High days and holidays usually sees our family grabbing hold of a jigsaw puzzle or two and our latest wee break was no exception. I bought a new puzzle. (I live on the edge, can you tell?)  And as we have been completing it bit by bit, and the picture has emerged, I thought to myself what a metaphor for life a jigsaw puzzle can be.

The picture is in front of us and all the pieces we need to complete the picture are there, yet sometimes we can be holding exactly the right bit in our hand but be looking at it the wrong way round. It looks like it will fit in one place so we try it out, only to find it really fits well somewhere else but we had to turn it upside down to see. Once we’ve done it it seems so obvious but sometimes we’re looking at our picture for so long we can’t see it.

I think that’s a bit like coaching. The women I work with usually have all the bits of the puzzle to hand but sometimes need to turn things another way to see the big picture!

Last week was one such occasion when I attended the Everywoman awards for women in the field of logistics at The Savoy Hotel, London. I was lucky enough to be the guest of Jane Weaver. Most women I’ve met in logistics are a pretty extraordinary group – they have to be to survive in what is still a largely dominated male world. Jane is no exception, and it set me wondering, what are some of the key ingredients for success?  Are there some common denominators among the talented and successful women I’ve worked with?

I met Jane when she attended my RenewYou course last year. That was when I first heard her amazing story of how she went from PA to the chief executive to owner of the company (you can read Jane’s story here). She was so quiet and unassuming about her achievements that I had to work hard to get her to share her story for the benefit of readers of the newsletter: we did do an interview together and I know she has inspired so many other women thinking of starting their own businesses. It really is an inspirational story; Jane was at a very low ebb in her personal life yet took one of the biggest risks of her life and it paid off.

Everywoman Awards

No surprises then that she made the final shortlist of three from hundreds of entries for Director of the Year (You can see all the various categories here - who knows, maybe you’ll even enter next year!). There were three finalists, all worthy winners and exceptional women in their own right: Ailsa Webb, Divisional Director Express UK, TNT UK Ltd and Carole Woodhead, CEO, Hermes Parcelnet Limited and Jane. A very impressive trio of women.

And Jane Weaver won Man Everywoman Director of the Year!

Applause Applause!

I have to tell you that on the AYS table we threw decorum to the wind and whooped and cheered loudly with delight and pride! Jane said afterwards she was so shocked at winning that if we hadn’t all been standing cheering she wouldn’t have remembered where her table was! What a worthy winner; I bathed in her reflected glory and was so proud to be there. Congratulations Jane!

What Makes for Success?

So what exactly makes a successful woman? I’ve worked with hundreds of women and they have all been different and all have had different definitions of what being successful is. It’s your definition that counts.

But I have been able to draw out some common denominators:

• By and large they know their direction of travel, they know what they want (and they always know what they don’t want!)
• They are prepared to work hard at it and place high expectations on themselves.
• They don’t waste time on issues they can’t change but concentrate on those they can affect.
• They seek advice from appropriate people and are not afraid to ask for help.
• They invest in themselves with training & development throughout their careers.
• They are flexible and prepared to change when circumstance demands

If you’d like to be inspired, or are thinking about starting your own business, do read Jane’s story. I’d also love to hear what you think makes for success, what is your definition, and what are your top tips for success?

Here’s an extract from the report:

Because women are generally not accustomed to staying on much after the age of 50 there is a feeling women do not want to” (industry interview). A former BBC senior editor (male) said:“You may get a woman who goes off because she says she’s made to feel she can go no further. Has she been told this or does she feel this herself?”

It is hard for women to single-handedly challenge these dominant discourses and so, rather depressingly, some women choose not to try.

And they conclude:

…we argue that the way female newsreaders are presented, supports and reinforces patriarchal norms and specific discourses of gender, despite the advances made by feminism in the 20the 20th and 21 st centuries. They also reinforce the dominant (male) discourses of beauty which provides limited role models for women.The pressure on female newsreaders to look physically attractive and young is part of the wider patriarchal power structures that dominate our society, as well as media organisations. We wonder, therefore, whether we will ever see a woman with grey hair reading the news.

