This is one of my favourite videos of the year so far.
Chade-Meng Tan, Jolly Good Fellow at Google (that is his actual job title!) talks about how compassion in the workplace is good for people and great for the bottom line.
A compelling business case for more compassion in the workplace. Chade-Meng - I salute you!
This week I am reading a great little book. Called The See-Saw: 100 Ideas for Work-Life Balance, it is billed as a challenging new handbook for 21st century life. Clearly something right up my street. My first thoughts were that it was just for working mums and as a childless woman I was not sure if it was for me.
But the book contains some great advice for everyone - those with families and not, workers and full-time carers, about balancing the different demands of work and life. I think it is fair to say that women find the 'See-Saw' more challenging then men. The author Julia Hobsbawm outlines research that shows that women, even when they work full-time, still take on the majority of the responsibility for housework and childcare. This is certainly the case in my household, something that does not sit well with my feminist values!
At the risk of being controversial (OK go on then), us women do need to realise the part that we play in this. We take on responsibility for household stuff because we are generally quite good at it. Most of us were brought up helping around the house, preparing meals and seeing what needed to be done. Our lovely partners do not sometimes have our years of practice. I clearly remember the first time as a teenager that I had to cook rice for the family dinner. I stormed out of the kitchen in frustration as I didn’t know how to do it. I get frustrated now when my partner, in his rare forays into the kitchen is constantly asking for help, but I need to realise he hasn’t cooked rice or (insert dish here) hundreds of times.
Many of us ladies will also admit to being perfectionists. We like things to be done in a certain way whether it’s cleaning the bathroom or watching what our children eat. When we let others take responsibility we have to let them do things in their own way which, invariably, will be different to the way we would do it. Think of it like a manager-staff role – we all hate to be micro-managed!
Perhaps we also need to apply the principles of Good Enough which I advocate in my work with clients not only to our working lives but to our home lives too. Just as we have to make a decision that we have to let some things go if we are going to cope with our increasing work pressures (Tim Ferriss of the Four Hour Work Week talks about The Art of Letting Bad Things Happen), we need to apply this to our home life as well. As women we are very good at beating ourselves up about being perfect. Let’s give that a rest shall we?
We are truly a generation of women who are lucky that we have so many choices but sometimes it seems that all this choice has just meant more work and more stress instead of less. I think we need a new paradigm for working and living if men and women are to lead truly equal lives in today’s society. I will be writing about what this could be in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, if you would like some helpful tips on how to get off The See-Saw, do have a read of the book.
I attended the Do Lectures last September in a far flung corner of Wales. The brain child of Howie’s founders David and Clare Hieatt, the Do invites 26 ‘Doers’ to come and speak about their journey to a small number of attendees. Essentially the Do is all about inspiring people (speakers and attendees alike) to Do something. The motto of the Do is:
Ideas + Energy = Change.
The youngest, and most impressive speaker of the weekend was 23 year old Maggie Doyne and to celebrate International Women's Day I wanted to share her story and talk.
After a privileged North American upbringing, Maggie, like many of her contemporaries, postponed university and set out to travel the world. After a stint volunteering in India she met a Nepalese girl who had been forced to leave her country due to the civil war. When the border to Nepal finally opened up, Maggie and her new friend went in search of her home village. Once in Nepal Maggie was struck by the poverty of the children that she met. Determined to make a change, she took $5,000 of her own savings and started to build Kopila Valley Children’s Home. Today Maggie and the community look after 30 children at the home and have built a school to educate 200 more.
Maggie was an inspiring and heartfelt speaker and even the grown men in the tent were in tears at her story. Maggie’s message that we can all learn from is:
Do not wait if there is something that you really want to do.
This is the theme of tonight's Enabling Women event that I am hosting at Happy in east London. We will hear from 6 inspirational women all doing their bit to make change in the world for women, children and men. (There are a few tickets left so join us for the free event if you can).
I hope Maggie's talk inspires you as much as it did me and inspires you to take your idea, mix it up with some energy to make some change.
Happy International Women's Day!
While you may not agree with former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's politics, this Q&A with Pat Mitchell from the Paley Center filmed at TEDWomen last year is an intriguing insight into being a successful woman leader.
A key highlight for me is when she talks bluntly about politics and diplomacy, making the case that women's issues deserve a place at the centre of foreign policy and explaining that societies are better off when women are both politically and economically empowered.
If you are interested in how you can make a difference to women around the world, join me, 6 inspirational speakers and 100 other women for the free Enabling Women event on the 8th March in London.
We have come a long way since 1911 when women's oppression and inequality was rife and women (and men) took to the streets to campaign for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and to end discrimination.
The IWD site bears witness to the huge societal changes over the last 100 years:
"The new millennium has witnessed a significant change and attitudinal shift in both women's and society's thoughts about women's equality and emancipation. Many from a younger generation feel that 'all the battles have been won for women' while many feminists from the 1970's know only too well the longevity and ingrained complexity of patriarchy. With more women in the boardroom, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased critical mass of women's visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life, one could think that women have gained true equality. The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.
However, great improvements have been made. We do have female astronauts and prime ministers, school girls are welcomed into university, women can work and have a family, women have real choices. And so the tone and nature of IWD has, for the past few years, moved from being a reminder about the negatives to a celebration of the positives.
Yes, we have come a long way and there is much to celabrate. But the daily hardships endured by many women around the world today, still tell us that there is work to be done. This is a snapshot of the world women live in:
I have written before about the power of women to make real change in the world and so on Tuesday 8th March I am asking 100 women to come together to co-create ideas for change.
