Public Speaking - a Crucial Skill for Women in Business.

I have just discovered another on-line video site - Metacafe.com and have uploaded my PEPP Talk video - which is now embedded below. It contains some good tips for women on using speaking to improve assertiveness when working in male dominated offices.


Rikki Arundel - How To Write And Deliver An Outstanding Speech - These bloopers are hilarious


Rikki Arundel
Motivational Speaker
Speaking and Marketing Tips
Small Business Marketing Strategies Blog
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Does the Gender Equality Duty impact your business?

I have spent most of this weekend reading and responding to the draft Gender Equality Schemes for Hull City Council and the Hull Teaching Primary Care Trust (National Health Service). If you are from outside the UK that probably means very little - in fact from my conversations with business people in the UK it also means little to them - but the government is implementing the biggest change in sex discrimination legislation for 30 years - and it is going to impact everyone.

At present sex discrimination is the domain of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) and in the Equality Act 2006 provision was made to impose a Gender Equality Duty on all public bodies such as central and local government, police, armed forces, fire, health, education and most government sponsored bodies like the Regional Development Agencies and the Big Lottery which provide funding for private and voluntary sector organisations.

In essence the Gender Equality Duty requires all public bodies to take action to eliminate sex discrimination and harassment and to promote equality for women and men. Of particular value to me is that this also applies to women and men who are undergoing gender reassignment including those who have and those who intend to. In the past it was up to someone who was discriminated against to take action - now it is up to public bodies to to take positive action to prevent it from happening in the first place and to demonstrate though a Gender Equality Scheme and action plan what they have done and monitor their actions on a regular basis.

Last year similar schemes were introduced for Race and Disability, and at the end of the year responsibility for all this will move to the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights when we can eventually expect the duties to be extended to include the three new discrimination areas of Faith and Belief, Sexual Orientation and Age.

Why is the Gender Equality Duty important to you if you do not work on the public sector? Public bodies also have a vicarious liability for the actions of organisations delivering services on their behalf and they are also required to ensure that suppliers comply with the duty.

Lets consider an example. The government is very keen to break down what appear to be stereotypical gender roles. At present, according to the latest EOC figures, 90% of people employed in Construction are men and 99% of apprenticeships are men - at the same time 79% of people employed in health and social work are women and they account for 87% of current apprenticeships - this indicates that far from encouraging men and women into non tradition employment, the situation is getting worse. Imagine now that you are a construction company bidding to build a new hospital wing - after April 6th that tender will probably require all construction companies to show how they are encouraging more women into the trade. Or perhaps you run a care facility funded by the council or PCT - after April you may have to demonstrate how you are encouraging more male employees.

The same applies if you simply supply to public bodies - the EOC is recommending that all companies that have had a serious Sex Discrimination Act tribunal finding against them be struck from the tender list unless that can prove they have resolved the issue. Basically it means that if you want government funding, or to sell to public bodies you are going to need to be able to demonstrate that you have robust equal opportunities policies in place and that you are regularly monitoring them.

This is not all going to happen immediately - the Duty comes into force on April 6th and public authorities then have three years to implement their strategy - along with the Race and Disability duties - However this will impact virtually everyone and I suspect that we will increasingly see a tougher approach by tribunals in applying the current discrimination law, all of which is to be reviewed this year in a Discrimination Law Review prior to the establishment of the Council for Equality and Human Rights in October. In addition the Sex Discrimination Act will be amended before 21st December due to a European Directive regarding goods and services discrimination.

Rikki Arundel
Motivational Speaker
Speaking and Marketing Tips
Small Business Marketing Strategies Blog
To find inspiring business articles or promote your own click ArticlesBiz.

Why are women quitting the boardrooms?

According to an article in the Guardian last Thursday research by PriceWaterhouse Cooper shows a staggering 40% fall in the number of women in senior executive posts in the FTSE 350. Meanwhile Management Today reports that according to Grant Thornton just 64% of UK companies employ female senior executives compared to 91% in China and 97% in the Philippines. Depressing news, yet hardly surprising - The recent Sex and Power Report from the Equal Opportunities Commission reported similar challenges highlighting the facts that women comprise just 10% of FTSE 100 directors and less than 20% of MPs.

But the problem for me is that when most of these reports ask WHY this is happening, they miss the real cause. Are child care costs really going to be an issue for an ambitious woman earning £100,000 a year, or flexibility of working hours. Actually yes - but they contribute to the real problem - they are symptoms of the problem - not the problem itself.

