Building a Business Case for Integrated Leadership

This month’s blog posting focuses on integrated leadership and why it makes good business sense. This is an excerpt from Rebecca Shambaugh, President of SHAMBAUGH, which was posted on her blog site on March 4^th.  Please see her bio after the blog post.

Building a Business Case for Integrated Leadership

by Rebecca Shambaugh

In my last post, “Why We Need Integrated Leadership”, I discussed several reasons why companies need to begin moving toward a more balanced, integrated approach to leadership. I explained how in our ever more complex and connected world, organizations no longer have the luxury of failing to tap into the full capacity of their leadership team. We need all voices on deck to create a unified and integrated group of leaders who can leverage each other’s unique strengths, while integrating both the practical and creative insights of different perspectives.

But how can companies turn this vision into reality? A great start is to begin to build a business case for Integrated Leadership. Learning to communicate solid business-related rationale for creating a more diverse and balanced leadership culture can help move companies beyond the “stuck stage” when filling senior leadership positions.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to building a business case for Integrated Leadership. I recommend that companies get the ball rolling by focusing their talking points around the following four messages:

• Women have become an important powerhouse in the business world. I shared a number of statistics in my recent book Make Room For Her about the extent to which women and women-owned firms help to power the economy. For example:
• Women represent 80 percent on consumer decisions
• Women comprise over half of the U.S. workforce
• Women own more than half of the privately held companies in the U.S.
• Women possess important leadership styles and perceptives that are known to enhance organization’s bottom line performance

• Companies with gender-diverse management teams have been proven to consistently perform better and be more profitable than those without them. There is overwhelming evidence to support the value of having more women in senior leadership positions. A growing body of research—including studies by McKinsey & Company—has proven that companies with more women in senior executive and board roles have advantages over those that don’t. These advantages include:
• More profitability
• Better ability to attract and retain top talent
• Better ability to grow and maintain their competitive advantage

• Research shows that women leaders are just as capable as male leaders. In Make Room For Her, I also shared some research from Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, authors of The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate, which found that:
• Women are rated higher than men in 12 of the 16 competencies that go into outstanding leadership.
• At every level of leadership, peers, bosses, direct reports, and other associates rated more women than men as “better overall leaders.”
• The higher the level of leadership, the wider this gender gap grows.

• Women’s natural leadership tendencies are critical in today’s business environment. Research has shown that the “collective intelligence” of an entire group rises if there are more women in its ranks. An article in Harvard Business Review explains that this is partly accounted by the fact that women generally exhibit greater capacity for “social sensitivity” than men, since women tend to possess natural skills for:
• Listening to others
• Sharing constructive criticism
• Keeping an open mind
• Avoiding an autocratic leadership style

Now is the time to foster a culture of Integrated Leadership—one that values, leverages, and blends the differences and attributes of both genders. Building a solid business case to support this initiative can help move organizations away from trying simply to achieve diversity quotas, or “fix” women through leadership development programs. You need not feel limited by the ideas above when you build your case—for example, you might add the point that diversity of thought and perspective is needed in every industry, and gender-balanced teams have been linked with driving greater innovation. The point is that leveraging a strong business case can help break through the status-quo approach to hiring and retention strategies, and can lead companies to a better way of doing business.

Rebecca Shambaugh’s Biography

Rebecca Shambaugh is an internationally recognized leadership expert, author, and keynote speaker.

She speaks before thousands of leaders around the world every year, challenging conventional wisdom and overturning assumptions about how to lead in today’s business environment. Her compelling and new vision for leadership in the 21st Century has electrified and inspired audiences on six continents.

Rebecca is President of SHAMBAUGH, a global leadership development organization and Founder of Women In Leadership and Learning (WILL), one of the first executive leadership development programs in the country, dedicated to the research, advancement, and retention of women leaders and executives. Rebecca has coached and advised over a hundred leaders and executives and has enhanced their overall level of excellence in such areas as communications, strategic thinking, inclusive leadership, employee engagement, executive presence, and culture transformation.

