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There was a certain irony in seeing the headline that ‘more than a third of teenage girls suffer depression and anxiety’ on the same front page as updated data on the gender pay gap (in short – there still is one; https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/23/gender-pay-gap-average-18-per-cent-less-uk-women).
(I wonder what it must be like to read the continual coverage about the pay gap, the casual sexism of the Olympic commentators, the constant trolling and victim blaming as an 18 year old girl? Pretty bloody depressing, I’d say.)
I read the pay gap coverage with an eye roll. Here we are again. At first I couldn’t even be bothered to comment on it. Creating systemic change in this arena is complex, painfully slow and full of people missing the point entirely.
Rather than add to the complexity, I’m going to focus on one thing I think the advertising industry could change to make a difference in this area – flexible working. The biggest challenge, in my view, is that the advertising industry finds it hard to create an upwards career trajectory for those choosing not to work 38+ hours a week. And, typically it is mothers who are requesting to work in a different way – albeit we are seeing increasing numbers of men adopt this work pattern.
With the technology and cross border reality of 21st century work, it is astonishing to me that we are so wedded to 20th century work practices. It’s time that an industry that prides itself on being current, caught up with the times.
Rox
On Tuesday 28th June, we hosted our first ever conference – HeANDShe – with a diverse panel of speakers from the worlds of neuroscience, mental health campaigning, media and advertising.
Our intention was to discuss how to bring men along to the gender conversation, along with starting a debate about how men are also harmed by gender stereotypes.
The evening brought thought-provoking conversation about how and why the panel would tackle harmful gender stereotypes.
For those of you that couldn’t be there, here are some insights.
Dr Jack Lewis, neuroscientist, kicked off by stating that female and male brains are much more similar that dissimilar, and that nurture plays a huge role in shaping the brain differences between men and women. What this means is how we treat our girls and boys, which research tells us is different even before they are born if we know their gender, is what largely shapes the consequent differences in our brains. He suggested that the brain is more likely to remember narratives and stories, rather than facts. This may be why the idea that ‘men are from Mars, women are from Venus’ has gained so much traction, when in fact the similarities are much more pronounced than the differences.
Natasha Devon MBE, the Government’s former Mental Health ambassador for Schools and co-founder of the Self-Esteem Team, explained the devastating impact that gender stereotypes can have on young men and boys, which is shown by the alarming high suicide rates and rise in mental health and self-esteem issues that young people suffer today. She suggested that having one emotion – whether that be happiness or anger – isn’t enough for any human being, and that men especially need to be able to have the space and opportunity to be able to open up and share how they’re feeling.
Harriet Minter, Women in Leadership editor for The Guardian, put forward the case that women need to do less and men need to do more, expect more and ask for more. She shone a light on how hard it can be for men to choose a career that they are passionate about over providing for their family, how challenging it can be for men to have the space to care for their children, and how it might actually be tougher for men to ask for flexible working and extended parental leave than it is for women. Harriet argued that gender equality is still just a “nice to have” in our industry and we need to continue having this conversation if we are ever to affect real change within our organisations.
Paul Frampton, Group CEO of Havas Media Group UK & Ireland, went last and did a great job at landing these insights in the world of advertising and media. He discussed leadership styles and how “leadership is changing… and emotions are the secret weapon of great leaders”. This, in his view, provides a strong case for more gender diversity at a senior level and the emergence of a feminine leadership style. He said, “We’re starting to see a world where vulnerability is valued in the workplace, especially for millennials” which is something that The Hobbs Consultancy has been championing for a long time.
Paul argued that “knock on change in the ad industry will have a knock on effect in wider culture”, and it is because of this that I think we all have a collective responsibility to affect change in our industry.
If you are interested in us bringing the HeANDShe conversation to your organization please get in touch.
Speak soon
Emily
(Marketing and Operations for The Hobbs Consultancy)
This year, I’m walking my ‘daring way’ talk, stepping in to the arena and organising The Hobbs Consultancy’s first ever conference. I do hope you will be able to join us.
