FountainBlue is pleased to produce a series of "When She Speaks" Women in Leadership events to convene high-impact, high-integrity men and women in high-tech and life-sciences fields interested in celebrating leadership, making connections and learning from others.
Below are notes taken from previous events for your reference. We welcome your comments on the notes below, and invite both men in women interested in supporting women in leadership positions to participate in our monthly sessions, scheduled on the second Thursdays of the month from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at EMC
Corporation, 2831 Mission College Boulevard in Santa Clara. You may also purchase an online copy of previous conversations by visiting our online store.
FountainBlue's May 10, 2007 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of The Mentors in Our Lives.
Since the launch of our When She Speaks Series, we have had monthly conversations in celebration of women in leadership positions. Invariably, our conversations touched on the mentors, leaders and role models upon whose shoulders we stood, and the support and guidance we are consciously and unconsciously providing for those who come after us.
We focused on The Mentors in Our Lives in our May session. Whether they are professional mentors or personal coaches and advocates, every successful woman and man we have come across will willingly share stories of the people who have touched their lives, and impacted their life direction. For this event, our esteemed panel of influential women shared their personal and professional stories about how the mentors in their lives have impacted their thinking and development, and how this has, in turn, stimulated her thoughts and actions in support of others. Our discussion will be led by:
Moderator Catherine Ngo, General Partner, Startup Capital Ventures
Panelist Joan Banich, Brand Identity Manager, Cisco
Panelist Katy Dickinson, Director, Business Process Architecture, Sun Microsystems
Panelist Shelli Hendricks,Education Consultant, EMC and Director Mentorship Program, ATW
Panelist Carol Muller, Founder and CEO, MentorNet
Panelist Eileen Sullivan, Group Director of IT, Cadence
Below is a compilation of advice for your reference.
Mentors are important:
Great people have become great with the support, encouragement, connections, advice, etc., of other great people.
Great people are also willing to help others to develop, providing they prove worthy of the time investment, because great people are also busy people!
Successful mentoring relationships have led to better promotion, better retention, better job satisfaction, better community etc., so there's a good business case to invest in corporate mentoring programs.
Successful mentor-mentee relationships are very rewarding personally and professionally.
Know what you're looking for: Be specific about your needs, Research who can address those needs, Investigate how to best approach that person.
If there is a support infrastructure that supports your organization, use it. Examples include Cadence's Women's Forums or Cisco's Women's Action Network grassroots programs, Sun's mentor-mentee matching program which matches you with one of 15 mentors you identified yourself, or EMC's list of tools and resources to help support the mentor-mentee relationship.
Gender of the mentor is not as important as the goal/strategy for the relationship.
Stretch your comfort zone about who would be a good mentor for you. Maybe working with someone with a different gender, ethnicity, role etc., would be more beneficial.
Remove the word 'mentor' when approaching someone you're not comfortable with.
Consider making 'situational' instead of a long-term relationships.
Advice for people running informal or formal mentorship programs, within the workplace or outside of it:
Encourage the type of mentor-mentee relationship and community which supports empowerment as empowering one is empowering all.
Help those in your group connect with resources and people within the organization as well as external associations and organizations like FountainBlue, ATW, GWLN for additional connections and resources.
Create tools and resources to help people participating in mentoring program identify mentors, manage the logistics of the relationship, establish and revisit goals, measure results, build the mentorship relationship, sunset the relationship etc.,
Be flexible about developing the program - mentors and mentees vary in their needs, so the focus is on how to help them communicate objectives up front, continue to develop the relationship, etc., not on enforcing a specific program to cover specific topics over a specific period of time.
Create a mentoring circle so you can leverage the perspectives of many.
Connect with others running mentor-mentee programs, both formal and informal/grassroots ones. Share ideas and resources.
It helps to have an executive sponsor.
Help people ensure a good ongoing mentor-mentee match. Continually evaluate and communicate the value of the relationship, how to address conflict, how to move on when the relationship is no longer working, etc.,
Comments on how others can support you in a mentorship relationship:
Offer others constructive feedback for areas of growth.