Prior to starting her own company, Rebecca has worked for such premier organizations as General Motors, Fairchild Industries, and Amax Inc. as a senior executive in the leadership and human capital arena.

Rebecca has been showcased on CNBC, TED Talks, Fox News (New York), NPR, Washington Business, ABC, and numerous syndicated radio talk shows. She has been featured in publications such as: Leader to Leader, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Time Magazine, USA Today, Fortune Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Pink Magazine, and Entrepreneur Magazine.

Rebecca is a known thought leader in the industry and is the author of two best seller books titled, “It’s Not A Glass Ceiling, It’s A Sticky Floor” and “Leadership Secrets of Hillary Clinton,” and her new book, “Make Room For Her: Why Companies Need an Integrated Leadership Model To Achieve Extraordinary Results,” all published by McGraw-Hill. Her books illustrate her unconventional and results-focused approach to creating great leaders.

Rebecca partners with a cross-section of clients such as: Booz Allen Hamilton, Dow Chemical, Hilton Worldwide, KPMG, Marriott International, IBM, Cisco, National Grid, Humana, HP, Intelsat, MedImmune, Microsoft, and J&J. She is a member of the National Press Club, the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., on the Board of Visitors for Marymount University, on the Board of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, and on the Executive Board for the Virginia Women’s Center. Rebecca is also the Chairman of the Board of Young Women Lead and an Executive Partner for Bentley University’s Center for Women and Business, as well as on the Board of the Red Cross. Other accomplishments include recipient of the Smart CEO Brava! Award, Women Who Mean Business Award, Entrepreneur Organization of the Year Award, and Finalist for the Outstanding Corporate Citizenship Award for Woman-Owned Business of the Year.

Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Relations from Purdue University and a Master of Arts Degree in Organizational Development from Marymount University.

Don’t Let the Cybersecurity Blues Get You Down …Some Practical Tips That Can Really Add Up

This month’s blog post is an excerpt from our WIT Cyber & Tech SIG friend Beth Musumeci, Vice President of Cybersecurity at ICF International.

“Don’t Let the Cybersecurity Blues Get You Down …Some Practical Tips That Can Really Add Up”

By Beth Musumeci

Day by day, and almost seemingly hour by hour, cybersecurity breaches are surfacing in the news, in the papers, in notices from our banks, retailers, manufacturers, and our government; no industry and no enterprise is being spared.

The fact is, the cybersecurity challenge is not insurmountable.  Yes, there exists highly sophisticated malware and threats that are difficult to detect, and cause undesirable outcomes.  However, in most cases, the breaches about which we are hearing weren’t caused by those types of sophisticated attacks.  More times than not, basic network defense methods could have prevented these breaches, or at least could have greatly minimized their impact.

Here are a few tips to help you defend your organization against some of the most common threats:

First, be sure you understand that just being compliant with regulation isn’t enough.  You must know what vulnerabilities exist in your environment and manage those vulnerabilities, regularly and diligently.  Perform vulnerability assessments continuously, or have a provider perform them for you. Check and correct for default passwords in your network and hardware configurations. Ensure you are correcting vulnerabilities timely, and don’t just assume the corrections were completed, verify they were. (It’s the device that you thought was off the network, but was never decommissioned; or the server that was patched, but never recycled so the patch could become effective; that make common threat-vectors, and sometimes the news).

Next, understand that cybercriminals will take the trouble to know your network as well as they can. So, you must know your network, and that includes to whom you allow it to connect. A common oversight, is actually a short-sighted definition of ‘your network’.  Expand your definition beyond your enterprise and employees; include third parties too. If you have suppliers, vendors, accountants, ‘you name it,’ connecting to your environment, make sure they are following your security policy and that should include ‘their’ suppliers, too.  Don’t just assume they are, assess and verify they are.  Ensure your agreements with third parties require proof, as well as your right to verify.

Make cybersecurity a company topic, not just the Chief Information Security Officer’s campaign.  Educate staff through awareness training, and even testing. Ensure your most senior leaders take part in creating the necessary awareness, as well as in supporting the solutions to minimize the risk.  Be the catalyst to kick the blues.  The more security aware your business, the more empowering technology will be to your business.

