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Bev’s Tips on Stiletto Networks

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Hey, women professionals:

Want career synchronicity?

Network with other women!

“Synchronicity” is the term psychologist Karl Jung coined to describe those times when meaningful coincidences seem to bring you what you need. When synchronistic events pile up, Jung said, it’s as though you’re being supported by an unseen helper.

I can roughly graph the times in my career when synchronicity was in full flow.  From my early job as Ohio University’s director of women’s affairs, through my years as a Washington lawyer, lobbyist and executive, to my decade as coach and consultant, I’ve enjoyed periods of peak synchronicity. In these times opportunities abound, resources appear when I need them, and life feels abundant. 

I also can create another graph of my 40+ career years.  This one measures the intensity of my networking with other women.  If I compare the two lines – one for career synchronicity and the other for Old Girl networking – they seem to match.  My graphs illustrate that the most exciting, productive years aren’t necessarily the ones when I’ve worked the hardest or been the most disciplined.  What often seems to trigger the times of great flow is the energy I put into networking, particularly with other women.

Journalist Pamela Ryckman started noticing women of all ages harnessing the power of a new breed of professional networks.  Intrigued by the trend, she began writing about a wide mix of women’s dining clubs and other groups, particularly in New York and California.  She followed the trail to more cities and the result is her new book, Stiletto Network: Inside the Women’s Power Circles That Are Changing the Face of Business.

“I started to discover dinner groups and salons and coworking and networking circles in major cities across the United States,” Ryckman says.  “In almost every case, the women thought they were alone in assembling clusters of dear, smart girlfriends who met regularly to learn and share.”  But in fact there are so many groups it’s starting to look like a movement.

I don’t think the phenomenon of women’s support circles is as new as Ryckman suggests, but I enjoyed her description of how the tide of female power groups is rising.  “They talk nonstop about business.  And while their companies span the industries – from finance to real estate to fashion to art – they’re almost all Web-based.” But “it’s not like they’re all work and no play…Never has the Women’s Movement felt less like a jaundiced faction and more like a party.”

Tens of thousands of professional women are meeting regularly, reaching across generational and institutional lines, and sharing information, advice and contacts.  And the energy and excitement they share seems contagious.  Ryckman describes woman after woman whose career takes off, with one synchronistic opportunity after another, as a result of her Stiletto Network.

It’s worth noting that these groups are not anti-man.  “Networks are meant to extend one’s scope, not restrict it,” Ryckman says.  “Savvy gals may unite on occasion, but they don’t cut themselves off from the dudes.” Women want to help each other build rich networks, including with powerful men.

The circles exist to provide peer-to-peer support and don’t welcome just anybody.  Some mentioned by Ryckman have membership policies sounding perhaps too much like the restrictive clubs that served the Old Boy Network.  “For Stiletto Networks to be relevant and desirable, they must be rooted in shared experience and true sympathy – which means they must have some form of exclusivity.”

What makes the new groups particularly interesting is the absence of hierarchy and emphasis on collaboration across industries and skills sets.  “The horizontal networks women have built over time just happen to be the same networks society now wants and needs,” Ryckman says. They are about being “collegial, collaborative, checking your ego at the door, and trying to work on solutions.”

The circles are so varied that your experience may not align with Ryckman’s account of how the women’s network works.  But if you’re a woman, I bet her book will make you want to start a group, or tweak the one you already love so it can foster even more career synchronicity. 

Ryckman’s tips for starting a Stiletto Network include:

  • Think diversity.  Don’t just round up your best buddies. Draw women with diverse skills, in different fields.
  • Believe in magic.  Don’t worry much about the goals or agendas.  “If you get dynamic ladies talking or walking or drinking, exciting things will happen.”
  • Use technology to facilitate.  After the event, share information and continue the conversation through email and social media.
  • Systemize “asks and offers.”  Women may have trouble asking for help.  A process for making requests or offering assistance makes groups more effective.

If you’re part of a Stiletto Network, or want to create one, I’d love to hear about it.

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Bev’s Tips have been arriving as a zine on Tuesday mornings about 20 times a year since 2004. For more Tips, sign up for the zine, go to the zine archive or visit Bev’s blog. We’d love to hear your comments here on threejoy.com, or email Bev at: coach@clearwaysconsulting.com.

Follow Bev on Twitter. Connect with Bev on LinkedIn.

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5 Times in a Career When Academics Should Hire a Coach

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The use of executive or leadership coaches has become an accepted and widespread practice in private corporations, non-profits, and government, and the reasons are becoming clearer (here). When individuals are coached, they become more effective at work and at home with notable improvements in both their task & relationship orientation; organizations become more productive with coaching returning $5-$7 for every $1 spent.  

By counter distinction, the use of coaches in academic life–for that matter, the use of any kind of systematic organizational development (OD)–is virtually unknown inside the university.  With the many pressures for change that universities are now facing, both economically and technologically, there are good reasons to believe that this is about to change.  While universities and colleges come to grips with changes enveloping them, individual staff, professors, and administrators may want to consider the why and when of hiring a personal coach to help advance their careers and their lives.

