Not Done Yet! How Women Over 50 Regain Their Confidence & Claim Workplace Power by Author Bonnie Marcus

A few months ago, I had a friend that starting looking for a job to escape a toxic work environment. As she searched, she was astounded at the blatant ageism that still exists. She is only 46. In one interview, they asked if she would have a problem working with much younger staff. The company was worried that the younger crowd would be intimidated by her experience and age. Wow! Welcome to reality! Even I was shocked. Unfortunately, this is what so many “experienced” women deal with every day. 

Traditionally women have suffered the brunt of both work and family responsibilities. We know the challenges that are thrown at us almost daily. In addition, we “age” more than men and are frequently excluded from promotions, achievements, and opportunities well before men. It is real, it hurts, we have to acknowledge it and reclaim our power. Sound familiar? The new book Not Done Yet! How Women Over 50 Regain Their Confidence & Claim Workplace Power by Bonnie Marcus is a necessary read for women of all ages. 

Admittedly, I am a Bonnie Marcus fan. Her first book The Politics of Promotion is a phenomenal road map to guiding women through the perils of all the politics at work that most of us run from. The articles she writes for Forbes speak to me. Bonnie has experienced what so many of us have in the workplace. It is endearing to read what she and so many other women have experienced and continue to go up against as we age. In this book, Bonnie throws out the truth and the obstacles that we face as we age. Her solution? Become a Badass and live it every day to reclaim your confidence, power, recognition, and show them what you’ve got!

 Are you ready? A Badass “means owning who you are, owning your experience, your wisdom, your talent, your age”. Sign me up! So many women hold themselves back by beliefs. If we remain positive, our beliefs become our rock. If they are negative, we will never show up, own our talent, or be authentic in everything that we do.

 I admire how Bonnie lays it all out for us. The book is divided into three parts. Each chapter gave me chills because I can see myself in every single one. It was also a bit unsettling that I realized how I have just sat back.

1.  Assumptions, fears, and all the crap about aging that holds you back

1. Stop playing small, and do what it takes to stay in the game

2. Be your BADASS self

 Despite all of the gains women have made in the workplace issues such as pay inequity, lack of promotional opportunities, respect for wisdom, few women at the helm of companies, the situation is worse for women over 50. Bonnie shares all of the fears, assumptions, and reality that hold women back. She then grabs us and shares how we should stop holding ourselves back AND stop those who try to stop us. Bonnie offers strategies, advice, life experiences, and candor with a sense of humor while cheering us on. Don’t have a success journal? Get one. Don’t know how to gracefully push back on age comments? She has us covered. Unsure how to move up in your career despite roadblocks? You can become a tactful bulldozer.

 Not Done Yet! is a book that resides next to my bed along with my journal. It will pick me up when I feel defeated. It will inspire me to be authentic and lift other women up. It will be a reminder of how much I still have to give. I will remain in control, visible, relevant, and wise. Join me and pick up Bonnie Marcus’s book Not Done Yet! today.

Are You Ready to Be a Better Mentor to Inspire Your Team?

When I first started my career, mentoring was something only esteemed executives participated in. Managers were more interested in training teams and throwing them out there to do their job. Rarely did we receive one on one feedback, advice, or were challenged with questions to grow. Luckily, times have changed. More and more companies see the value of coaching or mentoring and ingrain it into their culture. My current employer is the first company that I have worked for that really cares about growing people through mentoring and encourages both professional and personal growth.

One of my favorite aspects of being a manager is mentoring my team. I want to encourage them, identify their gifts, and help them grow – even if it means losing them. When someone moves on to a better opportunity it means that I have been successful as a mentor. Unfortunately, many of us haven’t had a mentor so we don’t really know what to do, how to mentor people from different backgrounds, and we are intimidated. Mentoring is here to stay as more companies see the real value and employees expect professional interaction with their leaders. A few months back I was scouring Amazon for an effective book on mentoring but didn’t find what I needed as a leader.

This month I finally found the book that I have been searching for. The new book Bridging Differences for Better Mentoring – Lean Forward, Learn, and Leverage by Lisa Z. Fain and Lois J. Zachery is a goldmine book for mentoring people. The book is an easy read leading the reader on a journey to learn more about mentoring and how to influence teams.

