Know What You're Worth

Tired of the wage gap? I am. Women make seventy-seven cents for every dollar earned by a man who has similar experience, skills and education. Yes the organizational systems, paradigms and culture need to change in order for parity to be achieved, but more and more the conversation also includes an invitation to women to own their role in keeping the wage gap where it is.

The invitation, quite simply, is to do our own research, know our worth, and make the ask. The good news is, there is a whole generation of women entering the workforce that is already doing this. So find a woman who does it well, learn from her and let's tackle this puppy once and for all.

Perspectives on March

March is the shape-shifting maverick of the lot, taking us to the brink of despair before rumpling our hair like a big sister saying, "Don't be silly, I was just kidding..." It does little to reassure us, this pat on the head. We're onto March's Jekyll and Hyde ways and know better. But March has a way of lulling us into believing again and again. We end up trusting it despite our doubt. With its breaking ice, melting snow, and early bloom poking up through the dirt, we're served up days of hope in March that melt in our mouths like bitter-sweet chocolate. We stagger outside into the warm sunlight like giddy and grinning moles groping their way into a bright new world with limited vision. Because ultimately, we have faith in March. It may be unreliable and crusty, but March is the only sherpa we've got to guide us into Spring. So we follow where it leads and resign to being vulnerable, looking a bit awkward and feel entirely insecure and unprepared. In March, we trust.

An Experiment

Sometimes the answers we seek can be found right outside the window.

A Jump Start is Better Than No Start

Sometimes a shove is needed where a nudge won't do. Sometimes, sadly, a kick in the pants is just the ticket to spark some serious change. Sometimes being impatient is a good thing.

I am a big fan of lines drawn in the sand, I admit. They excite me to no end, because they signal a boundary has been set or in some cases, a gauntlet has been thrown down.

There has been much debate about the World Economic Forum's decision to institute quotas for their most recent annual meeting held in Davos, Switzerland. Frustrated that women make up less than 16% of the delegates, they decided to set quotes requiring a fifth of the delegates sent by their strategic partners be women. A spokesperson for the WEF said the intent was to give a "gentle nudge toward gender parity."

Many applauded the bold move, even while expressing sadness that it took such drastic measures to ignite some real change. Others were outraged, suggesting the quotes weren't having any impact and were effectively reducing women's participation to simply numbers, and detracting from the value they bring. When I asked women on my SheChanges Facebook page, I heard a similar mix of opinions. The overriding sentiment, however, is that the main objective is to get more women at the table. Most everyone agrees that nothing will change if women remain on the sidelines. One women suggested the focus should be on the results produced by the quotas, rather than the quotas themselves: "I think we should not demonize or idealize quotas or anything that [gets more women to the table]. We just need to do it and get them there."

Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, authors of Rework, offers some relevant insight on the power of drawing a line in the sand: "Great businesses have a point of view, not just a product or a service. You have to believe in something. You need to have a backbone. You need to know what you're willing to fight for. And then you need to show the world." They assert that this strong stand of drawing a line in the sand - as radical and counter-intuitive as it seems, actually results in attracting "superfans" - people who will defend your actions and spread the word.

The World Economic Forum drew a line in the sand. And so did Norway in 2002, when it began using quotas to ensure 40% of all board seats were filled by women. And after seeing the results, Spain, France and Britain are following suit.

The general consensus is that the business world won't see or feel much of a change until there is a 50/50 representation of women and men in the workplace. Until then, the primary jumper cables to achieve more gender parity in our engines are quotas and women's conferences.

But where my attention goes in the wake of this controversial WEF gender quota is how much rousing discussion and debate it triggered. Sure, there might not have been many more women at Davos this year than in years past, but there it sure sparked a lot of attention. Heads turned and people took notice. Some smoke was created. And where there is smoke there is fire.

Just Like She Said

I thought it was all my imagination – that feeling that we are on a cusp of huge change or are approaching a tipping point as a society. But it seems I’m not alone. At least there are thirteen grandmothers out there that would be nodding their heads in agreement as I write this.