I have a distinct advantage when it comes to understanding differences in men and women - because I have been both genders. I had to change my behaviour to fit in with the way women behave so that I am accepted as a woman, and in making those changes I began to observe behaviours that were not learned, they were natural. In fact during my early life I had had to suppress natural female behaviours in order to be accepted as a man and not be seen as 'gay.'

The book that threw most light on this was Deborah Tannen's excellent Talking from Nine to Five (Click here for the US Book) In her book she highlighted the way that men tend to one up each other, a game of constant competition - and of course they organise business the same way into hierarchies than enable them to position themselves against each other as a measure of relative success. When I reached a senior management position I was horrified to discover just how ruthlessly competitive it is. The company car becomes a symbol of importance as does the size of office, expense account, number of reporting staff, and especially share options. Position is more important than performance because most of these ambitious men learn how to benefit from and take advantage of other peoples performance - especially women who have had to fight their way into top jobs by constantly demonstrating performance excellence.

How well you can bluff is far more important at the top - but even more deadly for women is that one of the ways that men often use to get "one up" is to put someone else down. I found myself having to be on guard all the time in case a project did not succeed because everyone else involved was positioning themselves to make it look as if the failure was someone else's fault. The person least prepared for that often took the fall and time and time again I saw women had not been prepared for it.

Competitive men spend time safeguarding themselves or worse if a woman is perceived a competition, which she often is because she is more talented, they will take actions to make sure that she is seen to fail. I have a trans friend who is a motor racing driver and she tells me that when there is a women racing many of the drivers will all try to take her off the track - being beaten by a woman is simply not OK.

It's not all men that act in this way - but it only needs to be one or two to cause a real problem. A woman either has to play the competitive game or constantly guard against it. Who wants to spend their life doing that? I certainly didn't. I felt like a woman disguised as a man in those days and eventually I did the only sane thing - I got out and started my own business. Guess what all those women who have disappeared from the top jobs have done?

According to the Sex and Power Report - 41.5% of SME businesses are now owned jointly or solely by a woman - in the US over 50% of businesses are owned by women. Women can abandon hierarchies in favour of a flatter more networked structure when they can be at the Heart of the business not at the top of it. Women introduce equal opportunities policies, childcare, flexible hours, and a focus on work life balance. More importantly women tend to build companies that are founded on good relationships with customers not on share options and company cars.

I am not sure if the top British companies will ever really change while they are wedded to the hierarchies of power with the huge bonuses and other outward symbols of success paid to those at the top which encourages the ruthless competition. There are some women who thrive in that atmosphere - but in my experience most will reach senior management, experience what it is really like, and start planning their own business - eventually starving top businesses of the talent they need to survive. So if you start to see FTSE 350 companies being taken over or collapsing you will know why.

Rikki Arundel
Motivational Speaker
Speaking and Marketing Tips
Small Business Marketing Strategies Blog
To find inspiring business articles or promote your own click ArticlesBiz.

A Woman's place is in the House - The White House!

So finally Hillary Rodham Clinton has declared herself as a candidate for the 2008 US presidential elections. That can't have escaped many people's attention but what may not be so clear is the extend to which this campaign is going to be conducted on the web.

Hillary declared on her web site on Saturday and starting tonight on the Hillary for President website for three nights there will be video web casts inviting people to talk on line. Quite clearly this is going to be a very interactive campaign. I watched the mid term elections in November and then a team of blogger were set up commenting on the elections as they proceeded. News reporters are no longer waiting for their words to reach the mainstream media - they are communicating with their fans on-line all the time.

But are the rest of the political opponents ready for this. The US is clearly ahead of the UK in its adoption of blogging - and it was interesting to see the reaction of Labour MPs when David Cameron launched his WebCameron featuring himself in the kitchen with the kids screaming in he background. The spoof video posted following that was quickly withdrawn because I suspect they realised that what they were doing was drawing attention to the real thing. I certainly had a look as a direct result of the spoof and I even though I do not support conservative politics I was impressed.

Until now politicians have been largely in the hands of the media in getting there message across and this is a very one way process. That has changed - more importantly for Hillary Clinton is the fact that women are on the web in large numbers and the women's vote is going to be critical. Also the average age of internet users is quite young - so the web is clearly a way to access the new voters.

But the internet is also a threat to politicians as outlined in this Washington Post article It is easy for opponents of any politician to use the viral nature of the internet to promote damaging comment and video via YouTube and blogs than can end a political campaign. And just to illustrate the viral impact of the internet. this post was inspired by a post I read this morning on BlogHer by Chadie discussing whether this trend to political campaigning on the web will impact the next elections in Sweden in 2010. As she says four years is a long time on the internet and as it is clear that David Cameron is planning to make significant use of the web for the next election here - I think the answer is yes.