The book engages with reflections, tactics, stories that share actual mentoring situations, tools, and recaps at the end of each chapter. These help the reader bridge any differences or misconceptions that they had about mentoring before picking up Bridging Differences. I need to reinforce new principles when I read a book and this one did not disappoint.

Bridging Differences offers a multiple-phase mentoring model geared to build connections and bridge differences. Here are the phases:

1. Lean forward into difference

2. Learn from differences

3. Leverage differences

4. Enabling growth

One of the primary challenges that we all face when mentoring others or being mentored is understanding our differences and building relationships to overcome those differences. It is not easy and there are a few points that we need to remember.

1. Mentoring has to be reciprocal and both people need to engage. A mentor who does all the talking is doing a disservice to the concept of mentoring

2. Mentoring involves learning. As a mentee, be open to learning and absorb all the knowledge and advice that you can

3. A strong relationship and trust is critical to success

4. Mentoring really is a partnership on both sides.

Overcoming differences is probably one of the key challenges that we all face in the workplace today. Leaders really need to be committed to taking ownership, create awareness about issues and jointly address them. The hardest part? You need to shift your own perspectives and jump out of your own “world” or comfort zone. Cultural differences can also be an uphill battle. We all have our individual unique backgrounds and experiences that impact our ability to address interpersonal relationships. We may need to apply new rules, determine the role of the group we are working with and what is our role when it comes to emotions? What is the scope of relationships when we mentor individuals or groups? Finally, how do we even measure accomplishments or milestones when we mentor?

The mentor and mentee must be honest and set some ground rules before entering a mentor relationship. We forget how different we are from one another and we all carry certain cultural biases, differences, and the big one – social position. It can be pretty intimidating for a junior employee to be mentored by a mentor several levels up and it takes time to build trust and comfort. Likewise, there should be agreement on the monologue and ease of dialogue, how questions are addressed, follow up, and how collaborative engagement will be achieved. This area is where the stories in Bridging Differences really help. There are a few examples of a mentor doing all the talking and assuming what the mentee wants and needs. The differences in expectations were vast and it didn’t make the engagement worthwhile.

So when does mentoring end? That is a key question. That is why it is so critical to layout expectations and agreements when first mentoring someone. Perhaps it will be six months or until the mentee reaches a new goal or level in their career. Perhaps a challenge was overcome and the mentoring achieved its purpose. At my company, mentoring is a continuous process with each team member so that they continue to learn and grow under their current leader. The point is that both parties need to understand and agree on the mentoring process and relationship initially so that expectations and feedback are achieved.

Mentoring is so critical to every employee, stakeholder, volunteer, student, everyone! Bridging Differences for Better Mentoring is an excellent bible for being a better mentor and mentee. This is a must-read for leaders and every human resources leader who is looking to implement a successful mentoring program. This process even lends itself to how we treat raise our children and have meaningful conversations with them.

The 9 Dimensions of Conscious Success Guest Post by David E. Nielson

David E. Nielson has a new book out The 9 Dimensions of Conscious Success - It’s All About You! The book is a journey about finding your purpose and growing as a leader with by creating your own path. Here is a guest post from David. Enjoy!

I was really disappointed when one of my favorite news anchors was caught being inauthentic. Brian Williams had stated that he had been in a helicopter that had received gunfire during his coverage of the Iraq war in 2003. Years later, people who were there came forward and said his story was not true; he had not been shot down in the Chinook helicopter and forced to land.

He experienced the true cost of being inauthentic as other stories of his were questioned such as his coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the Berlin Wall coming down. As a journalist, honesty, integrity, and authenticity are paramount. Once Williams lost that, he lost his job.

One of the significant consequences of not being authentic is erosion of trust. It’s very hard to trust people who project something they aren’t.

Trust

Let’s look at the trust issue on a tactical level, and at a very specific tool to increase your trustworthiness and, by extension, your authenticity.

There are some good books and articles on trust and undoubtedly some good definitions. I like to keep it simple. For me, trust between two or more people is simply “expectations met or unmet.” Generally, if you repeatedly do what you say

you will do, others will find you to be trustworthy. The opposite

is also true.

Years ago, I learned about a simple model called “Management by Agreement—MBA” taught to me by great mentors at The Atlanta Consulting Group. Basically, it is a trust model for making and keeping agreements.

