FountainBlue’s October 11 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Women Leading Innovation. Below are notes from the conversation.

Our panelists this month were both brilliantly eloquently and provided practical, candid and stimulating advice for us around innovation. They shared these top ten truths about innovation.

1. Innovation stimulates business change, offering new products, markets, processes, messages, energy and information that creates momentum and shifts the business in a good way.
2. Innovation occurs across the organization, not relegated just to R&D teams, but also involving processes and operations, marketing and markets Innovation is a matter of timing – delivering a new product or service for an audience in need, with the ability to pay for it.
3. It takes a village to innovate, so bring the right people in the right roles, and together focus on doing what’s best for the company in the short term and in the long term. For example, designers love being given constraints and parameters within which they can innovate, and researchers are great at identifying markets while data scientists could tell you what your innovation results are, what your aggregated and niche current and future customer base is looking for etc., Everybody has a piece of the puzzle.
4. Successful innovation has a foundation of relationships across stakeholders, and executive buy-in, as well as engagement across the board. So develop partnerships with stakeholders across and within the organization – particularly at the executive level and facilitate collaboration and engagement across and between groups.
5. Welcome people who think and act differently into the team and ecosystem. That uncomfortable feeling they bring to the table may be the nub of an idea which sparks innovation.
6. Some people mistakenly think that innovation is about creating the new new. Creative and original thinking are great, but you must also have structure within which to innovate. Much has already been invented, but reusing the proven technologies in new ways for new markets provides opportunity for all.
7. It is hard for some to embrace disruption. Some may have to stretch their thinking. Some may be uncomfortable about the impact on the brand. Some may question whether the new way of doing things can be done, or is worth being done. Sometimes the resistance is so overwhelming across the organization that innovation can’t take place.
8. Policies and rules and protocol must be followed, particularly when you’re representing a big company, and negotiations and processes may take longer for approvals. Corporate Innovation must take place respecting these parameters. However, too much corporate processes and policies can stifle innovation, with Kodak being an unfortunate case in point. Specifically, Kodak, the company which invented digital photography got leapfrogged by other companies who could innovate in that area, and became bankrupt despite their promising early edge in a huge market.
9. Be cognizant of the many stages of innovation, from the open plateau, sky’s the limit perspective of the start-up or early projects, to the socialization of projects through the management team, through the iteration of versions and strategic feedback of early adopters through the input of channels and alliances. Different leadership, management and technical skills are leveraged at different levels. The innovation leader must lead throughout the process, building relationships and credibility along the way.
10. Innovation is never easy – it takes vision, perseverance, and pushing through failures in order to succeed. Succeeding in innovation process despite the obstacles is its own reward, particularly when the bottom line agrees.

Our panelists shared this practical advice for those who want to better embrace innovation across their organization.

1. Adopt projects for which you feel passionate, for you will be working on it through thick and thin for many months and perhaps years to come. Plus the innovations you help to make happen will also certainly impact your company’s, your team’s and your personal brand.
2. Focus on doing the right for the company in the short term and in the long term.
3. Timing’s everything. The people and company may not be ready for an innovative idea or concept. Pick your battles. Perhaps you can pick up that same baton another day, when the market and customers and infrastructure are more receptive and ready for that new innovation.
4. Be persistent.
5. Be open.
6. Lobby for support.
7. Challenge the status quo, in a way that helps people become more open, without feeling threatened.
8. Carry the project from beginning to end and always focus on creating measurable results
9. Think forward about what your innovation successes will say about you, your team and your company.
10. Have the network and resources to support you as it will never be easy, and may be a long road ahead.

In the end, our panelists concur that to be an innovative leader, you must have the vision to want to change the way something is done, the courage and persistence to lobby for it to happen, the proven results from current and past projects to show why something is a good idea, and the network and support to stand behind you, the corporate culture which would welcome this behavior, and, most importantly, the communication and leadership skills to bring it all together, with a focus on driving bottom-line business results, engaging all stakeholders, serving current and anticipated customers.

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FountainBlue’s October 11 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Women Leading Innovation, featuring:

Facilitator Karen Catlin, Principal, Karen Catlin Consulting; Co-founder, Femgineer; Advisor, Athentica

Panelist Marlene J. Begay, Supply Chain Director, WW OPS Supply Management, Oracle

Panelist Daniela Busse, Ph.D., Director/Design Futurist, Samsung Research America – Silicon Valley

Panelist Athena Maikish, PhD, Global Director, Business Analytics, Reporting and Data Science at StubHub

Panelist Monique Morrow, Cisco Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Services Platform Group (SPG)

Panelist Amy Warner, Business Unit Manager, Precision Analog Group, Texas Instruments

Please join us in thanking our speakers for taking the time to share their advice and thoughts and to our gracious hosts at Texas Instruments.

FountainBlue’s September 13 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Women Making Their Own Rules. Below are notes from the conversation.

We were fortunate to be in the midst of brilliance – witnessing and absorbing the enriching, inspiring words of our incomparable panelists, and laughing, nodding and exclaiming as we strive to integrate their wisdom into our day-to-day activities.

Our panelists represented women of backgrounds from humble to privileged, from engineering to legal and marketing, yet they all had much in common:

• They rose to a level of impact and prestige that directly and indirectly impacts the success of their organizations, their teams and their networks.
• They started by first knowing themselves, and brought that self-awareness to bear in strategizing career and life decisions.
• They proved themselves in ways large and small, quantatively and qualitatively, and influenced the success of all they touched in ways unimaginable, sometimes even by themselves.
• They generously shared their strategies, wisdom, tools, and time with promising others.
• They succeeded by building relationships and understanding the motivations of those they touch.
• They constantly strive to improve themselves, leveraging the people and resources around them while also benefiting same.
• They ARE that beam of light that makes you want to be a better you, and gives all a brighter hope for the future, seeing the best in ourselves, those around us, and the possibilities for all of us.