Coaching, It’s Not What You Think

Those unfamiliar with coaching sometimes think that coaching is a form of consulting, mentoring, or advice giving, but at it’s best, coaching is a form of one-on-one inquiry and reflection in which the client is aided by the coaches listening and asking questions in ways that help the client find and overcome obstacles and then identify and realize possibilities.  

The coach works to support only the client’s agenda, starting wherever he or she is; the coach comes to the engagement without judgment or any ideal sense of what the client should or should not be doing. In this way, the client can safely explore his or her own authentic path, style, and career in a safe, supportive environment.  

Compared to other kinds of OD interventions such as training and group facilitation, coaching is especially well suited to the highly competitive and  individualistic nature of the academy.  The confidentiality of the coaching relationship creates a safe haven for sharing hopes and concerns, successes and breakdowns, and possibilities and aspirations.

5 Times Coaching May Be Helpful in an Academic Career

There are at least five times in an academic career, when hiring a coach might be beneficial to an academic:

You’re thinking about becoming an academic.  Getting a PhD or other terminal graduate degree is a major commitment, and academic life is not for everyone. Consulting a career coach at the onset of the academic journey can both avoid a potentially costly and emotionally devastating decision and set sail with clear, aligned, and realistic expectations, intentions, and aspirations.

You’ve taken your first academic job.  Congratulations, you’re a newly minted assistant prof and you’re eager to get started on your teaching and research, but the road to tenure is filled with many difficulty decisions. Moreover, your dean, department head, and colleagues will offer you much well intentioned advice, but how do you maximize your chances of succeeding and still stay true to your original aspirations and intentions?  Consulting a coach at this stage in your career gives you a safe means of exploring your challenges and opportunities with someone who has only your interest at heart. 

You’ve been promoted or received tenure (or denied promotion or tenure).  The career ladder as a professor only has three rungs, and each promotion can be a major life transition.  The transition from assistant to associate prof is usually accompanied by tenure, and the moment of getting to tenure can be disorienting.  Should you continue on the same trajectory?  Is it time to think about an adminstrative role?  What’s next?  These are some of the questions that beg answers upon receiving tenure, and a coach can be helpful to asking those pertinent to your circumstances and to finding your own answers.  Denial of tenure is a difficult transition, and universities and colleagues provide little or no support.  A coach can help you put the event in proper perspective and find a path aligned with where you now are.  Denial of promotion to full professor is another difficult case, and a coach can be especially helpful in finding perspective and next steps.

You’ve taken a new administrative post. Transitioning into administration can be quite a shock to the system, and even transitioning up the ranks from head or chair, to dean, to provost, and president can be challenging as each new post is quite different from the one vacated.  Administrative postings and promotions are opportune times to hire a coach to help with the challenges of the new position and to prepare for subsequent advancement by building skill and developing in ways that align with the new post and the next.

You’re preparing to leave the university.  Perhaps you’ve decided that it’s time to move on, start a company, become a consultant, take a position in the private sector, or retire.  These transitions are to get the good questions and listening of a coach to help draw out the best in what comes next.

These five times are good ones to think about finding and using the services of a coach.  The next section puts forward a number of open-ended questions to help in your quest for your coach.

Finding Your Coach

So perhaps you’re at an academic transition when a coach might be useful to you.  How do you find one aligned with your needs?  Here are some questions to consider in hiring a coach:

  1. What training and qualifications does the person bring to their coaching?
  2. To what extent does the person have academic experience and understand academic culture?
  3. To what extent is the potential coach curious about you, your obstacles, your opportunities & to what extent do they seem to have a method or an answer?
  4. To what extend do you feel comfortable with the potential coach, and to what extent is it easy or hard to share private information with him or her?
  5. To what extent does the coach ask questions that engage your reflection and are both hard and interesting to answer?
  6. To what extent does the coach seem to listen to you and “get you” through that listening?
  7. Given that universities do not yet pay for coaching, to what extent does the coach accommodate those who are paying out of their own pockets?

A good source of information about coaching and coaches is International Coach Federation, and these days there is much other information online.  If you’d like to learn more about coaching with ThreeJoy, write to Dave Goldberg at deg@threejoy.com. 

Expertise & the Beauty of Not Knowing

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Since World War 2, we have lived in a world of experts and expertise, and for an expert, not knowing gets a bad rap. Actually, its worse than that.  For an expert, the very idea of not knowing challenges one’s self-image, one’s entire story of oneself.  After all experts are people who have learned and now know a lot about some particular subject, and experts are judged as good or bad depending on the extent of that knowledge and their ability to apply it.  

There are three parts to this. The first, is the idea of knowing everything (or quite a lot) about something.   The second, is how one comes to know, and the third, is the idea of judging and being judged.  Let’s examine each and also consider two practices that can serve us come to grips with these matters.