Suggest mentors/ Share your network.
Share resources - from tools to networking opportunities.
Advocating for a new-hire mentorship program might help the mentoring concept take hold for your organization.
Sharing the success statistics might help make the case for mentorship.
Questions from the audience we didn't have time to address (comments are welcome on our wiki, http://fountainblue.pbwiki.com).
Establishing mentor/mentee relationships/programs in small/start-up environments.
The role of HR in building mentorship programs.
Using your boss as a mentor.
Difference between a mentor and a friend.
Developing a mentorship relationship when company doesn't have a program.
Join ATW http://www.atwinternational.com/member_benefits.aspx and ask about their mentor-mentee programs. Let us know if you made a contribution or if you joined so that we can e-mail you a free audio or video file of the program.
Join GWLN http://www.gwln.org, become an active member and attend their monthly Women at the Well sessions or support their annual Women Leaders of the World program.Make a contribution and let us know that you joined so that we can e-mail you a free audio or video file of the program.
Topic: Leading with Power, Influence and Integrity
In our March Leadership workshop, we talked about balancing power, influence and integrity, identifying power as the ability to do or act, Influence as the capacity to be a compelling force and affect others, and integrity as wholeness and perfect condition.
For this FountainBlue When She Speaks program, we will partner with the Global Women's Leadership Network (GWLN) in support of their International Women's program as we feature successful women who lead with power, influence and integrity
.
We would also like to thank our esteemed panelists for their wise, inspiring, engaging, and thought-provoking remarks.
Moderator
Camille Smith, Work In Progress Coaching; Leader, GWLN
Panelist Michele Forte, Senior Director of Development, CARE
Panelist Afsaneh Laidlaw, Senior Director of Engineering, Cisco
Advice for Leading with Power, Influence and Integrity:
Integrity is paramount, although one is not automatically a leader because of it, one cannot lead effectively without it. Good companies can go bad unless people with integrity are leading.
Influence is also key - Many times, we are asked to lead when you don't have the authority to do so.
Leading in a business context is measured by results and how they fit in the overall business strategy.
Having a passionate vision is a critical element of leadership.
Trust and respect others, at all levels in all roles.
Empower others to also contribute and challenge them to achieve to their potential.
Communicate clearly, often, and courageously.
As a leader, your every actions will impact others in ways you may not foresee. This is a double-edged sword - Plan and act accordingly.
Building deep, long-term, trust-based relationships is the foundation of influence for any leader.
Directive leadership doesn't work. A more collaborate, influence-based approach is more effective.
Be invested, not threatened by, the overall leadership of your organization. Mentor and coach and recruit other leaders as together we are stronger still.
To remain an effective leader, consciously lead a balanced and healthy lifestyle and find others to help you to do so.
For example, take the 'slices of work/life' concept Meg Whitman referred to.
Leverage technologies to help manage that balance.
Manage your work hours and your behavior to force that time for other activities.
Don't look necessarily for the perfect job, but for a boss that is invested in your long-term growth.
Sometimes holding the leadership course is tough - full of contrarians, people with conflicting motivations and agendas, etc., Surround yourself with supporters who can help ensure that your vision is best for the company, and influence others to adopt the course.
Having a high standard for yourself is different than having the same high standards for others. Although others' standards may not be as high, for example, their results may be more practical or more effective in ways you may not have anticipated. Being more flexible about standards for others will help ensure their continued engagement and also may help produce unanticipated and positive approaches or results.
What is Leadership?
Leadership is not just about having a technical background or about about the right title/authority.
Leadership is about developing and maintaining a track record worthy of support and trust, a track record which consistently shows you envisioning, communicating and acting on the best interest of your organization, yourself and others. A track record which generates strategic and measurable results.
Leaders leverage their strengths and attributes to support and empower others and to generate results they may not have thought possible.
Leaders take into account the culture and context of the people they work with, and don't allow factors such as gender, culture and other factors to impact their ability to lead.
Leaders overcome stereotypes and judgments by focusing on delivering results, without the distraction of overly-focusing on others' mis-perceptions and stereotypes.
