observe it from the back of the room?
“It looks that way looking backwards.”
… a young woman had just asked me how I had put together such a perfect career plan. I laughed. I had absolutely no idea, at each of those steps, what was coming next.
Probably 2012, a Women In Technology (WIT) mentoring session, and “Planning” has never been my core competency. A lot of those moves were thrust on my family at the time. Career plans are always hard to predict. From the front they look like luck. From behind they look like a plan.
But the room held an answer. WIT rotates its hosting among its members, and that session was at VeriSign… after I had left. It was hosted by a woman I had helped sponsor for a promotion, who then picked up WIT at VeriSign and ran it. So there I was, a guest in a building I used to work in, watching her run the room. I am still in touch with her.
Gina held the rhythm…
…from the back of the stage. Gina Schock was on drums for The Go-Go’s by 1979, and from behind the kit you see every other player at once, while every one of them is listening to you without looking. In 1984 Head over Heels, written by Charlotte Caffey and Kathy Valentine, went to 11 on the Hot 100 off Talk Show. The band out front got the lights. Gina kept the time and observed the whole stage. And in a band that voted on its decisions, the woman at the back had the same vote as the woman at the microphone.
When did you last watch the room from the back… instead of running it?
I had spent years on the other side of that table. I had a number of very strong direct reports who were women in technology. I sponsored the WIT meetings at VeriSign and supported the local group with mentoring. That night I was not sponsoring anything. I was sitting in a chair she had arranged, in a meeting she was running, answering a question about a plan I never had.
The Roadblock version of me would have taken the compliment. Told her a tidy story about a plan, every step chosen on purpose, always a move ahead. It would have sounded great, and it would have taught her to feel behind for not having one.
…and to observe is to look past the obvious
The Signpost for observe is the leader who sees the opportunity from more than 1 angle. Looks beyond the obvious answer and finds a better one. Considers everyone who has a stake in it and runs a pilot before betting the farm. People seek this leader out because the picture they bring back is whole. The Roadblock picks a side. Closed to input. Stung by criticism. And when it goes wrong, busy finding somebody to blame.
The one at the back sees the whole band.
Leaders see a different company…
…than the women working in it. Only 21% of women in tech say it is easy for women to thrive there. Senior HR leaders are about twice as likely to say so, at 45%. Same building. 2 different pictures. That gap is an observation problem before it is anything else, and the fix starts with who you are watching when the meeting gets loud.
Watch closely and the pattern is right there in the room. Women leaders are twice as likely as men to be mistaken for someone more junior. 37% have had a coworker take credit for their idea, against 27% of men. It happens in front of everybody, in a few seconds, and almost nobody says a word. The law firms show the same split from the top: 84% of managing partners said their firms were good at promoting women into leadership. 55% of the experienced women said so. And in tech, half the women who start in the field have left their roles by 35.
empowering her can be as small as observing the moment her idea changes owners.
What I saw that night
That night at VeriSign I got to observe what sponsorship looks like from the far side of it. Not a thank-you. A woman running the room I used to sit in, hosting the next group, while the next young woman asked about a plan that never existed. My part was sponsoring her for 1 promotion. She did the rest.
Your “Simple… Not Easy” move: in your next meeting, observe for the woman whose idea gets picked up by somebody else. Say her name and her idea out loud, right then. It is the smallest empowering act there is, and if it costs you, it is a sound investment…
Helping leaders observe the room they think they already know is the quiet half of my work. Schedule time with me here.
My career looked like a plan only from the back of the room. Up close it was mostly me falling… Head over Heels
