Thriving not Surviving

Strategies to go from merely surviving to THRIVING for women in STEM

Interesting Perspective

It seems like too many people only want to see what they want to see. When we close our perspective down to what is known and comfortable, we stop learning. Additionally, our credibility can start to be eroded because we deem anything outside our accepted perspective as “wrong”. The reality is that we don’t know everything that is possible, nor do we know what others have experienced unless we open our eyes.

Leaders need to be able to create a vision for the future, so people know where they are headed. For that vision to resonate with others it must connect to their perspectives. With the huge variety in people’s experiences, priorities, and concerns being able to share the vision in terms of other people’s perspectives helps gain acceptance. If a leader speaks only from their perspective they are missing out on the connection with others, and you can’t lead if you don’t have followers.

I think all of us have had a boss or other leader who...

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Why are you on this team?

credibility teamwork Sep 16, 2020

Over the past week I’ve heard several women comment on statements from male team members that question why the woman is on that team or how they got there. Grrr…. These comments make my blood boil. There was an implied and inherent assumption that the woman couldn’t be qualified to be on the team, despite years of relevant experience and expertise. Fortunately, the women involved had heard it before and quickly put the guy in his place.

My mind then started wandering back the Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” because there seems to be an absence of trust (Dysfunction #1) on these teams. Lencioni uses the word trust in the context of being confident that each team member has good intentions and it’s acceptable to be vulnerable with each other. The phase he uses that resonates for me is “Members of teams with an absence of trust …. Jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitudes of others without...

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Please Believe Me

communication credibility Jun 24, 2020

I had transferred to a new factory two weeks early when I was asked to stop in to answer questions from the field service reps. One of the reps, Pierre, was really frustrated that a problem he raised several years early had not yet been resolved. I hadn’t dealt with him at my previous location, so we didn’t know each other, and this is the first time I’m hearing about the issue. My response was “This is the first I’ve heard of the issue. Please believe me, I’ll look into and make sure we get it addressed.” He was less than enthusiastic with my response since he’d heard it for years with no results. Now I’m starting to sweat it, I don’t want these reps to be skeptical of our support or not trust us to fix problems. How do I get him to believe that I will address it and that I find the situation unacceptable? As I looked around the room, I realize one rep I had worked with several times was there. I looked at Mike, said...

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Be Brilliant & Be Heard

Be Brilliant & Be Heard

When I started working in the mid-1980s I was a novelty in many ways, a young female engineer working on a naval station. There were no other women engineers in the Engineering Division when I started and only a few on base. Even though I had gone through an engineering degree program, I wasn’t ready for the reality of how hard it was going to be to be accepted and respected. Those first years, at multiple employers, were bumpy, frustrating and at times down-right demoralizing. More than once I questioned whether I could make it or not.

Fortunately, I had been told I could do anything, and my mom had taken the path less traveled in her short career, so I knew it could be done. With time and experience I got better at connecting and communicating with my co-workers and managers. That did more to build my credibility than anything else I did. In turn my confidence grew, which helped me be even better at communication and my credibility grew more.

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Sorry to bother you

"Sorry to bother you..."

When was the last time you approached someone for help and started the conversation with “Sorry to bother you”? Why did you say that? Often, we do it to be polite and acknowledge the interruption. That is all well and good, however there is no reason to apologize for asking for help.

We need to recognize that people are busy and likely engrossed in what they are doing. It is polite to recognize that we are interrupting them. It doesn’t warrant an apology, you haven’t made a mistake or done anything wrong. Save the apology for when it’s appropriate such as “Sorry I’m late getting you this information the system was down, and I couldn’t get into the database.”

When we apologize when it isn’t warranted, we diminish our credibility and it comes across as a lack of confidence. Studies show that women find more reasons to apologize then men do. Why are you undermining yourself by apologizing?

4 Ways to be...

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