Leadership is a process of discovery, a journey not a goal.
We encourage an ongoing conversation on this topic. Questions and comments on the remarks above are welcome. In addition, below are questions submitted by the audience for your reflection and comment:
What was your greatest challenge as a leader in a global organization, leading across cultural boundaries?
What is the toughest leadership lesson you've learned in your career thus far?
How do you respond when your boss, peer or others make a mistake, how do you respond?
How do you incorporate your faith (religion) into your leadership?
How have you most effectively engaged in self-promotion (the good kind)?
When did you learn that you were a leader?
How do you teach leadership to your daughter, in America?
What career mistakes have you learned the most from?
How do you spot future leaders?
Looking back to when you started your career, did you imagine yourself in this type of leadership position?
What is the difference between leadership and management?
How have you handled the gender bias by men toward women or cultural biases?
Have you been bullied by men, and if so, how did you respond?
Our March 9 event was on the topic of Women in Policy
With the latest election results, Silicon Valley, California has the distinction of having two women representatives in the Senate as well as the speaker of the house. This month's conversation will focus on having women in policy at the local, state, regional and national levels and their impact on our business and personal lives. We will feature the personal and professional stories of the women policy-makers on our panel and share advice on how best to navigate the political landscapes to make the kind of sustainable impact that benefit men and women, in business and in life.
We wish to thank and acknowledge our speakers for their candid and inspiring practical advice on how to support women in forging change at home, in our communities, and at work.
Facilitator Leslee Guardino founder of the Women's High Tech Coalition and Partner at Canyon Snow
Panelist Cindy Chavez, former Vice-Mayor, City of San Jose
Panelist Kathleen King, City of Saratoga City Council
Panelist Liz Kniss, Supervisor, County of Santa Clara
Panelist Bev Strand, Manager, Strategic Partnerships, Worldwide Diversity & Inclusion, Cisco, Member, California Commission on the Status of Women.
Panelist Michelle Wright-Conn, Cisco Global Policy and Government Affairs
Below is additional information and advice on how to support women forging change at the policy and business level:
There has been little change in the last 40 years:
Women are still not earning at the same levels as men.
Women are still balancing home and work challenges, being required to do more, multi-task better, work longer hours.
Women bring a different perspective to policy: It's not just a gender difference, a woman's overall experiences, views and approach are different.
Advice on how to support women forging change:
Consider the globalization of talent and how it impacts our policy, personal and business perspectives.
Be exposed to diverse perspectives.
Take on a challenge, and help others also be one inch taller as they do the same.
A woman's more collaborative approach might better address the war, healthcare and image issues currently posed at the national level.
Perhaps adopting a mandate on the percentage of women in office would have a positive impact on policy, much like it had for Rwanda.
Take the initiative to find out who is running for which office, whether they're men or women and make a point of supporting women and men forging positive change. Your voice matters!
Be more confident in the abilities of other women.
Advice for yourself, as you lead at work and in community:
Leverage the more intuitive, more self-aware nature women might have.
Support technology, and women in support innovation and technology at the policy level.
Think outside the box; view things with a different lens.
Expect to be treated with dignity and respect, and make a stand when this is not the case, for yourself, for your colleagues, for those who will come after you.
Doing the right thing for people generally is also doing the right thing for the economy.
On February 9, 2007, our When She Speaks Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Healthy Lifestyle Choices. Our panelists included Geetha Rao; Lisa Jing, HR Manager, Integrated Healthcare Initiative at Cisco; Julie Johnston, HR Benefits Manager at El Camino Hospital; Linda Williams, CEO of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte. And thank you to each of you, for your active participation in this event, which helped make it a success for everyone.
Below are comments and advice on making healthy lifestyle choices from our panel, and the collective wisdom of the audience.
Take responsibility for your physical and mental health
Frame your thoughts without the 'shoulds' and 'supposed to's' imposed on us by others in our lives
Proactively manage the stress in your life
Anticipate the many small decisions we make day-to-day (like take the stairs or elevator; chips or salad; soda or water; portion size, etc.,) and consistently make the healthier choice.