Below are their top ten kernels of wisdom shared by our panel about women who make their own rules.

Know Yourself

1. Know yourself, your values, and your needs. These are your non-negotiables, so make a stand behind them.
2. Everyone has their own story, their own challenges. Leverage yours to get to where you’d like to go.
3. Know why you’re making your own rule, as it would necessarily mean that you’re breaking an existing rule. Who is making the existing rule? How would your own rule better benefit all stakeholders? What’s the strategy to get the right people to buy into the new rule? How do you best execute, follow-through, correct, etc?

Prove Yourself

4. If you focus on yourself and your own needs first, you will then be in a better position to help others get there too. So, first prove yourself before you aspire to make your own rules. People won’t follow you and let you make your own rules unless they can believe in you, and in the way you would follow through and execute.
5. Mistakes happen – focusing on the learnings will help narrow in on what will work in the short term and the long term. Perseverance and grit and having a tough skin will help you rise above your mistakes and increase the likelihood that you will be able to forge change with your new rule, particularly lasting change. So follow through and make something happen, despite the challenges, the errors, and especially when it’s difficult to do so.
6. Communicate your best practices and your results so that others beyond you and those immediately around you can also benefit. Speak the language of the audience to which you’re communicating – ride that balance between appearing over-confident and arrogant and appearing

Stretch Yourself

7. Embrace the uncomfortable as the best learnings lie there. A good way to embrace the uncomfortable is to welcome and encourage others who-don’t-think-and-act-like-you-do to also make their own rules, provided that it’s also for the greater good.
8. When people see the promise in you, understand why they are giving you that next challenge, determine if it’s the right strategic next-step for you, and create your own rules to get from here to there, on your own terms, in your own way, especially if it makes you uncomfortable to even think about doing so!

Stand and Deliver

9. Humor is a brilliant way to share wisdom and learnings and create bonds between people.

Make It Bigger Than You Are

10. Think well beyond money, title, position, power, and more about making a difference, making your mark on the world on your terms. Doing things for the greater good and communicating why it benefits others and how they can participate will engage the right stakeholders to help change rules, for the betterment of all!

In the end, remember that it’s not a destination, it’s a journey, so strive to make it one full of happiness and learnings. Use our illustrious examples of how you too can share your successes and challenges and help you gain the strength, fortitude, resources and perspective to achieve results benefitting others.

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FountainBlue’s September 13 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Women Making Their Own Rules. Please join us in thanking our speakers for taking the time to share their advice and thoughts and to our gracious hosts at Cadence.

Facilitator Natascha Thomson, MarketingXLerator, Co-Author of 42 Rules for B2B Social Media Marketing Book

Panelist Kamini Dandapani, Director, Software Development, eBay

Panelist Tina Jones, Senior Vice President, Global Human Resources, Cadence Design Systems

Panelist Duy-Loan Le, Senior Fellow, Texas Instruments

Panelist Mona Sabet, Founder, Viblio

FountainBlue’s July 12 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Leveraging Social Media for Work and Play. Below are notes from the conversation.

We were fortunate to have a wide range of perspectives on our panel, and that our panelists shared their insights, suggestions and advice with poignant humor and candor. They spoke from a broad range of perspectives, learnings, trainings and experience and each humbly brought their insights and advice on the whole new frontier of social media, and how each is bravely making a mark and shaping the evolution of communication-as-we-know-it.

Our panel represents professionals from communication, engineering, media, training, and other areas. Each panelist traversed a range of roles in an assortment of tech companies of various sizes, and finds herself working in a corporate setting leveraging social media to communicate to a range of stakeholders. Each also has been actively involved in creating and maintaining a social personal preference as well. Below are some guidelines and advice for leveraging social media for work and play.

Remember that social media is a whole new frontier – there are no experts, and the early adopters and leaders are helping to define guidelines, policies and rules for optimizing communication. Below are some guidelines for doing so:

• Be clear about what you want to communicate to whom, and how you go about doing so, in alignment with your objectives.
  • Be authentic in your communication.
  • Jump in, but only after you’re ready with your message, and ready with a response from the community.
• Remember that there are a range of stakeholders, and a range of communicators.
  • Help communicators at all levels message to their target audiences and help them align their messages with corporate standards.
  • If you set up a social media presence, maintain it and be there for each target audience. Follow up and follow through to serve your customers.
  • Do the research beforehand to know who your customers are and how best to communicate with them.
• Train the communicators and help them understand the impact and range of their communications.
  • In the end, you can have policies and standards in place, but you have to trust the judgment of the communicators.
  • Set limits on communications – look at worst case down-sides of a message-on-the-edge-of-protocol.
• Mitigate risks, but remember that life happens. Be prepared to address any downsides of communications which may have inadvertently damaged relationships.
  • Have a plan for when bad things happen.
  • If life happens, try to make the best of it, and see it as an opportunity to build alliances and relationships.
• Build communities of stakeholders and target communications to these niche audiences, while empowering their active engagement.
  • The keys to a successful community are continuity – people have stable, consistent ways to connect and communicate with each – and dialogue – people actively talk to each other, following established guidelines for the group.
  • Building an actively engaged set of communities helps corporations understand and connect with stakeholders at all levels.
  • Empowering communities to participate in product definition, feature requirements and to communicate their evolving needs will help companies continue to meet the needs of the customer. It is more effective and more cost-effective than the one-on-one surveys or user group input.