All these measures lead us to the need to, embrace new technologies, because saying “no” will not stop them from being introduced into your environment, it just means you will be ill-prepared for the threats introduced when they find their way in – because they will.  That doesn’t mean adopt new technologies immediately, perform an assessment, and then develop a plan and policy to minimize the risks to your enterprise.  Keep your security strategy current and make sure it includes practical defense mechanisms for the technologies of today, as well as those of tomorrow.

Most important, don’t give up. The problem isn’t as overwhelming as it may seem.  Make sure you have a basic defense program in place, as well as an incident response plan should the unfortunate occur.  Use experts when needed to augment or test your program; it doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive to prevent most problems.  Remember – cybercriminals aren't “super-human.”  They reuse old malware because they know many enterprises don't take the trouble to put in place basic cybersecurity programs.  Implementing those programs isn't always hard.  Identifying a trusted cybersecurity partner to help you put in place a basic program – and doing so pro-actively, can save valuable time when you might need it the most, because the best defense is prevention, preparedness and effective response.

Beth Musumeci is Senior Vice President, Cybersecurity at ICF International

www.icfi.com/services/cybersecurity

This month’s blog post is an excerpt from our WIT friend Jane Maliszewski from Vault Associates and focuses on emotional intelligence. This is a nice lead to our event coming up on January 21^st - Getting What You Want: Negotiation Skills for Women. Please see Jane’s bio after the blog post.

 

Want to be a better Negotiator? Improve your EQ!

Tuesday, January 5, 2017
 

Does the word “Negotiation” put a knot in your stomach? 
 

Turns out 39% of professionals in the U.S. feel uncomfortable with negotiations, according to a 2012 LinkedInSurvey of global professionals. 
 

Are you one of those who would consider a visit to the dentist more enjoyable than negotiating for something you really want?  [No offense to the valuable work of dentists, but a recent DeltaDental survey indicated 48% of parents express anxiety about going to the dentist.]
 

The definition of Negotiation is tame: a “mutual discussion and arrangement of the terms of a transaction or agreement” Sounds easy and unthreatening, right? 
 

Negotiation is something we engage in every day. From convincing your mountain-loving spouse to buy-in to your beach villa dream for this year’s vacation… to buying a new car… to adding someone with special skills to your project team… to convincing a new employer of the value of your expertise… to brokering a multi-million dollar merger with a rival company.  
 

Your negotiation savvy can be enhanced with good Emotional Intelligence. Here are 5 EQ competencies to polish up that will improve your negotiation presence: 

1. Empathy, the ability to deeply listen and understand where another is coming from, whether you agree with them or not. Knowing the other’s perspective can help you determine what looks like a win-win from their side. 
2. Emotional Self-Awareness/Expression, the ability to be acutely aware of your feelings about the issue at hand, the parties involved, and the outcome, and how displays of emotion can be perceived in a positive or negative light. Displays of anxiety, for example, can weaken your bargaining position or tempt you to close the conversation too early. Just as important, the presence of mind to identify the emotional triggers around the issue that may arise for you and being prepared to recognize and deal with them.
3. Assertiveness, the ability to effectively express feelings & beliefs, and stand up for your personal rights even when faced with opposition. Believing that your side/point of view/needs matters and effectively presenting your case. This is not aggression or bullying which only serves to alienate the other party and stir up a defensive reaction, making it harder to develop a solution all will agree to. 
4. Flexibility, the ability to be agile, tolerant, and react to change. Negotiation by its nature, is meant to be a give and take. Those with flexibility and adept at assessing and responding to the shifting feedback they get from their environment. If you approach negotiation with no wiggle room it is likely you will not get an outcome you can live with. 
5. Reality Testing, the ability to see things objectively, rather than how we fear or wish them to be.Those with a high reality testing competence are skilled at assessing the environment with an objective lens, keeping their focus on the main issue, and recognizing that all parties view a situation with their own perspective, colored by their experiences and prejudices. Reality testing in negotiation helps balance the ‘head swirl’ of negative emotions which seed doubt and anxiety against the ‘rose-colored glasses’ naiveté that everyone sees things our way.

