I’d Like to Attend a Course for Professional Women But…?

Each time I post details of a new course for professional women, either leadership for women or personal development type courses, I get several phone calls from women who are thinking of attending but have a few questions. I am assuming that there are other women out there who have some of the same questions but for various reasons don’t get around to asking them. So, here are the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about my courses for professional women.

Frequently Asked Questions About Changing People Women’s Courses

• Will I have to do role play?

This must be the most frequently asked question ever! The answer is a resounding no, never ever. Role play is rarely helpful, I find, unless you want to improve your dramatic skills. I am not in the business of making women feel uncomfortable so we can get to the ‘issues’. Poppycock. However, there is plenty of evidence that sharing issues, concerns, ideas etc can have a very positive effect on lessening our stress levels and strengthening our commitment to make positive life changes. So I have built those opportunities into my women’s courses. But it’s private, discrete and you are always in control of what you choose to share with others. There are no soul baring sessions!

• I am a professional woman but I may want to share issues  I’d rather keep private from work
  

Of course, that’s part of furthering your development. I have a very strict confidentiality clause and to my knowledge no one has ever transgressed it. Unless you openly talk about it, for example on twitter or on Facebook or give me permission, I will not even acknowledge that we know each other in public (although I won’t ignore you if we bump into each other in the supermarket!) All potentially personal work take  place in small groups with no large group sharing.

• Do we hug trees, or any equivalent of thereof?

I’m sorry to break this to you, but no. I seldom hug trees (I did faint against a large oak after a charity walk once but I don’t think that counts!). Although if you wanted to hug a tree mid course I wouldn’t stop you; I always try to choose venues with a lovely outside space or restful interiors (like the Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath pictured)! I am a very practical down to earth person. I use what works, what I can evidence through sound research and what I know has worked over the decades I’ve worked with women. I’m happy if you want to consult crystals, chakras, read books about secrets etc and I respect your views. But it isn’t what you get from me.

• What type of woman comes on your courses?
  

All types of women come on my courses! The range is enormous from age, location and profession. Most are working, usually at middle or higher management, or running their own businesses, with a strong desire to improve their working lives. Sometimes, women come after a particularly life changing event (redundancy, separation, illness) to take stock and think about ‘what next’. It’s not always about work. In fact, women much more than men like to look holistically at their lives which is one reason I run women only courses; the issues are different.

Some women keen to progress and others are having an ‘is this what I really want?‘ moment and use a course like Renewyou to work through this issue. Without exception the women on my courses are supportive and helpful and gain as much from talking with each other as from me. That is one of the powerful advantages of working in a well run group. You can read a little more about that here.

Speak Up is aimed at professional women working out how best to work alongside men, and communicate effectively.

• How big are your courses?

I do not run large over filled courses. When working in house within an organisation there may be an absolute maximum of 30, but never any larger. It depends on the course. For my own public courses, when I book the venue and handle the bookings personally, I rarely go above 12 women  and sometimes as low as 6. That way everyone can be assured of some personal attention from me and an atmosphere that’s conducive to getting the most out of the day.

If you have any questions at all about anything on the site, or in the newsletter (sign up in box to right of page) please email me on jane at changingpeople.co.uk or call 01761438749. I love to hear from you!

You might also like to take a look at Personal Development or Training?

Sexism has ended in Hollywood! Er….no

It was a great week end for media coverage of women in the newspapers. I particularly liked this article from Paul Harris in The Guardian newspaper, although others picked up on this story too. Here it is, edited down although the link will take you to the full story on line:

“Hollywood Women Unite to Break Through the Celluloid Ceiling

With female scriptwriters behind some of the biggest movies, from Juno to Kung Fu Panda 2, it seems the sexism barrier has been lifted. But has it?

Next week the Athena Film Festival will open at Barnard College in New York. The showcase, which commences on 9 February and is in its second year, is aimed at celebrating women film-makers and rewarding their art and successes. It will consist of screenings, awards and the usual parties, but with a feminist slant. Among those getting accolades will be a group of women in Hollywood known as “the Fempire“.

The Fempire consists of screenwriters Diablo Cody, Dana Fox, Liz Meriwether and Lorene Scafaria, who between them have worked on films that range from the quirky indie smash hit Juno to the big mainstream Hollywood comedy Couples Retreat. According to Melissa Silverstein, co-founder of the Athena festival, and the woman behind the acclaimed Women and Hollywood blog, the four women’s award will include the words: “For their creativity and their sisterhood.”

It is the word “sisterhood” that is key. The talent possessed by the women is not in doubt. It is their self-conscious decision openly to promote themselves in solidarity with other women that is different in a movie world dominated by men. It also goes against an enduring Hollywood myth: that women let into the Tinseltown boys’ club won’t help each other out. “There is a mythology that women can’t be friends with each other because they have to compete for jobs. We have to get beyond that,” said Silverstein.

The latest Celluloid Ceiling figures for the top 250 US films produced in 2011 have just been released. They make grim reading. Women made up only 5% of Hollywood directors last year, a drop from 7% in 2010. Even as far back as 1998 the figure was 7%.