While it makes for a depressing read I do find it heartening that barely a month goes by now without some serious piece of research emerging which clearly shows that women are disadvantaged when it comes to senior roles, and influential roles in society. Pregnancy is still an enormous setback to a woman’s career, largely because we still view childcare as a women’s role and have not set up the world of work to accommodate this most basic of human activities.

By the way, the report also makes mention of Miriam O’Reilly and her successful case against the BBC for ageism. I have an interview with Miriam O’Reilly here which I think you’ll find interesting.

Photograph: Ian West/PA

So many people at the wedding came up to me and said how wonderful it was to have such a happy gathering, and how good to see people again that we care about but somehow have managed not to see for months at a time, even years in some cases.

No surprises then that this morning I found myself thinking once again about people who are important to us. Sometimes it’s family, sometimes it’s friends and sometimes it’s neither like a work colleague who has really helped us out. They may not even realise how much you value what they do for you, how much you appreciate them. Perhaps it’s time to take a few moments to change that…

A Quick Personal Development Exercise

Give yourself a five minute breather and try this exercise. Don’t take too long over it but jot down what comes into your head and edit later. Take a sheet of A4 paper, turn it landscape. Divide it into three columns headed, Home, Work, Anything that doesn’t fit on the other two columns, let’s call that one Misc!

In each column try to get at least three names of folk who support you, help you in any way at all, sustain you, make you smile when you think of them, whose company you enjoy, who radiate and make you feel better about life.

And then think to yourself, when did I last see them or talk with them? When did I last spend some really ‘good’ time with them? When can I see them again?

And then do something about it. Simples really!

By the way, if you are looking for a whole day of personal development and a chance to top up your motivation, check this out, my RenewYou course, written with women’s personal development in mind, now booking!

Why Do You Defrag?

I have no idea. I only know that if I do it from time to time it makes my PC work better than if I forget to do it for some time. It’s a sensible piece of maintenance to keep my computer working well and allowing me to do what I want to do. So I do it.

I also know that when my pc crashes it sometimes needs a reboot, or in technical parlance, switching off for a minute. Then miraculously when I switch it on again the gremlin has usually gone.

Life Imitates PC…

Or possibly the other way round, it matters not. There are some things you need to do as a human being to keep yourself from slowing down; you know what they are. And you know that you need to do them. Are you?

And sometimes we literally just grind to a halt, and then nothing but a full reboot will work. Switch off for a while, take a break and return refreshed. That’s what holidays are for yet in our technological world that gets harder than ever.  You have to make a very concerted effort to genuinely switch off, leave the phone in a drawer, turn off the internet, bid adieu to Tweeting, and give yourself a reboot. You’ll work all the better for it!

What’s your favourite way of defragging?

I’m talking about Louise Mensch who spoke out this week about the level of vitriolic  abuse she received on Twitter after she defended the Murdoch empire (see this Guardian article )

She highlighted a serious issue about Sexism in Britain today. Yes, people have the right to disagree with her views. Yes, if you put yourself up there as a public figure you must take the brickbats along with the plaudits.

But no one should be subjected to the hateful sexist comments made about her on Twitter. What is horrifying is that so many were about the fact that she is a woman and were of a sexual nature, relating to the sexual violence they would like to subject her to. I can’t even bring myself to repeat them but she saved some of them in her Twitter account under ‘favourites’. And they are clearly not just from ill educated louts. (Although there is an argument to be made that anyone with those attitudes falls into that category-I’ll make that argument).

So to anyone who says to me we don’t need feminism anymore, that there really isn’t an issue if women take advantage of all that’s on offer, I refer you to Louise’s twitter account, and I applaud her for drawing attention to something that we as a society need to address. And that’s a first!

You may be interested in Are You Asking For It?

