Ingrid Lindberg
Customer Experience Officer Chief Customer http://chiefcustomer.com/
Building the Framework of Steel
I was a little girl who loved to wear tutus and play in the mud with my army figurines. Growing up on military bases around the world, I was encouraged to be strong. All of my authority figures were strong. From my dad, who was in charge, to the Military Police who surrounded us every day, to my mother who packed up our lives every 18 to 36 months and moved us across the world. They were mentally and physically strong.
In addition to that military influence, my father was an attorney and my mother was a teacher; coupled with an outstanding vocabulary, I learned to joust effortlessly at the dinner table. Having strong opinions that you could back up with facts was a requirement. I was encouraged to participate in the discussions with the adults; a childrenās table did not exist.
My motherās favorite story to tell about me is when she picked me up from on my first day at Montessori school. Apparently, the directress (Montessoriās version of a principal) approached her at pickup time. My motherās recollection of the conversation is as follows:
I was 18 months old.
They pushed me. They celebrated my accomplishments. They expected me to do well. I remember being in fifth grade. I was the only girl who sat in the āsmart kidsā row in our math class. My teacher, Ms. Andrade, would keep me after class and encourage me to raise my hand, to speak my mind. She told me that I had to be smart and strong.
I remember working my way through advanced placement classes in high school and being one of the only girls there. Girls were dropping like flies. It wasnāt cool to be smart. I kept on.
When I was 14, my world was rocked. My parents got divorced, and because we needed the money, I started answering phones at a salon and making appointments. I worked there almost every day after school until they closed at 9 P.M. Then Iād have to go home and do my homework, which taught me about a whole new type of strength.
Through college I worked multiple jobs, including managing large retail stores. I learned how to balance classes and life and run a business. I led some of the most successful branches of several national retailers. Despite all the successes, there were lessons about strength there, too. Iāll never forget the day that a district manager walked into our store, after a double-digit increase in sales year over year, and the only thing she had to say to me was that my skirt was too short. I was 20 years old. I began to dress differently, and I was angry about it. It was the first time I had run into someone asking me to change because I didnāt fit their expectation about how I should look or act.
When I walked into Corporate America at 24, I was a strong, confident, intelligent woman who didnāt understand hierarchy. I understood that rules were important for order, but I didnāt have any fear when it came to pointing out what could be done better.
My first Corporate America role was as a trading agent in a contact center that placed trades for 401(k)s. Six weeks into that job, I found myself standing in the chief information officerās office one night telling him about all the changes I thought we should make to our platform. I laid out all my points, with supporting facts and solutions. He asked me who I was, but he didnāt tell me that, according to the rules, I wasnāt supposed to be bringing these recommendations directly to him.
He ended up listening to me, and we implemented many of the changes Iād suggested. He was my first big supporter. Because of that platform, I was afforded the opportunity to work with many of the giants in financial services. My career path was fast and furious, and I rose through the ranks quickly.
Again, that success was dotted with challenges that made me stronger. I experienced so much blatant sexism that it actually became a part of my strength. I wore higher-necked shirts. I stopped wearing skirts. I wore less makeup. I thought that was the way to stop it. I was called āMissyā and āHoney.ā I spent years reminding men I worked with that my eyes were higher than my breasts.
Iāve been asked if it is āthat time of the month.ā I had a leader ask me if Iād ātaken my pillsā that day. Later, that same leader, at an event for which Iād been asked to give the keynote speech, said to the person who had arranged the entire event that his job was to ābabysit Ingrid and make sure she stays out of trouble.ā
And I kept on responding to all of this with humor and strength. We werenāt encouraged to report things like thatāafter all, āboys will be boys.ā I was told to toughen up.
I got stronger.
The Fraternity
Fraternities are important. They create inclusion. They protect. They are for people of shared interest to create communities. They are supportive.
However, they also foster exclusion. Corporate America has been built around the support of the fraternity, from the places where ādeals are doneā to the business that is done over brown liquor and cigars. The fraternity that was built to help men get from one stage to another is one that seems impenetrable for women.
Fraternity is built with people who are like you. āThe human tendency to gravitate to people like oneself leads powerful men to sponsor and advocate for other men when leadership opportunities arise.ā1
Whether the ticket to entry was a shared love of golf, fishing, or some other activity that I have no interest in or time for, Iāve always been stymied by the fraternity. Iāve tried to crack it. Iāve learned how to tell jokes. I can order, and enjoy, scotch. Iāve been known to smoke a cigar. Iāve been encouraged to be tougher, be more like the boysālearn to play with the boys. Iāve been told that I should spend more time after work hanging out with the guys. Literally, all words of wisdom Iāve heard.
Fraternities have built a certain kind of toxic business environment of insiders and exclusion. I questioned the assumption that I should try to join.
What I find most fascinating is Iāve been rewarded for learning to drink brown liquor and hang with the boys. Iāve been held up as evidence that a woman can successfully navigate a male-dominated company or industry. On the other side of this, Iāve watched senior women be fired for drinking too much and āmisbehaving,ā yet Iāve never seen that happen to a male executive.
I once had a person walk up to me at an event, very late in the evening, and tell me, in front of many of our peers, that he liked to āget nekked.ā For real. That underneath his suit was a āwild and crazy guy.ā He then asked me if Iād like to go back to our hotel with him.
A friend of mine witnessed this. He offered to walk me back to our hotel. We escaped. The behavior was explained away by this group of men, saying that he was just āhaving too much fun!ā and they laughed about it for years. His behavior was excused because he was part of the fraternity.
Weāre Not Helping Each Other
I was employed in a senior role at one company, and it was suggested to me that I meet with one of the most senior women in human resources. She was one of the only other women on the executive team, and she was incredibly powerful. I was told sheād be a phenomenal mentor.
Iāll never forget my meeting with her. I set up some time based on her schedule, but clearly I wasnāt a priorityāas a new, young, female executive. She kept moving our appointment time and time again. This went on for months.
Finally, almost a quarter later, we both found ourselves at an offsite board meeting. I approached her later in the day, after weād both completed our presentations. I sat down and we started chatting. It was all very amiable. At one point I paused, and with a significant amount of deference in my tone asked her for advice on navigating the company. It was a high school boyās locker room for sure. . . . I commented on how successful she had clearly been at doing so, and I asked her if sheād be willing to work with me.
She paused and said, āNo one helped me. Why should I help you?ā
Iād asked for help and been denied. It was a moment of having to find a whole new layer of inner strength. I decided at that moment that it was up to me to do something to change the game, to try and make sure that no one else received that same answer.
Years later, I read an article that described what Iād experienced: second-generation bias. One of the components of second-generation bias is the bidirectional feeling that there is limited worth. That means that younger women may have a bias against older women in the workplaceāthat they may not be the people to go to for networking, career help, and so on, and that older women may have a bias against the upcoming generation.
That whole notion of āNo one helped me. Why should I help you?ā
I refused to believe that was an appropriate response. I have made it my mission to help younger women. As word spread, I had a constant stream of requests for mentoring. It got to the point that I had to structure my weeks with very specific rules. There were only so many hours that I could spend with women who were in search of ...