Arm yourself with facts so that you can make those right small decisions which can make such a big difference
Be centered in yourself and your interests, values and needs and act based on your identified priorities. Recognize and accept that there may be trade-offs to making those prioritized choices.
Choose regular exercise and make it a priority
Make the time for yourself
Meditate
As women, our own personal needs come behind those of our children, our spouses, our parents, etc., Make taking care of ourselves as important as taking care of our careers. Be relentlessly assertive about your health and well-being.
Practice safer sex and protect themselves against STDs because the consequences are often more severe for women
Serve the community, give back. It provides fulfillment and helps provide balance in your life.Support yourself and your family in making healthy lifestyle choices
Encourage others in your life to take responsibility as well
Encourage frequent 15-second hand-washing
As a parent, become confident sex educators, as they are the preferred sex educators for our youth (first is parents, second schools, third is peers, fourth the media, but in actuality, the reverse is true). Help other parents do the same.
Planned Parenthood's book, Let's Talk About S-E-X/ A guide for kids 9 to 12 and their parents might help us become more comfortable sex educators for our children. Order this book through Amazon.
Be an advocate for HPV immunization for 9-12 year old children, which guards against 4 HPV viruses, which could lead to cervical cancer.
Corporations like Cisco take an active interest in the health and well-being of its employees and their families
It supports the bottom line for corporations to proactively support its employees and families - 18% of the employee population spends 81% of the cost of healthcare for an organization, so proactively working with employees to head-off long-term health conditions and challenges is in the best interest of both the employer and the employee
When employees have a better quality of life, they are happier, feel better, easier to work with, and more productive
Our January 12, 2007 our When She Speaks Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Succeeding in a Man's World. Our panelists were Patti Wilson, CareerCompany; Linda Fosler, Linda Prowse Fosler & Associates; Francine Gordon, President of FGordon Group and President of ATW for 2007; Mona Hudak Senior Diversity and Inclusion Program Manager from Cisco Systems; and Panelist Praveena Varadarajan, director of engineering at Sun Microsystems. Below are some big-picture take-aways from the meeting:
Historical events have impacted a woman's participation and leadership in the workplace
in the 40s, women went to work to support our country, and our men who were serving in the war.
in the late 40s when the men returned, the women gave up their jobs
in the late 50s women who went to college were generally looking for a husband and got married and raised families
in the 60s, more women were in the workplace, but the types of jobs available for women such as teaching, nursing, administration, were generally lower level or more lowly paid
in the 70s, more women entered the workforce out of necessity. They were known as the 'displaced homemaker'.
in the 80s, with affirmative action, there was a rise in women in non-traditional women jobs from firemen to engineers
in the 90s, with the dot com boom, salaries for men and women jobs were fairly comparable
now, in the 2000s, women are back to earning .7-.8 for every dollar a man does, and are not well represented in traditionally male professionals and at the most senior levels
Advice for women seeking to succeed in a man's world:
Be a good leader
Be true to yourself
Have passion and desire for what you are doing
Know yourself - your strengths and challenges
Have a strong moral compass
Don't tie your ego with your position
Stop competing with your self
Work Hard
Focus on relationships
Be trustworthy, have integrity
Collaborate
Bring out the best in other
Leverage your strengths and partner with others to help you address your areas of need
Focus on the ideas rather than the politics
Have high standards and make plans to achieve them
Decide to be successful
Correct the mistakes you make
Be competent, and do your homework
Know when to cut your losses
Be powerfully focused
Don't shy from conflict, but don't invite it
Be better today than you were yesterday, better tomorrow than you were today
Communicate your effectiveness as a leader
Behave as if you belong at the table
Don't downplay your accomplishments
Don't give away your power
Take the initiative at meetings when appropriate
Have and project confidence:
Watch your body movements and amount of space you take at a table
Monitor your voice intonations
Communicate your confidence with your handshake
Consider the cultural and personal background of those you're interacting with. Be sensitive to the feedback you are receiving regarding the confidence you are projecting.