The model has four basic tips or practices:

1. Make only agreements you intend to keep.

2. Avoid making or accepting fuzzy agreements.

3. If you have to break an agreement in the future, give earliest possible notice.

4. If you break an agreement, clean it up

immediately.

If you have mastered the clarity of your purpose and you operate with high self-awareness, you then can become effective and impactful when you are operating authentically!

When you are living your life on purpose, you are living your authentic life. Everything you do has a purpose. No longer do you have to walk the road of being the victim or victor of chance. You are making the rules and you are living by them every day.

About David Nielson

David Nielson brings over four decades of corporate, Fortune 500, and private consulting experience in organizational change management, leadership development, and training. David has helped guide large-scale change initiatives and business strategy driven by ERP, mergers, restructuring, and the need for cultural change. He's been a featured and frequent speaker at PMI, Project World, Chief Executive Network, Management Resources Association, TEC, IABC, Training Director’s Forum, and the Alliance of Organizational Systems Designers.

David has worked around the world delivering training and consulting Services. In all those years, those countries, those clients; David has observed, learned and collected great experiences and teaching points. David decided to work on a way to “give back.” His latest book, The 9 Dimensions of Conscious Success helps readers identify their definition of purpose professionally and personally to achieve conscious success.

Be a Gardener, Not a Mechanic - Guest Blog

What if you could sit down with a group of the top leaders in the world and just listen and learn. What an honor to soak up all of their ideas and experiences. You can! The new book LeaderSHOP by Dr. Rodger Dean Duncan offers incredible insights on the workplace, career, and real life advice from some of the top leaders around. Here is a guest blog from this new gem!

By Rodger Dean Duncan

A first tendency of many business people is to fix things. After all, they’re paid to solve problems, so the metaphor of the mechanic seems natural.

Unfortunately, some leaders then try to “fix” people.

How many of us want to be fixed? Not many. We may be open to persuasion or influence, but we don’t want to be “fixed.”

Rather than adopt the role of mechanic, great leaders adopt the role of gardener.

What does a gardener do?

A gardener creates an environment that encourages growth. An environment full of light and nourishment. An environment with sufficient space for stretching and expanding.

Leadership—and gardening—are all about creating positive change.

Great leaders—and great gardeners –resist the temptation to micromanage. They know that flowers cannot grow if you keep jerking them out of the ground to check the roots.

Great leaders don’t get hung up on position or titles. They invest their energy in creating devotion to a worthy cause. They are more interested in getting a job done than in who gets the credit.

Let me illustrate: I worked with a CEO of an organization that had lost $156 million the previous year. He was brought in from the outside to turn the company around.

On his third day on the job he went out into the employee parking lot behind the headquarters building. There was a row of “privileged” parking spots closest to the building. In front of each parking space was a sign with the name of a senior executive. The CEO took a can of spray paint and sprayed over each name. He knew that many employees were looking out their office windows, likely wondering what the CEO was up to.

After spray-painting over all the signs, the CEO went inside and got on the building intercom. He said he felt like the high school principal making morning announcements.

He began with something like this:

“Some of you saw me spray over the names of our executives in the parking lot. You may be wondering, ‘Is he firing the executives?’ No, I’m not firing the executives. We need ‘em. We need everybody. We’re all in this boat together and we need to row together. Last year this company lost $156 million. We can do better. We must do better.

“Beginning today we’re going to break down all these artificial barriers … we’re going to be less concerned about what title you have and what parking place you have. Beginning tomorrow, if you get here late and it’s raining, you’ll get wet. If you get to work early, you can park anywhere you want. All that matters is what will each of us do to make our team stronger and build our business.” Then he said: “Thanks a lot. Have a great day.”

This CEO was demonstrating what it means to be a gardener and not a mechanic.

He did dozens of things like that. The cumulative effect was that he created an environment where his people felt involved and obligated regarding the needs of each other and the needs of the organization.

He helped his people see themselves in a fresh light. He helped them see each other in a fresh light. He helped them see their marketplace potential in a fresh light.

Rather than smother his people with constraining rules and policies, he gave them elbowroom to try new things and experiment in new directions.

Rather than cut his people down for past poor performance, this great leader chose to lift them up toward future great performance.

