love and hate relationships

I both love and hate how much of my life is based on unknown, changeable plans. Yes, I bought into this when I stepped on the consulting bandwagon years ago. But I don’t think “change” is something you can ever get used to – I for one, still struggle with the ‘normalcy’ of constantly not knowing where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing this time next month. And recently, it’s not by month, but by week. And this is happening on several fronts:

Work

Since I’ve come home from my international engagement 4 weeks ago, I’ve been sitting around (or ‘on the beach’ in Consulting terminology), waiting for an official start date on my next project, which keeps being delayed with the expectation that the contract will be signed “in a few days.” Because this project involves extensive travel to Seattle and South Africa, I’ve decided to postpone moving myself back home to New York until the project is over. And thus passed an entire month, upon which I look back and think about just how much I could have done with the time had I not been waiting by the hour to hop on a plane the next day.

With all this delay, I’ve seriously considered going to another project and beginning my move. Just as I am about to put my foot down on this decision, I received notice that YES the contract has been signed! What does this mean? That within 1-2 days, I should pack up my bags to spend the next entire month hopping between continents. But hey, this is no one’s fault – it was completely within my power to say no, to find another project. I actively chose this kind of lifestyle, really. And with this lifestyle, I also bought into being okay with having an extremely ‘flexible’ personal life, and having friends no longer expect me to show up to anything. But with these sacrifices, I’ve been able to travel around the world, work hand-in-hand with key players to make positive impacts, and most importantly, gain a personal perspective of today’s global landscape. And with this perspective, I’m able to confidently test, evaluate, and reformulate my own values. And this is the source of my love-hate relationship.

School

As if things aren’t confusing enough, I bring it upon myself to add a new dimension of stress by applying to schools this year. What I hate about the application process is more or less expected: months of studying for an exam that tests neither my management ability nor my career interests. Entire weekends spent with eyes glued to my laptop, writing and rewriting pages of application essays. If my job as a consultant had left any inkling of personal time, the applications took it away.

What I love about this whole process is less apparent, but valuable. In the months spent drafting pages of essays, I’ve been ‘forced’ by the application process to do a detailed and thorough evaluation of who I am, in every aspect, from every angle.

• What inspires me?
• What kind of leader am I?
• What are my professional strengths?
• How can I use these strengths in the future?
• How have I grown in my career thus far?
• How have I grown as a person as a result of my career thus far?
• What is my sense of ‘community’?
• Does the role I play in my community reflect who I am?
• How can I positively impact those that are important to me?
• What are my values?
• How do my values relate to what I want to do in the future?

All of this. and so much more. Which makes it obvious as to why this application process is a complete headache, and yet, a valuable experience.

And now, as I pack my bags for a weekend interview on the West Coast, while waiting in anticipation for official news from the East Coast, I think about the ‘crazy’ lifestyle I’ve gotten myself into, and the irreversible amount that I’ve grown as a result.

from 07 to 08

Every year at about this time, I like to plop myself at a cafe and reflect on the year that’s about to come to a close. This year is no different, as I’ve definitely gone through quite a bit in 2007. However, it’s a bit nerve-wrecking trying to plan for 2008, as I’m currently waiting for several key decisions that will determine pretty much everything I do in the coming year. So my 2008 plans will temporarily assume that everything happens according to plan :)

2007 in Retrospect: Last year, I have…

• Spent 7 months living and working in a developing country, learning more about myself than anything else.
• Gotten my Scuba diving Open Water certification.
• Traveled to Bangladesh, Nepal, and Thailand.
• Fully experienced the infamous South-Asian summer monsoons.
• Began to develop a more ‘international’ view of the world – specifically, I’ve started to see how much influence the US does not have over the rest of the world.
• Finally gotten to catch up with some old friends I haven’t seen in years.
• Watched my stocks roller-coaster and have temporarily lost faith/interest in the domestic financial markets.
• Forgotten how to drive.
• Completely lost my alcohol tolerance, but continue to love wine, passionately.
• Gotten my act together and taken the GMAT that I have been “getting ready to take” for the past 2 years.
• Decided last minute to throw together two grad school applications, both of which were submitted hours before final deadlines.

2008 in Anticipation: This year, I will…

• Take advantage of my next project with the Gates Foundation to learn even more about international development.
• Sneak in a quick tour of Africa while I’m on the project.
• [Hopefully] be making a huge, drawn-out decision between spending the next two years in New York or San Francisco.
• Begin applying for loans and preparing myself for years of debt.
• Relearn all the French that I’ve lost over the past few years.
• Pick up piano again.
• Build up a consistent running routine.
• Lose my chub of a stomach, once and for all!
• Quit my consulting job and do some more traveling.
• Go back to SE Asia for my Advanced OW diving certification.
• Convince myself to to save up some money amongst all of this.

If all goes well, 2008 should be an amazing year :)

caught in a labyrinth

I just came across an interesting article in this September’s edition of Harvard Business Review on women’s leadership in the corporate ladder, Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership.

