Everyday Bliss For Women In Leadership

I took class with Liselotte Molander a few years ago and she’s a swell coach. Imagine my delight to find this great article by Liselotte on Stress and the Executive Woman! Full of sage wisdom and good suggestions, her "Three Mistakes" is a great cautionary tale. Read and enjoy…

Working as an executive manager in International Trade and Marketing is not always exciting, energizing or fulfilling; it sometimes may be the highway to personal crisis and burnout. Here is the true story about Susan…

Susan had a very busy life. As a Purchasing Manager in International Trade, she was always on the road. Though she loved her job, it kept her frantically busy, traveling around the world, climbing another rung in the career ladder every two years. She had 2 small children at home and a husband equally as busy. Increasing competition, clashes with her boss about the ideas she felt strongly about, pressure at home, and constraint in her marriage added to her growing feeling of fatigue and frustration.

Susan felt she had too much to do and no time to do it. Almost in desperate need for a change she found another position in International Relations, hoping that with the change in jobs, everything would level out. At first she felt better, but soon Susan was overwhelmed and felt helpless again. Guilt, hopelessness, and despair filled her as well as self-blame for not managing the situation.

Fear of losing "everything" fueled her effort, working only to avoid criticism and job loss. Her motivation was gone and she saw no way out of her situation. Fear of burnout and depression kept her going, but inside she felt totally empty and powerless.

How did Susan’s life go so wrong? Here are the top 3 things she did to fail:

1. Susan was working hard and got no acknowledgement at work. Money and materialism became the yardsticks she employed to measure her worth. Susan was missing something but couldn’t connect the dots. Her daily survival method became fighting or fleeing while completing her daily tasks.

2. Susan experienced more and more stress in her life. She thought that lowering the stress would get her back on track. She started to schedule facials, body massages, and spa days into her already busy schedule. She felt angry and blamed herself for not being wiser, stronger or better. Ironically enough, by adding these relaxing activities, Susan increased her stress level even more. . .

Read the rest of this article here and visit Liselotte at her website.

Last week I gave a speech to a group of technology workers about workaholism being the standard, not the exception these days. I also shared the statistic that women work longer hours than men do, traditionally in the home  and also at outplacement work sites. Remember mom putting in hours on dinner, cleanup and mending or other jobs while you and dad watched tv and hung out? Most moms worked up to bedtime when I was a kid. Work at home COUNTS as "work". We’re seeing this historical tendency transfer into the corporate workplace as well where women are asked to work longer hours and then come home to resume working. Reading a 1980’s women’s magazine, my mother was once heard to mutter "Time for myself? Whatever do they mean by that?" For many women world-wide, little has changed in the past twenty years.

The point I was making is that housework and child rearing are historically un-valued or undervalued jobs, and are typically taken on in a majority of households by women. Once a woman has worked a full day in the office, she potentially comes home to meal preparation, cleaning and parenting taking up her time in far greater proportions than do male parents. This is not my observation, but that of dozens of clients, industry research and formal surveys. I cited the article below and so am running it again for those of you who missed it back when…

This study cites how women in the UK are working longer, harder and as a result, are accumulating more stress. When you translate that to America, you can tack on a few hours and perhaps even add a quarter more bother to the stress load. Why? While they are fast approaching levels of job-stress we have in the U.S., Europeans tend to have more realistic work/life balance than Americans.

From:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3178554.stm

WOMEN WORK LONGER HOURS

A woman’s work is never done may sound like a tired old cliché - but it may be more true than ever.

According to a new survey a woman’s working week is now half a day longer than it was five years ago - and that’s without housework.

The increase is down to the growing number of women in more high-powered management and professional jobs, say researchers.

In contrast, the total number of hours worked by men has fallen slightly over the same period - from 45.5 hours to 44.8 hours.

Girls to work more

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (www.cipd.co.uk/default.cipd ) who conducted the survey, the shifting pattern is down to changes in the UK economy.

And these are more likely to become more magnified, not less, in the future, as the UK economy shifting from male-dominated manufacturing to the more female-friendly service sector.

Mike Emmott, head of employee relations at CIPD, said: "If efforts to secure equal treatment for women at work are to bear fruit we can expect to see their experience of work and working patterns aligned more closely with those of men."