Finally my title to this post was inspired by another BlogHer post from Suzanne Reisman commenting on some of the irritating and not so irritating bumper stickers available from Now an on line store for all things feminist and the more serious issue of whether voting for a women just because she is a women makes political sense. It will be interesting to see if that become an issue in Hillary Clinton's campaign.

And having looked around in the Now store, one bumper sticker I particularly like as speaking coach - Speak your Mind - Even if your voice shakes.

Rikki Arundel
Motivational Speaker
Speaking and Marketing Tips
Small Business Marketing Strategies Blog
To find inspiring business articles or promote your own click ArticlesBiz.

How Women can be More Successful in a Male World

Are the differences between men and women the result of socialisation, or are we born different? If we are entirely socialised different then women can learn how to be like men compete with them, but if as I believe the underlying difference is something we are born with, a different strategy needs to be used to succeed in a male dominated culture.

I was born transgender and have studied gender differences all my life from a totally different perspective to most people. Crossing the gender divide and living as women I started to see things that I simply could not see as a man, and of course I was already aware of differences that women never see because men have a side to them that they seldom, if ever, show to women. The book that most helped me to start understanding what was going on was Talking from 9 to 5 by Deborah Tannen.

Let me clarify one thing first. I am talking about masculinity and femininity, not male and female. Our behaviour differences exist along a continuum - we are all different but research suggests that certain behaviours tend to be exhibited more by men and others by women. However some men have very feminine behaviours, some women have very masculine behaviours - that's the joy of diversity and difference.

There is one big gender difference that impacts almost everything we do.

The dominate strategy in masculine social behaviour and therefore used by most men is about positioning in a hierarchy of dominance. We see this from early childhood behaviour. People exhibiting masculine behaviour constantly try to position themselves as one up against everyone. When this is done with other men then there is no problem because it's all part of the masculine positioning game.

Social conditions determine how the positioning is done. Sometimes it's through physical dominance, sometimes it is wealth and power, telling a joke (most male jokes are put downs), buying a bigger house or car or new toy, getting a prettier wife or mistress. It's not a problem for men. They adapt to it quickly and learn to play the positioning game; they use physical presence, voice, intelligence, money or any other advantage to position themselves one up, or put the other person one down. This is the foundation of men's competitive nature.

The primary strategy in feminine social behaviour and therefore the approach used by most women it to try to equalise things all the time. Women constantly try to bring everyone to the same level totally counter to the male behaviour. Women tend to put themselves down and then allow others to bring them back up to the equal position. That's why women are forever apologising.

Women prefer not to promote themselves and boast about their achievements because it positions them above people and that is uncomfortable. Women bond though a network of social connections rather than though a hierarchy of performance; they develop skills in listening and collaborating rather than command and control.

I am sure you can see the problem. To secure equal rights in the eyes of men, women need to appear more assertive and to promote themselves more but if they do they will upset the delicate balance of feminine network relationships. Increasingly those feminine skills of networking and communication are becoming essential in a workplace where, at the lower levels of the corporate hierarchies, women are the majority. But those feminine behaviours are a disadvantage in management where men still dominate.

We are beginning to see different organisation structures emerging as a result of the feminine influence. Women leaders don't want to be at the top of a hierarchical organisation, they want to be at the centre of a networked organisation. It’s a totally different structure and approach; however until this GenderShift is more universal, women need strategies now to survive and prosper in a male dominated business culture while retaining their natural feminine strengths?

Most importantly women must position themselves as being good at what they do and they have to make sure that everyone knows that they are good at what they do. So here are five top tips to positioning yourself.

1. Wherever possible get certificates and accolades to your expertise and display and publicise them.
   
2. Write promotional materials and biographies in the third person as if someone else is writing it about you and strongly highlight your successes and achievements. Get a professional to write them for you because they will say things you wouldn't dare say.
   
3. Instead of blowing your own trumpet, get testimonials from clients and contacts blowing your trumpet for you.
   
4. Learn to be an "Outstanding Public Speaker." Average is just not good enough. This is the most powerful way to establish presence.
   
5. Stop apologising when you don't need to. Say sorry when it is necessary not when it's just a way of putting yourself down or a conversation ritual.

Rikki Arundel
Motivational Speaker
Speaking and Marketing Tips
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