Category: Corporate Games

One of the common complaints
I hear from
business building women
is their husbands/partners
don’t take the initiative
with the household chores.
They wait to be told
what to do.
It is a task for them
and a project for us.

As
Seth Godin
shares

“Your job might be
a series of tasks.
Tasks are work
where money is traded
for time and effort.
You put in a fixed amount of time,
expending effort along the way,
and you get paid.
In the end,
tasks are completed and
it’s up to the boss
to weave those tasks together
into something useful.”

In the case of chores,
the woman becomes
the unpaid boss.
She’s placed
in the role of project manager
and we all know
how much additional work
THAT is.

This sucks time and energy
from business building
and it hampers our success.

How to avoid this?

Consider treating the household tasks
as a small business
and your spouse/partner
TRULY as your partner.
He/she should be assigned
half of the responsibility
for the tasks
relating to the home’s upkeep.

Each task has a budget.
Each task has a project manager.
You can have monthly meetings
about the tasks
but the responsibility for the tasks
belong to that task’s project manager.

Delegate ALL of the responsibility
for some household tasks.
You can’t do everything
AND build an awesome business.

When I was in university
long, long ago,
(grins)
a professor told us
to plan on
not working full time
after the age of 50.

He said
if we kept our skills current,
we MIGHT work contract
after that age
but we were unlikely
to have full time employment.

That prediction came true
for almost all of my 50 plus buddies.
And it is even MORE likely
to come true
for anyone younger.

This isn’t gloom and doom.
It is merely a new reality
we can plan for
and benefit from.

I worked like a demon
when I was younger,
holding a full time job
and some part time jobs,
keeping my expenses low
and my skills current.

Then I switched into contract work,
gaining experience
in a wide variety of industries.
I took high paying extra gigs
like crafting business plans.
AND I started businesses.

Once one of those businesses
took off,
was semi-successful,
I switched to operating it
full time.

Now I’m earning more
than I ever did
at the full time jobs.

And that was all thanks
to my professor’s prediction.

You likely won’t have
a full time job
after the age of 50.
Embrace that.
Plan for it.
Use that knowledge
to increase your probability
of success.

The WSJ has an article
about how
the most powerful women
in business
wear dresses,
not suits.

No.
No, they don’t.

They might wear dresses
to press conferences
and to galas
but even then,
I suspect
they have pants/slacks
in their car
or a nearby hotel room.

Why?

Because a big part of
being an exec,
being a leader,
being in charge,
means responding to emergencies.

Would you respond
to a fire in one of your locations
in a skirt and heels?
Of course, you wouldn’t.

If you were wearing a skirt
during this emergency
and a male coworker was in pants,
the male coworker would be sent
to deal with the situation.

Everyone knows
the female CEO has pants and sensible shoes
stored in her office.
They don’t know you have pants and shoes
at the ready
also.

So your male co-worker
would be asked to tackle
that high risk and high profile situation
and HE would be the considered
for the next promotion,
not you.

Don’t wear clothing
that limits you.

Note:
I’m NOT saying
to dress like a man.
There are some wonderfully feminine
pant suits
and blazers.
Merely wear something
you can tackle all of your tasks,
normal or otherwise,
in.

I organized a dinner yesterday.
It went well.

After it was over,
I sent thank you messages
to all of the attendees.

Why?

Because thank you messages
make people feel appreciated.
It signals that the event
was important to me,
that their time and involvement
was also important to me.

People LOVE being valued
yet it is rare that
we have an opportunity
to express our appreciation.

That makes
thank you messages
very powerful.

They can be the difference,
for example,
between landing a job
and receiving a rejection letter.

Michael Tomaszewski
shares

“According to a recent study,
1 in 5 recruiters and hiring managers
will automatically dismiss a candidate
if they haven’t sent
an interview thank you email.”

If you have an opportunity
to send a thank you message,
DO IT.

Yesterday,
I was told,
while in my writing persona,
that I was a woman
(that was correct)
and couldn’t possibly understand
the economics of a certain situation
(that was so NOT correct).

Yes, ouch.
And that man who dared
to express that idiocy
likely represented
dozens or more men
who had thought it.

Hannah Gold
shares that

“Ernst & Young held
a day-and-a-half-long
leadership-and-empowerment seminar
for about 30 female executives
that described the differences
between men’s and women’s brains
and instructed women on
how to dress
to keep their male co-workers
from getting too horny.”

That seminar had been approved
by the management
of that major accounting firm.
They clearly believed
that women were inferior
intellectually
to men
and were responsible
for their male coworkers’
unprofessional behavior.