Authors Alice Eagly and Linda Carli visualize the scarcity of female leadership in executive positions not as the conventional “ceiling,” but as a maze with winding paths and obstacles, where it is possible to reach the end, but only if you can figure out the right combination of turns. Specifically, the idea of a glass ceiling suggests that there is an actual point, or level, after which it becomes significantly difficult for women to advance. The authors argue that there are actually walls all around, where the entire passage “requires persistence, awareness of one’s progress, and careful analysis of the puzzles that lie ahead.”

Particularly, the article pinpoints several key barriers to leadership:

• Prejudice – nothing new, given the exact same job, with identical previous education/experience, women still make about 20-25% less than men
• Resistance to female leadership – qualities of leadership tend to clash when it comes to women. Between the two types, there’s “communal,” which is associated with being compassionate, friendly, kind, sympathetic, and there’s “agentic,” which is more aggressive, ambitious, dominant, and forceful. Women who are “communal” are not seen as leaders. But those who are “agentic” end up being labeled as control freaks. Whereas, when it comes to men, “agentic” qualities are seen to be normal, and “communal” qualities in men are greatly praised. Doesn’t seem to work out for women no matter which way they lean.
• Demands of family life - although there’s no surprise here, I was shocked to learn that men and women are actually increasing the number of hours they spend with housekeeping. “Married mothers increased their hours per week from 10.6 in 1965 to 12.9 in 2000, and married fathers increased theirs from 2.6 to 6.5″
• Underinvestment in social capital – Especially in the corporate world, much of one’s career advancement depends on the social networks. “Fast track managers spent relatively more time and effort socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders… and did not give much time or attention to the traditional management activities of planning, decision making, and controlling.” Women fall behind on this front – not only because of family responsibilities after work, but also because even in modern companies, networking (on the executive level) involves masculine activities…such as quail hunting (ha!)

Some more startling statistics:

• In the States, even though 40% of managerial positions are occupied by women, only 6% of C-level representation comes from women!
• Only 2% of CEOs in the States are women
• Just 1% (seven companies) of Fortune’s Global 500 have female CEOs.

a career woman’s closet

Hmm. Here are some interesting findings linking a woman’s wardrobe and her career, from Psychology Today:

 

• “We are less judgmental of women who wear provocative clothing if they’re doing low-status jobs…However, when people are shown a photo of a woman in sexy clothes and told she is a business manager, they say she seems less intelligent and less competent than suit-wearing execs.
• Women who wear excessive makeup are seen as trying too hard, says Sherry Maysonave, a career coach and author of Casual Power. But studies show people of both sexes rate women who forgo makeup as less committed to their jobs.
• Few workers are likely to set a badly dressed colleague straight. In fact, competitive female coworkers often relish a rival’s wardrobe faux pas, says Debra Benton, author of How to Think Like a CEO.
• Even brainy women aren’t above a little titillation. A survey of female M.B.A.’s found half had worn revealing clothing, sent risque emails or told male coworkers they look “hot” to garner favor. But such strategies tend to backfire: Studies show nonflirtatious workers earn 25 percent more and receive an average of three promotions while their brazen counterparts only earned two.
• Both sexes perceive women with long, straight, blond hair as being sexy and those with short, highlighted hairstyles as smart and confident, but not sexy, finds Marianne LaFrance, a Yale psychologist. “More hair equals more femininity, but also less intelligence,” she says. Likewise, high-maintenance hair makes others suspicious about a woman’s competence.
• When male executives are asked what holds top women back in the workplace, appearing too masculine is always in the top five, says Benton. Most men think women should be business-like, but should not try to join the boys’ club.

I think I fail on several fronts – I don’t wear make-up at work, and I avoid extremely feminine office attire. I think the “how you dress affects how you act” concept applies to me; I notice that when I’m wearing a skirt, pink, or anything frilly, I feel like I’m acting too ‘girly.’ Plus, I’ve always felt more comfortable in shirts, blazers, and dress pants. This is especially the case here in this country, where the few women I see in the offices are secretaries, and as a culture, they come to work daily adorned in makeup, jewelry, and brightly colored fabric. In the beginning, I felt pressured to conform with the ‘local dress’ and actually bought a few pieces. But I felt ridiculous in them, and also felt inappropriate, especially given my managerial position amongst this sea of corporate males. So I went back to my power-suits, and guess what? Being in a suit rocks.

I’m frustrated. I know that working in another country means dealing with different viewpoints. But here’s one thing I’m sure of: the opposite of advancement and growth is not decline. It is stagnation.

Indifference is destructive.

genesis

I am from New York. I love to jog along the Hudson. I love wine. I love cafes. I decided to take a temporary job opportunity that comes only once in a lifetime. So now I’m in a place, a country, where women cover their skin in public, where alcohol is forbidden, and where Unilever convinces everyone that Nescafe is coffee.

I’m starting this blog because I realized that I am otherwise too utterly and completely absorbed in my job, which takes up almost all of my time, and in the oddities of living in this country, which takes up almost all of my energy. So this blog will be my periodic escape from here, without the need for an international flight. Which inevitably means that this blog is destined to be about nothing related to work.

** incidentally, I am writing about my experience in another blog. I don’t care to link the two blogs, so please email me if interested.