Expertise Mission Creep

Built into the idea of being an expert is the idea that one knows a lot about one’s domain of expertise.  This seems natural enough, and much of professional training is devoted to mastering what are generally considered to be the core competencies of the field, the so-called basics.  Of course, any discipline worth its salt requires development beyond entry level skill, and herein lies the rub.  

The notion of being an expert wouldn’t be so troubling if we could contain or bound the notion of sufficient knowing.  That is, if we could limit our appetites for knowing a reasonable amount at a reasonable stage in our development then we would be OK with what we know and our rate of increase in knowledge, both. But human beings being human beings, our conception of our own expertise often suffers from a kind of mission creep; we hold ourselves accountable for more and more until, for some, the idea not knowing anything becomes, itself, unacceptable.  

This unacceptability of what we don’t know can creep either within discipline (we don’t know enough in our domain of expertise) or to include areas of knowledge outside the boundaries of our expertise (what we now need to know goes beyond our declared expertise and we don’t know enough of that stuff, either).

four-stages-of-competence

Four Stages of Learning or Competence

Four stages of competence or skill learning were described by Gordon Training International in the 70s by Noel Burch (here) and these are listed below

  1. unconscious incompetence
  2. conscious incompetence
  3. conscious competence
  4. unconscious competence.  

These are often plotted on a 2×2 graphic like the one shown (original link here).

When one is unconsciously incompetent, one doesn’t know–one isn’t even aware–that one doesn’t have the particular skill.  When one becomes consciously incompetent, one notices that the skill is lacking and useful.  As skill is built, one is conscious of the growing capability, and at some point, the skill is mastered to the point that one doesn’t notice the skill any longer.

2 Modes to Blocking Stage 2: Denial & Self-Judging

The key step in this process is stage 2, conscious incompetence.  Becoming and acknowledging the possibilities in new knowledge or practice are the starting gate of learning.  Anything that blocks awareness of the dividing line between knowing and not knowing can be an obstacle to learning, and herein lies one difficulty with expertise mission creep.  

As our expectations of what we should know grow, one way our mind deals with mission creep is to simply deny that we don’t know.  People ask us questions, we make up answers–theories based on what we already do know–and life goes on.  In this way we remain in stage 1, unconsciously competent, relatively blissful about our ignorance, but also not at the starting gate of learning.

A second way we deal with the enlargement of our expectations is to judge ourselves, sometimes harshly, about the things we don’t know (c.f., the choice map, here).  Unfortunately, when we are judging, we are not open–we are not learning–and although we are in the stage of conscious incompetence, being in harsh judgment of our incompetence again holds us away from the starting gate of new knowledge.  

2 Practices for Peace & Learning

So what’s an expert to do?  The very notion of “expert” seems to demand an insatiable appetite for knowing more and more, and yet this logic seems to leave us  (a) unpeaceful or (b) unready to learn.  Fortunately, there are two simple practices that can help:

  1. Practice “I don’t know.” The first practice is simple, yet elegant, and it was suggested to me by Coach Bev Jones (here).  When you are asked a question to which you don’t know the answer, simply say, “I don’t know.”   That’s it.  By doing this, you immediately become aware that you are in stage 2, and you sidestep the difficulty of denial with the very speech act of saying, “I don’t know.”  If said with a peaceful sense of detachment and calm, “I don’t know” makes it OK that you don’t know and leaves you in a place where expertise mission creep does not take place unless you consciously choose to increase the boundaries. Tip for improving: To help enforce the practice at first, give yourself a daily quota of 3 or 5 or 10 times of saying “I don’t know” during the day.  At first, this may be hard to do, but as you practice, it will be easier and easier to come to grips with not knowing.  
  2. Practice “I am curious.”  Of course, saying “I don’t know” and leaving it at that is not appropriate in all circumstances.  There are times when we don’t know something and we choose to learn it.  The key word is “choose.”  When faced with something we consciously don’t know, we can choose to learn it or not, and the trick when we would like to know something is to keep ourselves out of self-judgment and to get ourselves to take action to learn the thing we don’t know.  A practice that can help in these circumstances is to say, “I am curious.”  That’s it. Saying “I am curious” is powerful because it creates the intention of learning the thing, yet it does so without invoking the judgment, “I should have known” or “I am stupid for not having known.”   Tip for improving: To help enforce the habit of saying “I am curious,” self-observe the frequency with which you say the phrase day by day for two weeks.  A large number is not “good” and a small number is not “bad.”  The idea is not to give yourself a grade or to judge yourself; it is simply to help you become more aware of how often you are consciously curious.

Practicing these two practices together can be a powerful way to tame expertise mission creep and keep on learning.

The Beauty of Not Knowing

We live in an age that values expertise, yet expertise often brings with it certain side effects around not knowing and learning.  This post has discussed certain aspects of the logic of the story of expertise and considered two practices that can help short circuit some of the deleterious consequences of that logic.  The practices are straightforward and they can help bring more peace and learning to life.  They also can be a gateway to increased vulnerability and wholeheartedness (here) in ways that can also be beneficial. The practices are easy to try, and not difficult to sustain. Why not give them a whirl and see what they can do for you?

