In the March 2017 GPWomeN-PCCW Speaker Series workshop Negotiating Skills in the Workplace, speaker and PCCW alumna Professor Jill Gross discussed how to negotiate in the workplace and gave participants the following tips:

• Tip 1: Don’t buy into negotiation myths! Women can and should negotiate to improve initial job offers, terms of employment, job assignments, promotions, deadlines, and other key factors that impact professional success.
• Tip 2: Negotiation is persuasive communication and can take several forms. We typically think of negotiation as a competitive and adversarial process, but integrative negotiation is interest-based and focuses on problem solving. In the work place, using problem-solving techniques to create value for both parties and determine a zone of possible agreement is key for continuing relationships.
• Tip 3: Prepare for negotiation by assessing your interests, your rights, and factors that increase/decrease your power. Compile information such as comparable salaries and benefits from people within your company/organization and at similar entities. Write up a list of questions that will help you obtain relevant information to strengthen your arguments. 
• Tip 4: Practice, practice, practice! Before entering a negotiation conversation, be sure to practice what you will say and how you will respond in different scenarios.

For more information, check out Andrea Schneider’s TED Talk on negotiation and the GPWomeN-PCCW Speaker Series recording of this event.

For more information about GPWomeN and events such as this one, please join the listserv by emailing BigRedGPWomeN@gmail.com, or check out the GPWomeN Facebook page.

By Cynthia Cuffie, from the GPWomeN-PCCW Speaker Series on October 20, 2017.

• Different stress reactions: Each of us has a different personality and a unique set of traits that make us who we are. These personality traits give us our strengths but, under stress, they can become intensified and lead to derailing behavior. For example, when a hard-working person is under stress, this personality trait is amplified and can lead him/her/them to become a micromanager or a perfectionist. 
• Identify your derailing behavior: To avoid this derailing behavior, you must first identify it. Take a personality assessment like the Hogan Development Survey or ask peers, colleagues, and managers to give you honest, candid feedback on your behavior. Be open to receiving this feedback, even if it seems critical. 
• Become more self aware: Take steps to be more self-aware and set goals to counteract and minimize these derailing behaviors. For example, someone who is prone to micromanaging would need to focus more on the big picture and take steps to delegate work where necessary. 
• Complete list of traits: To view a list of traits and their accompanying derailing behaviors and possible solutions, see “Could Your Personality Derail Your Career?” by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic.

Cornell alumna and PCCW member Janet Gerhard lectured on “Curiosity: The Language of High Performance” at a workshop on November 28th sponsored by the student group, GPWomeN, and the group of alumna, PCCW.

Gerhard covered how to identify curious people, how to create a team of highly curious people, and what organizations can do to foster curiosity. 

Three tips from the workshop:

1. Highly curious people speak and think less about “actions” and instead consider their “options”
2. Curiosity suffers when it comes to time and efficiency –  we have to make time to incorporate curiosity into our work
3. Check out this TED talk Janet shared during her presentation on the importance of curiosity in scientific discovery

Janet Gerhard has extensive experience transforming the way organizations understand and manage customer experience. By analyzing and strategically changing how organizations interact with their customers, she helps clients redefine their growth strategy and customer experience ecosystem thereby driving top-line growth and bottom-line results.

From the GPWomeN-PCCW Speaker Series held on February 23 with Jennifer Leeds.

Takeaways:

• Women in positions of senior leadership continue to face disproportionate challenges due to their gender, such as menopause, health concerns, and the responsibilities of caring for aging and/or ill parents.
• Due to fears of being perceived as vulnerable, distracted, unable to keep up, obsolete, or replaceable, there is virtually no conversation around, or support systems for, these challenges, leaving female senior leaders isolated and silenced when trying to navigate such difficulties.

This raises three questions:

1. How can we enable women throughout the entirety of their careers?
2. What is holding women back from asking for help?
3. How can the next generation “pay it forward” so that the environment will be better for all down the road?

Some suggestions for company/cultural changes would be:

1. Normalize menopause-in-the-workforce (just as pregnancy-in-the-workforce has been normalized in the past 50 years.
2. Change the perception that women as caregivers (for children, parents, etc.) devalues them as capable, focused leaders.
3. Develop mentorship programs for women in their mid-or-later careers/create a culture where being vocal about these challenges is not a career-jeopardizing endeavor.
4. Offer support, even when unsolicited. Be cognizant of the cultural stigmas around aging (particularly aging women), and how that plays into the extreme gender gap at top positions of leadership, power, and authority.

