Loooking For a Few Good ... Women!

This year I take encouragement from the fact that there were more women attending SxSW as leaders in the music, gaming and entertainment industry than ever before. I especially enjoyed the reports coming out of the workshop entitled: Breaking the Glass Ceiling -- Fearless Women Entrepreneurs. According to the event coverage from The Guardian, the event outcome hit upon a key principle that we at the SmartGirls' Way hold dear; support from other women is critical to overcoming the first hurdle of entrepreneurship -- the fear of failure.

Another hurdle that women entrepreneurs face is self-confidence in their strengths as women. A tri-University study released last week from Binghamton University, the University of Missouri and the University of Minnesota, attributes gender stereotyping as a primary barrier to women choosing entrepreneurship. The research was done to address a seemingly lack of role models among the pool of existing women entrepreneurs. Specifically, it unveiled a need to change the way entrepreneurship is discussed, portrayed and valued in dialogue with ALL genders.

And here is the Eureka moment for me. For the past few weeks, our founder has been interviewing women all over the country for the 100-100 - A SmartGirls' Way Project highlighting the success and strengths of women entrepreneurs. The issue is NOT that there aren't great role models out there confidently overcoming fears and gender barriers to build successful businesses. The issue is that not enough people know about them as a collective force, dramatically transforming the face of business in our country.

Events like the workshop at SxSW are a GREAT start to engage this collective force of role models. We want to take it to the next level by championing and celebrating the momentum and potential impact that women entrepreneurs bring to our economy.

If you know a woman entrepreneur who would be a great role model, tell us! What do you look for in a role model? What strengths do you most admire in those that have inspired you and ask yourself, what can they teach you about stepping up and launching your own type of entrepreneur?

Angry, Exhausted, Frustrated and Wrong!

by Jean Brittingham

I didn’t even know where to start when my new-media maven asked me to respond to this post by Penelope Trunk.  I get the power of a hyperbolic title, but really? Women Don’t Want to Run Start-Ups Because They’d Rather Have Children?

There’s so much wrong here it’s hard to set your sights.

At the same time I completely feel for her.

And before I say anything else, congratulations Penelope on leading (what one can hope) will be a great success in your third start-up. It’s clearly been a struggle that lasted too long with too little reward. That in itself is dismaying, but it’s much more distressing when women with talent who have begun to carve a spot for themselves succumb to the models that make entrepreneurship exhausting, silly, and impossible to love.

Let’s begin with the premise behind Trunk’s (and Jeff Steibel’s) definition of entrepreneurism as a disease.  This particular definition suggests that these two (and a few other business writers with this view of entrepreneurship) think they “own” the definition.  Entrepreneurs to them are men (and the OCCASSIONAL woman) who take on VC capital against an unlikely bet and work horrific and thankless hours (the thanklessness comes mostly from the VC partners but also from the team you are driving and the family you are deserting) to breakthrough the probability factor and post an amazing win. 

Or at least get a buy-out so that you break even.

This isn’t THE Entrepreneur typology; it’s ONE Entrepreneur typology.

The state of the planet, the state of the economy, the state of our lives and the incredible number of human beings who have GREAT ideas they are turning into GREAT businesses means that this is a limited and limiting view of entrepreneurs.

Most importantly--it’s not going to help us construct the next economy.

Instead, I see a future (and many join me here) where both the investment community and consumers take note of and then begin to actively foment support for some different breeds of entrepreneurs. 

While I am not at all sure about the role Solopreneur’s will play in the next economy, it is clear that the reemergence of a craft economy plays a significant role in the future. These individual contributors, who are often working in complex networks and loose affiliations with others, are crazy, all right—crazy smart.

More interestingly (at least to me) are the new breed of social entrepreneur—where a much higher proportion of women are striking out and making a difference while making a living. These social entrepreneurs are developing businesses that offer solutions and hope because they see themselves and their business ideas as an integral part of a better world.

And finally, there are the women who are breaking through and making businesses work well and also work with their lives—businesses that create financial success for founders and a growing contingency of employees. These women believe that you can, and should, have a life and a business, a financial goal and an nonnegotiable ethos, a current reality that works and a future that works better.

Suggesting that women don’t want to be entrepreneurs because you have burned yourself out by “manning-up and buying-in” to a set of investor and personal standards that leave no space for anything but profit, is not the future of entrepreneurs.

It’s not the future of anything.

Life is too short, the planet is too fragile and frankly, Penelope is right—there are children to raise.  The part she got wrong is giving up one to get the other. I believe we can change the rules instead!