This blog post has been featured on the Huffington Post here.

The Joy of Vulnerability: Public, Personal & Otherwise

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After finishing up a post over at Big Beacon on Educating Wholehearted Engineers & Educators (here), I was reflecting about the notion of vulnerability and the ways in which we are vulnerable both publicly and privately.  To summarize, the blogpost was a riff on Brene Brown’s Power of Vulnerability video (here) and the ways in which our willingness to be vulnerable–to be open & honest in the face of uncertain response–is a key to educational reform.   Here, I’d like to make a distinction between public vulnerability and private or personal vulnerability.

Public Vulnerability

One thing I’ve noticed in my work with faculty and students as well as in my coaching practice is the ways in which public steps of vulnerability appear to be relatively easy to take.  A key to such ease is given by Don Migel Ruiz in his book The Four Agreements.  The second agreement is key in situations like this and it states, “Don’t Take Anything Personally.”  This agreement is useful in a number of ways, but the sense that it is helpful in being publicly vulnerable is captured by Ruiz in the following passage:

If you keep this agreement, you can travel around the world with your heart completely open and no one can hurt you. You can say, “I love you,” without fear of being ridiculed or rejected. You can ask for what you need. You can say yes, or you can say no — whatever you choose — without guilt or self-judgment. You can choose to follow your heart always. Then you can be in the middle of hell and still experience inner peace and happiness. You can stay in your state of bliss, and hell will not affect you at all.

Ruiz, Don Miguel (2010-01-18). The Four Agreements (Toltec Wisdom Book) (Kindle Locations 622-625). Amber-Allen Publishing. Kindle Edition.

In this way, we can stand up, make public declarations straight from the heart, and be relatively free from fears of anonymous others and what they might think.

Personal Vulnerability

In personal relationships, a shift in language and growing willingness to be vulnerable with others also has an effect.  In the forming of new relationships, it seems as though vulnerability attracts those willing to be vulnerable.  Clients report that when they are willing to be more open that they attract those who are themselves willing to be vulnerable and this is, to them, a blessing undisguised.

Of course, existing relationships can pose additional complications, however, because a shift in language and vulnerability  can be discomfiting to old friends and loved ones.  Your willingness to “open up” is no guarantee that those close to you will be able to do so.  Moreover, this vulnerability gap can be quite irritating.  Your gremlin says “Don’t these people know how hard it is for me to be open like this?  Why can’t they just dig it; why can’t they reciprocate and dare to be vulnerable themselves.”   Our tendency to reciprocate is a fairly deep biologically based response (here), but this is not the whole or even most of this story. 

Attachment and the Personal

Our difficulty with newfound personal vulnerability with existing friends and loved ones stems, I think, from our personal connection with the person, and “not taking anything personally” with someone with whom we have a connection is harder than with someone we don’t know very well.  Both are difficult, but our attachment to the friend is the greater.  Clearly the choices we face with the friend are the same as those we face with an anonymous public.  We can be authentic and vulnerable–risking the vulnerability gab with the person–or we can vulnerability match with the person–be vulnerable unto them as they are able to be unto us.  

Personal Integrity & the Relationship 

The integrally aligned solution would suggest two thing: (1) being vulnerable yourself to the extent necessary to be authentic in context with the friend and (2) concern for the relationship as you make your way on your vulnerability journey.  Let’s look at each one of these.

As one moves from fear of openness to wholeheartedness and vulnerability, authenticity requires alignment between interior and exterior to the extent necessary in the context of the relationship.  This is not carte blanche to dump all the crazy new thoughts you are thinking or what we might call gratuitous vulnerability.  It suggests an intelligent approach to sharing and being vulnerable to those close to you in a manner they can accept and adjust to. This suggests concern for the other person and the relationship and not assuming the person understands the changes you are going through without communication. It also requires you to communicate your new, increased willingness to be vulnerable in ways the person can understand.  

Over time, this new way of being in the world becomes your new normal, and living wholeheartedly with greater joy and less fear the payoff for the risk you took by opening up.  In this sense, a willingness to be vulnerable is an investment in the universe, which returns to you and the others around you in surprising and sometimes beautiful ways. 

This blog post has been featured on the Huffington Post here.

Bev’s Tips on strengthening your career by building your leadership brand

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Strengthen your future career by

 building your leadership brand now

 

Want to start today to prepare for success later?  Be methodical about creating a stronger brand. 

Your brand both shapes and influences how people the talk about you, how they evaluate you, and their willingness to trust you.  It says something not only about who you truly are but also about what others think you can accomplish. 

A good way to prepare for both challenges and opportunities is to build your brand as a leader.  Your reputation as a leader begins long before you are managing a team or holding a fancy title.  Even if you’re a solopreneur or a junior staffer, you can be known as a leader.  You’re showing leadership any time you spot a problem, create a plan to solve it, and then execute your plan.

