Who does she think she is?
Voice an opinion as a woman and someone, somewhere, decides you're getting above yourself. This post is on the penalty women pay for taking up space, and the tired trade-off between being liked and being taken seriously.
Walking the talk on lifting the women around you
If you have a decent gender balance across the whole company but it thins steadily the higher you look, until the board is frankly embarrassing - well, that means you’ve got a leaky pipeline. Work on fixing that - here are some ideas for where to start.
Yeah but…I don’t really have anything worth sharing
I've heard this from women I've coached, and I've caught myself thinking it too. It wasn't true for them and it isn't true for you: what's obvious to you usually isn't to anyone else.
Letter to my future bosses
I'm looking for my next role, among all the openings the Great Resignation threw up. Too many of the organisations I've looked at have a long way to go on gender and race, and this is what I need to see.
Reflections on 25 years
An unordered list of things I've learned on the job: hundreds of single malts (since forgotten), that my skin can't take washing dishes for eight hours a day, and rather a lot that shaped how I work.
On rejection
Rejection can be hard to hear - but that doesn’t mean you should manage the hurt by only applying for jobs you’re overqualified for. Women tend to apply for a job only when they meet every criterion - whereas men go in at around 60%. We need to change this - women, it’s a numbers game. Let’s reframe rejection, and get more women into the jobs they' deserve.
If you’ve made DEI HR’s job, you’re doing it wrong
Equality and inclusion consists of thousands of tiny decisions made all over your organisation, every day. It’s not an impact assessment document, checklist, or HR’s job.
“Social class no longer exists in Britain”
I snorted cornflakes at that one. I grew up in relative poverty - believe me, social class exists. Here's what the people who say it have never had to notice.
Making an impact
Almost every woman I know has been told, at some point, that she needs to "make more impact". It's vague and maddening, and rarely comes with a definition of what impact would even look like in her context.