Is Your Handbag a Status Symbol?

Once again, a BBC radio 4 programme prompted this post; in this case the prestigious flagship news programme, Today. At the end of the programme they tend to have a slightly flippant item (because obviously all the serious folk have gone to work!).

This particular item was about women’s handbags and how they provide an ice breaker for women in business. It followed an interview Hillary Clinton had given to Harper’s Bazaar magazine. This is what she said:

“I do love a good handbag,” she agrees. Can accessories be the great uniter of women? “I think they could be either a great divider or uniter,” she replies. “I’m on the uniter side. I think no one should make fun of anyone else’s handbag choices.” She warms to the topic. “I think we should be united in our support of one another. Because this is like a deep psychological need. It’s a desire to kind of organize and contain that which is important to you in your daily life. I have a philosophical view about this, and I have this Ferragamo hot-pink bag that I adore. My view was that I would carry it around only in spring, but it makes me so happy, I’m even now lugging it around in January. I mean, how can you be unhappy if you pick up a big pink bag?”

To discuss these remarks from one of the most influential women in America they had invited a female UK politician, Glenys Kinnock and an ex politician now pundit, Matthew Parris. Neither of them lightweights so my interest was piqued.

At first I was irritated. Here we go I thought, trivialising women again but then my sense of humour reasserted itself. Hillary Clinton had not been asked for her political views; everyone knows she is a serious, well established and committed politician. She was talking to a fashion magazine about the things which made her happy and which, presumably, gave her confidence a bit of a boost. Does it matter? Maybe they were being more stereotypical by asking a gay man on to comment?

Men and Women are Different

Sorry to state the bl***ing obvious but men and women are different in this respect. It’s not that all women think clothes and handbags are of paramount importance. It’s simply that some of us get pleasure from them, some of the time (it’s a whole other debate about advertising and brainwashing of young girls etc but that aside, I think women feel differently about these things).

Glenys Kinnock proffered the view that at meetings (I think she actually referred to international summits) handbags and shoes could be a great way of connecting, of levelling the ground. Admiring another woman’s bag or shoes was like extending a hand of friendship.

Matthew Parris’ response was interesting and illuminating. He first said his mother hated handbags. But then more interestingly that men would probably not say anything complimentary about another man’s attire or possessions at a business meeting because they would be using bags/wallets/shoes/laptops (paraphrasing now) to convey their status and authority. In other words, they would not want to be facilitative and levelling. They would want to be top dog.

Research

That ties in with received wisdom and some research into how men and women behave in business. Women are generally more conciliatory and facilitative. And generally that is thought to be a possible factor in why women don’t rise to the top- we lack the killer instinct. Yet by every measure Hillary must be seen as a woman at ‘the top’, even if she didn’t get the presidential  nomination. She’s a success story. So she can talk about handbags…

(Of course, there is always an exception. I doubt whether Maggie Thatcher ever complimented anyone on their handbag in order to be conciliatory!)

What do you think? Are you turned off by discussions about handbags? Do you think it belittles and demeans serious women? Or do you think the world would be a better place if we all carried beautiful colourful bags around? Men too!

Keep Your Power!

Are you aware just how much personal power you have? I’m not talking about authority you have over other people because of status or wealth, or physical strength, but your inner command of yourself. How you actually feel, regardless of external trappings.

When I am working one to one with people who are experiencing difficulties with colleagues, the issue of personal power is often key in understanding and dealing with the problem. Ask yourself:

“Why are you giving away your power? Why are you letting ‘them’ have this degree of power over you?” (Obviously there are multitude of reasons for that which is why we’re talking in the first place!) Try to fully understand the situation you find yourself in from all angles.

Personal power is a funny thing. You experience a sense of power when you feel in control of your life yet can feel really powerless even if you’re the top woman in your organisation. Feeling powerful helps you achieve your goals.  Projecting personal power appropriately helps you influence others. It’s worth paying attention to it consciously.

Communication is Powerful

Considerable power comes from the ability to communicate really well; think about some of the great orators of our time (and if you’ve seen the film, The King’ s Speech, you’ll appreciate how our influential our upbringing can be, regardless of wealth or status).