Your leadership brand sets you apart from the competition.  In part, it’s based on your special strengths and accomplishments – the way you actually solve problems.  Beyond that, it reflects the personal qualities other people see in you – their expectations about your problem-solving and other abilities.

To build your leadership brand, identify the personal qualities you want to be known for.  Then take steps to develop and display those qualities.  This process can help you define and build your brand:

Step one:  create your leadership vision.

A simple way to create a vision of the kind of leader you want to be is to list the personal qualities you’d like to be known for. 

To start, identify the personal qualities that matter most to you.  These steps can help you craft a list of leadership characteristics that feels authentic:

  • Notice consumer brands you love.  Think of several brands you trust and would recommend to a friend.  For each one ask yourself: what makes this brand great?  For example, I am a Starbucks fan, although their coffee isn’t my favorite.  What I love is that Starbucks is reliable, friendly and generous with perks like WIFI and comfortable seating.  So I would add qualities like consistency, friendliness and generosity to my list.  Consider which brand qualities you want reflected in your reputation as a leader.
  • Think about leaders you admire.  List five leaders who have influenced you, whether they were teachers, colleagues or historic figures.  Then list their important personal characteristics. Here are words and phrases many people use in describing leaders they admire:
    • Positive
    • Energetic
    • Supportive and empowering of others
    • Self aware
    • Reliable
    • Organized
    • Always learning and growing

        Consider which of these descriptors you want to add to your brand.

  • Ask what would feel good.  Imagine several colleagues are talking about the quality of your work and the kind of contributions you’re making on a project.  What would you like to hear them saying about you?  Add those words to your list.

Step two: study your list. 

When you have a list of the leadership qualities you want to be known for, post it in a conspicuous place. And carry around a copy.  Look at your list frequently, including each morning. When you’re faced with a challenge or decision, study your list and see if these qualities might simplify a decision or inspire action. 

One technique I like is imagining what I’d be like if I did possess all the qualities on my list.  I summon up a mental picture of a sort of UberBev, much stronger and wiser than the Bev I see in the mirror.  And when I’m faced with a tough decision, or maybe I’m just feeling lazy, I ask: what would UberBev do?

Step three: practice acting this way. 

A key to building your brand is practicing the attitudes and behaviors that will earn the reputation you want.  If you’re working on a few characteristics, try a flavor-of-the month approach.   Go to your calendar for the rest of the year and note a characteristic that will be your theme for each month.  Let’s say, if it’s May you’ll work on reliability.  Write “be reliable” on your May calendar in whatever way works best for you. 

Now here’s the most important part. Think of a specific behaviorial change that could demonstrate and bolster the characteristic of the month.  And take at least one step a day to create that change, perhaps in the form of a new habit.

I client I’ll call John heard in a 360 review process that his colleagues didn’t feel they could count on him.  They liked him and admired his creativity, but were annoyed by his tendency to lose track of the time.  “You never know if John will show up,” someone said.

Understanding that his reputation could be blocking his way to a promotion, John wanted to become known as a guy you can rely on.  He decided that for one month he’d attend every staff meeting and arrive at each meeting on time, as a way to demonstrate reliability.

Because tracking performance helps turn a new behavior into a habit, John created a log. He noted each meeting scheduled in the month, whether or not he attended it, and if he was on time. If he was late he said by how many minutes.

 At the end of the month John felt he’d made progress but was still struggling to organize himself to get to meetings.  So he expanded the log, creating room for comments on why he was late or unable to attend, and how he handled the situation so the team wouldn’t be inconvenienced. After a few more months John was comfortable with his new patterns and felt people were taking him more seriously.

In my next blog, I’ll talk more about  building new habits.

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Bev’s Tips have been arriving as a zine on Tuesday mornings about 20 times a year since 2004. For more Tips, sign up for the zine, go to the zine archive or visit Bev’s blog. We’d love to hear your comments here on threejoy.com, or email Bev at: coach@clearwaysconsulting.com.

Follow Bev on Twitter. Connect with Bev on LinkedIn.

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Bev’s Tips on Looking for needs, as you seek your next act

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 Gen. Robert E. Lee,

higher ed innovator,

 inspires encore careers

Has the tumultuous job market got you fretting about what to do next?  You’re not alone.  And among the folks wondering about their next career are millions of Baby Boomers.  Many don’t plan on early retirement, but they worry age discrimination or technological shifts might block their way to a new phase. 

Now me, I’m an optimist.  Not only have I weathered several reinventions, but through my work as an executive coach I have a close-up view of people finding satisfying second and third acts.  I was contemplating the new phenomenon of encore careers a few months ago, when we visited Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.  