However, men are still working much longer hours in paid jobs than women.

Compared to an average week of 44.8 hours for a man, women are working 33.9 hours.

Flexible friend?

The impact of the government’s campaign on work-life balance has had little effect, the report says.

The element of the report’s findings contradicts a recent report for the Office of National Statistics which said that six million workers were now benefiting from flexible work.

The government has introduced a range of family-friendly and flexible working measures.

It signed up to the European Social Chapter shortly after coming into power - and many European-inspired policies have subsequently been introduced.

In recent years: new fathers have gained paternity rights; women can take up to a year’s maternity leave - and parents now have the right to request flexible working patterns.

In addition, people working part-time have gained the right to equal treatment as full-time employees.

But according to the report there is an increasing proportion of people working long hours - more than 48 hours a week - up from 10% in 1998 to 25% today.

These long hours can have a negative effect on quality of life, with more than a quarter of those people who are working long hours admitting health problems as a result.

A quarter said had led to stress or depression and it had affected their sex lives and their relationship with their children.

More than four in ten workers say long hours "gets in the way of" their relationship with their partner or spouse.

"The only crumb of comfort", the report says is that one in four employees have cut back their hours in the past five years, although this is largely down to parenthood.

Come to EduCamp at Stanford University with me! A bunch of educators, both the hoary oldschool types who remember chalkboards and wooden pencils like me and a bunch of the younger high tech variety are gathering to conference over our ideas. 

I’ve been teaching in one format or another since 1979 and most recently in the last seven years, in an online eCampus format. Towards that end I’d like to invite you to join me at StanfordUniversity September 16 - 17 for Educamp, where I am giving a presentation on Successful Leadership in Online Learning Environments: Tips & Tools of the Virtual University.

More info here: http://educamp.pbwiki.com/

EduCamp is collaboratively hosted at Stanford University on Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 11:00 am PT- Sunday, September 16, 2007 at 5:00 pm PT and you can register here:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/70116721

For a look at what I’m doing, here’s the description and syllabus for my presentation:

Successful Leadership In Online Learning Environments:
Tips, Tools and Lessons of the Virtual University

with Maryam Webster, Director of The Energy Coach Institute

Course Summary

Maryam will share her experience of seven years as an online teacher for a specialty coach training institute, and as training director and course writer through the 1990’s for several corporations in different training contexts. We will be discussing the best open source software, audio class -vs- webcasts and how to handle each inexpensively, enhancing student experience through didactic and autodidactic participation, in-class structure, out-of-class semi-structured learning and participation opportunities, skilful initiation and use of the cohort bond, collaborative software as community, ensuring ongoing learning after the course is over.

Syllabus

• The Advantages of Online Learning
• One Model of eCampus Technology - it’s Advantages/Disadvantages
• eCampus Leadership and Community Building
• Collaborative Leadership Of The Cohort Model Online
• Fitting the Syllabus to the Learner: Languaging as an Aid in Learning Styles
• The Power of the Mastermind in Retention and Learning Group Cohesion
• e-Learning Course After-Care

Resources

Online Learning Course Search Network
The Moodle Open Source eCampus software- this is one of the opensource software packages we use and recommend
Online Learning Teacher Clearinghouse
Be a Student For a Day: Take An Online Learning Demo Course
Getting The Most Out Of Online Learning
Are You Ready To Learn Online?- this quiz would be really great…if the scoring system worked!
15 Benefits of Online Learning
More Benefits of eLearning

A little late on the ball, but in response to biz-buddy Krishna’s tag in her post: 8 random things about me

Thanks to Krishna who tipped me off about putting this at my blog. You can read her sage suggestions here on how to use this research to market your self growth business!

I was recently asked by a client how to remain professional in a contentious situation. Here is something I wrote a long time ago that still applies:

Cultivate that within you that is respectful, self-aware, classy, dignified and grounded in bedrock, and you will have all the professional demeanor you will ever need.

Do you AQ? If not, you might want to. AQ stands for Abundance Quotient and is a system developed by my friend Kim George to e-x-p-a-n-d the potential and possibilites of your life. I loved her newsletter intro of today so much I am reproducing it below as a sterling example of a wonderful Everyday Bliss mindset. Savor this delicious slice of summer savvy and get yourself on over to Kim’s site and sign up for her newsletter and classes today.
 

