DM Coaching and Development

Breadwinner Mothers still Very Sensitive to Family's Needs

As joblessness rises in many male-dominated fields during the recession, a great number of women are becoming primary breadwinners and leaving their husbands at home to take care of the children - both an economic necessity and a way for some couples to offer children stay at home support from at least one parent. In an interesting article "Paradigm Shift: Power Lawyer Mom, Stay at Home Dad" for American Lawyer, the author Vivia Chen commented that the mothers in such couples were still concerned that their partners were doing interesting side projects and that they as mothers were still home to cook for the family or shop a few times a week. It make me wonder  - are working dads as concerned that their partners are finding child raising fulfilling and that they are home at night as fathers to still do their fair share? Would make for some interesting research....

Business Insight in Addition to Badges...Girl Scouts Moves On

After reading the Washington Post article about a Girl Scout "Camp CEO" that pairs traditional scouting activities with lectures on business from Washington area business leaders, I wished I could go back to my scouting days!  Local business women joined the girls for a week of fun and business knowledge to help them think how they will manage work- life balance and break the frontiers still left behind by the current generation. As explained by the writer Jennifer Buske:  ' "The women at camp included chief executives, law firm partners, judges, doctors and entrepreneurs. Howard University's senior vice president and a chef who once cooked for Julia Child also attended the camp. The professionals taught the 13- to 17-year-old girls lessons on leadership, teamwork, persistence and confidence. This camp is different because it's not just fun, but it's also helping you plan your future," said 15-year-old Kristina Chin of Prince George's County. "The message I will remember is there will be struggles, but even if it seems everything is going downhill, there is always an upside."

Challenges of Being Mr. Mom

As more women take up the helm of being main bread-winner, a greater number of men than ever before have taken to being "Mr. Mom" in an effort to save costs on childcare and allow a still-employed wife to focus on her career. While I personally cannot stand to hear bemused people ask a father if he is "baby-sitting" his own children when his wife is not around, I do recognise that this demographic shift will take some getting used to for many. As written about in the article "Tough Times Leave More Men to Become Mr. Mom":  'Dennis, who used to work 50-hour weeks as a human rights attorney, said a stigma is still associated with being a stay-at-home father. He said a lot of people think he's a slacker. "We talk about equality of sexes but I certainly don't know a lot of fathers who want their daughters to marry stay-at-home dads," Dennis said. "It's not something people accept." Dennis said he dreads telling his former law school colleagues about his new role. "Telling them you're a stay-at-home dad is not something all law school colleagues will accept," Dennis said. "The only thing that softens the blow is that half of those guys are unemployed, too." '

Thinking of Setting up on Your Own? First Look at the Top 10 Myths about Entrepreneurship.....

I saw this great checklist the other day about myths some women believe when they first think about going solo and setting up their own businesses. The list, which is on the Denver Women's Business Register, was a familiar one and one that I certainly saw alot of myself in. Some of my favourites are "I'll be my own boss" when in actuality, every client you have is a mini-boss or "I'll work fewer hours" - another big fat lie because while you may work different hours than you did before, you are almost always thinking, tweaking, talking about your business until you bore those around you :) and checking your crackberry....not necessarily the picture of work life balance I myself had anticipated. What were the big myths you believed when you first thought about setting out your own stall? 

Why are the Professions So Full of Young Women and Old Men?

One thing I often notice when I visit clients at various offices is how many young women I see ...and older men. I used to think this was just my imagination, but a recent article in Business to Business, points out the demographic crunch that is facing many professions.The Equal Employment Opportunities Trust in New Zealand points out "Our analysis shows that a number of professions, such as law and medicine, have workforces dominated by older men and younger women. Employers who also have an ageing workforce may be facing the likelihood of large numbers of older people retiring or wanting reduced hours, and some of the young women leaving the workforce or moving to part-time hours at the same time. On average, today’s lawyers are younger than they were in 1991 and there are proportionally more women. In 1991, 24% of lawyers were women; by 2006 they totalled 42%. In 1991, male lawyers tended to be in their early 40s, but by 2006 the largest proportion of male lawyers was aged over 50." Is this a rallying cry to the industry to make it more friendly for parents and those who want to practice law but not devote gruelling 80 hours weeks to the profession? 