Harvard Business Review devoted the “spotlight” in the December 2015 issue to the ‘softer side of negotiation,’ including this article on Emotion and theArt of Negotiation. Well worth a read!

Finally, if you are in the DC Metro area, join us on Jan 21st, 2016 when Leslie Mulligan, negotiation consultant at WatershedAssociates, presents a special workshop on Getting What You Want: Negotiation Skills for Women for the Women in Technology  professional organization of the DC Metro area. For more info and to register: http://bit.ly/1mvWYn2
 

- See more at: http://www.vaultassociates.com/better-negotiator/#sthash.0jHL3BRY.dpuf

Jane Maliszewski is an Executive Coach and founder of VAULT Associates, a consulting business providing leader development and organization effectiveness services to technology companies. She often works with leaders who want to develop Emotional and Social Intelligence competency to create positive changes in their professional and personal lives. Jane served 27 years as an officer in the US Army. She has Masters degrees in Business Administration and National Strategy, and advanced professional certification in Leadership Coaching, Organization Development, and Knowledge Management. Jane is a WIT Board member and Chair of the WIT Programs Committee. Favorite things -- besides helping people achieve their potential! -- are cooking and adventure travel.

5 Money Hacks for the New Year

As we kick off a new year, this month’s blog posting is an excerpt from the December 20, 2015 Working Mother by Teri Cettina, Working Mother contributing writer. You can find her bio at the end of the posting.

5 Money Hacks for the New Year

These are uncomplicated and essential for keeping an eye on your finances.

Want to get smarter about managing your money this coming year? It doesn’t have to be an overwhelming project, says financial coach and mom-to-be Kelsa Dickey, owner of Arizona-based Fiscal Fitness Phoenix. In fact, these are super-simple strategies for getting into better financial shape in 2016.

1. Review those January paychecks. If your salary is automatically deposited into your bank account, it’s easy to forget that this month’s checks could be slightly different amounts. Did you opt for different health insurance coverage? Change your 401k deductions? Who remembers? Those were way back during your open enrollment period. “Particularly if you’ve made any big changes, review your new deposit amounts and update your monthly budget if necessary,” advises Dickey. It’s a simple thing—but not doing it could mess with your bank balance and cause you to overdraft.

2. Let your calendar save you cash. How can something as basic as your schedule help improve your finances? Easy, says Dickey: “My clients who are disorganized spend a lot more money. They pay for missed doctor appointments and late childcare pickup, they eat out a lot because they forgot to pick up groceries, and more.” Whether you use a paper or digital calendar, commit to using it regularly starting January 1. Coordinate schedules with your partner too (Google Calendar makes it easy). Review your kids’ school/daycare calendar along with your and your partner’s work and personal calendars, and enter important 2016 events into your schedule ASAP.
If you use your calendar on your phone, make sure key reminders and appointments are set as pop-up alerts with sound or text. If you constantly run late, set reminders further ahead (30 minutes instead of 10) to give yourself time to disengage from whatever you’re working on and get out the door in time.

3. Use your FSA money now. Got a stack of healthcare and childcare receipts you haven’t yet submitted to your Flexible Spending Account (FSA) provider? Bite the bullet and round them up and submit in January. You probably have a few more months (your employer sets the date) to submit 2015 receipts, but the longer you wait, the more likely you are to forget an expense. If you have a chunk of money left, think: eyeglasses—and go today or tomorrow. Use it or lose it!

4. Embrace library e-book downloads. If you’re a big reader—as many professional women are—you probably drop a good amount of cash on books (both paper and digital). An easy way to save money in 2016: Commit to downloading digital books from the library instead of always buying them. “You can easily go back and buy the book if it’s really great—but often you’re only going to read it once,” says Dickey. Also, if you tend to rack up library fines for late returns, library e-books should be your new best friend. When your borrowing time is up—poof!—the book automatically removes itself from your digital device, so you never pay a late fee. Pretty slick.