Social media tools worth considering:

• LinkedIn: get your profile up and connect with your colleagues
• FaceBook: important for social and personal connections
• Instagram and Pinterest: important as social media evolves toward more graphics and video oriented tools
• Twitter: Tweet about your activities and follow influencers
• Scoop.it: position yourself as a content expert by curating and retweeting what others are writing about
• Blogs: express your opinion and gather a following
• Google+ and Google Circles: targeted communications to pre-defined niche audiences
• Radiant6: tool for measuring social media impact
• Hoot Suite: helps you coordinate your social media presences and communicate selectively to them

Social media opportunities:

• Enterprise solutions around social media
• Graphic and video solutions for social media
• Efficient ways to leverage communities to define customer needs and product direction

In the end, the message is clear: the social media landscape is new and evolving. Choose to be social-media literate and know how social media will impact you and your company, for it is here to stay.

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Thank you to our panelists for FountainBlue’s July 12 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Leveraging Social Media for Work and Play:

Facilitator Kim Wise, CEO, Mentor Resources

Panelist Perrine Crampton, Community Programs Manager, CITRIX

Panelist Aimee Kalnoskas, Worldwide Community Digital Editor, Texas Instruments

Panelist Shveta Miglani, Deputy Director for Training, Globalfoundries

Panelist Olivia Shen Green, Manager, Business Ops, Engineering Talent and Culture, Cisco

Please join us also in thanking our speakers for taking the time to share their advice and thoughts and to our gracious hosts at Cisco.

FountainBlue’s June 14 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Millennials in Our Midst. Below are notes from the conversation.

We were fortunate to have a wide range of perspectives on our panel, and that our panelists shared their insights, suggestions and advice with poignant humor and candor. They speak from a broad range of perspectives, learnings, trainings and experience.

Our panel has a breadth of experience working with the connected generation – as managers, as recruiters, as trainers, as colleagues, as reverse mentors, as advocates. From their various approaches and perspectives, they are working toward highlighting the magic of this generation, breaking down generational gaps, particularly around communication and stereotypes, sometimes in a structured way, working in alignment senior management and leadership, and sometimes in an ad-hoc way, impacting the culture, openness, and receptivity on all sides. They believe in these fundamental truths about this connected generation:

1. The integration of this youngest generation in today’s workplace, this ‘connected generation’, into the company is imperative as it has workforce benefits, customer benefits, and leads to greater diversity overall within and outside the company.
2. The drive and intensity and productivity of the connected generation can be mis-interpreted as ‘entitled’, but managed well, these inherent qualities of millennials can lead to productive, collaborative and creative results and fresh, near ideas.
3. The desire of this connected generation to make an impact provides positive stimulation to the workforce in general, and raises the bar for all to find meaningful work.
4. The education of managers about millennials and their preferred methods of doing work and communicating, particularly the need for regular feedback and check-ins, their affiliation with technology, and their phenomenal productivity, will help managers work and communicate more successfully with the millennials on their teams, and adjusts many perceptions these managers may have about the millennials on their team.
5. Conversely, helping millennials to understand the needs and perspectives of executive leaders and managers, and communicating their desires in the context of tasks and projects to be done will greatly impact the probability of success for these projects, programs and tasks.
6. Welcoming their input and ideas will likely lead to more creativity, more collaboration, and more adaptation of solutions.
7. Millennials would prefer getting regular positive and constructive feedback, in a format they feel most comfortable, whether it’s face-to-face, via e-mail or text, etc.
8. The connected generation is committed to continuous learning, and constantly stretch themselves in new ways.
9. They do not feel a sense of entitlement that others accuse them of having. Rather, they want to earn promotion earn the respect of others, doing meaningful work and contributing greatly to a cause or project/product.

10. Titles and money play a long second place to worthwhile work which helps them grow, expand, connect and contribute.

Below is advice provided by our panel on how to work with millennials:

1. Leverage the magic of the millennials to benefit themselves, their teams and the organization overall
   1. Collaborative
   2. Communicative
   3. Techno-philic
   4. Creative
   5. Resourceful
   6. Connected (with communities of others and to each other)
   7. Productive
2. Ask for their input on how to reach global customers who are their age, using the latest mobile solutions, for example
3. If you as a manager feel threatened or frustrated by millennials, consider that:
   1. They are more likely to seek self-improvement than the next rung on the corporate ladder;
   2. Their productivity is more an indication of their desire to perform rather than their desire to show up others;
   3. Their desire to do something in a different way is less likely a critique of what-worked-before, and more likely a desire to improve processes and communications and scalability so that all can benefit;
   4. Many embrace risk and view failure as a lesson learned;
   5. Their requests for continual feedback is not about lacking confidence and needing approval, but more about ensuring that they are in synch with you and others.
4. Communicate with them using tools they feel comfortable using, including social media tools.
5. Ask for their input on how a solution could be solved, starting with a blank slate.
6. Give them flexibility about how and when things get done, and let them choose to do things on the side as well.
7. This generation is wired to play outside the rules AND add value to their team and organization.
8. Millennials are great for adding an intuitive interface and a human touch to technology – the pleases and thank yous and apologies and status reports added to current solutions will improve communications from and affinity to an organization.
9. Proactively coach them to find their best fit, leveraging their skills, talents and passions, interwoven with the needs of the company and market overall.