Be opportunitistic
Be prepared and take advantage of serendipitous opportunities as they present themselves
Ask for help when you need it
Find ways to support others and give back
Find a way to fit into male-dominated culture
Accept that the high tech world in Silicon Valley is a man's world and work from there
Be conversant about sports and/or participate in male dominated sports like golf
Be comfortable and confident about being a woman
Leverage traditionally female strengths, from collaboration to communication, from empathy to multi-tasking
Don't conform to standards that don't fit your identity as a woman, as a leader
Don't use femininity in negative ways
Advice on how to integrate work and life as you're rising up the corporate ladder:
Collaborate with your spouse as a partner
Plan your work around your family's needs. Sometimes working in a global economy with late-evening phone calls helps you make that balance.
FountainBlue's December 8, 2006 event was on the topic of Creating a Work-Life Balance
Silicon Valley women leaders are challenged by the corporate and business pressures of high-stress, high-impact positions, while still juggling the personal demands of life and family. This month's When She Speaks event focuses on how successful women are juggling these often-competing goals and what we can do to adjust our own and others' expectations on us, in order to ease the load. Our speakers will share their stories, commiserate with us, and challenge us to re-evaluate how roles, our priorities, and our own expectations for ourselves.
Facilitator Michele Bolton, a founding partner of ExecutivEdge of Silicon Valley, LLC, http://www.executivedge.com, an executive development and management consulting firm. Michele is a former professor of management, having recently retired from nearly twenty years on the faculty of the College of Business at San Jose State University, having taught MBA courses in visionary leadership, strategic management, entrepreneurship, and team building. She is the author of The Third Shift: Managing Hard Choices in our Careers, Homes and Lives as Women.
Panelist Jan Schlossberg manages the Hardware Product Standards team at Cisco System, the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. Cisco employs more than 47,000 employees worldwide, 24% of whom are women, and frequently appears on Working Mother magazine's "100 Best Companies" list. Jan will share the joys and challenges of standardizing hardware innovations across 80 product families while raising young children in a dual-income family
Panelist Jennifer Gill Roberts is currently a partner at Maven Ventures. Having served as a serial VC for high technology companies across the valley and beyond, Jennifer has helped a wide range of early- and later- stage start-ups with access to funding and consultation on their business strategies. Jennifer will share how she juggles the intense business demands while raising three children alongside her husband.
Panelist Nivisha Mehta is currently the development director for South Asian Heart Center at El Camino Hospital http://www.southasianheartcenter.org/. Nivisha will share how she has successfully juggled her work interests in support of nonprofits across the region and her growing young family.
Panelist Kristi Royse is currently President of KLR Consulting, http://www.klrconsulting.com a successful consulting practice focusing on team and organizational challenges for executives in the valley. Kristi will share how she successfully balances her business interests with that of her family.
Below is a Summary of Notes and Advice for your Creating a Work-Life Balance, drawn on the wisdom of our facilitators and participants. We also invite your comments on these notes.
Set realistic goals about what you can accomplish, based on your resources and strengths and support networks and manage your activities based on those goals.
Visualize success. Look forward, not backwards.
Embrace the positives about yourself, don't focus on the negatives.
If it's a goal worth achieving, focus on achieving that goal, even is it's harder than you thought it would be, and if it takes longer than you thought it would take.
Be realistic and strategic about your standard for balance
Define what you mean for balance in which areas (work, life, family, friends, etc.,) over what period of time (day, week, month)
Define success for you
Manage your activities and self-talk based on your defined standards
Accept that you can't always keep all the balls in the air. One of them is going to drop. That's OK. Just pick it up once in a while and keep juggling.
Being balanced is about being happy.
Advice for professional women who chose to have a family
If you have made a career choice, don't second-guess yourself if/when your children, for example, ask for more time from you.
If you have young children and need to spend more time with them, considering finding a situation a work with the flexibility to do it.
If you have chosen a high-pressure career which doesn't support raising a family, and you decide to do it, don't think too much about when a good time will be. Just do it and find a way to make it work afterwards.