We will kick off the evening with some inspirational women speakers on how they are making a differnece in the world and then move to an Open Space format for discussion and action.
You can book your FREE ticket for the event at here:
Last night I attended a new type of business networking event. Treats in the City was, as organiser Sarah Lloyd-Hughes from Ginger Coaching and Training put it, a 'feminine' way of networking. No grey suits or pushy business men here, just fun chatting other to business women and City workers over bubbles, hair consultations and the best tasting macaroons I have ever had.
To be honest, this approach to femininity is not really my thing (I am more charity shop then designer!) but I had a great time meeting other women at the event and was very pleased with my goody bag at the end.
One lovely women I met was telling me how much she enjoyed her work in the financial sector except for one thing: to fit in, she was expected to act like a man. She read about the football scores so she would be able to join in with the banter at meetings, she had to dress in trouser suits to be taken seriously. She even took up smoking so that she did not miss out on the deals that happen on the breaks. I kid you not.
This talk of women at the top, or not, in business reminded me of a TED talk by Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, about the difficulties of women balancing high level careers and families (look out for more on this on Friday). Sheryl offers 3 strategic pieces of advice for any women aiming for the top in any industry: (1) Sit at the Table, (2) Make your Partner a Real Partner, and (3) Don't Leave before you Leave.
Fantastic advice from one of the most successful women in business today and worth 14 minutes of your time - trust me.
Enjoy.
A fantastic and candid TED talk from Halla Tomasdottir, a financial services entrepreneur in Iceland, who managed to take her company through the recent financial storm by applying the 'feminine' values of Risk Awareness, Straight Talking, Emotional Capital and Profit with Principles.
Like Halla, I am positive that in the future, with more women at the forefront of business, we will see a new way, a more feminine way, of doing business that will change the world.
Enjoy!
Enterprising Woman at THECUBE
Wednesday was Women’s Enterprise Day and to pay tribute to female entrepreneurship, I hosted a networking and sharing event for women at co-working space THECUBE. Entitled Enterprising Women, the event was packed with over 50 female entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs in the making, who gathered to listen to talks, take part in workshops or hear advice in a business clinic.
Downstairs in THECUBE’s seminar room, the evening kicked off with a hands-on workshop from Holistic Marketing Consultant, Kathryn McMann followed by creative business consultant, Lucy Kyle on Making your Business More Effective.
Meanwhile upstairs in the Brainstorm Area, Nathalie Nahai, a London-based designer, illustrator and psychologist was wowing the ladies with an interactive workshop on Body Language and Psychological Techniques for Business followed by round-table discussions on Creative Collaborations and Building Trusting Relationships from Alison Coward from Bracket Creative and Pilar Orti from Unusual Connections.
Later in the evening, Lisa Goll, founder of the London Writer's Cafe shared her experiences of building the successful online community while Bonnie Wong founder of Composition Advisory Limited, gave a talk on innovation and vision intriguingly titled Making an Innovation Sandwich. Lastly, but not least, Araceli Camargo-Kilpatrick, founder of THECUBE and Idea Engineering gave her perspective on how ideas are formed.
If that wasn’t enough, business consultants Ellen O'Hara, Lucy Kyle and Isebail MacKinnon were booked out for their 15 minute business clinics while Kate Warwick from PR Savvy dished out no-nonsense PR advice.
Female Entrepreneurship
As part of my research for my welcome speech for the evening, I found some interesting statistics. There is a real ambition in the UK for people to take control of their working life and start their own business. According to the GEW research, 50% of the population would like to start an enterprise but only 5.8% are actually in the process of doing so. There is also a demographic gap with more than twice as men as women starting businesses in any one year.
However, there is good news and more and more women in the UK are realising their potential and starting their own businesses. A recent survey of 1000 women entrepreneurs found that 70 per cent of those polled started their business because they wanted more flexible working conditions and 75 per cent of respondents said work life balance is better when you’re running your own business.
The Girl Effect
The Girl Effect is a global campaign and powerful idea that if a girl in the developing world is supported when she reaches adolescent to stay in school and remain healthy, this has a knock-on effect in terms of not only the quality of her life but the quality of life of her existing family, her future children and the wider community. This moving and inspirational video explaining the idea has been viewed nearly 1.8 million times:
The Women Effect
This powerful message combined with thinking about Women’s Enterprise Day started me thinking about The Women Effect.
At the Vancouver Peace Summit in September last year, the Dalai Lama declared: "The world will be saved by the Western woman." What he was articulating was that the time for masculine values was over and that a more feminine and compassionate approach would be the one to save the world from economic and environmental meltdown.
In my experience, many women start a business not just for personal or financial benefit. Research has shown that women are much more likely to start a business with a community or environmental benefit rather than just for financial gain. A woman-led management style is also more inclusive and supportive and could see the death of traditional hierarchical structures in the workplace.
I would like to make a bold assertion, that similar to The Girl Effect in developing countries, encouraging women into business has a Women Effect much broader then the impact on the individual. As a female business owner we can design our businesses to suit our lifestyle and family commitments not the other way around. We can provide strong female role models for our children and can demonstrate that having a career and a family are not mutually exclusive. More female entrepreneurship will ensure flatter workplaces and a more feminine and flexible approach to management. And lastly, The Women Effect will see a direct rise in the number of socially responsible businesses to such an extent that maybe, in the future, to not be socially responsible will be as antiquated as the Walkman.
My heartfelt thanks to each and everyone of the amazing and enterprising women who came on Wednesday and let’s hear it for female entrepreneurs!
