Knock, knock... Who's there?

How do you answer that question?

How often does that answer change?

If we shake hands at the office, I get to know you under a professional pretense.  But if we meet at a neighborhood barbecue in our summer shorts with a beer in hand, am I meeting the same person? Or do you bring different personas to your personal and professional life?  And perhaps yet a third person to the gym or to a charity board of directors' meeting?

Certainly, there are aspects of who we are and how we share that are more appropriate at work versus the backyard barbecue.  I might share stories at work about past projects and former bosses, whereas at the barbecue, I'll probably blather on for hours about my kids or obstacle course racing.  In either case, I might modify the content of my message but I am not really changing me… I am the same geeky but self-assured bookworm always ready to laugh at a joke.

But have you ever met someone at work who presented herself a particular way and then later, at a cocktail reception or chance grocery store run-in, you felt like you were meeting a whole new person?  I don't mean someone having an 'off day' - I mean someone who regularly brings different personalities into different situations.  Perhaps it's a more secretive nature that likes to keep things mysterious.  But I have to wonder: how much work is it to stretch yourself into a different role to fit a different scenario?  And what is the purpose of contorting into those roles anyway?

One acquaintance of mine explained that her job required her to bring a different personality to the table - that she worked in the very constrictive world of investment banking and therefore was required to behave a certain way or risk being 'frozen out'.  I hear from other women that there are plenty of organizations with a similar culture where one feels she must conform or risk being ostracized and ignored. It's not always a male dominated culture issue, but sometimes it is.

It's very popular to talk about being "authentic" and true to yourself.  And on that journey, it can be challenging to figure out who we are if we're maintaining a veneer of someone else in order to just get along.  You have to be clear on where the 'real you' begins and the alter ego ends.  And for those who are in this type of work scenario, is it possible to exist in those restrictive environments and yet still feel you're being true to yourself?  How much of our perception that we must conform is our own assumption?

The real question for you, however, is how do you show up?  Try this exercise - I did it last month and with a few text messages, got a wave of results within an hour.  It feels awkward when you first reach out, but it's well worth pushing past that.  First, everyone you touch is happy to participate.  Second, what you receive back will be both loving and enlightening.  So here you:

• On a piece of paper, draw three columns.  At the top of the first column, write "Family/Intimates."  At the top of the second column, write "Friends & Associates" and at the top of the third column, write "Acquaintances."

• Contact 3-5 people in your life who fit into each one of those categories for you and ask them to describe you in just three words.  That's it.

• Write the words ascribed to you under the appropriate column.  

And now consider what you see: how the people in your world see you.  Which one of those columns is closest to the "real" you?  Which one is the person you wish most to be?  Lucky for you, you already are that person.  You have the power to love that person.  You have the power to change that person.  Really, you have power.

So, how do you show up?

As always, your comments, questions and thoughts are welcome. 
And don't forget to share this blog! 

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty is a principal at Dirty Girls Consulting, offering special programs that coach women moving into leadership roles. Women work differently, think differently, and it is up to us to allow this difference to become our strengths. We explore breaking free of traditional standards, accomplishing professional and personal goals to cultivate an authentic, fully loved life. Read more Dirty Girl Consulting blogs here.

Just get over it...

Natalie Hahn O'Flaherty

DGC Principal

nho@dirtygirlsconsulting.com

Get over yourself.
Get over your fears.
Get over those hurt, misunderstood feelings.
Get over those hurdles.

Because once you get over, you can get on, right?  Get on with your goals, get on with your dreams, get on with your life.  The only thing holding us back from getting on is getting over.

There's merit to this.  "Get over it" suggests that sometimes, it doesn't help us to spend obstinate hours mulling over why a meeting went sideways or why our words were misunderstood.  Sometimes, it really is in our best interest to chalk it up to experience, to chance or mishap, and just keep plowing forward.  Especially in those situations where there's no fix, there's no changing the outcome, and there's really little chance for a future repeat.  Get over it and get on with it.

However, "get over it" can also be an excuse to gloss over an uncomfortable moment.

