Men have good advice too…
I spent Friday at the Babson College “Women’s Leadership Conference”–a great event celebrating some of the accomplishments of women. Of course there was the inevitable feelings of “I could be doing x, y, z” but I’m starting to just GET OVER THAT and be secure that the choices I have made are my for now choices and I have to make ‘em work. For more on my previous introspection feel free to read my earlier blogs blah blah blahing about it!
Anyway I was in one panel led by Eliza Shanley, from Women@Work, and Linda Stewart, from EPOCH–both of whom have great ideas and great business models–I hope to be able to work even more with Eliza at future Detours events, as she does recruiting for those trying to ramp back on after time off…and Linda’s company is focusing on those who have not-quite-finished a successful career. She helps to place senior level financial services professionals in project work, and writes an interesting blog about the changing dynamics of the workforce (ie, somewhat like mine but more scholarly and less issues dealing with children and their foibles)…
Linda and Eliza were speaking about the changing workforce–how, shortly, there will be a shortfall of MILLIONS of workers, which should hopefully help put more employees in charge of their own careers. The conversation turned to how to develop flexibility within your career.
There was a gentleman (one of very few) there who relayed his experience. He talked about how, as a senior manager of Cadbury Schweppes, he had two of his best marketing folks come to him, having announced their pregnancies within 3 weeks of each other. These two women asked for the ability to work part time–at this point, hadn’t been done at Schweppes. But his point was that these were his BEST–that if they went to 3 days a week, he knew for a fact that he’d still be getting 6 days a week of work out of them.
He (I wish I’d gotten his name) ended up flying to London and meeting with Sir Cadbury (Sir Schweppes??) himself and introducing the concept–to, as he put it, the chair of the “staid old British company”. The instant response was “Why would we do that?”. His answer, unequivocably, was “Because these are my best”. And they went for it…and it went wonderfully.
His advice was twofold: One, if you’re going to ask for something–you need to be great. I think that’s actually good advice–you need to be good at what you do, confident in what you do, recognized for what you do. And two–you need to have a sponsor. It’s a REALLY uphill road if you’re the only one fighting for what you want–be it flexibility, a project, anything. I know that that’s the battle I face now–it’s daunting. So I thought that was valuable, and it reminded me of what Carol Fishman Cohen said at our event–about the senior partner in the law firm who never once let anyone have any flexibility until his lawyer daughter–for whom he had paid years of tuition–had a child and herself needed some flexibility. It’s different when it’s personal–and if you can establish that wonderful sponsorship with someone, and have them advocate your greatness–not just have to go it alone–it goes along way.
More on the conference later…
November 13th, 2007 at 7:42 am
Would love to hear more about the conference. Definitely agree that people have to be great if you are going to give someone a lot of flexibility. It’s an incremental thing…people have to test it and earn the trust of the boss.