Money has become such a big indicator of success, disproportionately so; even in my lifetime (I’m 56) I’ve seen that change. Of course, how much people earn has always been a significant indicator but worth and value was also accorded to other professions where pay was not paramount, like teaching and health professionals. (And in full disclosure, I’m a qualified social worker, a carer, and worked in NHS for many years so, yes, I’m biased). I’m not going to get into an argument about the how and why that changed but look to the 1980s for your answer.  And I’m not looking to the past with rose tinted spectacles; I don’t want to live in the 1950s despite the current trend in all things retro. There’s no way I’d want to be a grown up woman in that era!

Women and Money

This emphasis on money has had a knock on effect on women in particular. As we have valued less and less anything that doesn’t generate ‘loads of money’ the caring aspects of life have systematically been devalued too. This article from Deborah Orr in The Guardian puts it very well, although it makes for grim reading. Ufortunately if you work within the field of caring, are a parent needing child care, or are a carer and need help and support you are faced with this reality every day.

Men Suffer Too

In my consulting capacity I also work with men who suffer from the ‘aggression is good’ assumption. Men who are openly kind and caring are generally seen as less appropriate senior management material than those who are more aggressive. Like many women they also fall foul of the very macho male values in some workplaces. I’ve written on this before, but the world of business was designed by men when only men were in the workplace. Men, naturally enough, designed it to reflect that. Many business values and mores by and large reflect very male attributes, what Professor Simon Baron Cohen might call ‘the extreme male brain’. (See Is Being Nice Bad for You?).

If this style of behaviour doesn’t come naturally to you you are always at a disadvantage. Hence women trying to behave like men, (remember shoulder pads  and pin striped suits anyone?) and ‘soft’ men being derided too. As I reflect on the many management courses I attended I realise that most of them were based on the male perspective, for example, when I first did assertiveness training it was of the ‘I win, you’ll lose’ variety, very adversarial (the eighties again). We were being given a very clear message about what was valued.

Would Gender Equality Mean a More Caring Society?

We know that when boards and companies employ significantly more numbers of women i.e. not a token one, everyone benefits. Yes, the bottom line goes up, but also working practices and styles change which benefit men and women. I frequently work one to one with women who are considering stepping off the career ladder because they feel uncomfortable with the way business operates, many to set up their own businesses. (I also work with women who work for companies very different from the ones I am describing, who love their work and don’t feel excluded or ostracised. For them the issues are much more general and relate to their own career development.)

Society needs people who professionally care for others; the fact that this is mainly women should not be allowed to downgrade its value. That’s bad for all of us, whatever gender. We need a more gender equal society, we need more women in Government, we need a real debate about what matters to us. We need to make some changes.

You might also like to read Men Cause Conflict-Women Befriend? and Neuroeconomics – Put Women in Charge

It’s earned her plenty of plaudits and admiration (count me in) but there has been a lot of criticism too, such as Rowan Atkinson’s little outburst a few months back. Obviously I’d like to talk with Miriam about that time, but I also want to hear a little bit more about the woman behind the infamous court case.

Jane: Miriam, let’s get the BBC case out of the way first. You were incredibly brave to take them on? Did you get much support from colleagues within the corporation itself?
Miriam: When it was first announced in November 2008 that myself and three other middle aged women were being dropped from Countryfile as it was moving to prime time, there was a lot of support from women at the BBC in Birmingham. Several expressed disgust that we were being dropped and agreed this was an age issue. It was only after I started legal action in 2010 that all, bar one woman, distanced themselves from me.

Charlotte Smith was one of the female presenters who were dropped from the programme, and she was very brave as she came to the Tribunal and made a statement in support of me. Charlotte was still working at the BBC so it was an incredible thing for her to do. She told me she couldn’t have lived with herself if she hadn’t stood up and told the truth about what had happened. You say I’m brave, Jane, but in my eyes Charlotte was the brave one.