10. Get their input on how to push the technology envelope and market opportunities in these and other emerging areas:

1. Video collaboration (they grew up with YouTube)
2. Mobility (they are inseparable from their phones and know what they want from their phones)
3. Social Media (their online community means so much to them)
4. User experience (they want to integrate all of the above)
5. Crowd-sourcing (let the customer speak and define success)
6. Real-world adaptations of technology (think Google Glass and beyond)

In conclusion, our panel made it crystal clear that the millennials in the workplace are that connected generation that can benefit any organization in a host of ways. They are working with other generations to transform the workplace, indeed, how business works, for many generations to come.

Resources:

• Cisco Hires Millennials for User Experience IT Jobs, Rachel King, Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2013, http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/05/27/cisco-hires-millennials-for-user-experience-it-jobs/
• “Is Gen Y Entitled?” by Melissa Stanger |May 29, 2013, featuring an interview with Joanna Bloor http://www.levoleague.com/office-hours-recaps/is-gen-y-entitled

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Please join us in thanking our panelists for FountainBlue’s June 14 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event, on the topic of Millennials in Our Midst:

Facilitator Pat Cross, Consultant, Trainer, and Co-Founder of CrossApps.net

Panelist Joanna Bloor, VP of Sales Operations, Pandora

Panelist Monique LeFors Edmondson, Manager, IT, Cisco

Panelist Jen Lamorena, Sr. Manager of University Programs and Youth Innovation, eBay

Panelist Julia McConaughy, Director, Channel Operations, Aruba

Panelist Ilene Rafii, Virtual Systems Engineer, Cisco

Please join us also thanking our gracious hosts at Aruba.

FountainBlue’s May 10 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event, on the topic of Standing on the Shoulders of Mentors. Below are notes from the conversation.

We were fortunate to have a wide range of perspectives on our panel, and that our panelists shared their insights, suggestions and advice with poignant humor and candor. They speak from a broad range of perspectives, learnings, trainings and experience.

Our panelists have all been mentors, had mentors, trained mentors and participated in formal and informal mentoring programs. Their mentors have helped them to navigate their professional and personal journeys and have been especially helpful during crossroads – between roles, between companies. Sometimes are mentors, both male and female, have been from the same or different companies, the same and different roles and companies or industries. What they had in common as mentors are that the were admired and respected by the mentee, and were adopted by the mentor as someone they respect in turn, and shows great promise and potential.

Our panelists point out that coaches differ from mentors in that coaches focus on asking the right questions rather than providing the answers, whereas a mentor might do both. Unlike mentors, sponsors are generally executives who are higher up in an organization, in a position to advocate internally for their charge, so they are best positioned to help their charges advance to a new level within an organization and/or move to an adjacent role or division within a company. Sponsors may initially be mentors, and then evolve into sponsors as the relationship develops and the mentee proves him/herself.

Below are pearls of wisdom shared by our esteemed panelists.

• Successful mentor-mentee relationships always focus on the relationship between the two, and a win-win benefit from the relationship. The relationship may evolve over time and the way you work together professionally may change as well – your mentor may become your consultant, your colleague, your boss, for example.
• The mentee needs to have a clear view of what she/he needs help with from a mentor and why, plus a good idea about who could help them get from here to there. Understanding where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you want to go can help you develop a strategy for getting there, working with your mentor.
• The mentee is responsible for his/her results, engaging sponsors, mentors, partners, peers, coaches, to figure out what the opportunities are, what is holding you back, and how to make things happen.
• The best mentors are approachable, credible, leads by example, is a great role model, and is generous. Strategize on how to best position yourself as a promising mentee for this person, what your short-term and long-term objectives are for the relationship, and how mentoring you would be helpful to them.
• The best mentees are curious, open, clear on objects, results-oriented, and willing to work hard, leveraging their strengths. Work with the mentor to establish objectives, ground rules and boundaries, and keep conversations confidential.
• The best mentors know how to leverage their connections and resources to support their mentees in achieving their goals without compromising that confidentiality agreement.
• Sometimes mentors bring in their experience, connections and perspectives to help mentees think through a professional or personal transition between roles, companies, divisions, etc.
• Make candid and authentic feedback an integral part of any mentor-mentee relationship.
• If someone takes an interest in you as a prospective mentee, he or she is complimenting you and you should understand the potential he or she sees in you. If she/he is not mentoring and supporting you in the way which is best helpful to you, inquire about why he/she is taking an interest in you, how you can support her/him in return, and share what would be most helpful to you in your development path.
• Regardless of the mentoring program, formal and informal, peer or reverse or skip-level, ensure that both parties benefit from the trust-based relationship and that both understand the long-term and short-term goals and what success looks like – what you want more of, less of and why.

In conclusion, our panelists would agree that successful leaders are self-aware, understanding their strengths and weaknesses, are strategic, focused on executing on the bigger picture objectives, and collaborative, engaging the wider network of resources, including mentors to achieve win-win results.

Resources:

• Gender-Related Material in the New Core Curriculum (which includes information on the Heidi Powers story, and how Heidi Roizen, an accomplished investor, entrepreneur and leader is seen as too aggressive, and how people who thought she was a man, ‘Howard’, found her more likeable. http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/wim_martin07.shtml
• Life Moxie’s resources and articles around mentoring http://www.lifemoxie.com/articles-new.php

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FountainBlue would like to thank and acknowledge our speakers for our May 10 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event, on the topic of Standing on the Shoulders of Mentors:

Facilitator Ann Tardy, Founder and CEO, LifeMoxie Mentoring

Panelist Monica Bajaj, Senior Engineering Manager, NetApp

Panelist Gina Ferguson, Director, Finance IIG, EMC

Panelist Catherine Moore, Board Advisor, Teamitt and ConnectBright, former Head of HR for Nokia Research Centers

Panelist Leila Pourhashemi, Director, Technology Business Operations at PayPal, an eBay company

Please join us in thanking our gracious hosts at EMC.

