Blog | My Life's Work

Unlike Wednesday Words which represent a more "right brain" or creative expression of coaching topics and their personal or professional application, our blog introduces real time, relevant headlines and happenings that may have a bearing on your life's work or the work of your organization.

We invite you to read the posts below and respond to our thoughts with your own.

No News is Good News (Hah!)

April 4, 2011 issue of the Wall Street Journal and specifically the story entitled “Coaching Urged for Women” provided a natural sweetener to my morning cup of coffee in that it echoed my own very loud call for more coaching!

Highlighted in the article was a McKinsey study released on April 5, 2011 that looked at barriers to female advancement in corporations. The research, surveying of 1,525 college educated men and women, does not come as a surprise but is sobering. McKinsey’s report, for example, cites the work of Catalyst, a non-profit women’s research group. In 2010, women held 15 of the top spots in Fortune 500 companies. It’s down to 11 in 2011. A data point that was particularly troubling to me was McKinsey’s finding that female ambition drops in middle age due to the “paucity” of assistance to advance and develop.

McKinsey’s report recommends that companies deepen the middle management bench of females positioned for advancement and argues that even a 25% increase in the ranks of female middle managers reaching the next level would alter the shape of the pipeline. To accomplish this, resources need to be directed to coaching, mentoring, and leadership training, and job rotation programs.

This week’s headline was not new news or good news. I’m wondering, however, whether this is the research that will finally inspire new broad-reaching action and, if the answer is “yes,” will the action begin with the aspiring woman leader or the organization that is ready to support her advancement.

Tears at the Office?

A story in last week’s Time Magazine caught my eye. It was entitled “Go Ahead Cry at Work.” Author Anne Kreamer begins by describing the tears that she didn’t allow to fall during a particularly “hard” moment at work. It would have been “professional suicide” to do so.

She argues that the “office” typically tries to eliminate the expression of emotion when, in fact, the workplace is bombarded by them. Despite the important work on emotional intelligence, Kreamer questions employer and employee ability to respond to anger, fear, and anxiety – commonplace but handicapping emotions.

She encourages new learning at the organizational level about what triggers emotions. Not a very easy feat because the workplace is a complex place. Egos and social standing (not to mention gender, social norms, biology) are just a few of the factors that get in the way of such learning.

As a result, she conducted her own study on “emotions” — the details of which are intriguing and you can read about here or in her new book, Her findings are intriguing and shed light on the root causes of, management of, and response to emotion.

I hope her research inspires a new “emotional” conversation in the workplace. Perhaps I’m a cynic at heart but even the executive who has the “patience” for new learning may not have the patience for tears – his or her own or anyone else’s

My Blog

No News is Good News (Hah!)

Tears at the Office?