I've referred several times in my blogs and postings to the "glass obstacle course" that women in business face - women in any business, but especially in male dominated industries.  I've been noodling over a series of blogs about the glass obstacle course concept, and last week, I wrote a list of what I perceive those obstacles to be.  As I wrote it, I thought, "Wow, I am starting to sound like one of those strident femi-Nazis that Rush Limbaugh used to make fun of…"  And suddenly, concern about being assigned to that particular group paused my list-making.  What is it in my generation that makes many women uncomfortable with the word "feminist"?  Is it because we're sandwiched between the extreme stereotype of the man-hating, bra burning, "second wave feminists" of the 60s and 70s, and the blithely oblivious millennials who still have a thin understanding of the impact gender plays in our lives, at work and at home?  I scribbled some notes, I expanded my list of glass obstacles, and I sat uncomfortably with the idea of being a feminist writer. 

And then I just got over it.

Worrying about being labeled is something that I can justify needing to "just get over it."  I can't control any name-calling or pigeon-holing that might take place based on how someone interprets my words.

But I can't justify "just getting over" the obstacles on the list I created. We need to work through these, sometimes crush these… but we do ourselves a disservice to ignore or make light of them. Workplace challenges are very real.  Telling women to just get over it means telling them to play along to get along in corporate America - in the name of getting along with men.  This is not a new concept but what I keep seeing are articles and videos and speeches by women, for women, that tell us how to play the game.  Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In describes a lot of the challenges in corporate culture.  She lays out in the open the pitfalls women face when advancing their careers.  But her guidance to other women is very narrow.  Her own story, while true to her, isn't everyone's story.  Not all of us have a wonderfully supportive husband.  Not all of us have husbands.  Not all of us want to play the corporate game under the existing rules of engagement. Anne Marie Slaughter tells women they can't have it all… at least, not what they want when the want it.  Life is about making decisions but if you believe you can't have your all when and where you want it, then you're right. You won't. You already decided that.

The majority of advice women hear is about contorting themselves to conform to the man's game.  This still puts the control in the hands of men - we adjust our rhythms to a pattern men are comfortable and then we can get ahead. But I posit that men and women don't even define "having it all" the same way, so why are we playing their game?

There are two concepts I want to discuss throughout my next several blogs:

• First, the glass obstacle course is real.  Some obstacles are there as a result of history and culture.  Some are there because we women put them there.  It is worth the time to examine them and figure out the smartest way to get over them.  Some we will need to smash. Some we might rebuild into a new pathway through.  And some, well, we might just need to get over them.  
• Second, there's no denying office politics, corporate culture and games that are played when climbing the proverbial ladder.  You want to play that game - you want that c-level title?  Fine.  That's an admirable objective.  But does that mean you need to play their game? We need to explore our own power to change the rules and the outcomes of these games.  Educate our peers - male and female - on our expectations for the rules of engagement.

I invite you to join me on an exploration of the glass obstacle course and the rules of engagement.  Everyone's is a little bit different, but I bet many of the obstacles I've seen and faced are the same as yours.  We're not going to smash every obstacle, but we're going to do our best to avoid those tiny, painful slivers of glass when we do.  More than anything, we will have an honest conversation about what we want and how we go about getting it. On our terms.

As always, your comments and thoughts are welcome.  And don't forget to share this blog!

Is it Love? Finding Your Path in the Underbrush of Emotions

February is an emotionally charged month.

It is all about journeys of the heart.  All the commercials say so – for diamonds, for chocolate, for flowers…  such a lovely cliché, “journeys of the heart.”  Makes us believe that at the end of every journey is a cozy chalet with a warmly glowing fire, a chilled bottle of bubbly and love forever after. 

But February can be the darkest month, the month where our hearts and our minds spiral into a black hole of expectations and cravings.  The potential of what could be overpowers the truth of what is.  And we build hope on top of that potential.   Hope based on a fantasy of what our heart yearns for even when our minds know better.

Does that sound too grim for the month Godiva and FTD?

Perhaps. According to Dr. Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who studies love and the human brain, the feeling that we ascribe as love, the overwhelmingly powerful one that makes us swoon, obsess and sometimes commit harm, is really triggered physiologically within us.  It’s a biological and physical reaction that launches our emotions, overpowering all other senses and often, our ability to reason.  (Learn more about Dr. Fisher here: http://new.ted.com/speakers/helen_fisher)  

I don’t know about you, but I find that concept freeing.  And not just in regards to love.  If a powerful, primal emotion such as love is in actuality really a physiological event, then most likely so are our other basic emotions: anger, fear, joy, sadness, disgust, surprise, and contempt.  But what if we could step back from these emotions long enough to note that they burst forth from a physiological response to a trigger?  Our emotions are triggered instantaneously – but that doesn’t make them right.  When we react within a moment, we are reacting to a past experience, not necessarily to the reality at hand.  It means on our journey, our paths get crossed, we lose the trail, we choose a rocky road or slippery slope based on feelings from the past, not the present moment.