The conference is going to explore our thinking about gender from a completely fresh perspective – what if we could integrate rather than separate? This is a topic which informs how we consider our target audiences as advertisers and how we think about our employees as HR professionals and line managers.
We will listen to some diverse points of view about gender from different places – from the world of neuroscience (where we are learning that many gendered brain differences might be environmental rather than innate), from the perspective of teens and self esteem (where we are more recently seeing male teens struggle with body image issues, something previously seen predominantly in girls), from a female leadership editor (whose job depends on our differences and yet has some surprising views on the future) and from an agency network CEO (who has recently talked about the need for men to get involved in the quest for gender parity).
My hope is that we further the debate in a constructive way, whilst also being entertained, inspired and having the chance to catch up with professional colleagues.
The topic is also pertinent to me on a personal level as it reflects the change in my thinking over the past five years since leaving the corporate world to set up on my own in 2011.
Whilst on maternity leave, I was able to look back at the media and advertising industry from a more objective viewpoint and saw, literally for the first time, how being a woman had impacted upon my career. Whilst working at MEC, then Carat and then Vizeum, as a grad through to a Managing Partner, I didn’t see how being female came in to the equation at all. I think this was partly because I lacked the ability to look from the outside in, and also because of the fast pace of the job – reflective time didn’t really get to happen.
I set up The Hobbs Consultancy initially to support women through the key inflection stages of their career – maternity and the step in to leadership. We don’t have a problem attracting young women in to our industry. We have an issue retaining them though their mid career stages, through the family stages and also in to leadership positions.
And let’s be clear. I am sure now that it was the organisations as much as the women within them that needed support. At the time I had self sabotaged and had brought my own challenges around perfectionism and people pleasing that often made it difficult to take the helicopter view and focus on what the right thing to do was. I was more focused on doing things right – keeping stuck in management rather than leadership mode.
Whilst working on a diversity project at a media network, I interviewed lots of men and women about gender in the workplace. I was really surprised by what I heard. There were three key themes from the men – either a disgruntled ‘why so much focus on women?’ which made them disengage from the project. Or a ‘my wife / sister / daughter is struggling with some of this and I want to be part of the solution’. Or ‘Why is it just the women that we’re talking to about extended leave and flexible working?’.
I began to realise that we very much needed men to be involved, that focusing solely on women is the antithesis of inclusivity and that our gender expectations or stereotypes can negatively impact on men as much as women.
I thought that talking about the business case for gender parity would be enough to get men involved. I no longer believe that. The men I speak to are actually far more interested on a personal level. How is this system not serving myself or the women in my life? How can it be different for all of us? How can I release myself from some of the expectations around masculinity? How can I get to spend more time with my family too?
So this is a conference for everyone. It’s about how our binary ideas of what men and women should do, feel and think can get in the way for all of us. The first wave of feminism, whilst making great strides forward (for which I’ll always be thankful) also got it wrong – they positioned themselves in opposition to men rather than with men.
I have a husband, a brother and two sons. I look at our expectations on them to provide, to ‘man up’, to not display emotions, vulnerability and weakness and I see the other side of the same coin that has produced the so-called glass ceiling in the workplace. Our gender stereotypes are damaging everyone.
What if we stopped thinking in opposition to one another and stopped thinking about how different we all are?
What would be possible?
Love, Rox
For more information about this conference please visit: http://thehobbsconsultancy.com/Events.php
To book tickets please go to: https://heandshe.eventbrite.co.uk
Do you sometimes doubt your abilities and worry that you are not good enough? Do you feel inadequate even though what you have achieved suggests otherwise?
If so then you could well be suffering from Imposter Syndrome. It’s something that has probably always been around but it was given a label in the 1970s to describe the phenomenon in which successful people cannot internalise, or ‘own’, their successes. It is experienced as a sense of inadequacy and ‘not enough’, even when information suggests this not to be true. And, interestingly, it is more likely to be experienced by women.
