#EmbraceEquity on International Women's Day

On this International Women’s Day, I want to recognize all the great women in the energy industry that have continued to create opportunities for other women and remove barriers for talent to succeed.?

When I first started my career in the conventional power industry, there may have been only 1 female in the room. Usually, it was someone not even sitting at the table, but in the seats against the wall in the big board rooms. We all have been there!

As the years went on, there were slowly more women. Female CFO’s and General Counsels started to emerge, and they started to coach other women, like me, so eventually there were front-line leaders in supply chain, services, and operations. Why did this happen? Women and other great leaders supported women and began to remove barriers: equity started to take hold.

What is equity? The dictionary says that equity is “the state, quality or ideal of being just, impartial and fair.” As we think about giving talent equal opportunities, removing barriers, that may be unique to their situation, enables them to succeed and achieve their full potential. This supports the just and fair approach. This picture above says it all.

Here are a few lessons that I learned along the way in my career in developing great female talent. ?

Get to know great talent on both a professional and personal level. Take the time to meet with female talent in your organization to discuss their skills, desires, and career goals. For many large companies there may be a Women’s Network or similar organization that may enable such events. However, if there is none in your organization, think about taking the initiative and once a month/quarter getting a small group of talent together to discuss an important challenge or opportunity for the business and get their ideas. In this process you can learn more about the talent as people and what drives them. During one of my many dinners, I sat next to a fabulous female and learned that she took a great risk as a single mom. She left her job because her former employer would not support her career growth. She quit, moved to a different country, applied to several big companies that she respected, landed in the company that she desired, and has been growing in that company ever since. That decisiveness, and grit was something that stand out till this day and now I see how she prides herself in taking on some of the toughest financial assignments and delivers great results. ?When you engage with talent, learn their stories, understand what drives them, you can have more trust in giving them challenges in the business.

Remove the barriers that are unique for the talent to support career growth and development. I’ve coached so many women who have felt that they didn’t meet the pre-requisites for a job but had 50% or more of the skills necessary as well as the intellect, grit, and resiliency to be successful. Others may have had a geographical limitation that may have been a concern that limited engaging in a specific job. In any of these cases, I would often seek out the talent and have a discussion. Usually, by having a coaching session, we could talk through the difference between limitations vs. just perceived limitations. In most cases, women tend to put up false barriers. Today most jobs can be done from anywhere if the right talent and skillset is needed. As a leader when you meet that “A” player you will make it work. I’ve done this repeatedly and, in the end, it always pays off. Women just need to have the confidence to ask for what they need and have the advocates behind them to listen and remove the barriers.

Have an open mind and remove the unconscious bias in the decision-making process. There are certain jobs for which there will be an unconscious bias that men have the right skillset for the job, like firefighters, police officers, field engineers, project managers, and the list goes on. After talking with many women on my team, it became clear that very often the interviewing parties were not diverse. How often do you set up an interview slate with all men? What would happen if the interview slate were 50% diverse? How would the talent be evaluated and how would these different perspectives be helpful? I was once asked to participate in an evaluation for an executive sales role. I had known the female talent, understand her strengths and development needs, and was able to represent her well when on the panel. The main question was whether she would be tough enough in a global environment? Without a doubt the answer was yes. ?An unbiased evaluation panel can lead to uncovering some fabulous talent and dealing with unconscious bias. And great talent wins as a result.

On this International Women’s Day, let’s join forces and #EmbraceEquiy by removing barriers for those talented women that can help us drive better results and outcomes in our businesses.