When did you first realise that you had to act on this? Did you realise quite how big a story it would be?
As I say, we were told in November 2008. The programme was to be relaunched at primetime in April 2009. When I found out that all of the middle-aged women were being dropped I was really angry, and said so to senior members of staff, reminding them that ageism was against the law. I was told to ‘keep my head down’ that I ‘couldn’t win’ on this issue. Moira Stewart and Arlene Phillips had already been dropped from programmes, so there was a lot of controversy in the press when it came out that we had lost our jobs too.

Because I had been outspoken at the BBC, it was wrongly presumed that I had leaked those stories to the press. As a result, the work I had been given on Radio 4 (I’d presented Woman’s Hour, File on 4 and Costing the Earth), started to be withdrawn. I was writing articles for the Countryfile magazine at the time and that work was also withdrawn. It was when the last programme I had been commissioned to present was pulled in November 2009 that I picked up the phone and called the employment lawyer Camilla Palmer. Camilla thought I had a strong case so I decided to fight the BBC.

What happened was so wrong, and no-one was doing anything about it. I felt that unless someone took a stand they could continue treating older women in this way and get away with it. As a journalist I had to tell this story. I decided to go public at the time because I felt this was an issue that needed public debate. Sadly, none of the women (except Charlotte) felt they could openly support me because they were afraid for their jobs. I can’t blame them. I didn’t ask for this fight, it came to me. It was my decision to stand up to ageist attitudes at the BBC, I couldn’t expect other women who had financial responsibilities stand with me. I did have a lot of support from the sidelines at the BBC. And since I won my case, even more so.

Who or what sustained you most through this difficult period?
Knowing that I was doing the right thing kept me going. My mother always used to instil in me that if something was wrong I had a responsibility to put it right, there was no point waiting for someone else to come along and do it because they might never appear. When I told her about the Countryfile decision the first thing she said to me was ‘what are you going to do about it’. She died shortly afterwards but when I was going through the awful experience of the tribunal I felt her strength.

After you won your age discrimination case the BBC actually gave you a 3 year contract. How was it returning there after all the publicity and furore surrounding the case?
I hoped for the best. The BBC had apologised and I accepted their apology. 99.9% of staff, particularly the women, were wonderful to me and supportive. Sadly some of the men, particularly those who had been caught up in the tribunal or who felt angry that I had won my case, made my life difficult. I was sidelined and ridiculed by some. I realised nothing I could do, even when the programme I was co-presenting was getting record viewing figures,  would ever be ‘good enough’ for the executives who had been drawn into my case.

After nine months there I was told I wouldn’t be getting the programmes I was contracted to do, because a senior executive had ‘forgotten’ to tell producers I was available for work. I went to see the Director General, Mark Thompson, and gave him a candid account of what had been going on.  I was not going to be sidelined by them. They wanted to take away my voice in the hope that my profile as a campaigner for equality would die away and the issue of ageism would be buried. I wasn’t prepared for that to happen. I left so I could campaign for the Women’s Equality Network and speak out about inequality in broadcasting, which I continue to do. The DG said he would write to me later in the year with work offers but I’m not holding my breath. If they didn’t give me the work I was contracted to do then I’m sceptical they will offer me work when they don’t have to. Sadly these men at the top of the BBC don’t like strong women. They are not used to being challenged. This has to change if we are going to have true equality at the Corporation.

What have been the three most positive things for you to have come out of this bruising (but ultimately triumphant) encounter?
The first is the incredible women I have become friends with as a result of my case. Although I lost friends at the BBC I have gained far more and these will be lasting friendships. I have made friends through the Women’s Equality Network, but also with inspirational women from other walks of life who got in touch with me during the fight and afterwards.

I have also realised what a wonderful family I have and how much unselfish love and support they have for me.

I’ve also learned that, win or lose, if you stand up for something you believe in you will always triumph as a human being.

Miriam, what were your aspirations as a young child growing up on an Irish farm? Did you always know you wanted to work in journalism?
When I was eight I asked my parents for a tape recorder for Christmas. No-one was safe from my microphone! I had reams of taped interviews with family and friends. I didn’t really understand what journalism was but I was really interested in people’s opinions and stories. I was fascinated with the word ‘why’.