FountainBlue’s April 12 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Building and Reinforcing Your Executive Brand. Below are notes from the conversation.

We were fortunate to have a wide range of perspectives on our panel, and that our panelists shared their insights, suggestions and advice with poignant humor and candor. They speak from a broad range of perspectives, learnings, trainings and experience, but they had many things in common:

• They are articulate, successful, experienced professionals who have successfully and proactively managed their transitions throughout their career.
• They are passionate, people-focused leaders who think deeply, act thoughtfully, and constantly raise the bar for themselves and for those around them, in a positive, constructive way.
• They are deep thinkers who are self-aware enough to understand, accept and communicate their value, wise enough to seek alignment with who they are and what they do, and strategic and connected enough to find/build a job/career that fits who they are.
• They are exceptional problem-solvers and great go-to people when something tough needs to happen. Not only would they deliver measurable results, but they would engage a wide spectrum of stakeholders to achieve those results.
• They are open, humble, candid and genuine enough to share their stories, and invested in the success of others around them.

To our panel, creating and reinforcing an executive brand, at its best, is authentically communicating who you are, even when you’re at your worse. It’s having the strength, fortitude and courage to truly examine who you are, your unique value in a business context, and insisting on an alignment with who you are and what you do. One of our panelists call this the convergence of self, where the inner self and outer self echo and reinforce each other.

This brand evolves as we move from role to role, company to company, industry to industry, level to level. It threads through our career, and those adept at proactive brand management tells the story of her/his career path, with these common threads of purpose, values, integrity, and passion.

Sometimes it’s about understanding how your past roles impacting how you are coming across in a new role. Welcoming continuous feedback at all levels will help us examine how others see us, so that we can access whether it’s how we want to come across and what we can do about it.

Below is advice from our panelists regarding proactive management of brand:

• Know and accept yourself – your strengths and weaknesses. Leverage your strengths, bolster your weaknesses with support staff/team.
  • Set yourself up for success by understanding what you do well, where you can grow, and selecting positions and roles with achievable stretch goals.
• Build a history as someone great to work with who can get things done.
• Communicate clearly who you are and what you stand for, and continually get feedback about how you are coming across.
• No matter where you have in-depth knowledge, take the time to rise up beyond your own reality and area of strength so that you can see a bigger picture for your group, division, organization, and industry. Having this perspective will help you have a better context for why people do the things they do, what the customer wants, what the market trends are, etc. This is important regardless of whether you want to stay at an individual contributor level or rise within an organization, as it will help you better understand how people, teams and businesses work.
• Align all aspects of your life, for how you do one thing is how you do everything.
• Learn at every opportunity, especially if there is an incongruence between what you think of others, what others think of you, etc.
• Welcome support from mentors, sponsors, and people-who-don’t-think like you, whether you are angling for a promotion, lateral move, new role, etc., or not. This will help you understand what they see as great in you so that you can nurture that, and help you see and perhaps welcome new opportunities for yourself, or pay in other ways that nobody would expect.
• Your values are part of your brand – being consistently authentic to values such as honesty, integrity, persistence, perseverance, decisiveness will help you build trust and a following, and otherwise serve you well.

The bottom line is that everyone has a brand, whether you know what it is or not, whether it’s positive, or not so much. People who proactively manage that brand so that it’s in alignment with their best authentic, realistic self will be best positioned for success.

Resources:

• Tom Peter’s Article, The Brand Called You, published in Fast Company, www.fastcompany.com/28905/brand-called-you
• Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Book, Me 2.0 www.personalbrandingbook.com

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We would like to thank and acknowledge our panelists for FountainBlue’s April 12 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event, on the topic of Building and Reinforcing Your Executive Brand:

Facilitator Nancy Monson, Nancy Monson Coaching

Panelist Erin Jurgeleit, Chief of Staff, Global Compliance, PayPal

Panelist Vijaya Kaza, Director of Engineering, Cisco

Panelist Merline Saintil, Vice President, Technology Operations, Joyent

Panelist Joyce Tompsett, Evangelist & Technology Advisor, Silicon Valley Executive Briefing Center, EMC Corporation

Panelist Praveena Varadarajan, Vice President – Architecture, Technology & Services, FICO

Please also join us in thanking our gracious hosts at EMC.

FountainBlue’s March 15 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Agility – The Key to Building a Successful Career. Below are notes from the conversation.

We were fortunate to have a wide range of perspectives on our panel, and that our panelists shared their insights, suggestions and advice with poignant humor and candor. They speak from their deep experience immersed in high tech, challenged by the needs at both work and home, and making tough choices, for themselves and for their careers. There are vast differences in education, experience and perspectives, yet they had many things in common.

• They made tough, proactive choices all along their career path, some responding to the needs of others around them. They made the best of each of the choices they made, whether they proactively made them or not, and leveraged their successes to position themselves for the next move.
• They are business and tech savvy, but more importantly people-focused and leverage each of these strengths to deliver value, no matter what their role or title was.
• They are self-aware professionals who know and leverage their strengths and successes and consistently deliver value for their team and organization.
• They are great relationship-builders and proactive networkers and strategically manage their careers leveraging relationships and connections (in a good, non-direct, non-manipulative way).
• They are positive, energetic leaders and lifelong learners who embrace change and encourage and empower those around them to do the same.