As business professionals, consider your opporutnities to volunteer and make sure that you can make a good impact which best utilizes your skills, acknowledges the needs of your children, and supports the organization.
Tell your children why you are doing what they are doing. Share your work with them.
Get your children invested in the success of your chosen career.
Create an inspirational vision for your life and work, and strive toward achieving that
Know yourself - your strengths, your passions. Focus on your strengths and build on them. Follow your passion. Enjoy what you do.
Model your values in your work, in your life
Live autentically, with curiousity, with passsion and with fun.
Manage your energy so that you're happy, living the life you want.
Delegate tasks, leverage resources for tasks that do not provide core value for people closest to you
Leverage resources around you - family, hired help from gardener to babysitter to cook to handyman
Build a support network to support yourself personally
Continue the conversations with others
Make time for your family and friends
Work with your support network so that you can get personal time
Enjoy each other. Take the time to communicate.
Seek mentors. Learn from others.
Dedicate time for your personal and physical health. Exercise can be a great stress-reducer for example.
Do what you have to do to be successful at your chosen task. Enjoy doing it. It doesn't get any better than that!
For more information:
Michele's book is available at The Third Shift: Managing Hard Choices in Our Careers, Homes, and Lives as Women is available on Amazon.com
For more information about Nivisha's organization, visit the South Asian Heart Center at El Camino Hospital http://www.southasianheartcenter.org/. The mission of center is to dramatically reduce the high incidence of coronary artery disease among South Asians, and save lives, through a comprehensive, culturally-appropriate program incorporating education, advanced screening, lifestyle changes, and case management. Join us in supporting this great cause by visiting http://www.southasianheartcenter.org/support/donatenow.html.
FountainBlue's November 10 When She Speaks session was on the topic of Fostering Women Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries. The event featured facilitator Linda Alepin, head of the Global Women's Leadership Network, panelist Remi Matsumoto, Founder and President of the Hina Coral Restoration Network and panelist Praveena Varadarajan, Director of Engineering at Sun Microsystems.
Below is a Summary of Notes and Advice for your reference, drawn on the wisdom of our facilitators and each of you as participants.
We in Silicon Valley are sheltered from the realities of the difficulties of others in developing countries
Men and women from around the world life for under $2 a day
There is a gender gap in entrepreneurship, over 1 in three entrepreneurs are women. Visit
Women entrepreneurs are more likely to share their wealth and experience with their families and larger community.
Where women are empowered, the country's general economy benefits
Companies and leaders benefit from fostering entrepreneurship
It builds a larger target market
It encourages partnerships
It stimulates and rewards results-oriented entrepreneurial thinking
It encourages and supports innovative thinking
As leaders, we need to foster entrepreneurship
Encourage hard-working, committed, resolved and focused entrepreneurs - the drive is imperative to success
Expose potential entrepreneurs to hear great leaders speak. This can spark a vision, drive, and the entrepreneurial spirit and also help budding leaders to build connections.
Encourage respectful debate - it stimulates critical and innovative thinking and building of bonds and connections between like-minded people
Provide support structures and educational opportunities
Work with technology organizations to encourage providing technology solutions to entrepreneurs around the world
Encourage compassionate dialogue between countries, organizations, leaders, to develop empowering, collaborative, win-win solutions in support of successful entrepreneurial ventures, providing tangible results
Encourage the creation of social treaties, alongside the political treaties
Look for opportunities to encourage more women participation in entrepreneurial ventures
Encourage the sharing of women's stories; leverage technologies for easy distribution of these compelling stories
Take Action
Social entrepreneurship - innovative solutions for one of society's pressing problems coupled with action. Includes a model, an approach, a strategy for proliferation.