Have there been other events in your life that ‘prepared’ you for this most recent episode?
Apart from my mother’s influence, I learned when I was very young that you have to stand up for yourself. We left Ireland for England when I was six. In those days there were still signs outside B&B’s which said ‘No dogs, no blacks, no Irish’ – it’s shocking to think of that now. I didn’t believe I should be judged as a lesser human being because I was Irish, I was very proud of where I came from and who I was.

My parents worked really hard to establish our family here. My father held down three jobs – no-one gave us anything for free, we worked for it. I think that experience has made me into the person I am, so I wasn’t prepared to let the BBC treat me differently just because of my age.

What was your first ‘proper’ job? Do you remember what you were paid and what your main duties were?
I left school at 17 because I knew I wanted to be a journalist and I applied for several apprenticeships on local newspapers. I was eventually successful, but before I joined the Kidderminster Times I was lucky enough to be offered a job at Central TV in Birmingham as a general dogsbody. However, I pestered enough people to be given opportunities to get experience in the newsroom and on TISWAS, which was a children’s live TV show hosted by Chris Tarrant. It was great fun.

I joined The Kidderminster Times as a cub reporter in 1978 on a salary of £43 pounds a month. We used to be paid in cash in a little brown envelope. I covered marriages, funerals, fetes, local council meetings, and the local magistrates court. It was a fantastic grounding in journalism. I was paid as I learned and was sent to college to study. I look back with great fondness at that time.

Who was the biggest influence on you in the early days? Did you have a role model or mentor?
Not really, although I did have a very romantic view of journalism at the start, and was inspired by journalists like Harold Evans of the Sunday Times, and Woodward and Bernstein who exposed the Watergate scandal.

Did you plan out your career? Or was it more reactive?
I never planned a thing. I freelanced at the BBC in Birmingham at the weekends while I was still working on my newspaper and it worked out so well I was offered a staff job. For most of my career I was given opportunities through recommendations. I just did the work I loved, even if it wasn’t high profile, because the work was always more important to me than being a big name at the BBC or earning a large salary.

Who do you most admire in the TV world of current journalism? And why?
Orla Guerin, the BBC’s foreign correspondent, because she’s an extraordinary journalist, and Alex Crawford at Sky News. Her reports from Iraq were riveting.

You have been in journalism/TV at a really interesting time for women; both in your profession and reporting on events. What has been the biggest change re women that you’ve seen in your career?
This is a hard one to answer. I’m afraid my response isn’t a positive one. I think our present culture pressurises women into judging themselves and others by how they look rather than who they are and what they can contribute to society. We have a glass ceiling in the work place that many women find impossible to break through. Women are still lagging behind on pay. Older women aren’t given enough respect in society. I wish my answer was different but sadly here we are in 2012 and women still aren’t treated equally to men.

What advice would you give to any woman thinking of entering journalism today.
Trust in yourself that you can be as good as any man. Keep an open mind at all times – and LISTEN to what people are telling you.

If you could have any career you wanted, what would you choose?
Journalism.

And what’s next for Miriam O’Reilly? What adventures await you now?
Well, if I wait for the phone to ring with job offers from broadcasters I’d wait forever, so I’m setting up my own on-line magazine for older women. I hope to launch Certain Age in the autumn. It’ll have news, features, lifestyle, health, and beauty, all of those things expected in a magazine but targeted at women of a certain age who aren’t catered for adequately at the moment.

Miriam, I wish you huge success with your new venture. Please do let us know when it launches and we’ll add it to the ChangingPeople blog role and let readers know through the newsletter. Thank you!

And you know they’re doing something right when the boring misogynists come out of the cupboard and start having a go, as they have at the very excellent Mary Beard (pictured -she presents the excellent Meet the Romans on BBC 2.). Predictably some ignorant chap has had a go at her for daring to be herself on TV. He managed to compound the insult by suggesting she was akin to a person with disfigurement or disability, showing his antediluvian attitudes to disability in the process. Clearly only his idea of perfection should be allowed out in public. Mary has done an excellent job of defending herself so I need say no more than quote something from her rebuttal article:

And what is beauty after all? Is it someone who is Botoxed to the eyeballs, or someone who feels beautiful under their own skin?