People who are in control of their personal power don’t play the blame game much. Once you start blaming, or attributing consequences for you to someone else, you are effectively giving away your power. This commonly translates as:

“They make me feel….”

Stop right there. No one can make you feel anything. It’s the one area you have control. ‘They‘ may wish to make you feel small, insignificant etc but you can choose not to let them sap your personal power in this way. In the free world we all make choices about what we do, where we live, (within reason), who are our friends, what books we read, etc. Once we start allowing other people to control our feelings we are giving away power.

Choose Energy & Optimism

Power includes enthusiasm and optimism and power is related to self-esteem and confidence. So it follows that if you give it away your energy and confidence gets zapped too. And that’s a hard place to recover from. If you find yourself in that position, just ask yourself: “How much will I let this person/situation into my inner personal me. OK, I have to work here,( at the moment), I have to put up with cuts in service, changes in practise, changes in personnel. Or I may choose to stay in this relationship right now for various reasons, but deep within me I can remain intact”.

Become aware of the impact of other people on you, communicate with them assertively but respectfully and keep hold of your personal power!

What is Important in Your Life?

The advertising world is very good at telling us what we want to eat, to read, to look like, to wear, how to decorate our homes and so on. It has a vested interest in us ‘wanting’ things so it creates needs we didn’t know we had until they told us! Very few of us are immune ( I speak as someone who has just acquired a flat screen TV- yes, we are very late adopters!)

Most of this is relatively harmless (unless you buy from companies which exploit countries, employees and use child labour!) as long as in our hearts we know what really counts.

Policy, Procedures, Politics & Overload

It’s not just advertising though. In our work we can get dazzled (or dazed) by policies, procedures, promotions,  and politics and start to lose sight of the really important things in life. In the scramble to do our job well, get noticed, fight our corner, we can forget why we work in the first place, what our own bottom line is. Sometimes the higher up the organisation we go, the more disconnected we can feel with staff delivering service on the ground. This disconnect can lead to feelings of dissatisfaction which we fill by trying to do more of the things which took us there in the first place, or buying things to booster our self esteem and provide a justification for what we’re doing all day long.

No One is Immune

I experienced this myself. I started out in my social work career to make a difference, to help people have better lives. Yet the more I advanced the further away I found myself from my original aspiration and the more involved I seemed to get with minutia. It was very seductive for a while, feeling important.

My awakening came when I tried to evaluate just what contribution I was making to the very people I had started out wanting to help. It didn’t feel enough. Occasionally, despite being my own boss, it still doesn’t, and I have to go and reconnect, irrespective of whether this is a good move for my business or my purse!

I  see symptoms of disconnect sometimes when working one to one with senior managers. They can get so fixated on their own roles that they forget what their organisation is there to do, what it’s like for those directly in touch with the public or customer. For example, a while back, while acting in a consulting role, I made a comment that staff would be pleased with something we had agreed (the agreement was achieved with some hearty debate).

“Oh well, as long as they are happy” a senior manager said in a voice heavy with sarcasm, entirely missing the point. The point was not to make senior managers happy but to improve service delivery on the ground; front line staff deliver service on the ground, either through sales, or service. Unhappy, demoralised staff give bad service and do not work well in my experience. Lose sight of that and you are on a hiding to nothing.

By the same token,  your own personal satisfaction falls when you lose sight of your own personal values.

Go Back to the Floor

One remedy for managers is to get back out on the ‘shop floor’, whatever that might be. Actually go and visit staff, spend a day on the ground. get a real up to date feel for what goes on. I know one chief executive who spent a day on a public enquiry desk to better understand what staff were dealing with. It was very enlightening!

It’s a remedy for all of us, when we’re getting caught up in work battles and politics – remember what is really important to us. Keep your foundations solid.

What is really important in your life, and are you giving it the care and attention it deserves? How do you make sure that you keep yourself connected?

And You Are…?

I don’t know about you but I really hate those networking events where you get one minute to put your pitch, then you listen to their one minute spiel, frantically swap business cards and move on. I never knowingly attend them but occasionally I get caught out and find myself in the circle of wordage doom being herded around like a sheep!