For a while now, I’ve been fascinated by the Mayan prophecy of 2012. I love how it reminds me of the larger cycle of our evolution. It invites me to relinquish control (as if!), let go and have trust and faith in the natural order of things. The whole notion offers me tremendous hope - a far cry from the doom and end-of-the-world feelings that it has generated in others.

For those of you not familiar with it, the Mayan prophecy foretells of the approach of a signification date (Dec 21, 2012) – one that will signify we have completed a full cycle in our evolution and will begin another. In my mind, it offers a larger framework in which to make sense of all the crumbling – literally and figuratively – in the economy, our environment, our health and the organizations and institutions we have come to rely upon and view as indestructible. In the larger cycle of life, this is the death and destruction that makes space for something new to be born. It was this fascination with the Mayan prophecy and an incredible PBS special on the topic, that led me to the grandmothers.

So here’s the deal. In mid-October of 2004, thirteen indigenous grandmothers “from all four directions” of the world gathered in New Mexico to share their visions, prophesies and healing to inspire others to more consciously partake in the unfolding of our world. “So what?” you might think. Well, it’s really the story of how this group of grandmothers found their way into being a council that grabbed me the most. Apparently, this gathering of wise women from all over the world has been a long time in the making.

Here are some excerpts from the book Grandmothers Counsel the World that explain how and why this is all coming about:

• “The council, which had been spoken of in prophecy and seen in visions since time immemorial, finally emerged in the aftermath of 9/11. The Grandmothers’ participation in the council had been foretold to each of them in different ways. When they were very young, a few of the Grandmothers had been told by their Grandmothers that this was their destiny. All of the Grandmothers had been invited long ago, in a time before time as we know it, to meet at the time of the Great Turning to become a force for peace in the world. Prophecy revealed to each on that they must now share even their most secret and sacred ways with the very people who have been their oppressors, as the survival of humanity, if not the entire planet, is at stake.”

• “All of the Grandmothers who accepted said they knew deep within that they were meant to participate, even if at first they might have felt unworthy…they knew they were being called to action.”

• “The Grandmothers first learned that thirteen was the correct number of council members when tears welled up in Yupik Grandmother Rita Pitka Blumenstein’s eyes as she introduced herself on the first day of the gathering. She handed out thirteen stones and thirteen eagle feathers to each of the Grandmothers, a gift she had been holding and waiting to give for a very long time. The thirteen stones and thirteen eagle feathers had been given to Rita when she was nine years old by her great-grandmother, who told her to give them to the women of the Council of Grandmothers when they all finally met, a council Rita would someday be a part of.”

• “The return of the Grandmother has been foretold for hundreds of years. A vision of the Grandmothers Council has been seen by many peoples, indigenous and nonindigenous alike. The Grandmothers are gathering because, according to the prophesies of many religious traditions, the end of the world as we know it is near. The Grandmothers tell us that balance as a way of living is returning, balance in all relations, including with our Mother Earth. A thousand years of peace is being ushered in for those who will make the necessary changes in their hearts.”

The bottom line is this:

• “The Grandmother of all creation, the One who is the maker of life, the One whom we have forgotten, is calling us. She is not angry with us, but She is sad that we have forgotten who She is. She’s is coming back into our consciousness through prophecy and visions. She is bringing a profound nurturing, a depth of compassion, and a kind of love we not longer remember, but which was strong in ancient times. This pure female energy will awaken men as well as women, through a story we will already know in our hearts once we hear it.”

Imagine that!? Happy sigh. I don’t know about you, but it looks like being a Grandmother is totally where it’s at these days. Want to learn more about the specifics of their vision and prophecies? Read the book. Or just watch the world change. Whatever works for you.

Ditch the Soggy Bread

I hear it again and again from women I work with… “I make a comment or suggest an idea and nothing happens. Then a man suggests the same idea five minutes later and everyone says, ‘good idea!” We could go down a road of looking how society diminishes or makes invisible women’s voices. But I have a juicier place to look: how YOU are creating that dynamic.

