In any learning process, there is a tendency to go to extremes before finding middle ground. Take driving, for example. Most teens start by driving very, very slowly, learning when to accelerate and when to put the brakes on. Then there is a time when we all want to experiment with speed, until either fender hits fender, or a ticket is handed by an unsmiling policeman. Most … [Read more...]
Partnership for the New Year
This is a wish for all of us - female, male, young, old, every color and part of the planet. Let’s include the animals, trees, and every living thing. Women are the leaders in partnership thinking; we learn it from the very beginning of our journey from womb to tomb. We are hard-wired to think about systems and how they fit together. We are internally programmed every month … [Read more...]
Perfection’s Imperfection and the Tiger
One step up from excellence lays perfection. How different are these two concepts? Business excellence can lead us to being better and smarter than the competition, maintaining high standards, striving for leadership, quality, and high service. Perfection can lead us to….the Tiger Woods syndrome! Tiger was a little boy who had a golf club put in his hand as soon as he … [Read more...]
How Far Should We Go?
Most women love to help, to rescue, to make what hurts all better. We have been programmed for centuries to be the caretaker. It is often a wonderful and powerful position…. most of the time. Except when you are so tired you can’t see straight and someone still wants something from you. Except when resources are limited and guilt keeps you at the end of the line till … [Read more...]
The Plight of the Pleaser
In graduate school I was in an experiment to see what happens when emotionally laden words are presented to you. The question was “can just one word make a difference in how you react?” I’ll give you the answer straight up, one that I guess you already intuitively know. The answer is “Yes! Words, even simple words, not linked together in a sentence can cause us to shake and … [Read more...]
Without Walls
Honoring the 20th Anniversary of the Berlin Wall tumbling down reminded me of the children’s nursery rhyme-- “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again” Curious verse; so here is my interpretation. When we fall and perhaps feel … [Read more...]
Breaking the Stereotype Code: Do Women Really Talk Too Much?
We have come a long way since we won the right to vote in 1921. In just about 90 years we are no longer barefoot and pregnant. We can go anywhere on the planet with or without a man at our side. We can be called “Ms.” To our men’s “Mr.” and the word spinster has become archaic. (What would be a name for an elder man who did not marry?) We're finally becoming more equal in our … [Read more...]
How Much Help is Enough?
There is a pivot point we all need to find between being too caring or too cold when employees have personal issues. Women, hard-wired to be compassionate and consider others first, often get stuck in the caring rather than cold region. Here is an example: Roberta, a valued administrative assistant who does great work and is dedicated to her company had … [Read more...]
Busting Stereotypes
Every once in a while I meet a woman who has quietly taken stereotypes, looked them in the eye and with a quick flick of the wrist lobbed them into the discard pile. Rosie Saez a Senior V.P. of H.R. at Wachovia Bank is a stereotype buster. She has been in the world of banking for over 20 years and has participated in helping change this mainly male dominated world over … [Read more...]
Women and Men: Is Partnership Really Possible?
This is such an exciting time of pattern busting. By that I mean the old ways are falling fast and furious. We are no longer willing to shove bad behavior under the rug. We are questioning old ways and questing for new ways. I believe the most fascinating and long overdue microscope is now being put more strongly on male-female relationships in a way that is neither … [Read more...]