How To Improve your Working Life with 3 Simple Ideas!

It’s hard enough at the best of times if you don’t like your job but when there’s an economic downturn it can feel like a prison sentence. Good jobs are thin on the ground, and let’s face it, we’ve all got to eat and pay the bills. And so you stay put and try not to rock the boat too much but it’s eating away at you. Your enthusiasm starts to wane, you lose motivation,your joie de vivre for other parts of your life is affected and before you know it you’re well and truly fed up!

How to Improve Your Working Life

Here’s three tips to help you cope with the bad times and get ready for the upturn (trust me, this will pass).

1Don’t Take it Personally, Think Global

We women have an uncanny ability to personalise things. Thoughts like ‘Why me?‘, ‘I’m no good’, ‘I’m so unlucky’ start to morph into ‘I’ll never get a good job again‘, ‘no one will employ me’. It’s a downward spiral and doing you no good at all. I’m all for being realistic about situations and the reality of this situation is that there is a global economic downturn and ‘times is ‘ard’ for almost everyone. It is not personal.

2 Upgrade Your Spam Filter

Now about those little messages dropping unwanted into your brain as you sigh over yet another unrewarding piece of work you have to do. Believe me, they are making you feel worse. So if we want to feel better we need to deal with them. If you’re a regular reader you’ll know I’m very into evidence based research and using techniques that work. Well, positive thinking is not something off the wall; it’s a technique that works and is used in treatment models for all kinds of conditions.

First you have to identify your negative messages to self (write them down as the thoughts go in; I bet you’re really unkind to yourself sometimes). Then you have to harness that negative impact for a good and positive one. So turn your spam into something helpful, like ‘ I am good at what I do’, ‘this will pass’, and so on. I can’t write them for you as they have to be something that sounds like you talking and doesn’t make you squirm with embarrassment!

3 Find Something Fulfilling Outside of Work

When you’re not getting what you want from work try and get it from somewhere else! Work out what you’re missing: challenge, stimulation, new learning, team work, responsibility, money maybe, and see if there is a way of finding that outside your current role. You could offer yourself and your skills to a charity, maybe do an additional part time job (that’s harder but not impossible), start an online course, read a self help book and try out what it advises, sign up for an evening class…. Give yourself ten minutes to jot down all the possibilities, don’t censor anything. Or better still do it with a friend and make it fun.

I’d love to hear how you cope or have coped if you’ve ever been stuck in a job rut. And don’t forget my book ‘When Work Isn’t Working’ covers all of this and more.

Photo Credit: Kostas Kitsos

Techie women, where are you?

“Women represent more than 50 percent of the American professional workforce and own more than 40 percent of private businesses in the U.S., yet they fill only 25 percent of technology jobs and start only 8 percent of technology companies.

In contrast, research shows that tech companies with a higher representation of women in their management teams have a higher return on investment; that startups run by women use less capital and are more likely to survive the transition to established company; and that including women in a group is more likely to increase its collective intelligence, helping it solve problems better and faster than homogenous groups.”

In Europe the picture is no better with a significant under representation of women at all levels in technology.

• Why do you think we women are still not up there with the guys re technical careers?

• If you’re a younger woman tell me how was the topic taught to you at school?

• If you are in a technical career how did you get there? Was it relatively easy?

• What do you think would encourage more women into these roles?

I’m really looking forward to hearing from you. Please pass this on to any techie friends you have, guys too. Let’s get a debate underway!

The European commission has a report on women in technical positions which you can download here.

Photo Credit: Joao Estevao Andrade de Freitas

Women, Take Your Place at the Table…the Right Place!

Meetings, meetings, meetings, your working life is probably full of them. Sometimes you’re no doubt temped to avoid a few when you can; I know I used to!

It makes sense to use your time wisely and some organisations get into meeting overload culture. However, make sure you are not missing any key meetings where crucial decisions are made or where people are selected to make crucial decisions. It’s very easy for women to get sidelined, particularly in large organisations. And it’s easy for women to be largely invisible in meetings too.

I’ve written before about the importance of making sure you’re voice is heard in every meeting and the tendency of men to interrupt and talk across women; this time I’m adding a few tips about body language in meetings.

Body Language Tips for Meetings

• If you’re presenting, stand tall and use open body language. If your body is saying ‘nervous and anxious’ you are likely to get a bored or negative reaction. Try to keep the energy up in your voice and sound as if you are really enthused by what you’re saying. Remember the nodding head trap….
• Make sure you talk to everyone, making comfortable eye contact with all, and not just focussing on the most senior person.
• Your choice of seat can unconsciously influence your relationship with colleagues; it all depends on the shape of the table. If at a square table the person on your right will be most attuned with what you are saying and will tend to want to agree with you. It could be useful to get your most difficult colleague in that position of possible. The person who will feel least sympathy with you will be the one seated opposite as the table is a very real physical barrier between you.
• Round tables can work well in helping everyone feel very relaxed, unless there is someone present who is much senior to the others. Then square table rules er… rule.
• Try not to sit with your back to the door if you are at a long meeting table. You will have less authority than if you were facing the door. Sitting at the short end of a rectangular table facing the door gives added authority (think Victorian fathers at Sunday lunch!)
• Be careful about touching anyone in meetings or being touched. Touching can be seen as an invasion of personal space, but it’s also about power too. Men touch women more than women touch men. Researchers think there is a strong link between gender and social inferiority, i.e. men tend to keep women on their dominant side; if they are right handed it will be their right side and vice versa. Research has also found that when men touch women it’s often seen as a signal of power (or a sexual advance). When women touch men it’s usually a sign of intimacy. Make sure your personal space is respected.