To our panelists, career agility is just part of the new way we work: we don’t expect to have a full time job throughout our career. Changes in role, company, industry are a given for today’s worker; your career path would be more like a EuroPass – unlimited travel for a specified period of time, than a traditional train ticket where you go from Point A to Point B with perhaps a transfer or two along the way. As such, proactively managing your career with agility – strength, flexibility, persistence, resilience – will serve you well.

Our panelists advise that you first know what your strengths and passions and skills are, and then evaluate what the needs in the market are. If you start with your strengths and abilities and understand the opportunities, you can at times create your own role, particularly if you are energetic, intelligent and flexible enough to do so proactively.

Everyone who wants to proactively manage her/his career must be seen as someone competent, and easy-to-work with, with a track record for delivering results. Sometimes we get in our own way when we are *too* thorough about doing a job well, so follow the 80-20 rule if someone tells you things like ‘work smarter’, ‘be more strategic’.

Strategically managing your career means delivering results on each of your projects, understanding and anticipating market trends and their implications, and connecting with the right people for the right opportunity for you. Today’s successful professional plans for each transition, and positions him/herself for each new opportunity, embracing the change and learnings which come with the new territory. Their focus is not necessarily on increasingly higher job titles, but more on the larger impact of each new role and opportunity.

Consciously choosing which projects you work on and who you report to will also help you raise the bar for yourself, and support your career trajectory. Connecting with the right people and projects are especially important if you’re getting into a new area/role/company/industry, but note that the stakes are higher here, so it’s even more important that you perform well and build relationships well, if you elect that higher visibility.

Work hand-in-hand with and consciously choose your project/role/boss so you can proactively embrace work you can do and love well. Insist to yourself that you love what you do, and make changes in your role to make it a job you really want and love. Do the same for those who work with or for you. Not only is it more fun to work with passionate, effective people, but you would be more likely to get things done, and done well.

Regardless of what level you work at and whom you work for, have the confidence to take a seat at the table, and share your perspectives and insights. Sometimes it’s a gender thing – men might be more comfortable making it up or applying for jobs where they are not fully qualified. So if more women were to have the confidence to make it up as we go, especially in areas where nobody has the answers, there will be more success stories in many more areas, just because more women would be trying!

Our panelists recognize that life happens, and we make career choices to address the needs of our loved ones. But their philosophy is that this is a given, and they would encourage us to get back on track with your career once the home front is more stable. The work-choice is hard at times, especially when the children say or do something to unwittingly touch our guilt hot buttons. But the larger picture is that as career professionals, we are making a conscious, proactive choice, and second-guessing our own choices may undermine our drive and confidence. Our panelists didn’t say that career comes before children, but they did say don’t be hard on yourself for the choices you made, don’t judge others for the choices they made, and focus on instilling the love and values in your children and they will understand and support you.

One of the tips our panelists shared is to actively engage in community activities as a leader. Benefits of participation included making a difference, learning new skills, building connections, and serving a higher purpose.

The bottom line from this discussion is that you are in charge of your career, so empower yourself to manage it well, enlisting the help of others around you. And agility is a choice you can make at every crossroads in your career. It is your uncomfortable stretch goal, your other-than-what-you’ve-done-before option. It will be what will distinguish you from others around you, and increasingly more so in the new economy.

Resources:

• The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition], by Reid Hoffman (Author), Ben Casnocha (Author), Kaleo Griffith (Narrator), http://www.amazon.com/The-Start-Up-You-Yourself-Transform/dp/B0078XQW3Q
• Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg (Mar 11, 2013), http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Women-Work-Will-Lead/dp/0385349947/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363462728&sr=1-1&keywords=lean+in
  • Fast Company article about the book, with TED video embedded: http://www.fastcompany.com/3006859/why-everyone-not-just-women-needs-lean?partner=newsletter
• A videotape of the event is graciously provided by our event hosts at eBay and is available at http://myroom-na.adobeconnect.com/p1tz0d59lkx/.

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We would like to thank and acknowledge the speakers for FountainBlue’s March 15 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Agility – The Key to Building a Successful Career:

Facilitator Christy Tonge, Executive Coach & Organizational Consultant, Leadership Expedition Partners

Panelist Diane Bisgeier, Program Manager, WebFWD Open Innovation Program, Mozilla Corporation

Panelist Roli Saxena, Global Director Product Consulting and Customer Success, LinkedIn

Panelist Barbara Williams, Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Oracle

Panelist Kirsten Wolberg, VP, Technology, PayPal

Please join us also in thanking our gracious hosts at eBay.

FountainBlue’s February 8 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of How to Throw More Balls Up Higher: Juggling Work-Life Balance in Demanding Times. Below are notes from the conversation.

We were fortunate to have a wide range of perspectives on our panel, and that our panelists shared their insights, suggestions and advice with poignant humor and candor. They speak from their deep experience immersed in high tech, challenged by juggling home and work needs, and making tough choices, leading tough conversations which would help them and others around them integrate work and life better. There are vast differences in education, experience and perspectives, yet they had many things in common.

• They know what it looks like and feels like to be on the wrong side of the work-life balance equation, and are committed to making tough choices to seek a better balance.
• They understand the business value of integrating work and life, how a better balance leads to a happier, more productive culture, team and organization.
• They have sponsors, mentors, friends and others in their network who help them maintain their perspectives, and stay true to their values, passions and goals.
• They make a stand for their family, particularly their children, and make sure that they have the care and support they need.
• Although they each admit how tough it is, they are each making a conscious choice to make time for themselves: to be self-aware, to stand for their values, to focus on what’s important.