We face people like this
every freakin’ day.
Often we don’t know
they hold these antiquated views.

Be aware of this.
Adjust for it
but don’t allow it to stop you
from changing the world.

Many of us
are working day jobs
to help finance our businesses.

When we talk about employment,
we often talk about
the paycheck.

But there are other perks
– medical coverage,
stock plans,
and…

education reimbursement.

As Seth Godin
shares

“Not only can you expense
that book
that will change the way
you do your job,
but you can probably
take a course
on the company’s dime
(and perhaps even get
some time to work on it).”

You likely shouldn’t
ask for a reimbursement
on a course called
Starting Your Own Business.
(grins)

But you likely CAN
get reimbursed for
sales courses.
We all sell in our jobs.
We sell ourselves,
our ideas,
our services.

You likely CAN
get reimbursed for
courses on
marketing,
new business development,
leadership and management,
and a variety of other topics.

And these are skills
you can take
to the business you’re building.

If you’re an employee,
take advantage
of ALL the benefits.

I have monthly meetings
with my Financial Adviser.

Almost all Financial Advisers
are known
for comparing their results
to the overall market.

I often tell mine
that I don’t care
what the market is doing.
If I wanted the same results
as the market,
I’d invest in index funds.
I care about what
MY portfolio is doing.

That means I’m critical
of our investment strategy
when our results are down,
even if the market is down more.

But that also means
I praise
our investment strategy
when our results meet expectations
even when the market is up more.

Consistency with feedback
is key and critical and fair.

Either a partner or employee
is responsible for something
or she’s not.

Yesterday,
someone told me that
XXX wasn’t a racist
because XXX
had hired a black person.

Being hired by someone
doesn’t mean
that someone
views you as
being superior
to the other candidates.

When I first joined
the workforce,
I thought any manager
who hired me
viewed me as being,
at the very least,
equal
to the male candidates
being interviewed.

I soon learned
that was far from the truth.

Yes, SOME managers
viewed me as equal.

But…

Some managers hired me
instead of a male candidate
because they were looking
for a woman
to sexually harass.

Some managers
thought the male candidates
might want their own jobs.

Some managers
thought a woman candidate
was ‘good enough’
for the roles
they gave me
but wasn’t good enough
to be promoted.

Some managers
thought a female employee
would tolerate requests
(like making coffee – eye roll)
male candidates wouldn’t.

Some managers
thought the males
were overqualified
simply based on them
being male.

Just because someone hires you
doesn’t mean
he/she believes you have potential
and will support your career.

Ideally, find a boss
who will believe in YOU.

As female business builders,
we do have to deal
with discrimination against us
because we’re female.

That’s merely part
of the experience.

This discrimination
doesn’t only come
from some men.
It comes from some women also.

Dealing with outside opposition
is tough enough.
You definitely don’t want
people who will never support you
due to your sex
on your team.

One thing I’ve noticed
(using the 5,000 person
Facebook sample size
we talked about yesterday)
is that women
who don’t support other women
also don’t support
fictional women.

If you ask them
who their favorite superhero is,
they won’t mention
Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel
or other female superheroes,
at least not in a positive light.

They usually have
a well thought out answer
about why they didn’t choose
a female superhero,
which should make you
MORE concerned,
not less,
because they know
they have to rationalize
their sexism.

You don’t want a team
who will always agree with you
but you DO want a team
who will respect you.

Hire people
who will support you.

I once worked in
a major beverage company.
This company was over 100 years old
and was extremely established.

There were 3 manager positions
in the department
I was working in.
I wanted NONE of them
I certainly wasn’t willing
to compete for one of those spots.

So I created my own position.
I took pieces of other jobs,
meshed them together,
and added tasks
I thought would add value.

A co-worker, seeing what I was doing,
did something similar.

In less than 3 years,
3 manager positions
became
5 manager positions.
I had the position I wanted
(New Business Development)
and the super established company
benefited from this.

Mindy Kaling
shares

“Hey girls,
we need to do a better job
of supporting each other.
I know that I am guilty of it too.
We live in a world
where it seems like
there’s only room for
one of us at the table.
So when another woman shows up,
we think,
“Oh my god,
she’s going to take
the one woman spot!
That was supposed to be mine!”

But that’s just what
certain people want us to do!
Wouldn’t it be better
if we worked together
to dismantle a system
that makes us feel like
there’s limited room for us?

Because when women work together,
we can accomplish anything.”

There aren’t limited spots.
Create the positions
and the opportunities
you want.