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FranklinCovey Blog | Executive Mama
Building Trust
I was in a meeting earlier this week with 20 people from around the world and the strangest feeling came over me. I trusted everyone in the room—their intent, their integrity, and their ability to deliver.
Maybe this happens to you all the time. Maybe if I were quicker to extend trust it would happen more often to me. But as it currently stands, sometimes I feel like I don’t know enough about a person—their character and competence—to trust. Sometimes a person has behaved in ways that have broken trust. Regardless, it is rare for me to trust an entire room full of people. And it felt great! You’ll laugh, but I felt tears spring to my eyes when I thought about it. It didn’t mean I agreed with them on everything or that the meeting was easy, but things were easier to achieve because I assumed good intent.
I had worked with everyone in that room for at least three years and with some for over a decade. I trusted them because they had kept commitments, they had talked to me straight, and they all delivered results. Does this happen to you often? Or never? What else builds trust for Executive Mamas?
Author: Jennifer Colosimo, Vice President of Sales and Delivery Effectiveness at FranklinCovey
Focus Your Mind
The only way to enjoy an experience is to actually be there for it, mentally as well as physically. I’ve been at high school football games where every parent in the stands is “there” physically, but thumbing away on their Blackberry. Guess what? Everybody, including the kid you’re there to watch, knows you aren’t “there.” And how much fun are you having? You didn’t see the spectacular catch at the 10 yard line or the cheerleader stunts on the sidelines. You didn’t smell the hot dogs or feel the breeze. You sat in the car taking a call during halftime and missed the high school band version of Led Zeppelin hits. But hey, you were “there.”
I know, I know, you’re already trying to eat right, exercise, and get enough sleep, all while leading in the workplace, your family, and the community, and now I’m telling you that you must actually be mentally present for all of that? Yes. What difference does it make what you’re physically doing if you’re not experiencing it?
Unfortunately, being mentally present is no easier that staying physically fit. It takes effort. In its natural state, your mind operates much like a car radio on “scan.” It plays a little bit of one station then goes to the next station, jumping about from one song to the other. Another way to think about it is your mind is like a stream, always rolling along from one thing to another. If you stay on the surface of the water, when the winds pick up, you will be rocked about with the rapids. But if you have invested the time necessary to focus your mind, to remain present and focused, when the winds come you can dive to the deepest part of a pool, down deep where everything is still despite the rapids on the surface. And you’ll actually experience things!
Executive Mamas recognize it requires tremendous discipline to maintain mental focus on the present moment and they work at it. A couple of resources I’ve found particularly helpful (not endorsed by FranklinCovey Company, simply recommendations from Jennifer Colosimo among the many existing options) are books, audio, and practices taught by Eckhart Tolle and Eknath Easwaran.
Author: Jennifer Colosimo, Vice President of Sales and Delivery Effectiveness at FranklinCovey
A Business Case for Women
Ernst & Young (E&Y) presented a white paper at Davos that shows that companies with more women executives make more money than their less female-populated competitors as measured by EBITDA, return on invested capital, and net profits. Very cool! However, I’m not thinking that just any woman in the role makes a difference. Obviously, the woman needs character and competence and leadership capability and a whole host of things we can explore on later posts. For today, here are some questions related to the E&Y study to consider if you are a woman that aspires to an executive role:
- 1. Do you know how EBITDA is measured? Or even what the acronym stand for?
- 2. What about return on invested capital or net profits?
- 3. How does your company currently stand in terms of cash flow, revenues, profits?
- 4. Any idea what Davos is?
My point is this: One of the main responsibilities of an executive is fiduciary responsibility. › Continue reading
Great Mama Part II—Community, Social, Political Mamas
Maggie is a single 28 year-old woman who works full time for a recreation organization. She grew up in a town that provided numerous leadership opportunities for boys while, for girls, the emphasis was on being “nice” and above all, “pretty.” In her early 20s, she found that while there was nothing wrong with being nice, an authentic life also required some flexing of the courage muscle, and that physical beauty wasn’t enough to guarantee a meaningful life. Around the same time, Maggie read the book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Dr. Robert Putnam. Dr. Putnam’s thesis is that civic disengagement is impoverishing our communities and our lives. We sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less-we’re even bowling alone as opposed to league bowling. And civic disengagement leads to personal disengagement, crime, and a whole host of social problems.