5. C’mon, get app-y. “I’m still amazed at how many professional moms haven’t embraced money-saving apps they can use on their smartphone,” says Dickey. Some of her favorites:

• GasBuddy Compare the price of gas at multiple nearby stations—including warehouse clubs like Costco—so you know whether to fill up near home or somewhere closer to work.
• Key Ring Add everything from store loyalty cards to your barcode-scannable library card or gym ID card access to this app. You’ll never be without your important cards, and you’ll instantly slim down your wallet. If you have an Apple device, also consider the built-in Wallet app.
• Mint.com If you don’t use a full-blown budget program, Mint does a great job of tracking and categorizing your expenses, notes Dickey. You can also use its bill-alert system so you don’t overlook a bill and end up paying late fees and extra interest.
• Your Bank/Credit Union App Mobile deposit is Dickey’s favorite banking feature. Snap a photo of the front and back of your check and submit it electronically. No need to drive to the bank! 

Teri Cettina is a Working Mother contributing writer who specializes in parenting/family, money and business. She also writes for Real Simple, Reader’s Digest, Parents, Women’s Day and more. Teri lives in Portland, OR, with her husband and two daughters. Follow her at @TeriCettina or on LinkedIn, or visit her website Cettinaworks.com.

Can you Navigate the New Normal?

This month’s blog posting is an excerpt from November 11, 2015 from the Washington Technology blog, by WT contributor Nick Wakeman.

Last year, when the immixGroup launched their first Government IT Sales Summit, they asked me to moderate a panel on partnering.

Usually, these kinds of events peak in the morning, and then fade out after lunch. My session was in the afternoon, so I didn’t have high expectations. But that changed quickly. First, I struggled to find a parking spot at the hotel, and then I walked in, and it was wall-to-wall with people.

Our room was set up for maybe 75 people, and it was standing room only. Obviously, there is a hunger for what immixGroup is putting on, and this year’s event carries a similarly packed agenda with the theme of Navigating the New Normal.

The event will be held Nov. 19 in Reston, Va. Here is a link to the full agenda.

Full disclosure: Washington Technology is one of several media sponsors of the event.

I won’t be participating in any of the sessions this year, but I’ll be attending as a reporter looking for stories.

As part of the event, they’ve folded in their annual market intelligence budget briefings on defense and civilian spending. With the budget deal having passed last month, perhaps the new normal will include some broader growth.

One of the sessions that caught my eye is on picking the right contract vehicle. It’s an important question given the number of vehicles government agencies have to choose from. How do you guide your customer to the right one?

Being able to answer that question is a key to success in today’s market. The panel will give you insights into working with your customers to identify the right vehicle.

There also are several sessions on data including predictive analytics, data governance, and sharing threat data.

The theme of the new normal is admirable and is a topic I’ve heard discussed across the market. It might not have a single definition. The market has changed in the last five years with constrained budgets and a focus on affordability. The result is a hyper competitive environment with vendors facing multiple pressure points. There are no givens.

Perhaps budgets are going to loosen in the next couple years, but no one expects government buyers to become less focused on cost and efficiency or for the market to become less competitive. The current conditions are not a passing fad. In my opinion, this is the new normal.

And the best thing is to arm yourself with knowledge, which is what I see immixGroup trying to do with their event.

It also should be fun. The lunch keynote speaker is Walter Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He’s the former chairman and CEO of CNN and editor of Time magazine. 

He’ll be talking about innovation, another hot topic in today’s market. He has a new book out: The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. He’s also written biographies of Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger.

I’m sure he’ll be floating some big ideas out to the audience, and it’s always good to hear perspective from outside the government market.

So, if you see me wandering the halls of the Hyatt Regency in Reston next week, please say "Hi."

Posted by Nick Wakeman on Nov 11, 2015 at 9:29 AM

This month’s blog posting is a topical one, speaking about the recent Republican debate. Here is an excerpt from Rebecca Shambaugh, President of SHAMBAUGH, which was posted on her blog site on September 23^rd. Please see her bio after the blog post.