As I mused, we wandered into the lovely Lee Chapel & Museum, where we saw the office in which Gen. Robert E. Lee actually worked during his last years.  It struck me that encore careers aren’t all that new, and Gen. Lee is a fine example of how reinvention is possible no matter how badly your current career may end.  After suffering an extraordinary defeat, Lee became a peacetime visionary and stimulated the reform of American higher education.

Just 20 weeks after surrendering at Appomattox, Lee was inaugurated as president of Washington College, in Lexington, Virginia.  As Charles Bracelen Flood describes in his moving book, Lee, The Last Years, the general had hesitated for several weeks about whether to accept the job.  He didn’t know whether his health could stand the strain.  He hated aspects of the role, like fund-raising and public speaking.  And he thought he still might be charged with treason.

The college was a shambles, emerging from the war years with no money, buildings still occupied by Federal troops, and only about 40 students.  Lee didn’t take the job because it seemed like a promising opportunity.  What moved him to sign on was his understanding of a larger mission.

 In urging Lee to accept the job, the college trustees had appealed to his sense of duty, arguing that the future of the former Confederate States of America depended on its ability to train its young men. On the day after his inauguration, Lee wrote, “I think the South requires the aid of her sons now more than at any period in her history.”

So within months after his crushing defeat as the general in command of all Confederate forces, Lee looked to the future and launched his encore career.  In the last five years of his life, he revitalized and reorganized the College that, after his death, would be renamed “Washington and Lee University.”  Moving beyond the traditional approach to higher education, he envisioned a program of “practical education” that would train young men to rebuild the South.  An innovator who knew how to recognize and implement others’ good ideas, Lee redesigned curriculum and introduced new fields of study, like business and journalism.

Lee’s achievements in higher education influenced universities throughout the nation.  At the same time, he became a model of how to accept defeat.  Lee’s extraordinary career transition, following crushing defeat, exemplifies one of the most important attributes of resilient careerists: When one path leads to a dead end, they dig deep, focus on a big goal, and start taking steps.

Encore career lessons from Gen. Lee:

  • Don’t obsess about the past.  Instead of giving in to sorrow about all that was lost, within weeks after Appomattox Lee shifted his focus to the future.  Flood says: “To a Confederate widow who was expressing hatred for the North, he said, ‘Madam, do not train up your children in hostility to the government of the United States.  Remember, we are all one country now.  Dismiss from your mind all sectional feeling, and bring them up to be Americans.’”
  • Look for a way to make a difference:  Lee didn’t set out to win personal kudos as an educator.  He looked around the post-War South and saw a pressing need: a new generation of engineers, manufacturers, journalists and others with the skills to rebuild the economy.  If you’re contemplating an encore career, think about the issues that really get your juices flowing.  Is there some way you can contribute to change, and make the world a better place at the same time you earn an income?  (For more on creating an encore career with social impact, visit Encore.org)
  • Connect with others.  Lee knew he needed help to rebuild the college, and he quickly reached out to friends and even strangers throughout the United States.  His first big supporter was Chicago inventor Cyrus H. McCormick, who sent a check for $10,000.

 

Bev at the entrance of Lee Chapel, Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, December 2012.

Bev at the entrance of Lee Chapel, Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, December 2012.

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Bev’s Tips have been arriving as a zine on Tuesday mornings about 20 times a year since 2004. For more Tips, sign up for the zine, go to the zine archive or visit Bev’s blog. We’d love to hear your comments here on threejoy.com, or email Bev at: coach@clearwaysconsulting.com.

Follow Bev on Twitter. Connect with Bev on LinkedIn.

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Acting “As If” and Speaking “As If” Helps Make It Happen

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My Georgetown colleague Ann Oliveri (here) posted this lovely short video the other day.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBRUBrWR2ZE

The philosopher and early psychologist William James said that if we act as if something were already true that doing so immediately has an effect in reality.  The video says this quite nicely with a number of different examples.

I believe an important corollary to the examples given in the video is in the special case of speech acts.  Speaking about things as though they have come to pass also has this kind of magic.  In iFoundry we talked to students about the 3 joys, the joy of engineering, the joy of community, and the joy of learning, and the cohort was more joyful, more interested in engineering, a tighter knit community of engaged learners than they otherwise would have been.  

When clients change their story (and believe the new story), the feel better, act better, and get better results almost immediately.

This sounds too good to be true, but it is a part of a number of ancient traditions. The Buddhist practice of samma vaca or right speech points in this direction as well as the Toltec practice of impeccability with your word.    To engineering ears, it sounds like a violation of some unstated law of nature, conservation of hardship, or some such thing, but I bear witness as a hard-nosed engineer who has seen it in action to often to doubt it any longer.

Try it.  You’ll like it.  Act as if and speak as if, and immediately start reaping the benefits of the way you would like things to be.

Don’t Cry for Me Argentinian Engineering Education

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María Teresa Morresi from AGIBTA Magazine (here) sent me a list of interview questions regarding engineering education.  I shot back a quick reply, and I thought the spontaneity of my answers gave them a force that was worth sharing.  Here is a somewhat edited version of her questions and what I wrote:

AGIBTA: I became aware of your work in engineering education through the 2nd Engineer of the Future meeting (EotF2.0) at Olin College in 2009 (here). Tell me a little more about your involvement in engineering ed transformation before and since that time. 