Further reading on this topic:

• Perspectives of Women in Leadership Roles: Working Through The Change
• Reproducing and Resisting the Master Narrative of Decline: Midlife Professional Women’s Experiences of Aging

From the GPWomeN-PCCW Speaker Series November 1, 2018 with Cornell alumna and PCCW member Beth Prudence, CFP®.

1. Women have more challenges to making and saving money. Women are more likely to take a break from work for caregiving (both children and elderly parents), meaning that women miss more years of earning/saving and receive less from social security because they have less years of service. Women also continue to earn less on average than their male counterparts. However, on average, women live longer than men and therefore will require more savings.
2. Making more money doesn’t always mean you are richer. Making more money can result in more spending.
3. We have an emotional relationship with money and we need to invest time in working on this relationship too. This includes educating yourself, understanding the difference between wants and needs, making decisions based on facts and data, setting and tracking goals, and having honest conversations about money.
4. Save now, not later. Understand the time value of money and compounding interest. If you save the same amount of money starting at 25 rather than 40, you will earn exponentially more money.
5. Everyone will likely make mistakes at some time. Forgive yourself by accepting that you made a mistake, owning it, and learning from it so you don’t make that mistake again. The best thing we can do is to make the best decision that we can at the time.

With Young Mi Park, from the GPWomeN-PCCW Speaker Series:

1. The world today is facing three tectonic changes: the burgeoning development of technology, increasing globalization, and the growing emphasis on creation and self-actualization. In a rapidly changing world, leadership is more important now than ever before.
2. Leaders are not necessarily managers or top executives, but they have to have a vision and the ability to bring people into that vision. Leadership is about creating the future and creating yourself and those around you.
3. The barriers to becoming an effective leader are often our pre-existing ideas about what is right or wrong and our ideas about ourselves. Challenge assumptions, live authentically, and share your reality with the people around you.
4. In order to be an effective leader, you have to “un-become” some of what brought you to this point and move forward with new leadership thinking. Accept yourself, forgive yourself, love yourself, and remember that you always have a choice.
5. To help promote well-being and adopt an effective leadership mindset, try power posing, adopting a growth mindset, anxiety reappraisal, writing down three good things, or meditation.

From the March 20, 2018 GPWomeN-PCCW Speaker Series with Eva Sage-Gavin:

1. Think of your network as an ecosystem. How can you best nourish, interact, add value to, and sustain it?
2. Remember the individual impact that each of us can have on others: bring other women with you at every opportunity.
3. Recommended reading: Accenture’s summary of research on gender parity in the workplace “When She Rises, We All Rise“

Leadership, Success, and Happiness:

• “Normalize don’t pathologize” – it’s normal to feel imposter syndrome! We need to communicate with others to eliminate the feelings of shame that often accompany feeling like an imposter.
• Banish “just” – it diminishes your authority and presence. You didn’t just win an award, you won it.
• Use mindfulness and reflect on times you felt confident to combat imposter syndrome. 
• Gender gaps are the cause of not only psychological (where imposter syndrome is), but also systemic, cultural, and economic barriers. 
• Defining characteristics of leadership, success, and happiness is a very individual process. Thinking about a mission statement as it relates to these areas can allow us to better understand what this means to us.
• For more information on these topics, other resources that may be helpful:
  • Catalyst: Workplaces That Work For Women
  • Fast Company

While the GPWomeN-PCCW Speaker Series has concluded for 2017-18, know that we have secured additional funding for 2018-19 to continue this. Stay tuned for topics next year about women’s professional development on the GPWomeN Facebook page.

From the GPWomeN-PCCW Speaker Series March 4, 2019 with Cornell alumna and PCCW member Susan Klugman, Ph.D.

1. Having an advisor is not the same as having a mentor. An advisor directly determines your career or curriculum; a mentor aides in your growth and development (personally, professionally, etc.). 
2. Find a mentor through your network. Ask around! Ask your advisor, ask fellow students, or get involved in extracurricular activities.
3. The most important quality in a mentor is availability. Your mentoring relationship won’t be beneficial if you can never interact with you mentor. You also want to find some who is knowledgeable about your field and who can serve as a positive role model, but other desirable traits (e.g. having enthusiasm, active listening, taking a personal interest in you, setting goals) are up to you.
4. To organize your goals and tasks, try using the Eisenhower Box method. This can help you streamline your goals and prioritize what’s important and urgent. 

From the GPWomeN-PCCW Speaker Series September 26, 2018 with Cornell alumna and PCCW member Susan Anderer, Psy.D.