How Carly’s CEO Style Helped Her Win the Republican Debate

by Rebecca Shambaugh

A record number of viewers tuned into last week’s Republican debate. While prior to the latest contest Donald Trump had steadily held a significant lead, many pundits agree that after an intense three-hour match, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina dominated the floor, emerging as the number-two candidate not far behind Trump. According to CNN, Fiorina’s support rating climbed to 15 percent—12 percentage points higher than in early September.

Meanwhile, Trump saw a substantial decrease in support post-debate, losing 8 percentage points from earlier in the month and weighing in at just 24 percent.

With less than 10 percentage points now separating Fiorina from the Republican frontrunner, the question everyone wants answered is: what is Fiorina’s secret sauce that enabled her to climb the charts so dramatically and so quickly? Fiorina demonstrated multi-dimensional layers of leadership presence—cultivated from her over five years as chief executive of one of the largest IT companies in the Fortune 500—offering viewers a glimpse of her CEO style as well as substance.

Her style was visible through her executive poise, standing tall with a sense of calm control in an electric blue suit. She was clear and succinct in her delivery and impeccable in her time management, overrunning the timing bell only once throughout the debate. Fiorina’s style also involved rising above the fray as needed, avoiding the types of direct aggressive attacks that Trump has used throughout the campaign when she knew such attacks would not serve her.

Her substance was demonstrated by her tough, calculated demeanor, calling out Trump for his lack of a policy plan and in contrast inserting her own short list of actions she would take to build up America’s military presence. She spoke confidently and firmly about the logistics of her plan, outlining clear action steps. When tested, as she was frequently during the debate, she never wavered—even when challenged about her past performance as CEO at HP and comments about her physical appearance.

What else seemed potentially presidential about Fiorina? Balanced with her firmness and “ready to fight” demeanor, she displayed a clear sense of compassion and emotion that made it easy for potential voters to connect with her, sharing her personal story of having to bury her stepdaughter who died of drug addiction. She also achieved voter empathy by calling out the American Dream, inspiring others with her story of starting her career as a secretary and rising to CEO, proving that anything is possible in our country.

Lastly, Fiorina’s messaging was strong, such as when she highlighted the fact that women are not a “special interest” group: “Women are the majority of this nation,” she said. “We are half the potential of this nation, and this nation will be better off when every woman has the opportunity to live the life she chooses.”

Regardless of your political affiliation, no one can deny that Fiorina is a fighter, and that her stance and style demonstrate the attributes of a strong and capable leader. The American public is looking for a leader with the power to bring not just toughness but also a human side to the table—and for this debate, Fiorina did just that. As the 2016 presidential race heats up, she’s definitely one to watch.

Who do you think won last week’s Republican debate? I welcome your comments to this post.

Rebecca Shambaugh’s Biography

Rebecca Shambaugh is an internationally recognized leadership expert, author, and keynote speaker. She speaks before thousands of leaders around the world every year, challenging conventional wisdom and overturning assumptions about how to lead in today’s business environment. Her compelling and new vision for leadership in the 21st Century has electrified and inspired audiences on six continents.

Rebecca is President of SHAMBAUGH, a global leadership development organization and Founder of Women In Leadership and Learning (WILL), one of the first executive leadership development programs in the country, dedicated to the research, advancement, and retention of women leaders and executives. Rebecca has coached and advised over a hundred leaders and executives and has enhanced their overall level of excellence in such areas as communications, strategic thinking, inclusive leadership, employee engagement, executive presence, and culture transformation.

Prior to starting her own company, Rebecca has worked for such premier organizations as General Motors, Fairchild Industries, and Amax Inc. as a senior executive in the leadership and human capital arena.

Rebecca has been showcased on CNBC, TED Talks, Fox News (New York), NPR, Washington Business, ABC, and numerous syndicated radio talk shows. She has been featured in publications such as: Leader to Leader, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Time Magazine, USA Today, Fortune Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Pink Magazine, and Entrepreneur Magazine.