Identify and support the many groups in the region and in the world support the cause of women entrepreneurship:
Global Women Leadership Network: Whole Woman, Whole Leader, Whole World,
E-mail us at info@FountainBlue.biz if you would like to join us in an ongoing effort to collaborate between technology companies in Silicon Valley in support of fostering women entrepreneurship in developing countries
The October 13 "When She Speaks" Women in Leadership Event: It Takes a Village: The Case for Collaborative Leadership featured:
Patricia Savitri Burbank from One World Children's Fund
Dyan Chan from Lighthouse Blue
Katharine Fong from the San Jose Mercury News
Mona Hudak from Cisco Systems
Rosemary Straley from the Hillary Rodham Clinton Support Network
Below is a Summary of Notes and Advice on Collaborative Leadership provided by the facilitators and the audience in general.
Qualities of Collaborative Leadership
Engagement and Empowerment, Belief in a common mission.
Open you mind to perspectives different than your own
Be part of the village - help others, seek help yourself; Grow your village
Engage people of diverse talents and perspectives; Draw out the best in others, be around people who bring out the best in you
Develop Shared Values and Shared interest in getting common results
Consensus/Collective voices heard
Rally people to a common cause
Relationships with Trust, Honor and Integrity, Loyalty. These are not negotiable.
Direct, clear, honest, open communications
Humility
Let the best ideas win, not just your idea - Park your ego for the greater good!
Avoid having your ego too closely tied to your position
Continuous Improvement
Be better tomorrow than today
Recognize that there will be a time when you don't have to compete with yourself
A measure of success is whether the problems you're solving today are the same problems as yesterday
Be a Collaborative Leader!
Seek Leadership Opportunities
Share your stories. Listen to the stories of others.
Involve others in decision-making.
Get along first. Nobody will go along if they don't get along!
Provide consistent, gentle, persistent nudges in the right direction
Build a community of support, encouragement and engagement to a common purpose
Obstacles to Collaboration
What they say (be collaborative) is not what we get rewarded for (individual performance)
It takes time to create successful relationships
The foundation of every collaborative effort are deep relationships based on trust and openness, focused on common values and common goals
Our facilitator and panelists for FountainBlue's September 8, 2006 When She Speaks Event on Education is Fundamental: How Entrepreneurs and Executives Can Support the Push for Quality were: Usha Sekar, Geoff Ainscow from the Sunnyvale School District Education Foundation, Hillary Aitken from BUILD, and Paula Wasowska from Cisco. Below are some notes from our discussion.
Facts About Our Schools
Schools can be resistant to change and innovation.
We as a culture need to have a greater interest in the needs of our children. The most dominant factor in a child's education is the parent, the second most dominant are teachers. Class size is a distant third. Yet we as a culture do not support our teachers as well or as much as we should.
California schools rapidly went from being the best educational system in the US in the 1970s to the worst in the nation in 1998.
What Executives and Entrepreneurs Can Do to Support the Push for Quality, Despite the Challenges
A public-private partnership with clear leadership, direction, and focus on results is not only necessary but urgently needed.
Get educated and involved.
Research online and other resources already available
Believe that you can make a difference acting locally, impacting globally, sharing your time, talent and dollars. (Usha will follow up with more information on how we can continue the conversation, investigate what's working and mobilize for action.)
The problem is immense, so break it down into smaller pieces.
Develop a clarity of path on specific actions to be taken.
Focus on the big picture, what really matters.
Join forces with like-minded, passionate individuals who are committed to make changes and with the knowledge, skills, resources to make a difference.
We can learn from how others how other cultures
Countries that invest in their children are investing in the economic future of their country.
Example: although Ethiopian children may not have shoes, there is an investment in computers at their schools because the community leaders recognize that the education of these children will allow them to meet their basic needs and well beyond that.
Do not compare ourselves to ourselves, look cross-culturally success stories and emulate the working models.
Example, in Sweden, schools are well funded, they are the hub of a community. There is cross-age tutoring where children teach their grandparents computer skills for example.
Influence policy to make sustainable changes for our educational system. (FountainBlue will have a follow-up event on this topic.)
Our panelists for the August 11, 2006 Panel on Global Perspectives were Catherine Zinn of DLA Piper, Catherine Ngo of Startup Capital Ventures, and Michelle Messina of Explora International. Below are some notes from that session.
Perspectives on China
Silicon Valley and America have 20 years plus of venture capital experience over China.