It takes significant effort, particularly within the throes of passionate love or anger, to pause long enough to realize that your feelings are reflective of what’s in you but not always what’s in front of you.  But pausing here means you can make a conscious, and potentially healthier, decision about how to navigate the current situation.  It takes self-control.  It takes practice.  And it can be a pretty messy process.

Giving yourself the space to make a conscious decision doesn’t actually take away the emotions.  You still have to deal with the feelings.  But it’s a little easier to deal with those feelings when you know that they’re only temporary… joy, fear, love, disgust… they all wash over you, engulf you, and then eventually move on.  And what’s left?  Still just you.  On your chosen path, you still have to hack away at the weeds and overgrowth, but you do so with more awareness of what's fertilizing that excessive growth and how to best prune it back as you move forward.

As we get through the rest of February, the highs and lows of love and expectations, and of the daily bouts with fear, sadness and joy, let’s also make the effort to embrace the messiness of facing our fickle, temporal emotions.  We cannot control the rise of the feelings, but we can control how we manage them when they surface.  We can own February’s emotionally charged days and ensure the path we choose is indeed the right path for us.

What You Can Learn About Brand at a High School Reunion

It's a funny thing, going to a high school reunion.  You take all this baggage with you - stuff you didn't realize, until the moment before you walk through the reunion party door, that you had been hauling around all these years.  Or maybe you did realize it... and thought you had "dealt" with it... well, the real test of that comes at that awkward moment when you pass through that reunion party door and make your presence - your new, grown up brand - known to the room.

In that moment, we have a tendency to forget about our new grown up brand.  In that moment we revert to that awkward teen brand that never felt smart enough, pretty enough or interesting enough... (wait, is that just me?  Somehow, I don't think so).

As marketers, we are sometimes so steeped in our brand history, that we forget to look outside at how our customers, our partners and even our competition define us today.  We slip into that mode without even realizing it... you can have all the right feedback tools in place to "hear" from your customers and prospects, to share with partners and to track your competition and their positioning... and yet be so set in your brand identity that you forget to really listen. To stop, think and decide.  Actively.  Who do you want to be when you grow up?  Are you grown up yet?

This is a dangerous trap.  More dangerous now, certainly, than when I was in high school oh-so-long-ago.  The advent of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google+ and myriad other communications channels, not to mention the mobility of ipads and smartphones, means the feedback loop is constant and immediate.  Your brand will change without you if you aren't monitoring it and very quickly your message and your goals will misalign with your market.  Then you are trapped in Reactive mode, not Active mode.  A much more difficult market position to manage.

What you quickly learn at a high school reunion is not just how old everyone got, who's divorced, who's rich and who's still a player... if you listen, you can learn a lot about your own brand.  And it might surprise you to learn how people remember you, what they remember about you, and how they perceive you now.  Layers of yourself you never paid much attention to because you were so busy tending your own teenage angst and baggage.  What happens when you acknowledge these new insights?

The opportunity here is immense.  To see your brand in a new light offers the potential of adding rich new layers to your brand personality.  You can explore new facets of not just your  message, but identify new markets and opportunities in places you might not have considered - but your customers have.  Think about those brands who listen well... Starbucks started serving hot breakfast sandwiches when they realized that after getting coffee from them, their customers were still going to McDonalds.  A Bain & Company survey last year spelled it out beautifully... 80% of surveyed organizations felt that they had solid customer feedback systems in place and responded well to customers.  8% of their customers agreed.  Ouch.

The real fun of high school reunions is discovering who everyone is today... what really did happen to that athlete, that class clown and that prom queen?  Are those high school brands you remember the same today?  If we don't stop, think and decide, actively and deliberately, we become that one person at the high school reunion who didn't change... at all... and if you didn't like her then, you're sure as hell not going to like her now.