Maggie decided that her contribution to future women, her community, and to herself would be through the Girl Scout organization, the preeminent leadership development organization for girls with 3.6 million members worldwide. According to www.girlscouts.org, Girl Scouts are the leading authority on girls’ healthy development, and builds girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place. After two years as a troop leader for girls ages 13-15, they wrote her a thank you note that said, “Ms. Maggie, you have taught us to make good decisions and that we can make a difference. We’re going to be healthy eaters who can manage conflict. We promise to be great leaders that recognize the potential in others like you have in us.”
There is a lot to do to revive our communities. Be informed, vote, choose your civic/global contribution, and do it. Executive Mamas live by the Girl Scout Law!
What will your contribution be? Check out video titled Contribution featured in FranklinCovey’s 7 Habits for Managers workshop.
Author: Jennifer Colosimo, Vice President of Sales and Delivery Effectiveness at FranklinCovey
What is a Great Mama? Part I
Some “mamas” strive to raise children of character that become confident, courageous, and caring adults. Others may be “mama” to their extended families, their neighborhoods, or to social or political causes.
In Korean, mama can mean ‘a concubine of an ancient high-ranking official’ or the goddess responsible for smallpox. All interesting roles. This blog focuses on one of them- what it means to you to be a great mama to children. Everybody has an opinion of what defines a great mother. And not just an opinion, most are dang sure it is the RIGHT opinion. I find most books on working mothers downright depressing. According to these manifestos, either it is a moral imperative to work outside of the home(”you owe it to the women who came before you and created your right to options”) OR mothers who stay home with their children, either by choice or necessity, are morally elevated and celebrated and working mothers are denigrated but the book provides some hints to get by if the reader’s life circumstances are forcing them to work. I would suggest the following realistically optimistic guidelines as you define how you plan to embody great motherhood: › Continue reading
No Whining
Women who aspire to public influence, in any organization, face barriers to success. Research shows that aspiring women coming from an economically disadvantaged background and/or women of color have an additional layer of barriers to overcome.
I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had great female and male mentors and it seems my skill set and capabilities have been, to this point anyway, valued. So I’ve got luck. I also believe, “Luck favors the prepared.” And the prepared don’t whine. Given the historical, societal, environmental challenge and opportunities you uniquely face, you have immense choice regarding what to say and how to behave right now. According to Victor Frankl, a Nazi war camp survivor highlighted in the Signature course The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the greatest human freedom is the ability to choose our reaction in the face of any circumstances. Imagine that instead of Susan B. Anthony saying, “Suffrage is the pivotal right,” and working her entire life to obtain voting rights for women in the United States, she had simply invested her time in complaining to the women in her knitting circle! Executive Mamas focus on what they can do, not on what they cannot.
Blame or finger-pointing and lack of personal responsibility
Keep the gloomy game going.
They keep stealing your hidden genius and potential wealth-
Giving them to a dimwit on the sidelines with
No leadership, heart, or financial skills.
Dear one,
Wise Up.
- Hafiz, fourteenth-century Sufi poet
Author: Jennifer Colosimo, Vice President of Sales and Delivery Effectiveness at FranklinCovey
Executive Mama
I’ve worked since I was 15 years old. Some years I worked because I wanted the challenge, the recognition, the opportunity to contribute-and some years I worked because I wanted to eat! I’ve waited tables, stocked grocery shelves, sold Prom dresses, taught speech communication at a Big 10 university, re-designed processes for a manufacturer, created a gazillion communication and change management plans . . .for IT systems, mergers, reorganizations. I’m married, with two daughters. I read, I lead a Girl Scout Troop, I workout (not enough to make up for the Girl Scout cookies), and I’m a Vice President at FranklinCovey.
That’s what this blog category is about: Being an Executive Mama. Choosing to be an executive mama.
Women have more choices as to how to mix career and family than any previous generation. And yet, some don’t aspire to leadership roles, particularly executive roles, because of the perception that the only acceptable executive style is paternalistic command and control. Others want executive status and a rich family life, possibly including children, but don’t see a path to doing both AND living to tell about it. This blog will encourage realistic optimists to make conscious choices about their leadership style, strive for executive influence in influential organizations including business and government, and to provide a map as to the decisions to be made in order to earn the right to be called both “executive” and “mama” in the same lifetime.
Next week: No whining.
Author: Jennifer Colosimo, Vice President of Sales and Delivery Effectiveness at FranklinCovey