First the good news – if you feel this is something you recognise in yourself then you are not alone. In fact over 70% of people studied report having experienced it at one time or another in their lives.
And a long list of high achievers have all talked about experiencing these feelings too. It would seem fame, success and prestigious accolades do not make you immune.
Imposter Syndrome is more than just doubting yourself and we have to unpick it further to be able to tackle it. I would argue that Imposter Syndrome is a function of perfectionism and shame with these being two sides of the same coin.
Putting a spotlight on perfectionism makes sense – it’s a self destructive belief system in which we think that if we just do everything perfectly we can minimise difficult feelings of unworthiness and shame. The cycle is addictive as perfect is an impossible standard to strive for. And, when we get things wrong, or when people judge or blame us, we decide to strive even harder rather than acknowledging the impossible standards that have been set.
But, why shame? Brené Brown defines shame as the intensely painful feeling that we are flawed and are therefore not worthy of love and belonging. Maybe you’re surprised to see shame being discussed here. It isn’t something that is often discussed but it is the driving emotion behind so many of our destructive behaviours in the workplace and, so, can’t be ignored.
I believe Imposter Syndrome is rife in the workplace, particularly for women, due to the masculine workplace culture. If the workplace rewards ‘masculine’ traits of dominance, control, linear thinking and reason over ‘feminine’ ones such as group decision making, empathy, lateral thinking and intuition, then it’s no wonder women doubt their worthiness.
The lack of senior female roles models who ‘show up’ as themselves does not help. In the past, and still today perhaps to a lesser extent, women felt that they have to take on masculine workplace characteristics to get ahead and therein lies the issue. If women continue to bend to that idea that they have to be more ‘male’ to get ahead then that just undermines the value that women can, and should be encouraged to, bring to the workplace.
It’s easy to get caught in a vicious cycle – you don’t show up as yourself because what you bring isn’t valued, and because you’re not showing up as yourself you doubt yourself, and so it goes on.
Look out for our next newsletter in which we show you how to work through Imposter Syndrome.
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Our two day Daring Way™ workshop is now on the 16th and 17th March and is specifically for entrepreneurs. Through the course we will examine what gets in the way of us truly going for it as entrepreneurs, where we hold back and where we hide. We will look at creativity, innovation, trust and empathy – and what might get in the way. Finally we will work through tools and techniques to support you in truly showing up as a business leader. This setting also provides you with a support network for living brave in your whole lives beyond the two day workshop. Click here for more information.
Thank you for taking an interest in our work this year. It really has been a phenomenal year for us as a team and also myself on an individual level.
I always encourage people to reflect on the year past before looking forward to the year ahead.
Our 2015 highlights
What do you want to celebrate about 2015? Take some time to think about your key achievements and learnings…
And what do you want to make a commitment to doing in 2016?
We have a Daring Way™ workshop at the beginning of the year to support you in making this your most courageous year ever. Plus Rising Strong dates bringing the new curriculum to life…
Here’s to being grateful for the year that’s past, and excited about what’s to come in 2016.
I am at the very inspiring Emerging Women conference in San Francisco at the moment. It’s been a huge undertaking to get me here – I was supposed to go last year to the one in New York and felt unable to go at the last minute. This year I have travelled to California with the whole family for a month of training, work, meet ups and holiday. It has been AMAZING.
I am feeling so overwhelmed with information, research and inspiration it remains a struggle to try and summarise a story, or a theme to share with you all. It’s as if there are tectonic plates shifting in my brain.
For the moment, I have the feeling that we are on the edge of something big. That there is a new paradigm that is emerging and that it is reaching critical mass.
I am hearing women ask – what if we just did things differently? We weren’t at the table for the creation of so much of our world. But what if we could be? What could the world look like when we catalyse feminine energy in this world? What will the revolutions be when we insist on bringing in the feminine paradigm?
Could we show that there is a place for compassion, for empathy and collaboration in every single institution?
Or, perhaps at a higher level still, what if we could escape the concept of trying to compartmentalise and separate the masculine and feminine? What could true integration look like? What could this mean for humanity?
