By Ella L. J. Edmondson Bell, Ph.D,
Author of Career GPS: Strategies for Women Navigating the New Corporate Landscape

For the first time in history, women are less than a percentage point away from making up the majority of the national workforce. The economic downturn has hit men harder. They held nearly 80 percent of jobs that have been lost during what is now being called the “mancession.” What’s more,  some of the highly educated, high powered women who “opted out” of corporations starting in the nineties to raise children and take care of ailing elders have returned to the work.

So what does this new female-dominated workplace mean for the corporate culture and the nature of work? Will we see a feminist Nirvana, filled with benevolent leaders? Will the new workplace be more kumbaya and less “off with their heads?”

Time for a reality check:

1. There are still few women at the top: There are scant few women heading large companies and who have jobs at the top. This year a record number of women are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies — but you still don’t need all of your fingers and toes to count them. (You don’t even need all of your fingers to count those running Fortune 100s.)

2. Women-run companies have increased stocks: USA Today reports that stocks of the 13 Fortune 500 companies run by women for all of 2009 were up an average of 50 percent. The biggest female winner was Mary Sammons, whose Rite Aid stock soared 387 percent!

So, yes, women can keep investors happy, but what about everybody else at the company? Does an estrogen heavy corporate culture emphasize relationship building over backstabbing and throat slashing? Has a surge in female leadership triggered new corporate policies that favor work life balance over the 24/7 grind? Is there less conflict, more “talking it through?” And have women brought in other women, so that the flood gates are open and unbelievably talented women are pouring into management positions?

3. Woman still have tough corporate challenges to face:

• Many companies are barely weathering the economic storm.
• There is little time to radically change their corporate cultures. Leaders are putting out fires instead.
• There is not a secession pipeline for women streaming into upper management positions.
• Women continue to make less than men and are clustered in the lowest salaried jobs.

Now that there are more women in the workplace, in positions of leadership and even as CEOs, we can feel hopeful. But it’s important to keep it real and manage our expectations. While some women leaders may be able to redefine their roles, usher in a more authentic and transparent leadership style and emphasize work-life balance, changing entrenched corporate culture is not easy. Even when you change the leader, the stubborn culture can remain exactly the same.

Will women become the new men? It’s hard to tell. The downsides to women’s new workforce power are: Stress, pressure, exhaustion, burn out and heart attacks — exactly what used to kill hard-driving corporate men and sometimes still does.

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© 2010 Ella L. J. Edmondson Bell, Ph.D, author of Career GPS: Strategies for Women Navigating the New Corporate Landscape; reprinted with permission.

Ella LJ Edmondson Bell, Ph.D., author of the new book, Career GPS: Strategies for Women Navigating the New Corporate Landscape (Amistad), is the founder and president of ASCENT-Leading Multicultural Women to the Top, as well as an associate professor of business administration, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University. For more information, please visit www.CareerGPSthebook.com.

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If you have found that your business is suffering because you can’t find things, or you are always late for, or worse, always missing appointments, then it’s time to get organized. But there are so many things to keep organized! Where should you start?

Here are the two key systems you should begin with.

1) Your calendar. Even if you use an e-calendar like Outlook or ACT, you still need to figure out a system for keeping up with appointments, emails and contacts. A few tips:

-Title your appointments clearly.

-If you manage multiple people’s calendars, put the person’s name first on the appointment.

-Use auto-features to change the color of appointments. For instance, I use a different color for each person’s appointments on the calendar, and specific colors for out of the office activities.

-Take a course if you need it. A one day course can save you hours of frustration and can increase your productivity right away.

2) Your filing system. If you can’t find customer orders or receipts, then you can’t run a business.

I had a riding lawn mower in at a local repair shop, and when I would call to ask about whether it was ready, they could never tell me. So I went in person. They still couldn’t tell me. Can you believe this? The problem was they didn’t know a) which lawn mower was mine, b) what mechanic had been working on it, or c) where the mechanic was in the repair process. Then, once they finally found it and said they would deliver it to my home, they delivered the wrong one! Now THAT’S a filing system in need of repair! Can you imagine what their paper files must have looked like?!

Get these two in order first. Why? They are directly related to your customers. You need to know where you are supposed to be and when, and you need to be able to have the right papers with you.

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Networking expert explains how to work the room at events

by Steve Fretzin

Oftentimes, the first hurdle to get over is simply going to a networking event. But now that you’ve made it that far, how do you get over the even bigger hurdle of talking to strangers? Too many times people leave networking events without having achieved any meaningful results.

It’s not enough to simply attend multiple networking events if you are not making a solid effort to make important connections. After you have chosen the right event for your area of interest, it’s important to have a strategy for working the room so you can be successful at networking.

Below are five tips for successfully working the room at networking events:

1. Networking has the word “work” in it for a reason. You are not there only to eat, drink and socialize, but to create meaningful business relationships. Go there with a plan to meet and follow up with at least 3 new contacts.  Giving out cards is a waste of time without collecting ones to follow up with after the conclusion of a solid conversation.

2. Don’t be a wallflower. Walk up to new people and introduce yourself rather than waiting around for someone to talk to you first. If you are new to a group or event, be sure to ask the host to introduce you to the best people in the room or to your target prospects.

3. Ask the people you meet about their business first. Some good questions include, “How did you get your start in the ________ business?” and “What do you enjoy most about your profession?” or “What are some of the changes that have occurred in your industry?” If you find yourself talking more than the other person, it is much more challenging to learn about them and build rapport.