He created an atmosphere that had absolutely no tolerance for blaming or any kind of “victim-talk.”

He created an environment full of encouragement, collaboration, and personal accountability.

So what was the result? In only 12 months that company harvested a $207 million improvement in profits. It’s now a case study at the Harvard Business School.

Now, was this guy some sort of flower child? Did he sing “Kumbya” and other camp songs in the employee cafeteria?

No. He’s actually one of the toughest-minded business people I’ve ever known. And he’s one of the most effective leaders I’ve ever had the privilege of working with.

Great leaders know that you can rent a person’s back and hands. But you must earn a person’s head and heart.

Great leaders know that organizations are living organisms with many interrelated elements, capable of extinction or growth.

Great leaders invest energy in growing rather than fixing.

They are gardeners. They create a nurturing environment—or culture—and they cultivate with care.

Be a gardener, not a mechanic. Don’t try to “fix” people. Create an environment that affirms and encourages people. An environment that places a premium on solving problems and getting results. An environment where blame is weeded out and people feel free to stretch and grow and produce.

Is this just warm and fuzzy, touchy-feely stuff for “soft” people? Not at all.

It’s the key to the hard realities of high performance in a tough and fast-moving world.

Believe it. Practice it. It makes all the difference.

Rodger Dean Duncan is bestselling author of LeaderSHOP: Workplace, Career, and Life Advice From Today’s Top Thought Leaders. Early in his career he served as advisor to cabinet officers in two White House administrations and headed global communications at Campbell Soup Company. He has coached senior leaders in dozens of Fortune 500 companies.

Eight Reasons Why You Are Still In High School

I remember years ago when I was in high school my mom telling me numerous times “these are the best years of your life!” Sure, spending day after day dealing with gossip, cliques, homework, disenchanted teachers, including kids who didn’t care much about actually learning was the best right? The sad thing is that many of us are still in high school only we call it work. Sound familiar?

Years ago employees hung out around the water cooler or coffee counter. Open office plans have flipped that practice upside down. Most employees have minimal privacy and are sitting on top of each other. It’s like sitting in a classroom all day working on homework assignments. Ultimately not much has changed since graduation, and you are still in high school.

Eight reasons why you are still in high school

1. Gossip. I think that corporate gossip is worse than in high school, we are just sneakier about it. Back in the old days, we didn’t have social media and smart phones to share what we heard. Technology has exasperated the spread of gossip and adults are savvier about making chatter sound like corporate strategy. These days gossip destroys people and careers. Don’t get wrapped up in its dangers.

2. Bullying. Adults can be cruel. Bullying takes place every day in the form of intimidation, sabotage, belittling, and even subtle threats. Not long ago, I had a manager that was smooth one day and the next day would micromanage and throw out threats with a smile on his face. We would all do a double take to try and understand his game.

3. Cliques: We were all in a group in high school whether we realized it or not. Nothing has changed. You are in a circle at work. Look around you. Higher level managers stay in their corner; the interns hang together all day. The IT folks have their spot. These cliques often meet after work for “team building”.

4. Lackadaisical Coworkers: My twins love school. Fortunately, they are bright and motivated to learn. They also complain weekly about being in classes with kids who could care less about learning or growing. It brings them down and at times, interrupts their learning. We all work with people who don’t care. They don’t want to learn. They don’t care about growing and strengthening the team. They just show up.

5. Competition: The magical word. In high school, we see competition in every sport, and it permeates throughout the system. Most of the time it’s healthy, but not always. Competition encouraged with negative intent can impact lives. You know where the competition is and who owns it in your area. You have probably seen how a competitive team can thrive and accomplish. You have also been on the receiving end of spiteful and negative competition. I have seen people pay with their jobs from malicious competition.

6. Teachers: I remember some of my best teachers. They were passionate about my learning and growth and cared about preparing me for success. I also remember the poor teachers. They had tenure and just showed up every day for a paycheck. Managers are not much different. Some leaders thrive on growing and mentoring teams. Others don’t care and like a tenured teacher, just show up.

7. The Principal: I’m guessing that you either loved or hated your high school Principal. It probably depended on how much trouble that you created! You still have a Principal – your top leadership including the CEO. The Principal is the one that manages the culture of the company, makes or breaks your future in the company and can make your job easy or challenge you. They probably don’t know you well unless you are a troublemaker or….a suck up. Beware of the Principal.