Dave G: Prior to my work on EotF2.o I was involved in starting and running the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education (here) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The success of the work on iFoundry and with my colleagues at Olin College on Engineer of the Future and other activities led me to resign my tenure from the University of Illinois to (1) take training as a leadership coach, (2) start ThreeJoy Associates, Inc. as a coaching, training, and consulting/facilitating firm to transform engineering education and (3) to start the Big Beacon, a global movement to transform engineering education as a non-profit corporation.  For more information on these and other things, see the website, manifesto, and blog (www.bigbeacon.org), the ThreeJoy blog (www.threejoy.com), and an informative series of Huffington Post articles  (here).

AGIBTA: Which are the innovations to improve engineering education and transform classrooms? 

Dave G: Most change programs concentrate on curriculum and content.  This is largely misplaced emphasis, in my view. The key innovations are emotional and cultural.  We have a culture of distrust.  We need a culture of trust.  We have a culture of individual effort.  We need a culture of connection and openness.  We need a culture of courage.  We have a culture of fear
 
AGIBTA: Could you please let as know a bit more about the relationship between self-efficacy and project-based learning among engineering students?
 
Dave G: The question assumes that project-based learning is a solution to achieve self-efficacy, but I remember going to a school in Brazil once and being shown a project-based course as an exemplar of “new pedagogy.”  I went to class and the students were presenting a project, and the prof was correcting each and every sentence that came out of the students’ mouths.  
 
We need self-efficacy, and to achieve it we need what I call unleashing experiences.  Unleashing experiences begin where a faculty member (or the student themselves) trusts the student.  The student believes they are trusted.  Finally, the student has the courage to take a risk and do something that leads to their mastery of something new.  Diagrammatically this is shown below:
 
UNLEASHED STUDENT =  TRUSTED –> BELIEVES TRUSTED –> COURAGE TO TRY SOMETHING NEW
 
This unleashing is the key.  I think we need to stop speaking in code words like “project-based learning” or “active learning” and starting getting at root emotional and cultural variables that really unleash our kids.

AGIBTA: Which are the best e-learning strategies?

Dave G: E-learning properly conceived, supports emotionally and cutlurally engaged education.  Unfortunately, the current excitement about MOOCs puts the cart before the horse.  Once we get our heads straight about what’s important in the class and why, we can adopt effective E-learning techniques.  Until then, we are mistaking tools for solutions.
 
AGIBTA: Students are a powerful force in transforming engineering education. How to include them in new educational strategies implementation?
 
Dave G: I love this question.  Students are the only powerful force in transforming engineering education.  Unfortunately, they are rarely consulted in change efforts and usually only subjected to whatever the administration and faculty think is necessary after the design is in place.  Then we wonder how to get student “buy-in” which suggests our wonder about why they don’t think much of the new design.
 
How do we include them?  We start by noticing them.  We continue by listening to them deeply with empathy.  We continue by asking them open ended questions and listening some more.  We also trust them to be full members of the redesign effort.  
 
If we could do one thing that would transform our schools, it would be to create a culture of listening. 
 
AGIBTA: How you prepare students to become innovative?
 
Dave G: You challenge them, trust them, let them fail. coach them to success, and repeat.
 
AGIBTA: Which are the current challenges for Engineering Universities?
 
Dave G:  The problem is that universities are victims of their success. Universities are ancient institutions. The University of Bologna was founded in 1088.  Since then, there has been a 10-century consensus about the role of professors as experts. Unfortunately, since World War 2, the quality revolution, entrepreneurial revolution, and the information technology revolution, what I have called the missed revolutions–missed in the sense that universities teach but don’t practice their lessons–have changed the world we live in.
 
As a result, returns to expertise are diminished.  In turn, this diminuition of expertise challenges the role of the professor in both the lab and the classroom. Unfortunately, professors are one trick ponies. They only know how to be experts. The brave new world of the 21st century and our creative era demands a combination of expertise with an ability to trust and develop others. In other words, the world today requires an academy full of Experts/Coaches, not just pure experts. 
 
This is a terrific challenge, one that can be overcome, but most of the noises coming from our research universities suggest business as usual, a doubling down on WW2-based strategies of research and expertise, and a lack of recognition how a 9 or 10 century consensus toward the role of the university and the role of the professor is being undermined before our very eyes.  
 
Given the very slow decision making apparatus of a university, it is not clear whether these ancient and venerable institutions have what it takes to transform themselves. The current fumbling is sad to watch. It is also exciting to be a part of a growing number of efforts to try to change it, and I think there are effective tactics and strategies to follow in those institutions that are aware of the challenges they face.
 
AGIBTA: What conclusions can be drawn from the Summits on the Engineer of the Future?
 
