Thriving ( not just surviving) in a male dominated corporate setting is much talked about yet every passing moment could be a learning and micro coaching moment as long as a female professional is on her journey at the workplace. It is what we call a constant work in progress status and moving forward is what is key.
It is interesting and essential how many successful women share their “secrets” and experiences and keep inspiring younger women in the workforce to keep earning their rights to a “seat at the table”, a voice to express their suggestions for betterment and above all equitable opportunities at the workplace.
More open communication around these topics intended to inspire and encourage other women is not only timely but extremely essential. This is not about seeking solace through male bashing or misery finding company together. It is really about thinking openly and discussing honestly and transparently about what is the reality, what can and should women do at every stage in their professional and personal lives to be able to harmonize success and quality of life on all fronts that are important to them and not being left out just on account of stereotypes or conscious or unconscious gender biases.
Data creates power they say. I often share the perspective that this is a phenomenal opportunity for women to seize - become better versions of themselves by honing a new skill, exercising a new muscle perhaps ! Thought of becoming a great data storyteller and empowering yourselves at your workplaces? Data is often described as the new currency of modern day business. Women can endeavour to create their unique strengths around this by learning and excelling in this new language of business. Women are generally great narrators, articulate presenters and if they added data literacy and told powerful stories, they can become more persuasive and powerful influencers at the workplace too.
Helen Keller inspired us when she asked “What is worse than being blind?” And even more inspiring is her response to that question “it is to have the gift of sight but no vision!” How true and relevant today when women keep looking to “equalise” the playing field ! Data skills creates a huge opppirtunity for women to create an equitable if not equal workplace environment. Learning data skills and data fluency is like learning a new language and similarly, perfecting the learning of a new language is through practice, practice and more practice.
So if you are looking for an opportunity to rise above all, invest in skills like these ! They are new age, core competencies at the modern day workplace and a true chance to bring the left and right brain skills together to create exemplary capabilities that will make standout contributions.
Importantly, keep an open mind, embrace a growth mindset and seize these opportunities that abound every woman.
With the right attitude, everything is possible as they say. Interestingly if you try the numbers approach to the word attitude, it adds to a 100 too!
Simple exercise :the English alphabet has 26 characters ; attribute A=1, B=2,C=3……….all the way to
z=26, now ask yourself what creates success?
Possible answers
Hardwork
Leadership
Luck
Attitude
Now assign the alphabet values to each response and add that up
Eg: luck = 12+ 21+3+10= 46
Now apply this to that magical work ATTITUDE! Wallah! A lightbulb moment indeed - ATTITUDE magically adds to 100!
Indeed, attitude is 100 percent the creator of our success!
Another aspect of success comes from our experience with sports perhaps. We often navigate our careers on our own. We then exoerience success, failures, learning moments and so forth and keep moving forward. What many often overlook is the need for an effective coach as we navigate our careers. Caches are like our sounding boards and effective coaches can be our best critics and sources of balanced feedback . I prefer referring to this as “feed forward” as they help us truly move forward. Even the best sportsmen will say they mastered their sport with great coaches. It is quite the same with our careers no matter what roles we may do. Being able to see and articulate through different lenses and keeping an open mind and practicing some distance so we do not get emotionally attached to our work, output, feedback is so important to effectively navigate our careers too. This is often facilitated by a coach whose role is to help us peel
back the layers of the onion and discover new aspects ourselves. They would typically not provide the answers and solutions but help
Is through self-talk, do these ourselves.
Success is a team sport as they say and engaging the “village” in our journey helps make the journey exciting and one that is full of opportunities and supporters who can get us across the line. We will also have the opportunity to do things differently and experience greater success as it is often said that we cannot do the same thing and expect different results. The courage and humility to experiment, fall, pick ourselves up and ultimately savour success is a habit we can create and sustain.
Einstein often said he was not the genius we all think of him . He attributed his success to his incessant curiosity. So while we do everything else, may we always remember to be the curious four year old asking many questions and exploring how, why, what,when all the time.
Not everything we have talked about Will necessarily feel natural and comfortable. Therein lies the magic - so let us invite, encourage and urge one another to stretch beyond our normal comfort zones, feel a little uncomfortable, try and possibly achieve something more everyday . We can then look back with pride and humility to say those few steps forward actually landed us in what seems like a better comfort zone than we previously thought we we in.