Below are some thoughts on how to integrate life and work successfully:

Know and Manage Yourself

• Build your self-awareness and inner strength, so that you can manage the inevitable stress of working in high tech environments.
• Turn down the self critic and don’t aspire to be perfect, for good enough is good enough.
• Be attuned to the physical manifestations of stress and proactive about managing it.
• Don’t think that everyone’s judging you for not being as perfect as you can be, for everyone’s too busy thinking about themselves to judge whether what you’re doing is good enough.
• Choose happiness. Don’t let the small people and things get to you. Put yourself first.
• Take the journey from work to home, and home to work as a transition point, and be fully where you are when you’re there, at home and at work.
• Start your day in a positive mind set. End your day focusing on learnings, what worked, what to build on.
• Speak to yourself throughout the day in a positive voice.

Accept What You Can’t Change

• There *is* no perfect role which facilitates work-life balance in high tech. You are in charge of creating the boundaries and integrating that balance as best you can.
• You can’t change people or what happens in life, but you can take responsibility for your thinking and doing.

Create Boundaries

• Get the job done, and done well, but you don’t have to be there 24×7 to make that happen. Choose to work from home. Delegate where appropriate. Set boundaries on assignments and timing of calls.
• Don’t over-explain and justify *how* something will be done. Just make sure that things get done.
• Make sure that every meeting makes sense, that most tasks have owners (so that you don’t have to check in with everyone), and that coordination between busy people is easy, and communication is clear and concise and inclusive.

Get Support

• Ask for help where you need it, particularly if it’s on doing non-essential tasks, or things that you don’t love to do.
• Keep yourself and others around you alive and vibrant and passionate. Do something you care about, working with a team and company you care about.
• Recruit cheerleaders and listen to them.
• You are good at taking care of everyone, but who is taking care of you.
• Surround yourself with tokens or reminders to help keep you grounded on work-life integration.

Give Support to Others

• Support your friends in seeking their work-life balance.
• Do regularly check-ins with your spouse about what’s working, what’s not working and how to change it so that things work better.
• Don’t assume that the answer is no by playing an anticipated conversation in your head.

Resources:

• How to Meditate When You Haven’t Got Time http://www.just-a-minute.org/
• Unplugging From Technology + Nature = Leadership Success, Kristi Royse, 2/4/13
• See TED Talks, including this one on Self Compassion http://self-compassion.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=babe5d1e9fa070096aca72ae4&id=deecba4f56&e=19701603f9

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We would like to thank and acknowledge our panelists for FountainBlue’s February 8 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event, on the topic of How to Throw More Balls Up Higher: Juggling Work-Life Balance in Demanding Times:

Facilitator Kristi Royse, KLR Consulting

Panelist Anne Griswold, Principal and Organizational Specialist, Altera

Panelist Komal Lahiri, Director, Payments & Credit Products Risk, PayPal

Panelist Punam Nagpal, Engineer, Quality Metrics, Cisco

Panelist Phyllis Stewart Pires, Director of WorkLife Strategy, University Human Resources, Stanford University

Please join us also in thanking our gracious hosts at Altera.

FountainBlue’s January 18 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Expanding Your Circle of Influence, With or Without Direct Authority. Below are notes from the conversation.

We were fortunate to have a wide range of perspectives on our panel, and that our panelists shared their insights, suggestions and advice with poignant humor and candor. Their comments and suggestions ranged from social media to global teams to business development and conversations at the table, but their insights and suggestions reflected what exceptional leaders they are.

All of our panelists have been immersed in the technology sector for at least a decade, and they have learned how to gain influence with tech-savvy engineers, and make an impact in tech-driven corporate cultures. Whether they were technologists who transitioned to business operations and management, or marketing and business professionals who worked within and across tech companies to facilitate connections and create momentum, our panelists are people who have been-there, done-that, seen and addressed the problems and opportunities inherent in being women in corporate tech cultures, and creating and leveraging the influence needed to connect with people, and to achieve forward momentum, delivering results on designated goals. Below are some thoughts and advice they shared about leveraging influence.