Mary, I salute you. I love watching you and, for what it’s worth, you fit my definition of beauty too! And salutations to the BBC for not cramming you into ridiculous outfits and turning you into identikit women. They surely have moved on since the Miriam O’Reilly debacle.

Divine Women

The second reason I am having a love-fest with the BBC at the moment is Divine Women. Divine Women is presented by another academic woman who is obviously comfortable in her own skin. But the topic of Divine Women is brilliant too. It’s taking a look at some of the ‘lost’ research on how important women were in religion before the past was rewritten; it’s gripping and fascinating stuff.

To give you an idea of its content, the first episode was titled ‘When God was a Girl. And it’s not presented by someone who has merely been chosen for their looks and youth but for their skills and abilities, you know, just like they’ve been doing for years with men! Bettany Hughes is clearly enjoying herself and her enthusiasm has made me buy a new translation of Sappho’s verse. It is so refreshing and it’s sending out such a positive message to the younger generation.

So for once, no brickbats to BBC, just keep on with this type of programming and these type of presenters and the love will keep on flowing!

Exercise

However, recent research from Mind, the mental health charity, shows that despite we women knowing the benefits 9 out of 10 of us aged over 30 don’t want to exercise out of doors because we feel too self conscious about our bodies. Some even go to the extreme of only going outside to exercise when it’s dark, missing out on sunlight and potentially putting themselves at risk. I find that very sad but not surprising. We are bombarded with images of perfect airbrushed women and girls from an early age; no wonder we don’t really know what real women look like any more.

The Mind Research

Mind’s research found women, rather than exercise when feeling low, were more likely to:

• Eat comfort food (71%)
• Listen to sad music (32%),
• Spend time social networking (57%)
• Go to bed (66%)
• Find a way to be alone (71%)

The Mind Survey (which had responses from  14500 people) also showed that:

• 2 out of 3 feel conscious about their body shape when they exercise in public
• Many doubt their own ability compared to others; 65% think it’s unlikely they’ll be able to keep up in an exercise group and almost a half feel they will look silly in front of others as a result of being uncoordinated
• 60% are nervous about how their body reacts to exercise – their wobbly bits, sweating, passing wind or going red
• 2/3 feel that if they joined an exercise group, other women would be unwelcoming and cliquey, with only 6% feeling they would be very likely to make new friends

That really is a sad indictment of the reality of women’s body confidence. Maybe we should set up an exercise group for the uncoordinated woman, and we’d all wobble, pass wind, glow, and go left instead of right together (that left right thing – I never quite got it!) and laugh in the face of body fascism.

Have a Nature Date

Beth Murphy, head of information at Mind said:
“We all know that walking, cycling, even gardening are good for our mental health, however for many of us exercising in the great outdoors can be incredibly daunting, especially if already feeling low and self-confidence is at rock bottom.
At these times you can feel like the only person in the world experiencing this, but Mind’s research highlights that far from being alone, 90% of women are in exactly the same boat.
It’s time we start talking about how exercise makes us feel. We urge women to take the first step, invite a friend on a nature date and begin to support each other in taking care of our mental wellbeing.”

So, women, you know what you have to do. Throw self consciousness to the wind (possibly literally), find a friend, go for a wobbly, windy walk together and feel great!

Postscript - As an aside, did you see the wonderful Dr Mary Beard replying to her detractors on Twitter etc? She is currently presenting an excellent history programme on BBC but a lot of the chat about her centred not on her abilities as a historian, or her ability to get the Roman message across. No, it was all about her grey hair, for heaven’s sake! Her response? This is what a 57 year old woman looks like, deal with it. Go Mary!

Photo courtesy of Gymnastic leotards.net