How to Be a Successful Woman in a Technical Field

I’m on the workforce development committee for one of the professional organizations I’m involved with. Recently there was a conversation about how the girls that were being recruited for a technical program (with the expectation they would take technical jobs in a field that’s predominantly male) were not the right girls. My knee-jerk reaction was to take offence to this comment, but when I thought about my early career for just a second, I realized the speaker was absolutely right. It’s not for everyone.

Back (20+ years ago – yikes!) when I was starting out as an Electrical Engineer, there were pictures, cartoons, and calendars in the labs that you’d get fired for today, the older engineers called you “honey”, and the VP in my organization was well known for feeling up all the “girls” he could get near. We all learned real quick to stay an arms length away.

The focus on sexual harassment has changed the most overt issues, but it still takes a special kind of young woman to be successful in a predominately male field.

I think my initial visceral reaction came from a sense of justice – it shouldn’t be this way, but you know what, it is.

Until we reach that state of utopia, what’s a young woman to do? My feminist friends may take issue with some of this, and I’d love to have a discussion about it, but here are my thoughts:
1) Have a sense of humor - Running to HR every time you overhear a raunchy joke is going to do nothing for your career, or your relationships at work. Am I saying women should put up with harassment – NO, absolutely not, but not everything is harassment.
2) Have a thick skin – Men (and women) can be rough. It’s usually not personal. Men don’t usually have an issue with this, but young women sometimes take things too personally.
3) Stand up for yourself – If you’re going to be intimidated by a big gruff crusty old engineer who yells and swears, it might not be the right field for you. If you are going to back down to the young male engineer who’s threatened because you’re smarter and work harder than him, then maybe it’s not the right field for you. Believe me, it’s not always easy to do, but it’s the only way to earn respect.
4) Work is work – Men get this. Watch them. They can argue like crazy about business issues, then go out, and have a beer together.

Remember, one of the big keys to professional success are the relationships you form, and if you’re working in a male dominated field like engineering you MUST be able to form healthy, professional relationships with those in your field – men. I’m curious to hear what other women think of this.

Making ethical decision making easy

When I was joining my firm, I spent a lot to time talking with my future partners about a wide variety of topics – compensation, benefits, division of responsibilities, growth strategies, future personal plans, and values – many, many conversations about values. I thought this was odd at first, not that we talked about it, only how much we talked about it. I don’t know why I thought it was odd, considering I had left my prior position in part because of a mismatch of values.

Five years later, I am still in awe of what a strong foundation we’ve been able to build because we share the same values.

I was listening to a speaker recently talk about when leaders have to make tough decisions, and how sometimes they make those decisions consistent with their values and sometimes they do not. He made me feel so grateful about my situation. When we’ve had to make those “tough” decisions, it’s actually been fairly easy. When one of us wavers, and it happens, the other is always there to be steady. I can’t think of a single instance where we’ve made a decision that went against our values.

In fact, we were participating in an RFP and the purchasing agent suggested we do something we weren’t comfortable with. It was not so egregious as to be called unethical, but it was not consistent with the way we wanted to run our business. He subtlety suggested we’d get more business if we did it. This was about a year ago and getting more business was a HUGE challenge! We talked a lot about that decision and in the end, we decided to stick to our guns, and if we lost the business, so be it. Turns out that was one of the best tough decisions we ever made. We did not lose any business, and MUCH more importantly did not lose any self-respect. Shared values are critical to making ethical decision making easier.

Soul Searching in Saudi Arabia

In mid May, I was offered the amazing opportunity to be part of the inaugural Global Women’s Leadership Institute, held in Saudi Arabia. The purpose of the institute was to develop women leaders and create a cross-cultural network of those women leaders.

Once I was accepted into the program, reality set in. Two weeks in a very conservative Muslim country - What would I wear? What local customs are important to know and follow? Would I be able to run outside, or would I have to resort to the dreaded treadmill? Could I learn enough Arabic to be polite (Hello, Please, Thank you, etc.) before I go? We had an orientation, which answered most of my questions, but the most notable thing was the caliber of the women – CEOs from a variety of industries, Heads of Non-Profits and NGOs, women from State and National Government as well as academics. This was going to be an interesting trip!

