Ways successful technical women increase their visibility

I recently attended a conference that had a stream dedicated to women in tech.  A lot of the advice was directed on women must do to advance their careers.  It was good advice, but does not address the underlying systemic issues that keep women down -- misogyny, rape culture.  I'd like to see the tech giants commit to changing their office culture - cultivate an environment that respects and even welcomes diversity.  Hiring more women is a start, but keeping them employed in IT is the bigger challenge.  I know personally that multiple maternity leaves cost me in terms of being able to keep my skills current.  And while it's on the individual to invest in themselves, its often cheaper and easier to shuttle an employee to a non-tech job then re-train.  The bro-culture itself was another reason I left IT.  In IM I work with an equal nbr of men and women and the balance is wonderful.

Enough said about that for now.  I'm jotting down my conference notes in case these prove to be valuable later on:

1. Work on projects with direct business impact
2. Take risks and "step outside of your comfort zone"
3. Choose or ask for assignment that allow you to demonstrate your technical abilibites
4. Seek mentors and Sponsors that have organizational clout
5. Develop a Strong Network and continually look for ways to diversify it
6. Look for internal and external opportunities to speak and present
7. Serve as an internal advocate and mentor for others -- both men and women
8. Know what you are good at and promote that about yourself
9. Try to work with and for managers who have a reputation for considering their employees' perspectives, needs, and talents in decision-making
10. Keep up with emergent trends and technologies so that you can take advantage of key opportunities when they arise.

Making Work, Work

More summary notes on a book that's about to go back to the library -- Making work, work.

Although written for Highly Sensitive People in particular, I feel this book has a lot of good advice to offer anyone who has a job.  The author categorizes work into Drudgery, Craft and Calling and basically says that if you are stuck in Drudgery, you will never be happy -- so get out fast.
 
Drudgery is when you hate your job.  You feel like a slave.  Common elements:
1. environment:  noisy, odors, bad lighting, tight or cluttered space, long communte
2. task:  no control (e.g. restrictions on how and when work is carried out), repetitive, boring, not challenging, no sense of accomplishment
3. people:  negative attitude toward you (from boss, co-workers, clients), bullying

Prolonged work in Drudgery will ruin your health and destroy your self-confidence.  You can't be self-actualized if you are here.  Get out asap.

Calling is meca.  It's that place where work doesn't even feel like work.  You can lose yourself in it.  It's enjoyable.  It's a part of your identify.  Just typing this brings a smile to my face.  Here are some other attributes worth mentioning:

• sense of purpose
• feeling nourished by the work
• self-confidence:  an ability to relate to everyone as an equal
• able to adapt to change
• nonthreatened
• waking up with lots of ideas
• sense of rightness and harmony
• desire to do your best and eager for challenges

While I can't say that my current job is my Calling, I certainly feel strong elements of it.  Which brings me to Craft. Craft is that in-between state, not quite bliss, but not hell either -- kind of like purgatory.  Most people are probably here.

Labelling work like this helps me look at my career more objectively.  I can see where a promising job turned into Drudgery all because of a hellish boss.  I can also see where my strong commitment and tendency to please others kept me stuck rather than getting out for the sake of my health.  This is my nature though.  It's not uncommon for people in Drudgery to have a difficult time saying no.  This is essential in order to preserve your sanity.  Too often we take on more than we can handle or accept being treated without respect because we'd loathe to hurt someone else, or we avoid conflict, don't trust our own feelings or ruminate worst-case scenarios. The author provides some great advice on setting personal boundaries such as these:

• I value myself enough to trust my feelings
• I am capable of solving my problems
• I have the right to have hope
• I respect my body, feelings and thoughts
• I have the right to say that something bothers me, right away

The best advice was simply "listen to your intuition".  I know when something is not right -- when something goes against my values.  Learning to respectfully speak up can be difficult, but it's a must.

Some other advice for bosses is worth noting for myself:

• don't try to manipulate people with kindness (yikes)
• listen to other's ideas -- don't dismiss them right away
• give people the freedom to be as creative as they possibly can in doing their jobs

Learning how to recognize when your current job is Drudgery and forcing yourself to get out is critical to your happiness.  There's really no way to turn it around if all elements (environment, task, people (people is the biggest influencer) are bad.  I'm grateful to have this new perspective and also grateful that I have such a great job.