Photo Credit: Michelle Ho

How to Get More Women on Board

Last week the UK government launched an initiative to get more women on the boards of the top FTSE companies. The proportion of women on FTSE 100 boards has plateaued at 12.5%, having increased little over the past three years, according to Cranfield University School of Management. In the FTSE 250, the proportion is just 7.8 per cent and more than half of companies have no women directors.

Other countries don’t have this problem. Norway introduced quotas which have been met; they now have 40% women on boards. I have family in Norway and attitudes there towards gender equality have long been different. When my sister in law and I had children in the 80s the attitudes and provision of childcare in our respective countries were absolutely poles apart! Even back then her husband could take time off as paternity leave. My partner discovered, almost by accident, that there was a discretionary 5 days leave for new fathers, which he promptly asked for. He was told he was the only teacher to have ever asked for it and ribbed mercilessly by his sports teaching colleagues.

It’s Not a Woman’s Issue

There are lots of good reasons why companies should have women in very senior positions (apart from the fact that it’s just plain right!). Companies who invest in women’s development find it reaps rewards across the board (no pun intended). But not just one token woman; the real changes begin when there are three or more at board level.

It’s a Man’s World

The world of work, particularly in traditional fields like law, finance, and local government, were set up and designed in a time when women didn’t work in these industries (women have always worked!) other than in support roles. Some business practices /models need challenging to enable women to fully participate. We all take it for granted that that’s how business works, and so we try to help women fit into this model…

I believe that leads to a dissonance, a misfit for most women that often accounts for why women dip out before they reach the top (along with all the other factors mitigating against women). We need to change the model so it works for all the workforce, not just half of it. So many discriminatory practices are so embedded in working culture that many of us don’t even notice them half the time; from how jobs are advertised, language used, how recruitment and interviews work (quite adversarial) to how women are treated in organisations.

Women’s Groups Don’t Work

I have come to believe that in house all women groups probably don’t help, at least in respect of those which exist to try and change the culture to one more gender balanced. I think they work well for women in other arenas but actually, if you want to change attitudes in the workplace, everyone has to sign up to it. Women’s groups run the risk of saying to men, “this is an issue for women, this is our problem”. Which allows it to become ghettoised. In fact, it is everyone’s problem and everyone in a company needs to understand and address it.

So Why Do I Run Women’s Courses?

It’s a good question and one I have answered more fully in a previous post. Men and women are different and currently the issues for women in the world of work are very different than those of men. The overall aim of my courses is to raise women’s aspirations and give them the confidence to challenge the status quo, to push themselves. I don’t bar men from these sessions but I have written and designed them with women in mind. Generally the issues are not pertinent or relevant for men. Men and women respond differently to personal development type seminars and generally speaking women are more comfortable exploring these issues with other women.

The call for gender equality is not about pretending we are all the same. It is about celebrating that difference and not allowing one to dominate. It is valuing the different qualities which women bring to the workplace as well as those of men.

I interviewed Avivah Wittenberg-Cox a while ago. She has written two great books on gender equality ‘Why Women mean Business‘ and ‘How Women mean Business‘. One thing she said resonated very strongly with me:

“If women in your organisation are still in grey and black suits the gender issue is still very live!”

Women are not men, and should not have to behave like men to get rewarded in the world of work. Society needs both men and women in the top echelons, middle echelons, and across all sectors of society. Bring on the women!

if you’d like to find out more about my course for women on the way up, please click this link.

Career Tips for Women # 19

Stop being so law abiding!

I don’t mean go out and break the law! But I do mean take a bit of time to consider if you are playing to the rules just a little too much. In my experience women ask for permission to do things much more than their male couterparts, even down to issues about taking allocated leave.

There is a fine line between paying someone the courtesy of letting them know your plans, or asking them to validate them. The latter weakens your position, and can make you appear indecisive.

Look again at your job description if necessary or at colleagues on the same scale. Are you taking full advantage of the power and the authority that you have?

Do you find yourself asking permission a lot at work? I find it tends to increase during times of uncertainty as people’s tolerance of risk is lessened and employees toe the line and try to stay below the radar.

Sometimes it really is better to apologise for something you’ve done that live fearful of overstepping the mark. Most successful people take calculated risks in their roles. Use all your power and personal authority within your role. It’s what they employ you for!

Career Tips for Women # 18

Stand up!

If you’re in a business meeting don’t inadvertently play the ‘little woman’, either figuratively or literally.

Whenever a man, of whatever status, joins the meeting, or comes into the office, don’t stay seated and wait for introductions. Stand up and firmly shake their hand as equals.

Put yourself on their level. Staying seated, especially if you have to look upwards as introductions are made, puts you at a disadvantage and suggest that you don’t see yourself as being on an equal footing.