Rebecca is a known thought leader in the industry and is the author of two best seller books titled, “It’s Not A Glass Ceiling, It’s A Sticky Floor” and “Leadership Secrets of Hillary Clinton,” and her new book, “Make Room For Her: Why Companies Need an Integrated Leadership Model To Achieve Extraordinary Results,” all published by McGraw-Hill. Her books illustrate her unconventional and results-focused approach to creating great leaders.

Rebecca partners with a cross-section of clients such as: Booz Allen Hamilton, Dow Chemical, Hilton Worldwide, KPMG, Marriott International, IBM, Cisco, National Grid, Humana, HP, Intelsat, MedImmune, Microsoft, and J&J. She is a member of the National Press Club, the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., on the Board of Visitors for Marymount University, on the Board of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, and on the Executive Board for the Virginia Women’s Center. Rebecca is also the Chairman of the Board of Young Women Lead and an Executive Partner for Bentley University’s Center for Women and Business, as well as on the Board of the Red Cross. Other accomplishments include recipient of the Smart CEO Brava! Award, Women Who Mean Business Award, Entrepreneur Organization of the Year Award, and Finalist for the Outstanding Corporate Citizenship Award for Woman-Owned Business of the Year.

Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Relations from Purdue University and a Master of Arts Degree in Organizational Development from Marymount University.

This month’s blog posting is an excerpt from Rayona Sharpnack, the founder and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Leadership which was posted on the Diversity Best Practices blog site on July 27th. Please see her bio after the blog post.

What Do Men Get Out of Advancing Women?
by Rayona Sharpnack, Founder and CEO, Institute for Women’s Leadership

"I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together."
–Jack Johnson, from Better Together on the album "Between Dreams" 

There are many terms bouncing around the internet these days to describe the ideal state for men and women who work together: gender equity, gender equality, gender parity, and gender balance, to name a few.

To me, these terms have a regrettable tinge of separate but equal. What I envision is Gender Partnership, where men and women of all colors and backgrounds bring their widely diverse talents and skills to the table and work together in service of a common goal. (You might recall my May 4 article on the differences between men's and women's brains and how they make it vital to have both perspectives working on the same issue at the same time.)

Now, not everyone is a "team player" who wants to work in partnership. But I urge each of you to open your minds to the experience of trading some innate preferences or understandable pride in individual achievement for the greater results -- and greater pleasure – that come from truly cooperative success.

There's a catch, though. We know from research and past experience that in order for women to be given an opportunity to express their full potential at work, they need men speaking up for them. Men have the power to open more doors, make others listen, and enlist other men in the cause. They can serve as powerful, positive mentors for women wanting to move up the corporate ladder. They've got the clout, they've got the numbers, and when they support the advancement of women in their companies, they cannot be accused of self-interest. Their words carry weight.

I have seen this first-hand in the companies I work with. Gender Partnership goes from being a slightly suspect new concept to men to an exciting (and well-documented) path to increased profits, better problem solving, more innovation, higher customer satisfaction and increased productivity.
 
There has been much documented about the economic benefits corporations have yielded from higher percentages of women in leadership. Here are some of the specific benefits men reap from stepping up and speaking out in behalf advancing women to achieve full Gender Partnership.

       •    They can get better performance reviews   

According to a recent study from the University of Colorado, when white men promoted diversity in hiring and advancement, they got a bump in their  performance reviews. (Women and non-white executives who pushed for other minority candidates to be hired and promoted, however, got dinged when it  came to their performance reviews. Women recommending other women were perceived as colder; non-white executives recommending other non-white executives were seen as less competent.)

       •    They can contribute significantly to talent retention among women at their company

A number of respected studies have shown that women are actively (unconsciously) discouraged from returning to work after having a child. The results of a large survey of Harvard's female MBA grads "suggest that when high-achieving, highly educated professional women leave their jobs after becoming mothers, only a small number do so because they prefer to devote themselves exclusively to motherhood; the vast majority leave reluctantly and as a last resort, because they find themselves in unfulfilling roles with dim prospects for advancement."

