Business Change Management

"Ref, no way was that offsides." "Foul? You call that a foul?" "Oh c'mon, you're giving me a YELLOW CARD??"

At the recently-concluded World Cup held over 29 days in Quatar, the comments levied at referees — from players, coaches and spectators alike — were in some cases, for the first time ever, directed at women referees. That's right: six women officials (including Kathryn Nesbitt of the US) worked this year's tournament, the most-watched international sporting event on the planet.

Recently I learned about the Women’s Sports Foundation Annual Salute to Women in Sports, an event held in New York City in October which celebrated the extraordinary achievements of women athletes this year. As 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX, this year's WSF tribute must have been especially meaningful to those in attendance and all of us everywhere who reap the benefits of this landmark law.

In the NFL, women are finally breaking through

In February of last year, there was an article in The New York Times entitled, “These Women Were N.F.L. ‘Firsts.’ They’re Eager for Company.” It discusses the many “firsts” in the NFL from team CEO (Amy Trask of the Oakland Raiders) to coaches (Maral Javadifar, an assistant strength and conditioning coach, and Lori Locust, a defensive-line assistant, both for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) to referee (Sarah Thomas who officiated the 2021 Super Bowl) to the front office (Callie Brownson, chief of staff for the Cleveland Browns).

In January of 2021, there was big news concerning the NFL’s Super Bowl. Sarah Thomas — the first woman to officiate a major college football game, the first to officiate a bowl game, the first to officiate in a Big Ten stadium, the first full-time female official in NFL history and the first to officiate an NFL playoff game — was named to the referee crew for the 2021 Super Bowl, having officiated NFL games since 2015.

Talk about a glass ceiling being smashed! This put a woman squarely in the arena of what has traditionally been a men-only sport.

In soccer. In football. In basketball. Now in ski patrols. More and more, women today are breaking barriers and smashing glass ceilings in fields that traditionally have been men-only, not just in sports but across all disciplines: business, politics, medicine, law, tech...the list goes on.

Are men changing as well as women?

Multiple news outlets, including the NY Times, published an announcement on July 7^th, 2022 that the Las Vegas Raiders (sorry, I still think of them as the Oakland Raiders) hired Sandra Douglass Morgan as their President, the first African American woman to hold the role in N.F.L. history.

Why is this important for leadership?

WOW! That's how I sum up the 4th Annual Women Business Collaborative (WBC) Action for Impact Summit which took place September 21 and 22. Over the two days, I was amazed at the quality of the speakers and panels, and the excitement and energy that were so evident. From using data to achieve DEI, to rethinking your hiring, to “The Talent War is over and talent has won,” there was so much to absorb and apply to your business, your career, your life. If you missed it, the links to all the talks are below. Enjoy, and please share.

I started my career as an academic anthropologist, then shifted my focus to banking and then healthcare. As a consultant or an executive, I quickly found that whether it was a staff meeting, a board meeting, or a client meeting, I was often the only woman in the room. When it was my turn to make a presentation, I watched with wonder as some of the men left to get coffee. When I shared my ideas, my insights or wisdom were often ignored.

I realized that my male colleagues weren’t going to change the prevailing culture and suddenly include a woman in "how we do things here." Things had to change if they were going to accept me, listen to me, follow me. But for the culture to change, I had to be the enabler of those changes. I had to help others feel comfortable letting me be part of their team as a highly competent, albeit female, teammate. As I stated in a recent Authority Magazine interview, which you can read here, here are the strategies that helped me do that. I wrote this article to help other women better choose the firms with which to work and create the right cultures for the future in which men and women work better together.

Want to help change the world for working women?

Please be our guest at our 4th Annual Women Business Collaborative (WBC) Action for Impact Summit taking place virtually on September 21 and 22. Join WBC members and hundreds of business people like yourself for a day and a half of high-level panels and speakers discussing how best to create equal position, pay and power for all women. 

With all that's going on today and in your world, do you sometimes feel down? Overwhelmed? Wishing there was a way to feel happy, joyful, fulfilled?

Me too. That's why I was thrilled to be interviewed recently by Authority magazine for its interview series "Finding Happiness and Joy During Turbulent Times." They're talking with experts, business leaders, authors and mental health professionals who share lessons from their research and experience about how to find happiness and joy during troubled and turbulent times. And boy, aren't those the times we're living in. You can read the interview here.