“That is a kick in the gut,” said Silverstein. But elsewhere progress is hardly fast-track. In total, women made up 18% of behind-the-scenes roles in Hollywood in 2011 – against 16% in 2010. But that, again, is only an increase of one percentage point over 1998. About 38% of films employed one or no women in the senior jobs that the survey studied.

Overwhelmingly, the pattern in Hollywood is not of progress towards greater female empowerment, but of stagnation or even retreat. In this context the huge amounts of publicity given to the work of women like Bigelow and Hardwicke seem like tokenism at best. “People tend to see them as evidence of creeping progress, that things get a little better each year, and so then we don’t need to think of it as a problem,” said Lauzen. “But in reality the numbers are stable. Surprisingly so. And the number of women directors is actually going down.”

But the decision of women in Hollywood to start forming their own networks raises the question of why Hollywood remains so gender-divided. Of course, it is not alone. Numerous commentators in Davos last week at the World Economic Forum have noted the lack of women present as the planet’s major woes are discussed. In fact, at Davos only 17% of delegates are women. Meanwhile, it has been pointed out that about 84% of guests and reporters on BBC Radio 4′s flagship Today programme are men. But at least in some of these areas progress is being made. In Davos the number of women attending, despite being so small, was at its highest yet – up from 9% in 2002.

Hooray for Hollywood?

Meanwhile Hollywood still stands out in its intransigence and – at the high-profile level of director – for going backwards. There is likely to be no easy solution. “I don’t think there is a magic bullet,” said Lauzen, citing Hollywood studio’s testosterone-fuelled corporate culture and it’s “clubbable” atmosphere.

Silverstein agrees: “It is a very small club and there are very few woman decision makers at the top level.”

Both Lauzen and Silverstein believe that true change in the film industry– which lags notably behind television – will mean getting women into more behind-the-scenes roles, especially powerful positions. Of course, that is precisely where the groups like the Fempire and Maven Films will come in. Women have to start projects and help other women along, gradually transforming the world behind the camera so their choices and tastes can eventually affect the world in front of it.

They also have to defeat the idea that women are only good at movies that women are believed likely to watch. After all, Bigelow’s Oscar-winner was a war film and the biggest female-directed hit last year was Kung Fu Panda 2, a family animation feature not aimed at a specific gender market.

Optimism

There are also a few signs of optimism elsewhere in the ecology of Hollywood. While the giant studios that produce and market most of the main Hollywood films are bastions of male dominance, especially the higher up you go, the media that reports on those behemoths is increasingly woman-led. In fact, many of the highest profile Hollywood journalists are women. Queen of the pile is the legendary Nikki Finke, founder and editor of the website Deadline Hollywood. Then there is Sharon Waxman, editor in chief of its rival website The Wrap. Meanwhile, Bonnie Fuller has started the gossip website Hollywood Life. But it’s not just online that women rule the roost. At the Hollywood Reporter – often considered the trade bible of the movie industry — the editorial director is Janice Min. This mini power-shift has itself led to the occasional sexist backlash.

But for now a lack of women in power in Hollywood is still hiding behind the success of a few big names. “You don’t see a lot of overt sexism. But you do see a lot of denial,” said Lauzen. ” End of article

So it’s not just our own dear BBC that is playing down women’s contributions. In fact, I see it everywhere. As an exercise I took a look through through my liberal type newspaper this morning. A good quarter of the paper is devoted to sport but there was not one woman’s sport featured, not even a hint. It was as if women don’t play sport at all… Fortunately this same newspaper managed to find space for some fashion shots of young under weight women wearing unwearable clothes (that’s a contradiction, I know but I’m on a roll here!)

Speak Up

I’ll say it again; wanting women to have a transparently fair opportunity is not about doing men down. It’s about trying to raise awareness of the issues and practices which are so long ingrained that most of us don’t even see it any more. My Speak Up course is emphatically not about putting men down; it’s about putting women up. We’ll be looking at some of the issues for ambitious women in the workplace and, together with the latest research, coming up with strategies which will work for individuals. We can’t change the whole of society but we can make a start!

Full details of the Speak Up one day course for women, at the gorgeous Royal Crescent Hotel are available by clicking here.

Women Are Difficult at Work?

Whenever I post something about gender issues someone will invariably feel compelled to tell me that they have worked with “difficult women“; that women don’t support each other, are ‘bitchy’ (hate that word) and that they once had a female boss who was awful.

Most of the time I resist the impulse to say “So what?”

For the purposes of clarification and so in future I can refer such folk (and it’s men and women equally) to this post, let me explain:

• wanting a fairer representation for women at work
• wanting to see women represented in serous news programmes
• wanting to see more women in senior positions
• wanting businesses to have more women on boards
• running a course for women who want to progress
• coaching women who want to progress in their careers
• wanting to see what women bring to the professional world is valued alongside the attributes of men

does NOT mean that I think women are better than men and infallible.

Women get it wrong sometimes.

Men get it wrong sometimes.

We are different and bring different gifts to the table. I want to see a world where we make space at the table for both and not run things so one half of the population has an advantage.

If you enjoyed this post, do take a look at A Feminist Paradox, and am happy to hear your views too!