Dave G: The first engineer of the future event was held in 2007 at the University of Illinois. The one in 2009 was the 2nd. There was a 3rd and we are hoping for a fourth. These events set into motion a number of activities at Olin, at Illinois, and elsewhere to practically address many of the questions and answers presented here. There is still much to learn, but it is clear that by (1)  focusing on change management itself, (2) by viewing change as a cultural and emotional process, and (3) by working to inject a new kind of actor, an actor with both expertise and an ability to listen and coach, that real change can be made.  How quickly this can work and whether it can work quickly and broadly enough remain open questions.
 
AGIBTA: Thank you for your thoughtful responses.
 
Dave G: Thank you for your thoughtful questions, and I wish all my colleagues in Argentina and elsewhere in South America the space and openness to reflect on these challenges and the wisdom and courage to move ahead with effective, in-context solutions.

Bev’s Tips on Leaning In

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Successful women leaders

manage the way they “lean in”

March 19, 2013 * Number 185

I’m enjoying the controversy Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has stirred up with her instant bestseller, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead.  Sandberg argues that, despite gender biases still prevalent in the workplace, hesitating and offering excuses won’t get women anywhere. She urges women, instead, to believe in themselves, fully engage, step up and “lean in.”

I generally agree with Sandberg.  As a career coach I often speak with extraordinary women who, after years of disparate treatment, feel hesitant and uncertain when their talent suggests they should act like confident and determined leaders.

But we can’t ignore the cautionary note from some critics. The New York Post’s Andrea Peyser wrote, “Sheryl preaches a mantra that seems destined to get women fired, not promoted. She says that women who fail are not assertive, demanding or needy enough… At a time when a woman feels lucky just to have a job, here comes Sheryl, blaming the purported victim for being passive.” 

Sandberg herself says that it is not always the time to “lean in.”  You have to pick the moments when you take charge.  And you have to be aware of the traps.

Sandberg nailed one of the problems in her chapter 3, “Success and Likeability.”   Sociological research demonstrates what many women leaders have learned the hard way.  When men are assertive and seem confident other people tend to like and admire them. But when women act the same way others may find them pushy and not likeable.

In one experiment, students read about a successful venture capitalist.  Half the students read about “Heidi” and the other half read an identical story describing “Howard.”  Howard came across as an appealing colleague.  But Heidi, although respected for her accomplishments, was seen as selfish and not “the type of person you would want to hire or work with.” 

I have seen this time and again in the written annual evaluations of women clients.  The boss writes up their accomplishments, making it clear that they met their goals and even did extraordinary work.  But then he adds a note like this:
“But she needs to be aware of how she is perceived by her colleagues.  Her aggressive behavior tends to rub people the wrong way. She should be more careful about ignoring hierarchical boundaries and she shouldn’t spend so much time networking.”

In other words, hard-charging women leaders get the job done, but then they are criticized for the behavior that makes their success possible.  So what’s a girl to do?  Here are tips for managing the likeability trap:

  • Act like you’re not afraid.  As a woman, you’ve been slapped down for assertive behavior that would be rewarded if men did it.  As a result, you may fear stepping into the limelight.  Sandberg suggests you ask yourself, “what would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Then go do that. 
  • Don’t sweat criticism from “them.” As you move up the ladder, not everyone will be your fan.  It will not hurt you if “some people” think you are too pushy or assertive.  It says more about them than about you. Stick to your values, focus on the organization’s mission, help others where you can, and keep building your network.
  • Connect with other women.  If your organization still has a gender bias, it’s vital that you network with other women.  They will bring you support and information about threats and opportunities. Mentor them, and you will find that many mentor you in return.
  • Seize opportunities.  Sandberg points out that women often want to be super prepared before they take on new challenges. Men are more likely to jump at new opportunities, and get ready on the fly. It’s time for some women to move closer to the cutting edge. Stop worrying so much about credentials and expertise.  If you spot something interesting and new, find a way to get involved, and learn as you go.  Jump in, then lean in.
  • Watch your language.  It’s sad but sometimes it’s true.  When he talks about what he needs or has done it sounds confident, but when you do the same, it sounds egocentric.  Sandberg suggests that you frame things more collectively, using phrases like “women need” or “the team did this.”
  • Deliver the work. Sandberg’s success is tied to her history of working for strong bosses and producing the work they wanted.  The first rule is always to know who your bosses are, know what they want and need, and give it to them.  If your boss is a sexist jerk then it may be time to move on, even if the only way out is a lateral shift.  But while you still have the job, keep doing good work.  If nothing else, your achievements will help you get the next job.

If you want to read more about “Lean In,” check out Kerry Hannon’s article for forbes.com.

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Bev’s Tips have been arriving as a zine on Tuesday mornings about 20 times a year since 2004. For more Tips, sign up for the zine, go to the zine archive or visit Bev’s blog. We’d love to hear your comments here on threejoy.com, or email Bev at: coach@clearwaysconsulting.com.

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