After 24 hours of travel, we finally arrived at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) where the program was being held. A good night’s sleep and our adventure began with a tour of the amazing campus. KAUST was designed to rival the worlds’ elite technology universities, and from my point of view, they are off to an amazing start. Some of the highlights included the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Laboratory with ten of the largest electromagnets in the world and the Visualization lab, where we were able to see a picture of El Capitan at a resolution high enough that we were able to zoom in far enough to see license plates on the cars. Perhaps the highlight of the visualization lab was the 3D chamber, where we put on a set of goggles and a hat with motion and position sensors had the sensation of entering an atom. I could see it all around me, and as I moved my head, it moved too – amazing!

During this tour, we began to get to know each other. I have to confess – initially their outer clothing made me feel like we were different, but it wasn’t long before that feeling went away. Just like us, some of them were more outgoing, some more thoughtful, some quietly funny, and even a poet in the group.

The syllabus was chocked full, so the interesting conversations took place offline. I had so many misconceptions, like, how do you marry if you can’t talk with men you’re not related to? Answer, they actually do talk with men. Another – how can you run a business if you can’t handle money – Answer – they can and do handle money. I had so much misinformation about Saudi culture, but they set me straight. One of the most amazing things about the trip is how fast Saudi society is changing. The Saudi women come from a culture where women in the recent past have had very few rights and opportunities, now they instrumental making changes. One of the women is an executive at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce where previously women had not even been involved. Many Saudi women own and run businesses, including doing business with men, One is the head of the Saudi National Dialog, one of King Abdullah’s pet projects whose aim is to get people talking, in a constructive way, about the contentious issues of the day.

Another example of rapid change is in voting. Women currently can’t vote, even in municipal elections. The women I met all fully expect that to change by the next election in 2011. In fact, some of them are even working on projects to prepare women to run!

One of my favorite parts of the trip was learning more about Islam. Unlike the United States, where we work hard to separate religion from government and business, religion is their culture. The Quran is their law, and religion permeates everything they do. Five times a day the Adhan sounds, a beautiful soulful call to prayer coming from every Mosque. Without even knowing what it was, I immediately found it connecting me with that spiritual place in my center, like the sound of Om. The absolute highlight of the trip, was sitting on a rooftop of a building in Old Jeddah at sunset, hearing the Adhan sound across the city, each Mosque on a slightly different timeline, spiritual, spooky, amazing!

Their religious ties were also interesting in other aspects of the program. During a discussion on environmentalism, I learned that Islam teaches that we are all custodians of our planet, that God gave us, and it is a moral obligation to take care of the planet, as if it was a temple. Hmmm, not a bad way to look at things, if you ask me.

The last bit of religion I found interesting is the liberal use of the phrase Insha'Allah (God willing) in a business context. As in, “We hope to have 30 women registered for this program, Insha'Allah.” We may think something like that, but we hardly ever say it!

There’s so much I take for granted. That I can vote, run a business, and for the most part, be judged on merit vs. gender. Although I can’t imagine what it’s like to walk in the Saudi women’s shoes, the closest I can come is the civil rights and women’s movements of the 60’s in the US. The big difference I see is that the changes in Saudi Arabia are happening over a matter of years instead of over a decade or two. I feel truly blessed to have had this opportunity, to meet such amazing women, and gain such clear perspective about both their culture and my own.

Proposal Writing: What Do Clients Really Want? (Learning from our Failures)

OK, “failure” is kind of a strong word in this case. But here’s the story: We recently had the opportunity to do a “post mortem” kind of meeting on a deal we didn’t get (hey, you can’t win them all, right?) We thought we knew why, or had some ideas at least, but we wanted to find out for sure.