Photo Credit: Nextia

Flex – Do Something Different!

Having read and reviewed several books from this author before (well one half of the duo)  such as Sheconomics and The No Diet (do something different) Diet Book I picked this one up with alacrity. Well, to be totally frank and honest the publishers sent it to me precisely because I had reviewed the other two books, but in all truthfulness I think I would have bought it anyway! It chimes with much of my own beliefs and we all like to have our views confirmed!

It’s a different kind of read to the other two I’ve mentioned being mainly written by Ben, although Karen is a co-author. The premise behind No Diet is that our habits not lack of will power keep us chained to old possibly destructive ways of behaving. Flex takes this further and deeper, suggesting that by changing our habitual way of behaving,  we can tap into our full potential and transform our life.

And this book gives you all the science so excellent for psychology students too!

Here’s an extract from Flex so you can get an idea of style:

Page 104: 40 What Does a Do Something Different Intervention Look Like?

We know that when people keep doing the same things it can make life at best boring and at worst troublesome. But habits also narrow our view. They blind us to the many other options that are available to us. Therefore a Do Something Different programme simply suggests different things to do each day. These switch off a person’s auto pilot and put them back in the driving seat of life. By making small daily disruptions to their everyday life they start to steer it down a different track. There’s no struggle, no gritted teeth to maintain their will power – just a grdual loosening of the habit-web that had a stranglehold on the person.

When a person starts to do something different they:

• expand their world
• break free of their comfort zone
• shake off the habits that held them back
• look at things differently
• open up to new possibilities
• see themselves in a new light
• allow new opportunities into their life and
• have different reflections about themselves

And here’s one example of doing things differently suggested by the authors:

• Shift Your Butt Day: Today don’t sit anywhere that you would normally sit. That’s at the dining table, at work, watching TV, or in a meeting.Triggers for unwanted behaviour often exist in our daily routines and the environment around us. Literally changing where we sit can mean we are not triggered to do what we would normally do in that place.

It’s not an especially light read and if I have one small criticism it’s that it occasionally feels like it veers between being a self help book aimed at individuals and a text book for serious student of psychology. Tabloid to broadsheet in one chapter – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing! The advice is sound and it works. You’ll also find lots of quizzes and self examining questionnaires in its pages which are helpful in understanding oneself and great for those who love them!

Overall I recommend this book to anyone interested in making serious changes, or in helping others make changes. It will have a place in my book list when training and be on my ‘useful resources’ table. Don’t expect to pick it up and dip in; it demands more from you than that but a thorough reading will pay dividends.

Flex. Do Something Different. How to use the other 9/10s of your personality, by Professors Ben (C) Fletcher andKaren Pine, published by University of Herefordshire Press ISBN 978-1-907396-54-0 at £8.99 Available from your library, good bookshops and from the University site

A Feminist Paradox?

There has been much debate recently about the BBC’s flagship radio news programme Today and whether it is sexist or not, ie very few women appear in it and it has 4 male presenters and only one woman.  As you might have guessed I’ve had a few words to say on the subject too (Do Women Need Role Models?) Questions have even been asked in parliament!

Libby Purvis, a respected and experienced broadcaster wrote about it in the Mail recently. By and large she doesn’t agree with the criticism (although I don’t agree totally with her it’s a good article, click link at end to read it). In brief she says that the Today programme represents the world as it is, more men are in power than women. Implicit is that it’s not the BBC’s role to change attitudes and formulate policy (there’s a thesis waiting to be done on that!)

And therein lies the paradox…..we need more women in power to hear about more women in powerful roles, but the world is ruled by men and until women get into power that won’t change….

Answers on a postcard please, or simply use the comments box below.

Click here to read Libby’s article.

“Men Cause Conflict – Women Befriend” ?

My eye was caught by a recent review of the psychological evidence re gender and aggression. Professor Mark van Vugt from the Institute for Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, has reviewed all the psychological evidence and says the evidence is conclusive:

Male sex drive is at the root of most violence in the world; men are shaped by evolution to be aggressive towards ‘outsiders’. The tendency to violence is strengthened by natural selection.

Are Men Really More Violent?

It makes for hard reading. I have a son and husband who are not violent people, far from it. However, I have found myself thinking violent thoughts when one of my own has been threatened or hurt (but I have to say I have never actually hit anyone – just fantasised about it!) And if you’ve ever been in the car when someone cuts my daughter up block up your ears!

Yet the evidence is there and I know it from my work with professional women and my own experience. Generally speaking men are much more aggressive in the workplace than women and this quality is a valued one in business. We women, say the researchers, have evolved to resolve conflicts peacefully (don’t all shout “Margaret Thatcher – Faulklands” at me, she was just one woman, statistically insignificant).

Says Professor van Vugt, “A solution to conflict…remains elusive. One reason for this may be the difficulty we have in changing our mindset which has evolved over thousands of years.”

I have a solution and I’m sure you can guess what it is!

Give women equal billing in the world. Have a more gender balanced approach to power, a true balance, and lets see what happens.

If this is of interest you may also like We Women Do Compete. And do let me know what you think; I love to hear your views.

Photo Credit: Kriss Szkurlatowski