8. School Board: The school board oversees the entire system and has no idea about the inner working of the company nor do they care how you function on a daily basis. They only know what they are told and generally go along with what they hear. They don’t tend to dig deep into the company culture or care about employee well being or team challenges. Making cuts, moving employees, cutting departments is all in a day’s work for them.

Hopefully, you loved high school and have positive memories. You may also be in the minority. I was eager to move on after high school and grow through my college years. As you read this and if you are at work, look around you, and I bet you will whisper to yourself “I AM still in high school!”

Humble Leadership

A Case of an Admiral's Humble Leadership by Ed and Peter Schein

Luckily, the hammer approach to leadership has been changing, albeit slowly, over the years. Leaders are becoming more personal, understanding, learning to be servant leaders, and humble. The new book The Future of Leadership by Edgar and Peter Schein offers insight into how leaders need to work smart and be humble. They tackle issues like the power of relationships, openness, and trust. Here is a story of humbleness from a place you wouldn't expect - the military.

We were recently told a memorable story by a retired US Navy admiral that illustrated how “collapsing” the hierarchy and opening the door to Level 2 relationships can sometimes be done quickly and decisively. The admiral, at the time, was in command of a nuclear-powered US Navy aircraft carrier. Effectively, he was the CEO of a 5000-person co-located organization for whom safety and high-quality performance would be top priorities. As a nuclear scientist and naval aviator, his background, experience, and hands-on knowledge suited him exceptionally well for the technical aspects of his mission, yet his instincts as a leader are what this story is about.

There was an incident on the flight deck in which an error in chocks and chains handling, a critical part of aircraft operations, could have endangered lives or caused the loss of very valuable naval aircraft. The error resulted from mishandling by one of the flight deck handlers (a “blue jersey” in aircraft carrier parlance) who reported up to an aircraft handling
officer (a “yellow jersey”).

Given normal Naval hierarchy and protocol, this error would have been recorded, post-mortem debriefed and corrected, and there would have been some degree of reprimand and disciplinary consequences for the blue jersey. The admiral told us that this was not outside of the normal course of aircraft carrier flight deck operations. Complicated things happen, and the US Navy has a few hundred years of organizational knowledge to deal with such incidents. That is, the commanding officer could have let the hierarchy work the problem and the solution, but that is not what happened.

Instead, he invited the blue jersey to the bridge to discuss the incident, just the two of them. One can hardly imagine how that junior chocks and chains handler must have felt, getting called up to the bridge, presumably to get reprimanded directly by the commanding officer. Knowing how critical these intricate details of deck and aircraft handling are to the safety and to the mission of an aircraft carrier, the commanding officer, a pilot himself, wanted to hear directly from the deck what had happened, perhaps why, and certainly how and why it would not happen again. At a deeper level, he cared more about the truth and the process, and far less about the discipline to be applied. The system would take care of that. 

What must that meeting have been like? Was the blue jersey terrified, mortified, contrite, and reconciled? If all of those feelings were present, how would the commanding officer get to the truth of what happened? The admiral told us how he managed to quickly create what we would describe as psychological safety for the deckhand by focusing the conversation on his own curiosity of what had happened and why, making it clear that this meeting was not about punishment but about exploration. The shared goal was for that junior seaman to walk away from the meeting with a dedication to doing it better, not a reprimand for doing it wrong. 

A reprimand would certainly reinforce a commitment to the hierarchy. As commanding officer the admiral wanted commitment to the task, to safety, and to quality performance. With the gesture of calling this meeting, and focusing the dialogue on the person and the truth, he reinforced his commitment to improving the processes that save (or could cost) lives on an aircraft carrier. The visible, personal two-way dialogue demonstrated a commitment to a process that the most senior leaders and the most junior sailors could identify with and learn from.

Stepping back from this case, small acts of Humble Leadership by the admiral may well have been a matter of course in his organization, a culture set by a senior leader that existed before and after this incident. This does not change the story except to amplify the truth that this admiral had a clear sense for the importance of personization, establishing openness and trust, even in a 5000-person hierarchical organization.

