Make Your Own Rules
FountainBlue's September 9 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event was on the topic of Women Making Their Own Rules.
We were fortunate to have such courageous and accomplished women on our panel, who come from many different educational levels, corporate and technical backgrounds, and frames of reference. They shared with us why there was a need to create new rules, shift current rules, question each rule, and advised us on how best to break those rules so that they benefit all.
Be strong and confident with who you are and broaden your understanding of the impact you may have, no matter where you sit at the table, or even if you don't even have admission to the event!
Be clear on your purpose and goals. Understand how the rules and processes and culture are affecting the need to achieve those goals and speak in a way where influential others will understand the logic and reasons for making changes.
Communicate in a way that commands attention and respect. Speak in a language and through a channel that would resonate with your audience.
Be prepared and plan-ful, with a clear focus on delivering measurable results. Then overcome your fear, engage with influential advocates, get uncomfortable and see where it takes you.
Try hard, be open, fail quickly, and don't let the fear of failure stop you from trying in the first place!
Build a wide and broad network that would benefit all. And maintain those relationships and conversations to help you get grounded and to help build influence and credibility.
Challenge yourself to do something new and different if you're feeling a bit listless at work. Leverage what you know to get to what you can do from here. Be confident that you can deliver on something new, even if you haven't exactly done this sort of thing in the past.
Many people are uncomfortable with changing the way-things-are-always-done, even if there's no logical reason to do things that way. To help foster change with these people and these cultures, adopt a logical, plan-ful, data-based approach for why a new system, process, method would be better for them individually, for the team and company as a whole, and for the customer. And sell the approach in a way that would best resonate with each person/group/team/division.
Represent the viewpoint of the customer and translate the needs of the customer to the internal teams that can best serve that customer.
Be who you are and do things in a way that works for you. Be pure of intentions, reliable with delivery, generous with support, open for feedback and opportunities.
The bottom line is that our panelists are challenging us to be the person we know we can be - to challenge the system and rules that are holding ourselves and each other back, and to rise up and embrace opportunities to forge shifts little and big - for the good of all.
Please join us in thanking our speakers for FountainBlue's September 9 When She Speaks, Women in Leadership Series event, on the topic of Women Making Their Own Rules and our gracious hosts at Cypress:
Facilitator Nancy Monson, Nancy Monson Coaching
Panelist Jennifer Altergott, Regional Sales Director, Polycom
Panelist Raji Arasu, CTO, StubHub, an eBay Company
Panelist Stacie Hibino, Tangible UX Director for the Visual Display UX Lab at Samsung Research America, Samsung Electronics
Panelist Grace Hu-Morley, Senior Manager, Product Management of IoE Healthcare Solutions, Cisco Systems
Panelist Tamara Lucero, former Director, Inside Sales, Cypress