I don’t know the answers to these questions at the moment but one thing I am hearing loud and clear is that we need to know ourselves, our wanting and our desires in order to get to this. We need to shut down the voices in our heads that tell us we can’t, or we shouldn’t. We need to reality check the stories that we are making up in the absence of real data. We need to take time to get out of our heads and in to our hearts.
It is not necessarily the external world that is stopping us from progressing. We are just as culpable. It is our responsibility to work through this and figure out what could happen in our lives and the world if we truly showed up.
Today I want to introduce you to another new associate coach here at The Hobbs Consultancy, Sonia Calvo:-
Sonia is a challenging, curious, intuitive and versatile coach. She works with executives in global corporations to develop potential, increase performance, enhance leadership skills and create sustainable change.
Sonia is fascinated in exploring what makes people tick, bringing out the best in them and discovering what they have to offer. She is passionate about working with people who want to have a bigger impact in their lives and supporting them in finding ways to have that impact.
It is my pleasure to hand over to Sonia to share her wisdom…
We are all leaders in our lives and we all lead in different ways. How we lead at work may be different from how we lead at home. The one true factor, is that in the middle of it all, is US.
“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are” – Brené Brown
A powerful quote from Brené Brown and so true. And how are we supposed to embrace who we are? Some of us don’t really know who that person is or allow that person to come alive.
A challenge I often see in the corporate world is when we compare ourselves to others, to our bosses, to our peers and we sometimes forget just because we are different, handle situations differently, think differently, does not mean we do it wrong or are not good enough.
Unfortunately when we compare ourselves, it’s an uphill battle. When we try to be like someone else, we are not being authentic and hide our abilities and ourselves.
I had a client recently who was given the responsibility of leading their quarterly shareholder meetings, a role which their boss had been doing for a long time and did incredibly well. (The ‘incredibly well’ bit, was my clients perspective…)
The internal voices my client was getting were… ‘how can I do as good a job, I am not as experienced, the shareholders wont listen to me, I will freeze, I might not have all the answers, I will look unprofessional’. And so on.
From this perspective, my client was setting herself up for failure.
What’s the impact you could have if you dropped comparison and quieted the voices? If instead you focused on:
What do I bring which is different?
What are my strengths?
What do I know to be true right now which will serve me?
How do I want to show up at the meeting?
How do I want to be when I don’t have the answer?
By focusing my client’s attention to these questions, she was able to explore and be curious about what she had to offer, what she brought to the table and allow herself to step into this new opportunity.
By exploring who we are and how we want to show up, we make it possible to find our authentic selves and lead from this place.
Growing up, success to me was all about getting the A grade. Yes, looking back, the perfectionist tendencies took a hold around exam time when getting a B would be perceived as a failure.
Moving to London, success became about financial independence – being able to afford to buy a flat (well – a dodgy studio flat in Oval), to have an annual holiday and to pay for dinners out with friends. Pretty quickly, success was framed in terms of the amount of money I was earning and how I was progressing up a linear career hierarchy. I doggedly pursued a Managing Partner position as a critical milestone in my career success.
Having children changed things for me somewhat. If I was going to leave my children to go to the workplace, I wanted to be making a difference. A second paradigm of success became available to me. What if my work could truly make a difference alongside being a present Mother? What if success was being able to pick my children up from nursery early each day whilst pursuing a meaningful career? I quit the Managing Partner role and started working for myself, meaning that my time was my own and that I could do the work that really mattered to me – supporting women in showing up and being seen in the workplace.
I confess it took a while to feel this new perspective in my bones, rather than just in my head. I would still get a pang of jealousy seeing peers being promoted, and realising the salary I could have been on. Practicing gratitude was always my way through this. It became a mantra – I am grateful for the opportunity to see my children every afternoon. I am grateful for being able to do meaningful work. I am grateful that my time is my own. And a couple of years later, I realised it had really landed for me. No longer did I look wistfully at the ‘big’ jobs in the workplace. In fact, I was offered a role recently and it was pretty easy to turn down as soon as I realised it was only my ego that was attracted to the pay and the title.