The client was generous enough to give us an hour of his time, and honest enough to give us really candid and open feedback. So what did we learn? Some of the things we had assumed were true, but there were others. The one that resonated most for me is the Business version of the grammar school advice to “Show your work”.

Our team had spent hours discussing this project, formulating an approach, and really drilling down into the details. In an effort (and it did take some effort) to make a clear proposal, we eliminated all the details behind our recommendations. Unfortunately the client interpreted that as a lack of analysis, and why not – he didn’t see it, so in his world it didn’t exist.

This really hit home for me. I was always a proponent of the short, sweet, clear proposal. I don’t’ know about others but I typically don’t want to read 20 pages of what someone thinks, but (ha – fortunately :-) ) not everyone is like me. Looking back it seems obvious that we should have included all the “sausage making details”, perhaps as an appendix or perhaps in the main proposal with an executive summary. I’m curious, what do others do?

Self-regulation in Software Development

Senia Maymin (I can’t link to her website for some reason – I’ll update this when I can) has written a bunch about a concept called Self-Regulation. This concept fascinates me. It’s one of those things that’s simple – particularly to understand, but certainly not easy. It’s the skill that you use to do the things you need to or should do. The idea is that self-regulation is like a muscle and the more you use it (in any area) the stronger it gets (in every area.)

It’s easy to see how it applies to my life – go to the gym, make my sales calls, blog, etc. I always thought that once you did those things and saw the benefits, you’d do them again BECAUSE you saw the benefits, but the way she talks about it, it’s less intellectual than that. The more you do these things, the easier it is to do other things. But how does it apply to the field of Software Development?

It’s easy to see the areas where you might need self-regulation, testing, documentation, and perhaps for some, design. Does this mean that if you make yourself do a good thorough design it will be easier to make yourself do the testing or documentation? Well, it’s certainly easier to do those activities for a well designed system, but is it easier to get yourself motivated to do them? Interesting question – I really don’t know…

Getting a Job as an Engineer or Programmer

I know a lot of people that have been out of work for a long time.  Most of them are continuing the battle.  So what can they do to increase their chances?  Besides the obvious (networking, personal introductions, etc) there are ways candidates can stand out from the crowd even when they don’t have a personal connection in the hiring company.

First some basics, I am amazed at how many candidates don’t return phone calls, or when they do they’re rude, disinterested or worse.  I’ve had phone conversations with your typically “crusty” engineer, and I even had a candidate recently swear at me.  Actually, not just once, but a long angry “F-bomb” laced tirade.  I understand he was frustrated, but calling me names did not make me inclined to help him out.

Ok, so assuming you have some basic common sense and social skills what can you do to stand out?  Do a little research – check out my company.  At least know what we do, better yet, have some relevant questions.  Next, have some ideas how you can add value to my company.  Interviewers need to figure this out – make it easy on us.  If you have prior experience in my industry, highlight it.  Don’t just assume that because it’s on your resume it will be obvious.  Finally, tell me something about yourself that differentiates you.  Please, please, don’t tell me you have good people skills or are a self starter. It may well be true, and it may be very important for the job, but it’s so cliché, it’s meaningless.

And for extra credit?  Go above and beyond and do some more research.  Find someone in the company or a former employee (LinkedIn is a great resource for this) and get more info about the culture, and what the job entails, and then tell me how you specifically, with your unique background and skill set can help make my company more successful.  The more specific the better, and if you can tell me how you’ve done this in the past, even better!

Good luck, and keep the faith!

Peer Coaching - Improved

I recently read about an interesting company – The Alternative Board. They provide facilitated peer coaching for business owners and Presidents.

I think this is a great idea. I’ve have good experiences with peer coaching. A group of bright, experienced business people with diverse backgrounds can figure out anything. The only downside for me is that sometimes these groups can go off the tracks. The conversation gets high jacked by one person, or the topic of the day does not really get covered, or all the great contributions don’t get shared.

It seems to me that adding an experienced facilitator would not only maximize the contributions, it would also maximize the benefits to all the participants.