• To command influence, you must have a solid foundation – Be self-aware enough to know who you are, what you stand for, where your skills are, where your passion lies, and how you are coming across. Self-reflection, mentors, and a personal board of developers can help you embrace who you are, and effectively communicate that in person and in writing, and in social media channels.
  • Everyone has influence whether they are consciously or unconsciously trying to influence others. But those who are confident in who they are and how they are communicating will have more influence and more likely be a positive influence than those who don’t.
  • Know your strengths and your weaknesses. Leverage your strengths to your best advantage. Shore up your weaknesses by engaging people better and smarter than you are, and leveraging resources and support.
  • Stand by your principles and values. Know where you can’t compromise.
  • Passion is a great leadership quality, but over-emoting is not. Be self-aware enough to know the difference, and manage toward the passion end of the spectrum, bringing energy into a project, rather than letting emotions fog your judgment, and speak words and/or conduct actions counter-productive to your cause.
  • Enlisting the right people to support your personal and professional development to help ensure both your success and theirs.
  • Mentoring and supporting the growth of others will pay back in dividends, for yourself, your team and your organization.
  • Invest in yourself – find the right way to replenish your energy, strength and focus, and the right people to support you in your personal and professional growth.
• Once you know who you are, what your value is, and what you stand for, it’s a matter of being strategic about what you want to do about it.
  • Purposefully choose where you’d like to have influence: at work/home, within a particular company or industry, within a particular role, across different roles, at different levels of an organization. Be open to reviewing your choices and making changes as you get more data – know when you need to leave your role or company or project, for example.
  • When addressing a conversation, project, or challenge, set your intentions first, and plan for the right people and groups to engage with you to meet common objectives.
  • Leverage your influence to achieve a specific goal, and strategically enlist the right people and network to collaborate in achieving that goal. Adopt a ‘what’s in it for them’ perspective when considering who can assist you in achieving the goal, and engage them in the project speaking their language, and motivating them based on their stated needs.
  • Strategically engaging the right senior executive(s) or the right person for a project will help ensure its success.
  • When you’re working with people, teams and organizations in conflict, take the time to understand the perspectives of all, open up the communication channels, and find that middle ground where you can work transparently on shared intentions which meet corporate goals.
  • The adage is true that you must have the courage to change things you can change, the serenity to accept the things that you can’t change, and the wisdom to know the difference.
• Next, communicating crisply and on-message to targeted audiences is important, whether you’re in the boardroom or the bathroom, whether you’re in person or online, regardless of your role, level, experience, gender, culture.
  • Know and speak your story – what brought you to where you are today, what you’d like to do for tomorrow, who can help you make it happen, and how you hope that things will unfold.
  • Engaging key stakeholders and regularly communicating measurable forward progress will help advance a project and expand your personal influence and that of the team/people/project.
  • Speak with a positive message rather than a must-do/company-mandate/or-else place of fear. Extend an invitation to participate and empower people who participate to both connect with others and succeed as a group.
  • Influential communicators often serve as translators between groups, to enlist and engage both parties to work together towards common goals.
• Nobody has all the answers, but those with influence will continue to learn and grow and expand their knowledge, their network, and their comfort zone.
  • Genuinely care about others and build relationships based on trust. This is not easy in today’s world, when most of us work with people we may not have worked with before, people who work remotely, people who are not the same as we are. But it’s worth taking the time to build relationships at all levels, and asking about motivations and interests outside work, including vacation interests, will help ensure that everyone is on the same page.
  • Having a contrarian and someone-who-doesn’t-think-like-you are both useful people to have in your inner circle, as they invite you to embrace the other perspective, and to stretch and grow.
  • As managers and leaders who successfully help clients and teams to embrace change, and feel more comfortable with change will gather more credit and influence. But complacency is rampant, and it’s no easy task to inspire and engage key stakeholders to embrace change, and to enlist their support in shifting a team, product line, organization, etc. And ensuring that everyone’s influence expands following a successful project will help you manage future projects towards success.
  • Facilitating change involves understanding the conditions where change will be embraced, and creating those conditions so that the team can succeed. Often, this means that you need to manage individuals and teams beyond their comfort zone, and ensuring that people who engage in the process learn and grow while succeeding and achieving results.
  • Successfully engaging people and teams across roles, platforms and initiatives will help them understand the motivations of others, work toward a common goal, and be more open to collaborating with others for future projects. An added benefit is that exposure to the thinking and perspective of people-not-like-them will help people, teams, projects and companies be more open to different, novel and diverse ideas which would have business and personal benefits.
  • Stand behind your team. Don’t throw them under the bus when things don’t go well, but do communicate what you learn at every juncture and ensure that your team has the support they need to learn and succeed. With that said, know when you need to switch out team members and even entire teams. If you must do this, do it with transparent communication and support them as people.
  • Be open to leveraging social media to communicate and expand your influence, but take the time to know the tools, the audience, and the intent of your communication. LinkedIn might be for more professional networks and connections, and FaceBook might be more for your friends, with the content being what you might say to them at a backyard BBQ. Follow the corporate social media policies, but remember that you are people first, employees second.

Our conclusion from this conversation is that the most influential people are authentic, genuine and human. They are transparent in their communications, committed to the motivations of others, and although strategic about being connected to influential others, they are not ‘one of those people’ who do it to be self-serving. They are people you can trust, and who will grow and expand who they are, and ensure that those around them will grow alongside them. We hope that the conversation and the notes will have you thinking about your circle of influence, and working to expand your influence, for the benefit of all.

Resources:

• Citrix resource on the risks inherent in engaging in conversations in social media personally vs. on behalf of a company. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ0H1C_xFqQ
• Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back, by Rohit Bhargava, http://www.amazon.com/Personality-Not-Included-Companies-Authenticity/dp/0071545212 May, 2008. Also see the book blog at http://www.personalitynotincluded.com/blog/
• Also by Rohit Bhargava: Likeonomics: The Unexpected Truth Behind Earning Trust, Influencing Behavior, and Inspiring Action, May 2012.  http://www.amazon.com/Likeonomics-Unexpected-Influencing-Behavior-Inspiring/dp/1118137531/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1
• Strengths Finder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths, Tom Rath, 2007 http://www.amazon.com/Strengths-Finder-2-0-Upgraded-Discover/dp/B005C4ERHQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358894806&sr=1-2&keywords=strength+finders

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Please join us in thanking our speakers for FountainBlue’s January 18 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event on the topic of Expanding Your Circle of Influence, With or Without Direct Authority, and our hosts at UCSC Extension:

Facilitator Camille Smith, Work In Progress Coaching

Panelist Michelle Nix, Relationship Leader, Information Risk Management, PayPal

Panelist Preethy Padmanabhan, Sr. Mgr. Solutions Marketing, Dell

Panelist Shalika Pargal, Product Manager, Cisco

Panelist Kelly Ripley Feller, Director of Social Media & Community Marketing, Citrix

Panelist Eileen Sullivan, Director – Professional Practice, Tectura