Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Podcast Episode Two: The Satisfaction Factor
In the second of our three-part Corporate Best Practices series, author Sally Helgesen talks about the changing definition of career satisfaction, and how employee satisfaction impacts the bottom line. She is joined by Heather Lowe of Abbott, who comments on flexibility and career sustainability. You can click to listen right here, or subscribe to download the podcast via iTunes.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Striking Balance
Forté does a great job of making their events as interactive as possible, so at the Corporate Best Practices Summit, our table had an assignment: come up with tips on work/life balance. In 20 minutes, while we’re eating lunch. Impossible, you say? Well, actually, we tackled our assignment with great fervor and came up with what I at least felt was brilliant advice: eliminate the term. Strike “work/life balance” from our vocabulary.
For the sake of full disclosure, I should say right off the bat that I have been advocating the elimination of “balance” since co-authoring Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today’s Nontraditional Workforce. In the book, my co-author Cathy Benko and I argue that work/life balance – with its implication that work and life are opposing forces that can somehow be balanced in a perfect, static pose – is a mirage. Work is a part of life, not separate from it, so we need language that reflects this. We propose work/life integration or work/life fit.
In speaking around the country about mass career customization, I have been amazed at the reaction to the call to strike “balance” from our vocabulary. One woman came up to me afterwards almost in tears to say “that was one of the most liberating things I have ever heard. Thank you.” I get that kind of response a lot. I think many women (in particular, although men feel it too) think they are supposed to have this magical thing called “work/life balance” and so feel like failures when they don’t.
There is no need to put this kind of pressure on ourselves. Rather, we should start a campaign to eliminate balance from our vocabulary and our expectations. So that we can all get on with our lives – including how we fit our work into our lives and our lives into our work. What do you think? Will you join the campaign?
For the sake of full disclosure, I should say right off the bat that I have been advocating the elimination of “balance” since co-authoring Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today’s Nontraditional Workforce. In the book, my co-author Cathy Benko and I argue that work/life balance – with its implication that work and life are opposing forces that can somehow be balanced in a perfect, static pose – is a mirage. Work is a part of life, not separate from it, so we need language that reflects this. We propose work/life integration or work/life fit.
In speaking around the country about mass career customization, I have been amazed at the reaction to the call to strike “balance” from our vocabulary. One woman came up to me afterwards almost in tears to say “that was one of the most liberating things I have ever heard. Thank you.” I get that kind of response a lot. I think many women (in particular, although men feel it too) think they are supposed to have this magical thing called “work/life balance” and so feel like failures when they don’t.
There is no need to put this kind of pressure on ourselves. Rather, we should start a campaign to eliminate balance from our vocabulary and our expectations. So that we can all get on with our lives – including how we fit our work into our lives and our lives into our work. What do you think? Will you join the campaign?
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Podcast One: Recruiting and Retaining Talent
In conjunction with our CBPS event in New York, Forté produced a three-part podcast program exploring issues related to recruitment and retention of women business leaders. Hear Sharon Hall, Claudia Tattanelli, Sally Helgesen, Heather Lowe, Anne Weisberg and Allyson Moore discuss what companies are doing to find and keep their most talented women. This is a conversation in three parts - watch for upcoming installments over the next several weeks. You can click to listen right here, or subscribe to download the podcast via iTunes.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
What do you do?
No matter how long it has been since you graduated from college (or graduate school, or post graduate school), people are going to come up to you and ask “What do you do?” Whenever I get that question, I stumble trying to find the right “box” to fit myself into. I am a lawyer by training, but I don’t practice. I work in Talent, but I am not a human resources practitioner. My kids call me a professional feminist, but that’s more like an inside joke than a job description! See why I struggle?
But actually, the reason I struggle is that I’ve been trying to answer the wrong question. This realization came to me listening to Peter Fiske, who wrote Put Your Science to Work: The Take-Charge Career Guide for Scientists (and also have a monthly on-line entrepreneurship column “Opportunities,” published at http://www.sciencecareers.org/.). Peter was a fellow panelist at the 8th Annual Princeton University Reunions Career Colloquium (which is pretty cool, just by itself). The panel was titled “Career Mapping: Navigating Choices & Circumstances in a Plan for Life” and Peter talked about how he made the transition from academic science to business. He said the first step was to reframe what he did – from “I am a chemist” to “I conduct large scale research to solve complex problems.”
The trick is to stop thinking about what you “do” from the point of view of your function or, your training, and start thinking about it from the vantage point of what value you bring, or what purpose you serve. This reframing needs to happen at both the individual and at the organizational level. One of the things we learned at the Forte 2008 Corporate Best Practices Summit is that people, particularly women, want to work for companies that have a strong sense of purpose. But most companies do a terrible job explaining what their mission is. One exception is Avon. Ask Avon’s CEO, Andrea Jung, “what does Avon do?” and she won’t say “We’re a cosmetics company.” Instead, she will tell you that Avon is the largest microfinance lender to women in the world. Because that is, actually, what Avon does – it extends credit to women so they can buy Avon products and then sell them at a profit.
So, the next time you’re at a networking event, or talking to a recruiter about your company, and wondering how to answer that age-old question, try reframing the question. Try answering “what purpose do you serve?” The answer to that will come more easily. Because it turns out we all want to answer that question. And, please, let us know, “what do you do?”
But actually, the reason I struggle is that I’ve been trying to answer the wrong question. This realization came to me listening to Peter Fiske, who wrote Put Your Science to Work: The Take-Charge Career Guide for Scientists (and also have a monthly on-line entrepreneurship column “Opportunities,” published at http://www.sciencecareers.org/.). Peter was a fellow panelist at the 8th Annual Princeton University Reunions Career Colloquium (which is pretty cool, just by itself). The panel was titled “Career Mapping: Navigating Choices & Circumstances in a Plan for Life” and Peter talked about how he made the transition from academic science to business. He said the first step was to reframe what he did – from “I am a chemist” to “I conduct large scale research to solve complex problems.”
The trick is to stop thinking about what you “do” from the point of view of your function or, your training, and start thinking about it from the vantage point of what value you bring, or what purpose you serve. This reframing needs to happen at both the individual and at the organizational level. One of the things we learned at the Forte 2008 Corporate Best Practices Summit is that people, particularly women, want to work for companies that have a strong sense of purpose. But most companies do a terrible job explaining what their mission is. One exception is Avon. Ask Avon’s CEO, Andrea Jung, “what does Avon do?” and she won’t say “We’re a cosmetics company.” Instead, she will tell you that Avon is the largest microfinance lender to women in the world. Because that is, actually, what Avon does – it extends credit to women so they can buy Avon products and then sell them at a profit.
So, the next time you’re at a networking event, or talking to a recruiter about your company, and wondering how to answer that age-old question, try reframing the question. Try answering “what purpose do you serve?” The answer to that will come more easily. Because it turns out we all want to answer that question. And, please, let us know, “what do you do?”
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