Women in Finance Make Better Investments over Long Run

An article in ForbesWoman recently talked about the importance of getting daughters to study maths, in an effort that more women understand investments and work in the financial services. The incentive to do this is to "Raise a Rich Daughter" but also simply because the markets need a greater variety of decision makers when it comes to investments and women's investing style pays off in the long run. The article by Heidi Brown explains that while women hold half of the wealth in the US "only 10% of asset managers are female and recent studies show that, as with other areas of business, women make investment decisions differently from men. They consider contradictory information and study company fundamentals more carefully before investing. Over the long term, funds run by women, who tend to be more risk-averse in general, outperform those of men. The Hedge Fund Research Diversity Index, for example, which has 50% female managers, returned an annual average 8.21% since 2003, while the broader index returned 5.98%."

Companies Retaining Women Simply Because they are Cheaper

While the industries most heavily hit by the recession are male-dominated, such as automotive, manufacturing, construction and finance, it would seem that many companies are keeping their women for a variety of reasons - one of which is that their salaries are less on average! This may be the only benefit I have ever heard regarding the gender pay gap, but as discussed in Voice of America this may be an upside for women who may worry about holding on to their jobs at all. As explained in an article by Ted Landphair in an article entitled "It pays, for a change, to be a woman in the workplace" ..." there are other reasons why job prospects for women are brighter right now than they are for men. Women make less money than men in many comparable jobs. That infuriates women's-rights advocates, but it makes women more attractive to employers who are cutting costs to weather the recession. Many industries have culled their executive and veteran workforce - men, by and large - by paying older workers to retire."  Interesting upside, I only hope the "benefits" of women in the workplace continue long after the recession.

Women Doing Better at Uni - But is the Battle for Equality Won?

Everyone is talking about the gains women are making in higher education - clearly putting them above their male colleagues. According to a report by the Higher Education Policy Institute, women are more likely to get places in the top universities and go on to get better grades. Women have also been entering university in greater numbers than men in recent years - with the participation rate for young women standing at 49%, compared with 38% of young men. The report also disproves the notion that men dominate in the most highly-regarded subjects and institutions, such as law and medicine. Women are taking more places at prestigious Russell Group universities and on the most sought-after courses - the only exception being Oxbridge where women and men are now level. While this is fantastic news, my own work with those in higher education versus the actual working women indicates that the real challenges begin after women are in employment - combining work and family, negotiating power politics and adapting their communication style to those of the men they work with. It is far too early to claim that the equal opportunities agenda is now redundant and the battle for equality "won".

Teaching Work Life Balance for Entrepreneurial Female University Students

In the Washington Post, I recently read about an innovative course "Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership" at George Washington University, in my hometown of DC, that highlights time management in the workplace and how it relates to executive women and the myth of having it all. At its heart is an exploration of work-life balance, an issue that will become crucial for these students later, when child care and other demands drive some women out of the workforce and slow others' ascent. It is led by Kathy Korman Frey, a 37-year-old Harvard MBA who noticed her female students were increasingly seeking advice about a subject the existing business curriculum didn't cover.

They wanted to know how to make it all work: a successful business and a fulfilling personal life. One day, a student approached Frey in a stairwell. She recalls ""She had tears in her eyes as she explained all the different things going on in her life," Frey recalls. "She said: 'You're a mom; you have your own company. Could we talk sometime about how you do that?' . . . That's when I decided that something had to be done in the classroom to address these issues." I applaud such an innovative course and marvel at how many universities would benefit from teaching how to get to the heart of actually living a successful life, not just the theory that will get you the degree. 

Bottom Line Benefits of Flexibility for Working Women

 If there is one silver lining of this recession - it is that companies are beginning to wake up the face that a long hours, high risk, old boys club is perhaps not best for business. In a Time magazine article optimistically entitled "Women Will Rule Business" writers Claire Shipman and Katty Kay describe how "... the female management style, education levels, purchasing clout — is already being used, by pioneering women and insightful companies, to create a female-friendly working environment, in which the focus is on results, not on time spent in the office chair. On efficiency, not schmoozing. On getting the job done, however that happens best — in a three-day week, at night after the kids go to bed, from Starbucks. And here's the real kicker. When a company gives employees freedom, it doesn't just feel good or get shiny, happy workers — productivity goes up. Ask firms like Capitol One, which runs a company without walls or mandatory office time. Or Best Buy, which implemented a system called ROWE — results-only work environment — and found that productivity, in some cases, shot up 40%. Flexibility is no longer a favor to be handed out like candy at a children's birthday party; it's a compelling business strategy." Let me know how your company is responding to the changing tide?