We have to be nible

Finally I'm working in a job that allows me to get things done with minimal bureaucracy. No briefing notes, committees, scope documents or frameworks required. It's liberating. This doesn't mean we are cowboys who write nothing down. Process, communication and recordkeeping are still key. But the 50 page strategic reports and detailed project plans get in the way of productivity and I am so grateful that my boss shares this view. Today he told me that we have to be nimble. Hallelujah!

Customer Service Highs

Nothing beats that little endorphin buzz you get from being the hero with a client. It's not everyday that I get to swoop in and provide expert advice to help solve a business problem, but when I can, it feels really good to revel a bit in the customer's gratitude. Plus I hope people will remember me should I need their support in the future. The problem with being the hero though is that it really detracts from our main priorities. If I could clone my team we'd be in a good position to provide day-to-day support AND tackle the big initiatives that are looming overhead. I'm hopeful that we will achieve our goals because I am finally working for someone new, who trusts our abilities and will support our work. But then I see the same phenomena creep up with him -- a senior exec needs help and BAM-O, we've got to drop what we are doing to help. In these times of fiscal austerity in government, everyone is doing what they can to stay visible and demonstrate their relevance. I can't blame him for wanting that customer service buzz too, I just worry that it's going to bite us in the ass when it's time to report on progress. Ugh.

The Review from Hell

Time to reflect on my Performance Review -- the review from hell. Rather than talk about ways to build on my strengths and overcome weakness it was an open stage for my manager to dredge up everything that pissed her off about my performance. I was accused of purposely hiding my work and not keeping her informed, taking on extra tasks to avoid working on my priorities, tarnishing my manager's career and being disrespectful and unprofessional by talking about her to her manager, being unable to communicate with people whose opinions differed from my own, and being unable to recognize when I was in over my head. I think there's more, but it disgusts me to write it.

It should not surprise me. We have a horrible working relationship and she blames me for her own poor performance and lack of leadership. That's not to say that I don't have faults. I do have a difficult time respecting the authority of those I fee don't desserve it. And I don't like being supervised for work I know how to do, which is why we are a match made in hell. She needs compliance -- someone who wants to be micro-managed and who will pander to her insecurities. I want autonomy, respect, and most of all PEACE. So rather than take the high road and politely smile at all these accusations, I fought back. And sadly, I legitimized her attacks by addressing them. But the Abused has to fight back or she cannot get better. So I should not regret it. I feel stronger because of it and for that alone I should be grateful. I should not let her negativity erode my self worth. I have already stewed about this for 7 hours. Innerpeace where are you?

Realize that none of this matters. The people whose opinions REALLY count know what I am capable of. More importantly, I know what I did, what I can do, what I will do. Keep that in your heart D and press on.

I Can't Go Back There

More about how freakin' phenomenal work has been this past month. Give people autonomy, show sincere appreciation for their efforts and trust them to get the job done. That's it baby -- that's it. This simple formula would not have moved me this much were it not for the fact that I've been micro-managed for four long years. Imagine never being allowed to make a decision or work with your colleagues. Think of what if feels like to write a million drafts that go no where. For someone so action-oriented I especially could not tolerate the indecision and perfectionism. Everything was a priority and nothing ever got done because it was not perfect enough. Ugh. When you are trained to seek approval on every insignificant detail, you forget what if feels like to think for yourself. You start to question your own abilities and become paralyzed with fear of making a mistake. All it took was autonomy, trust and gratitude for us to soar. I am not going back there EVER.

The Power of Staying Positive

What am amazing stint this acting job has been. I haven't felt this alive in years -- things are moving, work is flying off our things to do list, everyone is smiling, my colleagues are even telling me that I'm doing a great job and wish that it would never end. It feels really good to be a part of something so positive.

This is yet another example of how toxic negative energy can be. Blame, criticism, defensiveness -- these behaviours do more than make you look bad. They fester and spread, they cloud your perception and creep into your psyche. I know that it's true in my relationship. When I carry hurt in my heart, I am miserable. And now I see that it's true at work too. Once we stopped making excuses for our lack of focus and just put our heads down and did the work as best we could, we produced quality work and loads of it! What did I do? Nothing -- I simply let people do their jobs. They are competent and I showed my faith in them and they soared. Hell, I look good because they worked their asses off. It can't be this easy?

And now sadly, it will come to an end in a few days. But now that I know how great it is living with positive vibes, I can't go back to living in that storm cloud. The team and I, we've changed. It's not going to be the same again.