I’d invite you to listen to your own language with a keen ear for the next week. See if you can hear how you publically disqualify your own ideas or thoughts. You might be amazed at how frequently you are your own worst enemy when it comes to taking yourself seriously. And practically speaking, if you don’t…why should we?

I’ve come to appreciate how women – myself included – have been encultured to create kind of a verbal “soggy sandwich”, so that the substance in the middle gets lost or watered down to mush. Here’s how it typically looks: we start a sentence with a disqualifier such as “This might be a crazy idea…” or “You’ll probably think I’m off the wall for suggesting this…” or “I’m sure I’m the only one who feels this way, but…” Then we share our insightful thought or bright idea. Finally, we finish it off with a straggly ending, often tapering it off to the point of just muttering: “…told you it was out there…” or “…but that’s just my two cents…”

The impact of this is that people stop listening before you’ve even began sharing your thoughts. If you think about it, why would they after that stellar beginning, eh? And if you did successfully hook someone with what was undoubtedly a sound idea or valid point, your straggling ending loosens their tenuous hold on it like a slippery noodle. They literally can’t recall what you’ve said amidst all those other soggy words.

Do we do this ALL the time? Not at all. Nor am I suggesting we do. But, I would wage a bet that you do this more often than you realize. Test it out. Enlist the support of a trusted colleague or friend to track your comments over the course of a week and see what you can learn. Then laugh it off and move along. In my experience, once you realize what you’re doing to detract from your own impact, you will catch yourself as it happens and will correct it. Eventually you will catch yourself before it happens, and voila! You’re there!

I feel passionately about this because we are at a time in our history where women – what they think, experience and have to say – are being called forth more and more to center stage. There is a window of opportunity for women to advance themselves – and the world. But this will require us to take ourselves seriously and to get our voices out there – crisply and cleanly, no holds barred. As Maddie Dychtwald writes in her new book Influence, “This is moment historians will look back on, pointing their fingers and tracing the era on timelines for students of the future: See it there! See the rise of the woman at the dawn of the twenty-first century! …The lightning’s moving closer; the storm is about to break….but this moment won’t last forever.”

Spine a Shotlight

You know when someone says something by accident? And it turns out to be this profound statement of truth? I witnessed one of those recently.

It happened during a conversation about leadership with some other women at the Maine Women’s Fund. The essence of the conversation was about women stepping up more immediately up as leaders; not waiting for permission, authorization or “just the right” convergence of circumstances and gumption. Up until this point in our dialogue, we had touched upon the many reasons that women don’t step up – our penchant for influencing from behind, our low appetite for receiving credit, our exhaustion and tendency to “pick our battles.”

At one point, a member of our group blurted out (in her frustration), “We just need to spine a shotlight on the need for women to step into leadership roles…. I mean shine a spotlight.” We all chuckled and then paused. There was something in that turn of phrase that was magical and struck a chord with me and the other women in the group. Our conversation shifted after that. We began to talk about not waiting and doing something today to “be the change”. One woman shared a quote made by a friend recently, “every step I take is a women’s movement.”

Maybe that is invitation to us as women: to SPINE a shotlight; to embody the spotlight and let the light come from within each of us, rather than assuming it will somehow manifest outside us. Wouldn’t that, indeed, be the perfect image of women as agents of change? I instantly got the image of women walking around in the world with the light of their own visions for change radiating out from their solar plexuses.

In my work with women leaders, I often pose the question, “What if YOU were the leader you’ve been waiting for?” Too often – in myself and in my clients – I witness us waiting, pausing, second-guessing our instincts, our ideas or our value at the table. If more women were to “spine the shotlight”, perhaps we might bypass our minds and allow the full potency of our force for change flow from our core – unadulterated, unfiltered and unmistakable. Like the Kundalini energy of creation that ancient cultures believe lies coiled and ready at the base of our spine, women could awaken this dormant energy in ourselves and be virtual spotlights for our world.