Emotional Intelligence and the Impact of Feminine Leadership

by Jean Brittingham

A recent study on group IQ confirms what we at the SmartGirl’s Way have long known—that women have rocking relationship skills.  The study shows that the ability of a group to solve a difficult problem was directly related to the number of women in the group--essentially the number of women increases the collective cognitive abilities of the group. Women are natural collaborators and relationship builders. What hasn’t been well documented yet, is the strong positive effect that these skills, referred to as “social sensitivity” in the study, have on the efficacy and productivity of groups working together in any capacity—including the work environment. 

The growing understanding of the importance of this link and its positive impact on performance contradicts some of western society's most loved conventions—in particular, that smart people alone make a smart group and that feelings don’t matter in the workplace.

In an ever more complex world, the ability to read expression and tone, express empathy, effectively reframe a tense situation, and energize a group through a sense of camaraderie are the winning leadership skills of the future.

When I first became intrigued with “women’s ways at work” and in particular the aspects of the feminine at work in a masculine world, I began to be very conscious and take note of the language women use to describe who they are, what they are doing and how they are doing it. I started noting strong similarities in the skills that women were applying to their lives, no matter what they were doing. I also noticed that women tended not to talk about these skills to men, in particular to the men they worked with and worked for.

I started asking direct questions about this and was amazed at the consistency in the answer—women don’t talk to men about how they think, feel, work, make decisions, create, collaborate or achieve because up to now, men not only don’t understand it they think it is too “soft” and doesn’t belong in the work place. Worse yet, since it is not as natural for men, they tend to diminish the importance of this type of intelligence in the work environment.  This even  after strong uptake (at least theoretically) on the concept of emotional intelligence.

A strong contributing factor to the lack of acknowledgment of women’s unique skills at work has been the intentional (and obviously necessary) effort to create equity between the genders in terms of pay, access and opportunity. Sadly this effort has unintentionally diminished the unique and valuable differences between men and women.

Time to Embrace the Feminine Leadership Skill Set!

Highly refined “social sensitivity” is an outcome of the ability and natural tendency to create strong communities and relationships that endure whatever the circumstances. It is a subset of an amazing array of feminine strengths that we have just begun to openly discuss and tap.

These skills are amazing, awesome, world-changing!!  Why would we want women to leave these capabilities to the other parts of their lives?  They have kept families and society ticking along for millennia. They are the foundation for the way that things work when they are working really, really well.  And they are dramatically missing in business. 

Finally, and maybe most importantly—they are the same traits needed for society to shift to a sustainable and THRIVING existence on our big blue ball. I for one want more of that.

Women Entrepreneurs--the New Equal Rights Amendment

It's interesting how consistently I am hearing from women who are perplexed that after 100 or more years of active effort to achieve equity in pay, opportunity and representation, we are still pushing a very heavy stone up a very steep hill. And further, we're pretty tired of hearing that things are all good.

Here's the issue from my perspective. While there may be a few men out there who consciously and with an agenda are seeking to keep women from achieving their goals and making progress, most of what is going on is unconscious, a part of the culture of male designed institutions that we have been living in for over 4000 years. It's not personal, it's just business. And politics. And culture.

And working to change culture from the inside is not very effective. You only have to look at the current resistance to clean-energy to understand the incredible hold that an in-place culture has on us. Who would vote for dirty over clean? Who would think that societies should spend tax dollars to supplement the incomes of traditional energy giants while they increase profits and decrease investment in clean energy options. It's not logical. It's not smart. But it is common. We're used to it so we don't even (mostly) notice it.

Culture is like air. We can't recognize it because we swim in it every day. Asking the male dominant culture to recognize the things they do that make it difficult for them to see, appreciate, and nominate women into positions of influence is a bit like asking a fish to describe water--or asking them to choose air instead.

After 50 years of focused effort, the statistics are abysmal.

So, what do we do now?

Well, as a start, how about we quit trying to break through glass ceilings with rubber (or even glass) hammers?

How about we demand parity studies and mentoring programs that ease the cost of entry into traditionally male dominated industries--and encourage and empower women to start their own businesses?

How about we build a serious movement of women entrepreneurs and help them understand that they can build businesses that are not only financially successful but are also great places to work and that these great places can allow for families, communities and a healthy and vibrant future?

I'll be discussing these issues in future blogs, but for now I think it's important to acknowledge that what we have been doing is not achieving the hoped for changes--in equity and fairness and importantly in achieving the balance that a woman's viewpoint and approach brings and that the world so needs now.

As a well-known women leader on Wall Street recently commented when asked if the meltdown would of happened if there were more women engaged in the decision-making process, "Women tend not to bet the farm, understanding as we do that the kids need to live on it."
Now is the time for the new entrepreneurial movement--fueled by the power and passion of women. Join us!