Tele-working future

Is the idea of a self-sustaining neighbourhood a pipe dream? What would it take to transform my city into a collection of thriving communities where everyone could go to work where they lived? It seems so simple really, especially in a government town. I work at my nearest satellite office alongside other feds; some of my team are there with me and the rest are scattered about other generic GC office buildings -- no HQ required. Rush hour would be history. All of the pressure to 'densify' the core beyond what is sustainable would suddenly disappear.

So why is this not happening? Or is it? Proponents will say that a decentralized work force is unmanageable. However, does sharing the same office space really make us a team? A change like this requires that we redefine our concepts of work and management. Today, we pay people to sit at their desks for a fixed number of hours a day and we pay managers to supervise their productivity. The easiest way to do this is to make sure your employee is physically present. Sadly, this is where management begins and ends in the public service. Since there is no real accountability, there is no planning. Work just falls from the sky and gets doled out as it happens. Ask most managers if they know exactly what their staff is working on, when they expect to have it completed and what it will look like when it's done and I doubt they'd be able to give an honest answer. You start moving employees across the city and all of a sudden you have less of a need to manage staff in the traditional way.

 

In order for any kind of teleworking arrangement to work, you need to believe that your people will continue to work even when no one is physically watching them. Trust is key. The lack of trust between employees and management is ingrained in the culture of some organizations. When a bus strike brought my city to its knees a few years ago, I sat in a meeting and heard my peers express their serious 'concerns' with permitting teleworking for some employees. It really angered me to hear them speak of their staff this way -- the problem was not teleworking -- it was a lack of trust (and clearly a lack of leadership ).

In order to motivate employees, you need to inspire them -- remind them of the team's purpose and show them how their work is contributing to that end. You also have to understand the results you expect to attain and be able to measure if your team is making the grade. Again, if there's no accountability then why bother measuring results? K -- this is turning into another one of my leadership rants, so I better sign off. What I meant to do was document a particularly fruitful discussion I had this week that started with urban intesntification and eventually evolved to leadership in the public service. Love making all those connections. Any longer and I'm sure it would've ended with campaign finance reform! I hope that my generation makes this a reality -- we stand so much to gain from tele-working -- more productive employees, happier families, healthier environment ... the future is bright and I'm excited about it!

Change Management

This is one of my favourite management terms that we give lip service to. It's right up there with 'Risk Management' (e.g. Hold the phone, this scope document has got to address Change Management ... errrr, okay, so what do we say about it?) It's about being honest with the change. WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? What's in it for me? How will this affect me? No, how will this really affect me?

No one wants to really answer these burning questions. No one except me that is. I love being brutally honest, even when the message is not all that rosy. Problem is, I'm not much of a spin doctor and management does not want to draw attention to anything negative. Everyone knows that people naturally don't want change so it's best to just do it rather than spend time talking about it.

A colleague and I were talking about change the other day and came to some other interesting realizations:
People don't want to feel stupid. I now know why my projects were de-scoped to practically nothing. Even though I believed in my heart that once the end users understood how much better life would be in the new work environment, it was too far a leap from their everyday work habits. They would have been cursing our name for months, years even.  Start small.

Always let them change on their own time. Think of how you feel when you log into your fav Social Media app and it's completely turned on it's head and for no apparent reason. You should always give people an option to continue doing things the old way -- they will soon realize that they will be left behind if they don't change. A good example my friend gave me is that he refuses to text -- it's something he's just stubborn about, but knows that it will eventually happen because his kids will force him into it out of necessity.

Let others sell the change for you. This is often what we try to aim for by running small pilots. We secretly hope that the success will go viral and users will be bragging to their colleagues about how great the new systems is. Sadly, this is rarely the case. But I can always dream.

Be honest. If the change requires training, costs, minor inconveniences or more time then just be up-front about it. Too often we focus too much on the benefits of change without addressing the reality. People are already skeptical of change, so not being upfront just enforces the resistance.

This blog post isn't particularly enlightening but I'm learning a few things along the way and I like writing about them with the hopes that they'll stick.

Inspire Me

Whenever my colleagues and I bitch about how dysfunctional our work place is, we inevitably end up blaming it on a lack of leadership. It's not to say that we are blameless. But when it is so systemic in the public service, there's got to be a bigger reason then just laziness. Why are our managers failing to inspire us? Should it be their main priority? How do you even go about doing it?