It definitely brings out my naughty child and I hear myself saying ridiculous things, which has conclusively proved to me that no one is really listening anyway, just concentrating on their up coming moment of glory! Sometimes, if I’m really lucky, I’ll encounter a fellow renegade and we’ll slope off together to chat in a corner and leave the one minute spielers to their fun.

So, what follows is nothing to do with awful networking events but is an exercise to give some thought to how you present yourself to people.

First Impressions

I occasionally use this exercise on my women’s courses, like RenewYou; you might like to try it yourself.

Think of three scenarios when you might encounter someone on whom you wish to make a good impression. These might be:

• a person you are attracted to
• someone you think could be a great mate
• a person who may be a potential employer or new client
• your old teacher
• your child’s prospective in laws
• new neighbours

In each scenario what are the key facts about yourself you’d like to get across? What impression would you like to leave them with? Rather than sentences you could try out a few adjectives about yourself.

And then next time you get stuck in a circle of wordage doom you can easily fill your minute! But make sure you don’t accidentally lurch into your ‘person I fancy’ spiel! Although, on second thoughts, it probably won’t matter as very few are really listening!

Learn More Effectively – Make It Difficult!

Some research was recently published (in January 2011 edition of Cognition by  Connor Diemand-Yeoman et al) which looked at how different type face fonts impacted on our ability to take in the information.

It always pays to maintain a healthy scepticism about research as much of it is done on young students, an easy resource for most psychology departments (in this case I think it was Princeton University and a group of undergraduates). Results don’t always universally transfer to the population at large when other factors are included. However, in this case, the research makes sense to me.

Hard to Read

The researchers discovered that, flying in the face of conventional training wisdom, the more difficulty students had reading a particular font, the more they retained the information. Whereas most of us try to make our training, information (or marketing) as accessible as possible! Maybe we should start to be a little more obtuse…?

Of course, students have  a built in reason to learn; they will tested in some way on what they know. But the research does have a resonance with what we know about how powerful doing things differently can be, why mind mapping works, and why some of the most powerful learning in our lives often stems from difficult and painful times.

So next time someone criticises your writing, tell them you’re actually doing it to help them! And if you have some notes to learn, try altering the font it’s in to something more challenging and conduct your own piece of research! I’d love to know how you get on!

Are You a Parent or a Manager?

If you manage staff do you do it on an adult to adult basis or do you find yourself lapsing into a parent type ego state? And if you are not in a management role, what type of manager do you have?

Transactional Analysis

When I’m working within organisations I often find it really helpful to use T.A. terms to help staff analyse what could be improved upon with their communication styles and working relationships.

One of the most common issues I come across is the parenting style of management. Generally speaking this is not a helpful position to hold and does not develop staff, either for their own good or to the benefit of the organisation.

Two Parenting Styles

There are two types of parent ego states in Transactional Analysis, the nurturing parent and the critical parent. While being on the receiving end of a nurturing type parent manager might be preferable to the critical I’d argue that neither are helpful or appropriate in a professional setting.

If you have a nurturing type manager they will be likely to speak to you in soothing calming tones. They may make you drinks often, pat you on the back, tell you not to worry and that they will go that potentially difficult meeting for you. Their kindness can stifle your potential, they do not allow you to make your own mistakes and develop.

On the other hand, a critical parent manager, will be forever finding fault with what you do, point their finger a lot, use phrases such as “You should do this..or “Pay attention here” They will rarely praise you for a job well done but seek to instruct you in ways you could have done it better.

A manager in adult ego state will treat you with respect, will use phrases such as “This might be useful to you” or “Have you seen this report?” In general their behaviour will be assertive.

Childlike Responses

The critical point about non adult styles of management is that staff are likely to respond from their learned childlike ego state. While this may occasionally be appropriate, usually it is not. Most organisations do not want a staff group frightened to make suggestions, use their initiative, or who are so disenchanted that they are subversive and ‘naughty’! And most people want to be treated as adults when working with opportunities to develop and grow.

Share Your Experiences of Managers

Do you recognise any of the above? I’d love to hear about your experiences of managers, if you noticed an effect on your behaviour, and how you responded to this.

If you’d like some support with your own management style, call me now on 01761 438749 or use the contact page to find out how I might help you or your organisation!