4. Connections are everywhere! The majority of people that are networking with you typically have over 250 people in their network. One of their 250 contacts could be the right one for you. If you don’t get to know someone, you might not have the chance to meet the people he or she knows. Questions that help us understand their level in the networking world include: “How long have you been in business?” or “Do you do quite a bit of networking?” or “How do you typically get your business?” Understanding the depth of their network can lead you to meet with them one-on-one.

5. Try to help everyone you can. Find out what your new networking contact is looking for and try to be helpful. She might be looking for certain industries to get into or a new idea on where else to network. If you can, try and make suggestions and build your networking “karma.”

One word of caution here, be careful in giving business leads too quickly. Be aware that many business professionals are not so professional, lacking the business savvy to return a simple call or say “thank you.”

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Steve Fretzin is the Founder and President of Sales Results, Inc., an elite provider of sales coaching and business networking all about results. Their clients know that effective coaching is the best investment they can make in their careers, and Sales Results strives to maximize that ROI.

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By Robert Clay

There’s no doubt that marketing is key to keeping your business alive. Consider what marketing is: One definition of marketing is “The profitable identification, attraction, getting and keeping of good customers.”

Every single role in your business falls within this marketing definition.

1. Everyone in your business must have a customer-first attitude. Read the rest of this entry »

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What are you supposed to be doing right now?

Did you just interrupt your task at hand to read our blog? Perhaps you saw your RSS feed, or just clicked on your bookmark to see what was posted for today, you know, just for a minute….?

Don’t get us wrong. We’re glad you’re here. There are a lot of distractions out there, so we’re honored you’ve chosen to spend your off-task time with us. (For those of you who are on-task, thanks!)

You are not alone in your tendency to react immediately to something that captures your attention. Here is a summary of an article in Entrepreneur Magazine: Read the rest of this entry »

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How important are small businesses to the U.S. economy?

This comes from the Small Business Association, and should demonstrate that small doesn’t mean insignificant.

Small firms:

• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

• Employ just over half of all private sector employees. Read the rest of this entry »

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If you are serious about improving public speaking skills, here’s a great technique for getting feedback:

Watch yourself on video.

If you’ve never watched yourself on tape, you’re in for a treat. Sort of a Sweet Tart treat. It’s entertaining to see yourself, and yet it’s alarming to see yourself. All of the little things you try ignore (like maybe that your shirt is a little too tight, and you say “um” between thoughts) become enormously obvious. But that’s why you should watch yourself. Your audience, whether 10 people in a boardroom, 100 people in an auditorium, or 10,000 people in a stadium, will have plenty of time to scrutinize you while you talk.

So how do you make sure the audience is listening to your message instead of being distracted by your skills?  Read the rest of this entry »

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Time clocks and yearly reviews are a thing of the past

By Steve Fretzin

Your employees are the key to your success. Without a talented, hard-working staff, your business will flounder and eventually fail. However, it isn’t enough to just hire the right person. You also have to set benchmarks for success and monitor your team effectively in order to make sure that your business is functioning at its highest level.

A behavioral employment agreement can help to ensure that both you and your staff are happy and productive. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ever watch a customer wander through your store and wonder what in the world they were thinking? Here’s an article from ScienceDaily.com that may shed some light on how you can influence the way they make purchase decisions.  Click here for the entire article, or just read here for the 60 second version.

According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, researchers found that different positive emotions in shoppers had drastically different effects on purchasing, including making some products somewhat less appealing.

The authors studied how product preferences changed depending on whether a person was feeling pride, contentment, or a neutral emotional state. Read the rest of this entry »

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Remember the last time you actually received an agenda in advance of a meeting? Likely, you immediately had a higher perception of whether that meeting was going to be a waste of time or not.

“In these tough economic times, every second of the work day is valuable,” says Douglas, author of The Firefly Effect: Build Teams That Capture Creativity and Catapult Results. “None of it should be wasted in meetings that seem to go nowhere or that are plagued by conflict or lack of participation.”

When you are hosting the meeting, first decide your purpose, then who will be attending the meeting. You then need to finalize the agenda. A quality meeting agenda includes:

• The date, time, and location of the meeting
• The meeting’s objectives
• Three to six agenda items, accompanied by how long they’ll take to discuss and who the discussion leaders will be
• A clear explanation of the prep work that should be completed before the meeting

Note that it is okay to use standing agenda items from meeting to meeting–such as “Company Overview,” “Industry Trends,” “Strategy Discussion,” “Review of Metrics,” “Results,” and “Problem Solving”–as long as you also include the length of time allotted for each item and who will be leading the discussion. Send the agenda out as far in advance of the meeting as possible, and then re-distribute an agenda/meeting reminder 48 hours prior to the meeting.

When putting together the agenda for your meeting, Douglas also suggests considering the individual Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument profiles of your team members. Before you begin your meetings overhaul, have an HBDI certified specialist come in to profile your team. The HBDI is an assessment instrument that measures people’s specific thinking preferences. Your team members will be divided based on the HBDI quadrants: Analyze (the blue quadrant), Organize (the green quadrant), Strategize (the yellow quadrant), and Personalize (the red quadrant). Once you know how your team members think, you can design a meeting agenda that better suits each one of them. It is a great way to design your meetings so that there is something for everyone, and you can even color code your agenda based on the quadrant colors to indicate which parts of the meeting your team members will find the most engaging.

“When people come into a meeting knowing what is going to be discussed, they see exactly how their time will be spent,” says Douglas. “They have time in advance to plan their own participation and can thus participate more effectively. By simply creating an agenda, you are already significantly upping your chances of having a successful meeting.”

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Kimberly Douglas, SPHR, is president of FireFly Facilitation, Inc., a firm specializing in the design and facilitation of high-impact initiatives, including leadership team effectiveness and strategic planning.
For more information, please visit www.FireFlyFacilitation.com.

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