wisdom with each other if we aren’t speaking a language we both understand. That means making trade-offs and concessions to our favorite communications style for the sake of sharing ideas. What are your thoughts? What works and what doesn’t work, from your experience?

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Wingtips for Women: Success Without Compromise is a medley of stories, stats and advice from women who have reached the highest rungs of corporate life without compromising families and lifestyle and, who don’t mind giving kudos to the men and women who were the wingmen in their flight to the top. As with any good performance, the lead pilot cannot make the formation without good wingmen on both sides. If they don’t all work together, carefully observe each other and adjust for each other, they may all go down. Such is corporate life, and especially for women who have had relatively few leads to follow.

The 18 women we interviewed shared far more of their stories than can be contained in the pages of a short book, and so this blog will serve as a place to share more of their wisdom and stories. I hope it will also serve as a forum for sharing additional thoughts and guidance for each other across the generations of women at various levels on the corporate ladder. So please join us!

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