The Los Angeles Times reported that qualified women are leaving the tech industry in droves. Women in tech say filling the pipeline of talent won't do much good if women keep quitting — it's like trying to fill a leaking bucket… A Harvard Business Review study from 2008 found that as many as 50% of women  working in science, engineering and technology will, over time, leave because of hostile work environments and male cultures, a sense of isolation, and lack of  a clear career path. An updated study in 2014 found the reasons hadn't significantly changed.

The 200 largest law firms in the country are running into the same problem. Women make up just 17% of the equity partners in these large firms. "The reason for the female exodus from traditional law firm life," an article in the American Bar Association Journal said, "likely touches on… poor culture, inflexibility, and archaic and inefficient business structures."

       •    They can be heroes in saving their companies money

Let's take just one example: It costs $150,000 to $200,000 to replace a high tech worker. This includes the cost of recruiting, the hiring and vetting process and training the newcomer. It doesn't even include the losses incurred in terms of the talent relationships that walk out the door.

And consider this: How much does a company have to make on the top line to pay out a bottom line cost of $200,000?

       •    They can help fill the pipeline and ensure their company’s future

Within five years, more than 60 percent of all of U.S. college grads will be women – while simultaneously 10,000 Baby Boomers are turning 65 every day!   Which companies will they choose to work for?  Firms that practice full Gender Partnership and welcome their ideas, career aspirations, and collaborative approaches to problem solving? Or those with cultures that are unfriendly, dismissive of their talents, and slow to promote them to positions of authority?

       •    They can become better people, fathers, husbands and contributors by uncovering their unconscious gender bias

Few of us believe that we go through life having unconscious bias about women or ethnically diverse people. But one only has to take the Implicit Association Test to see that it's alive in us in every category.  Even women are biased against women, blacks against blacks, and so on. Until we come to consciousness about the frame of reference from which we regard and judge others, this won't change.

I have worked with groups around identifying and shifting their frames of reference – their contexts – for more than 30 years. Here is the process for doing so:  1) Identify your current frame of reference (a belief you have that forms a conclusion) that isn't working for you such as “Women with small children won’t take jobs that require travel”; 2) Consciously choose a new contextual frame of reference (e.g. “Women can be trusted to make job decisions that work for their families”).

Another simple example is this. If your current frame of references sees people unlike you as "them" you can choose a new frame of reference that trades in “It's us versus them" for "It's all us." If you look for evidence to support your new frame of reference, I suspect you will find it as readily as you ever did "proof" of  how valid you old frame of reference was.
 
Man or woman, young or old, Asian, African-American, Latino, Native American – I urge each of you to make the commitment to full Gender Partnership – and check your unconscious bias at the door!

Rayona Sharpnack’s Biography

Rayona Sharpnack is the founder and CEO of the Institute for Women's Leadership, an organization renowned since 1991 for its groundbreaking initiatives in leadership and organizational effectiveness. Drawing from highly successful careers in education, professional sports, and business, Sharpnack is an inspirational teacher, coach and mentor to senior executives across industries. She is also co-founder of GenderAllies, an alliance of inclusion professionals committed to full gender partnership.

Sharpnack's clients include Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, universities and nonprofits, including Pfizer, Gap Inc., Hertz, Cardinal Health, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, Hewlett-Packard and World Pulse. Her masterful approach takes complex theoretical concepts and distills them into memorable and easily grasped learning. More than 20,000 women and men – from mid-level managers to C-suite executives – have relied on her and the Institute for Women's Leadership to coach them to achieve breakthrough results both at work and in their personal lives.

Her pioneering work has earned her numerous awards and appointment as Chairwoman of Leadership Development on the Women's Leadership Board of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Sharpnack has presented her outstanding achievements in advancing women leaders and building high-performance organizations to prestigious institutions and associations such as:

• Harvard University 
• Stanford Business School
• U.C. Berkeley's Hass School of Business
• State of the World Forum

• Canadian Federal Government
• Australian Federal Government
• Leadership America
• Professional and Business Women of California

National publications, including Fast Company and The New York Times, have showcased her leadership model.