Kim

It’s rare anymore, but I sometimes get potential clients who wonder why I refer them to other coaches when they say “But it’s YOU I really want to work with!”. Sometimes I feel I’m simply not the best coach for them and that what they really need is to be found with another coach I can refer them to. Sometimes people want coaching, but they really aren’t ready for the kind of intensity such a relationship can generate, or are a wee bit too comfortable in their rut to really work at change. Sometimes a different level of expertise or specialty is called for. And then, there are those who are simply “coachability impaired”.

To correct what may be a widespread assumption, coaches are not obliged to help all and sundry. Though many varieties of coaching exist for the wide variety of clients that exist, coaching by its very nature is a profession that demands one’s highest and best performance. To assure that, coaches are choosy and only work with clients that fit our particular skillsets and energetic bandwidth - just like other service providers. You don’t see a lawyer for a heart transplant. Likewise, a C-level executive seeking snappy, fast-paced high performance coaching wouldn’t employ a creativity, academic or ADD coach. For different needs there are different talents and specialties in the coaching world. That extends also to the personality of client being coached, in what we refer to as “coachability”.

To protect our energies and precious time from being wasted, we all have our red velvet ropes and sets of immutable parameters past which folks who aren’t at a certain level, are not permitted. To attempt to coach people who are resistant to change, aren’t ready for a coaching partnership or are not willing to expand their horizons would be an exercise in frustration and futility for both coach and client. Most experienced coaches can size potential clients like this up in a few heartbeats. It only takes a few to drain you dry before you develop such instincts. And in a nod to Bea, it’s not arrogance or snobbery, but self-preservation and conservation of resources at the heart of the golden restraining posts holding up that red velvet rope.

Thanks and a tippo of the “you said it” hat goes to Seth Godin for his Distinctionary entry below, on “What Coachable Means in Real Life”. You go, my brother.

Coachable

A friend is wrestling with his ability to be coached. For the coachable, “Turn right at the light” is seen as a helpful suggestion for someone lost in a strange town… the advice goes in, is considered and then acted upon. For someone wrestling with coaching, though, it’s like surgery. It’s painful, it has side effects and it might lead to a bad reaction.

Coaching happens all the time. Most often, it’s not from a boss or a professional coach. In fact, the best insights and advice usually come from informal or unexpected sources.

In fluid marketing and organization environments, where the world changes rapidly, coachability is a key factor in evolving and succeeding. Not because all advice is good advice. In fact, most advice is lousy advice. No, the reason coachability is so crucial is that without it, you don’t have the emotional maturity to consider whether the advice is good or not. You reject the process out of hand, and end up stuck.

Symptoms of uncoachability:

* Challenging the credentials of the coach
* Announcing that you’re being unfairly singled out
* Pointing out, angrily, that the last few times, the coach was wrong
* Identifying others who have succeeded without ever being coached
* Resisting a path merely because it was one identified by a coach

Years ago, at the great Bolshoi Ballet, auditions for the troupe were conducted among 8 year old girls. That’s because it took ten years to become great. How did the auditions work? The teachers weren’t looking for the best dancers. They were looking for the dancers who took coaching the best. The rest would come with time.

See the original at Seth Godin’s Blog, and Bea’s post on “Topgrading”.

If you’re reading this blog, then you’re undoubtedly dedicated to the experience of Everyday Bliss. So I KNOW you’ll want to participate in the FREE Teleclass I’m doing TODAY with Ellen Britt, for her Everyday Qi program.

I’ll be sharing the first FIVE Keys to Everyday Bliss from my upcoming Everyday Bliss For Busy Women book, a technique you can use to rev up your energy (even when you are tired, ill or have had a horrible day) and how to use the energy of intention to transform your  limitations into a precious treasure.

Interested? Calendar open at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern TODAY, Wednesday 5/23?

Great!  Sign up here:

http://www.everydayqi.com/signup4webster.html

There are MASSES of goodies included of course,  and you’ll also get to hear LOTS of other fantastic speakers on energy techniques and other health and wellness promotion info that you can really use.

See you there!

Warmly,
Maryam