LESSON
What is most striking to us about this story is that the existence of a steep and formal hierarchy does not require the persons at the top of that hierarchy to behave in a transactional Level 1 manner. They can choose to personize at any time and at any level, thereby very visibly reinforcing some of the central values that they wish to highlight.

About Authors
Edgar H. Schein is Professor Emeritus from the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. He’s a pioneer in organizational studies, organizational culture and leadership, process consulting, career development. Ed’s contributions to the practice of O.D. date back to the early 1960s and continue with the recent publication of Organizational Culture and Leadership 5th edition and now Humble Leadership, co-authored with Peter A. Schein, co-founder of OCLI.org who brings 30 years of hands-on experience in large and small companies leading growth initiatives in Silicon Valley.

Is This The End? By Dr. Dawn Graham

Fewer of us are staying at our jobs for decades like our parents. People are less likely to tolerate toxic work cultures, no advancement, poor leadership, and want more out of life than just work. Are you ready for a change? Pick up Dr. Dawn Graham's book Switchers: How Smart Professionals Change Careers - and Seize Success. Here is some advice or perhaps the kick in the behind that you may have been needing to make changes in your own career. 

While it’s not unusual to have bad days at work (and some that even lead to dreams of quitting and retiring to a sunny island), deciding to actually resign is a big deal. How can you tell if you’re just going through a tough phase in your job or if it’s time to explore new opportunities? Consider these:

1.    Identify the root of the problem: Is the boss hindering your professional growth or maybe the culture isn’t a great match? Is your work environment toxic or maybe your daily commute or travel schedule is slowly killing you? Some things can be changed. Other problems will follow you. Either way, when you can pinpoint the major hurdle, you’ll be more equipped to overcome it.

2.    Craft an experiment: If the company is interested in retaining you and the root of your problem is boredom, they may be open to you taking on special projects or transitioning to a different department to learn a new function. Think about your longer-term career goals and identify skill gaps you’d like to close. Even if you plan to leave the company down the road, you can use your remaining time wisely by building up your resume and relationships.

3.    Know where you’re going:  You’ll always be more successful when you run TOWARD an exciting opportunity versus running AWAY from a bad situation. Once you identify the problem (see #1), next map out what your ideal situation looks like so that you can aim for that target. Even the least skilled interviewers can recognize the difference between motivation and desperation, so clarify your goal and communicate why you’re excited about it.

4.    Evaluate the landscape: If it’s been a while since you’ve changed roles, the market and skill sets may have shifted. Take time to understand your current value in the industry you’re targeting and be able to relay how the problems you solve contribute positively to a company’s bottom line. Reconnect with your network and get feedback on your candidacy. Also, get up to speed on the latest hiring trends. You don’t want to be blindsided by a request for a one-way video interview or miss a job opening because you’re not on social media.

5.    Look before you leap:  Unemployment bias is real, therefore, it’s easier to land a new role while still employed since you’ll seem more attractive as a candidate. Sometimes a workplace is so toxic that it’s not possible to stay a moment longer, but if that’s not the case, continue to deliver your best work while engaging in a stealth job search after hours.

6.    Get creative: If you’re not able to change jobs now or the job search is taking longer than anticipated, keep your energy and motivation high by finding career fulfillment in other ways. Join a nonprofit board, take on a mentee, or enroll in continuing education courses. A positive attitude will be your best friend in an interview, so avoid feeling “stuck” by taking action. Bonus: These actions are great for networking, which may ultimately lead to your next opportunity!

7.    Don’t look back. Trust your gut to tell you when it’s time to move on. Most jobs have difficult periods, but if you constantly feel stressed, are getting physically ill (e.g., headaches, etc.), or if your relationships are suffering, it’s time to go.

Happy hunting!

Dr. Dawn Graham, PhD is one of the nation's leading career coaches. She is the Career Director for the MBA Program for Executives at The Wharton School, where she counsels business leaders on making strategic career choices. A licensed psychologist and former corporate recruiter, she hosts SiriusXM Radio's popular weekly call-in show Career Talk and is a regular contributor to Forbes.

Her latest book, Switchers: How Smart Professionals Change Careers - and Seize Success is written specifically for people thinking about changing career paths. Packed with psychological insights, practical exercises, and inspiring success stories, Switchers helps these individuals leap over obstacles and into a whole new field.