More recently, I find myself tentatively playing with a new paradigm, inspired by Gabrielle Bernstein – ‘I measure my success by how much fun I’m having’. This has been eye opening for me. Sometimes when I am engaged in the work I really care about, it isn’t fun. Sometimes the passion for creating change equals frustration when things change too slowly for an impatient type like myself. Other parts of my work – The Daring Way™, the group coaching – are always fun. I look forward to them and relish being at the front of the room. Equally some of the time I’m present with my children isn’t ‘fun’. As any parent knows, that time between picking them up from childcare and getting them to bed in the evening can be an exhausting battle of the wills.
So I am giving myself permission to explore this new paradigm and see how integrated I can make it for my life. It feels out of reach just now, just like the second one did a few years back. I am going to write myself beautiful reminders by my bed and by my computer to prompt me to make different choices. This morning, the children went to nursery and I went to yoga, had a walk in the park and a Mediterranean brunch at a local café. Writing this I have a much bigger smile on my face than if I had spent the morning engaged in admin and paperwork. I haven’t knocked anything off my to do list, but I suspect I’ve had a more successful day.
It has struck me recently as absurd the way in which women tell their employees that they are pregnant. “I’m so sorry” seems to be a common offering. Both absurd and somehow understandable when you consider the cultural backdrop in the workplace against which the conversation happens. And yet I think there’s another conversation that needs tackling so that workplaces can become more inclusive – the ‘I’m trying to get pregnant (and I’m finding it really tough)’ one.
The workplace culture currently seems a long way away from this. In a culture that is increasingly competitive and demanding increased resilience, hours and commitment from its people, a focus on something that will one day temporarily take them away from the workplace seems problematic.
Add to this the fact that infertility is a deeply personal subject with huge potential for shame. Our wider culture, if not the culture in the workplace, prizes fertility as part of our gender identity. Not particularly helpful for a man that has been told he has a low sperm count or a woman who has been told they aren’t ovulating regularly. Add to that, talking about sperm, periods, ovulation and so on is just a bit uncomfortable, even with your closest friends sometimes. Of course people might not want to be open about it. It’s a shame storm waiting to happen.
However I’ve come to realize that we are losing out by not talking about this. By keeping silent we lose that opportunity to connect and realise our common humanity. As soon as one person opens up about a miscarriage, others share their experience. Suffering quietly means that you lose the opportunity for your peers to connect and support you through a truly testing time. You create a further stress on top of a pretty stressful situation – trying to keep the appointments and your hurt quiet. Your bosses continue to hurl work your way and wonder why you’re not too emotionally resilient these days – not realising you’re still coming to terms with the news that it’s unlikely you’ll ever conceive naturally.
And I’m beginning to sense that, through keeping quiet, we are missing the chance to build the kind of workplace that I think many of us would like to see. One in which we encourage people to bring their whole selves in to the workplace. The pressure of keeping your homosexuality to yourself has been well documented in the brilliant book ‘The Glass Closet’. What about the pressure of keeping your biggest disappointments quiet, and instead pretending that everything is just dandy? Could we create a workplace in which we show empathy and compassion for the struggles in our wider lives? Is it possible to create a workplace in which having children is seen as essential for the human race to continue – and so is welcomed and supported?
I am fully aware that the workplace is not ready for this conversation at the moment. It would be great if more women shared their stories, and yet my call is for a cultural shift led from the top. One of the most memorable moments in my career was hearing a founding partner of one of the top creative agencies talk candidly about her fertility struggle in front of 100 industry women. My call is for leaders to humanize the workplace, to role model having the difficult conversations and to bring in empathy. Let’s create a workplace in which everyone can bring their whole selves in to the workplace and be valued for it.
The Daring Way for female leaders talks about being brave, learning empathy and your purpose in the workplace : http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-daring-waytm-for-female-leaders-tickets-16016355350?aff=ebsavedevents