September 2009 Archives

Marcus Buckingham sparked a media furor (his obvious intention) with his provocate Huffington Post squib, "What's Happening to Women's Happiness?" Buckingham, who is not a professional social scientist and has no evident academic credentials, claims that women have become less happy than men since the feminist movement began. As of this moment, 1536 people have commented on his original post, and countless pundits have weighed in on their own platforms.

 

The post is an obvious ploy to sell his new book, being released next month. His game is to try to convince women that they have a problem, so that they'll have to buy his book. Buckingham wants us to believe that he alone knows how to "solve a problem like Maria." Or Ann. Or Tanya. Or [insert your name here].

 

So I'll add my own immediate thoughts.

 

First. I don't take a few broad brushstrokes of cobbled-together data as the gospel truth. Until I read and analyze those studies (and the other studies in the field) myself, I don't trust that they are accurate. You shouldn't trust that they're accurate, either. I see too many specious statistics and faulty interpretations parading around as gender analysis these days. In fact, I'd go so far to say that gender has become the cheap-and-easy way for third-rate thinkers (if they're thinkers at all) to boost their twitter rankings. Or, in this case, bestseller status.

 

Second. Let's say, for argument's sake, that these surveys are accurate. What, then, is the correct question to ask about them? Buckingham implicitly asks: What's wrong with women? Listen to this again. Where have you heard it before, in so many different places in so many different ways: WHAT'S WRONG WITH WOMEN? Men have been asking this central question since the dawn of patriarchy. Henry Higgins asked it most famously, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" Women have not only failed to be powerful like men and successful like men. Now they fail to be happy like men.

 

Third. Just because the timeframe of the survey coincides with the women's movement does not mean there is any causal relationship between the two. Mistaking (or coercing) correlation for causation is the first sign of a rank amateur. This is someone who wants to lay down two twigs on the ground alongside each other and declare a fire. This is not someone you can believe, and certainly not someone you can learn much from.

 

Fourth. Buckingham would have us believe that "gender stereotyping"* is not responsible for this phenomenon because, hey, sexism as he defines it (strangely and naively) has dropped from 74% to 42%. Only half the population still thinks that "men should be the primary breadwinner and women should be the primary caretaker of home and family." Why in the world would women be discouraged by the "fact" that, after a century of women's rights advocacy, almost half the population still wants us barefoot and pregnant?

 

Fifth. Given that last one, I'd say women need to get mad, not sad. Certainly, they don't need to buy Buckingham's book to find out how to "fix" themselves.

 

* Topic for another blog post: "Gender stereotyping" is a smokescreen euphemism that blames individuals and masks the real issue: cultural beliefs.

 

It's time. Let's take back the discourse on/about women. Click on the link below to retweet this post and encourage women to speak for themselves.

As Suze Orman Says, "It's Part of the Deal"

The financial guru girlfriend we love best recently responded to a question about pulling money out of an IRA that had lost money in the downturn. After exhorting the reader not to touch the fund, Orman (author of Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny) explained why:

I do not want you to change one thing because you are, in fact, doing everything right. How can losing money be right? Because it is part of the deal you make when you invest for growth over the long term.

My point here is not the financial advice. I was taken by how Suze reframed the investment as a deal that has its inherent features. She's saying, in essence: you invested in the stock market. The stock market goes down as well as up, even on its way to long-term growth. That's the nature of the beast. You voluntarily bought into the stock market, so why are you surprised, and panicking?

Let's translate this from money into life.

When you make a "deal," whether it's for a certain job or a particular profession, whether it's marriage or parenthood, whether it's a dinner engagement or a volunteer position, you agree to  terms. For every deal, you are making investments and taking risks. It's up to you to conduct your due diligence before signing the deal. It's up to you to understand the investment required and the possible risks. It's up to you to make the terms explicit. It's up to you to negotiate. It's up to you to make sure that you can handle the downsides as well as the benefits. It's up to you to decide if this is the deal you want and will honor, come what may.

Because if things turn sour, or get tough, or don't go your way, you can't just throw up your hands like a four-year-old and scream, "No fair!" That's not power. That's a temper tantrum.

In order to get into the habit of clarifying, owning, and optimizing your life choices, try this exercise: I want you think about your life as a series of deals, from the most major to the most minor. Write down the three deals that are preoccupying you the most these days. Then, in subsequent columns, write the investment required, the possible benefits, and the possible risks for each one. If you had considered all of these elements of the deal, would you have made it in the first place? How can you better handle the deal now? And how can you make better deals in the future?

What's on Your NOT-to-do list?

If you're like me, you're constantly coming up with things to do. Ways to serve clients, teach concepts, launch the new audiobook, and so on and so on . . .

I first heard Jim Collins (author of Good to Great) talk about a NOT-to-do list at a conference keynote he gave. This recent blog post, "The Stop-Doing Strategy," by Matthew E. May (author of In Pursuit of Elegance), fills out Collins' story. Like so many of us, Collins adapted a less-is-more approach at a time in his life when he felt himself being more frantic than focused.

Having too much to do is not a badge of honor. It's a sign of poor self-management and a wasted life.

Try what Collins suggests: chop off the bottom 20% of your to-do list. Not only will you feel less burdened, you'll be able to accomplish what matters most.

Photo by CarbonNYC

10 Simple Ideas to Empower Women

My eyes are blurry from a few days spent researching fresh facts on the state of women in the USA. (Yep, I'm updating my media kit for the upcoming audiobook.)

I just had to share this right away!

The YWCA has a really great webpage entitled "10 Simple Ideas to Empower Women."

The first few ideas, in brief:

1. Value yourself, and relationships where you are an equal.
2. Learn how to own your voice and assert your opinions.
3. Identify words and language that communicate gender bias.
4. Speak up about sexist jokes or sexist images.
5. Focus on the person instead of appearance.

Click here for the full list!

Which idea is your favorite? Leave a comment below.

Is Hope a Strategy?

I've got to admit, the whole Obama "hope" rhetoric never had me convinced. Hope never seemed a tangible, actionable strategy to me. As a coach, I see the essential value of tangible, actionable strategy every day. It's all too easy for a person (or a nation, or an organization) to slip into platitudes and inertia. Hope felt to me an excuse for poor planning.

But an article in More magazine's September issue has me reconsidering the hope thing. In the article "A Plan to Make Your Hopes Happen," Judy Jones interviews Jennifer Cheavens PhD about her research on hope and mood. Dr. Cheavens is an assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

Dr. Cheavens draws a distinction between hope and optimism. While optimism is a general expectation of good things, hope is defined as goal-oriented thinking. Hope, she emphasizes, is more than passive wishing. It requires a game plan. Now here's where the coach in me starts paying attention.

As Dr. Cheavens defines hope, it includes two components: pathways and agency.

Pathways thinking reflects your ability to come up with lots of different ways to get what you want in the future. Agency is the amount of energy, will or motivation you bring to using these routes. A person can be high in both pathways and agency, or low in both, or high in one and low in the other.

In other words, it's not enough to have lots of ambition without a strategy, and it's not enough to have a strategy without the juice to run it.

How hopeful are you? Dr. Cheavens suggests you ask yourself these three questions:

1.  Do I believe that I can get the things I want in my life?
2.  Do I think I can come up with ways to get what I want?
3.  Do I think those ways are things I can actually do?