China has a large, educated and technology-rich younger population that is also entrepreneurial and eager to learn.
The Chinese government has a heavy influence in the future direction of business in China for the future of individual venture investments, but also for the future of business overall in China. (For example, a policy on M&A activities with foreign companies buying Chinese firms will impact the deal flow into the region.)
The general direction of investment in China is favorable, but there may be negative regulatory overlay with minor setups from time-to-time
Perspectives on Mexico and Europe
There's a misperception that technology only takes place in India and China.
Mexico's mostly agrarian economy is already benefiting from the benefits of technology and entrepreneurship, but it's a long road ahead.
When entering foreign countries, follow the money about what governmental organization or association has the authority and funds to support economic development efforts supporting its citizens.
Since 50% of the population in Mexico is below the poverty line, consider where you would like to make a business impact.
Perspectives about America
We as a people can be culturally self-centered, close-minded and arrogant
Silicon Valley may be a bit more flexible as it is more entrepreneurial, more facile at following the money
Americans have short attention spans and are good at filtering out information quickly
Silicon Valley celebrates diversity: large percentage of foreign-born people in the valley, almost a hundred languages spoken, large percentage of non-us-born CEOs getting investment dollars, etc.,
Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial, innovative spirit, solid infrastructure and collaborative nature are a competitive advantage admired by other regions.
On Entrepreneurship
Building companies helps build countries
Leverage the power of women - women entrepreneurs in particular
Entrepreneurship is a growing religion - it is an opportunity to build positive support and fervor particularly in divided countries
On Personal Leadership
Don't let the nay-sayers stop you
Play to your strengths; do what you love
Seek out good mentors
Cultural differences are here to stay. It's important to understand when they become an impediment in business
Stay centered in your passions an beliefs and work toward your goals
Push hard and fast on your strategic goals. Be willing to take consequences for making your stand.
But take a chance
Don’t be afraid to take calculated risks - the upside is worth it
Embrace change - it is often a disguise for opportunity
Be prepared to take advantage of the opportunities as they present themselves
Empowering your team is good for you!
Surround yourself with people smarter than you are, people you can learn from
Empowering others enables much bigger successes
Treat others well and fairly
People often rise to the expectations that you set for them - set them high
Keep reaching for stars!
Fold accountability into your life and your goals
Learn from mistakes and don’t be afraid to make them
Measure your impact and reinvest where it makes sense
Adopt and embrace a work ethic focused on the results you're seeking.
The facilitator and panelists for the June 9, 2006 "Leaving a Legacy" were Ann Tardy of LifeMoxie http://www.LifeMoxie.com, Jennifer Rowe of Community Foundation Silicon Valley http://www.cfsv.org and facilitator Linda Holroyd of FountainBlue. Their advice is below:
Legacies don't have to be big gifts.
It's the little things that you do that could leave a legacy - The things you do for your spouse, parents, children, co-workers, grocery store workers, etc.,
Consider who you would use for your reference. What would they say about you and what do you hope that they say about you?
Take a leap of faith, a chance to live a tale-telling life, a story worth telling! Don't put on blinders.
A legacy is not always positive. But when it's not, forgive yourself, and forgive others who have left negative impressions on you.
Dare to dream a bigger dream.
Celebrate your progress together.
Share your stories.
The facilitator and panelist for the May 12, 2006 "Overcoming Adversity" program were Linda Holroyd and Christine Comaford-Lynch of Mighty Ventures http://www.mightyventures.com. They offer the following advice.
Follow You Heart
Lead with Integrity
Have Courage
It's All In Your Attitude
Keep Raising the Bar
Leverage Your Strengths
Persistence Pays
Learn from Your Mistakes, Forgive Others for Theirs
Collaboration is Key
Celebrate Your Successes and Enjoy the Ride
Sometimes you have to look the part, so do it
"No" often means "maybe"—ask in a more compelling way
Take 100% responsibility for your life—you are no one’s victim
Practice the Law of Attraction to draw what you want into your life—see the film "The Secret" (www.thesecret.tv)