A friend of mine says that it starts by showing people how their work makes a difference. You've got to draw a dotted line from their mundane tasks to the strategy and vision of the organization and you've got to instill in them a sense of pride in their contribution to the company's objectives. Here's a good case in point that he shared with me:
Back in the 60s, when the Kennedy administration was committed to putting the first man on the moon, the story goes that there were rumors of problems at NASA and that the people there weren't dedicated to the administration's vision. So President Kennedy hopped on Air Force One and headed to NASA for a personal visit. He wanted to reinforce his commitment. Before the meeting, he stopped into the restroom where a janitor was emptying the trash and puttering around. The President asked, "How are you?"The janitor replied, "I'm doing great. I'm putting a man on the moon."The President left the restroom, got back on Air Force One, and flew back to Washington. There was NO problem at NASA.1
The other thing leaders need to do is talk to us about WHY we are doing what we are doing rather than focus on WHAT we are doing. Leave the details to the middle managers. Just keep slamming the vision down our throats until we start to feel it too. And I'm not talking about lip service here -- it's got to be tangible and attainable. Instead, the vision becomes a corporate exercise that's undertaken every five years, engraved on a plaque and ignored.

The last thing we talked about was empowerment to effect change. I had a small taste of it this week and boy did it rock my world. For the first time in months I was engaged, fully charged, and productive! It's sad that we demean our employees by making them ask permission so often for non-important things. They don't trust us to make decisions that count and it's so sad that they don't realize how badly to erodes our confidence, abilities and in the long term, our productivity.

I'm learning a lot about what NOT to do during my tenure here. I just pray it hasn't ruined us. Maybe we can inspire ourselves and show our leaders the positive effects of their attempts to break the dysfunction? Or maybe we can just wait it out until it's our turn to lead.

Our mission

A colleague asked me this the other day. And I had to stop and think about it for a minute. What is my Team's purpose, really? Who do we serve? What are we trying to accomplish? Those are simple questions that should direct our every move. But somewhere along the way we've lost our purpose. And now we have a new big boss who sees our role quite differently than we see it. He's helping me realize that we exist to serve our clients -- in the FIELD. We're a small team and there's always been a lot going on at headquarters or even within my branch to keep us busy. We've never really supported the field, other than socially (they're a great bunch of people). And since it's only a functional relationship (they don't report to HQ), it's really not much of a relationship at all.

I used to always mock those corporate mission exercises. Talk about a waste or consulting dollars. The statement is never more than its fancy plaque. How do you actually implement a new mission -- how can you change the culture without changing the players? But maybe we need to take a closer look at this. Right now, we are falling way short of everyone's expectations and that is not a good feeling.

 

I've been thinking about it all weekend. None of the old priorities -- the EDRMS, Classification Structure or Retention Schedule -- the pillars of our existence up until now, seem to mean anything to our new boss. Good god, he wants us to pitch in and start boxing up legacy records! I know some of our team (myself included to some extent) think we are beyond clerical work. We're stuck in the theory and would rather leave the minions to figure out how to implement it. Well those days are over. I've gotta get all cosy with paper files again and start showing my new value or else we will no longer exist as a Team -- yikes!

Culture of insubordination

I think I've finally figured out why things are so dysfunctional at work. We survive in a culture of insubordination. No one respects authority, there's really no accountability. As my friend says, "the cheques just keep coming in no matter how much or how little we do." So nobody cares and it's contagious as all hell.

Take today for example, I heard my bosses' boss say that he wanted us to meet to develop a work plan that clearly showed what the priorities, time frames and persons accountable would be for each item listed in our Audit Action Plan. But my manager had her own plans. She wanted us to talk about a work plan she had consultants create for us two years ago. Yes, it was a good plan but OMG, this is not what your boss wanted!! Our priorities are his priorities! Of course, I am one to talk. I question everything that I am told to do because I know it will change like the wind and go no where. I remember a couple years ago I complained to a co-worked -- "why should I do that?" "Because she is your manager" was his response. It dawned on me then that I too had absorbed the culture of insubordination of my workplace.

Well, we've got to change. And it starts with me. I WILL step it up and help my manager develop this work plan dammit. I WILL take her requests seriously and live up to my commitments, no matter how frivolous I think they are. Like this classification project I've been bitching about. No, I do not believe in it. But who cares? That's not what they are paying me for. I've got to just follow my orders and stop faffing about. Bloody hell, I will NOT continue to contribute to the dysfunction. I will not.