Sheryl Sandberg: Disrupting The Status Quo

Posted on by Real Leaders

The COO of Facebook argues that in order for change to happen, women need to break down societal and personal barriers by striving for leadership roles. Her global movement is encouraging women to lean in to positions of leadership to ensure that more opportunities are created for everyone.

Mark Zuckerberg once told me,” says Sheryl Sandberg, “If you’re going to be someone who makes everyone happy, then you’re never going to change anything. You’ve got to be willing to fight for what you believe in.” While Sandberg has certainly taken this advice to heart as COO of Facebook, the greatest social engagement  phenomenon to hit the planet, it’s also sage advice for leaders who are brave enough to tackle controversial social issues.

While Zuckerberg has relentlessly pushed his vision for building an online  global community since 2004, Sandberg has launched an agenda of equal magnitude, one that resonates with 3 billion women around the world. Her first book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, co-authored by Nell Scovell in March 2013, aimed to help professional women achieve their career goals, and to help men contribute to a more balanced and equitable society.

Her book looks at the barriers preventing women from taking leadership roles in the workplace, namely discrimination, blatant and subtle sexism, and sexual harassment. Sandberg  also examines societal barriers such as the fact that women still work a double day, catering to both work and household duties, and the devalued perception of work done inside the home compared to the more “serious” work outside the home.

Add to this the barriers that women create for themselves by buying in to systematic discrimination and the societal gender roles, found in male-dominated societies around the world, and we have the current gender imbalance found today.

One Woman, 100 Million Books

Posted on by Cynthia Cleveland

In 1992, Kyle Zimmer, then a corporate attorney, was volunteering as a tutor regularly at a soup kitchen in Washington DC. Realizing that the kids she was working with had no books to call their own, she set out with some friends to remedy the situation. Little did she know that her volunteer project would evolve to become First Book and her network of “friends” would become one of the secrets to success.

Twenty years and 100 million brand-new books later, Kyle continues to lead First Book, the nonprofit social enterprise she co-founded, to ensure that local schools and community programs across the country serving children from low-income families would have a steady supply of brand-new, high quality books they so desperately needed.

As a business person, I am perhaps most impressed by how she accomplished this amazing achievement. She first connected with publishers who routinely disposed of books they didn’t sell. Over time she now has convinced 90 publishers to provide even best-sellers to the group at bargain basement prices. Applying good business principals to the nonprofit world led to two groundbreaking programs – First Book National Book Bank and First Book Marketplace.

First Book National Book Bank is the nation’s largest clearinghouse for publisher’s excess inventory, one that gives them an efficient way to donate large quantities of new books – for free – to thousands of worthy programs. They help publishers save the cost of multiple book shipments to fulfill donation requests. Instead, they make a large scale shipment to The National Book Bank, and First Book “connects the dots” to qualified programs.

As part of the qualification process, it became apparent there was a huge need across the country so Kyle connected programs in need, ranging from regular classroom teachers in impoverished areas to a wide variety of nonprofits. By combining the collective purchasing power of 50,000 schools and programs they serve into a single network, the First Book Marketplace, Kyle was able to convince publishers they would be reaching a new market worth their investment as the future of publishing depends on a new generation of readers. This groundbreaking new models is an award-winning, self-sustaining program that purchases new books and makes them available to educators and program leaders at affordable prices – at prices 50-90% below retail.

Not surprisingly, Kyle is not resting on what’s been accomplished so far, but instead continuing to innovate. Her market of teachers and leaders told her there weren’t enough stories their readers found relatable. Their latest program, The Stories for All Project, was a deliberate act of what Kyle describes as “collaborative disruption.”

First Book is new actively investing in the publishing industry by providing $1 million in funding to develop multicultural titles that include black and Hispanic characters in urban settings by authors from diverse backgrounds. They believe that promoting the needs and preferences of their network of consumers, they are actually building the market and giving the publishing industry a real reason to produce more diverse titles.

Over time, as the market for more diverse titles grows, that content will be available to all children, not just the kids in the schools and programs that First Book works with. Every child needs to experience the full spectrum of cultures and life experiences. The Stories for All Project will, in the end, benefit all children.

It is this kind of thinking that makes me a huge fan of First Book, Kyle Zimmer and the wonderful team that work together to “collaboratively disrupt” by paying attention to the markets they serve and creating innovative solutions applying best business practices to social issues.

 

More Than 250,000 women Lean In

Posted on by Real Leaders

Leanin.Org today announced the Lean In community has grown to over 250,000 members with nearly 1 million unique visitors to leanin.org since the organization’s launch in March. Additionally, over 7,000 Lean In Circles – small peer groups focused on empowerment – have registered in all 50 states and at least 50 countries. In a keynote speech in Chicago at BlogHer ’13, the annual women’s blogging conference,

Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead and founder of LeanIn.Org, commented on the steps women all over the world are taking to move toward gender equality. “While the number of people joining Lean In has exceeded all of our expectations, it’s the individual stories of people changing their lives that are truly inspiring,” said Sandberg. “From mothers fighting for better teachers for their children to companies hosting meetings to discuss gender biases openly, women and men around the globe are leaning in with gusto.”

Jesse Ellison of New York explained how Lean In gave her the confidence to ask for higher compensation for her work. “I’m a freelance writer, so every dollar counts. But it is nerve-wracking and awkward asking for more money when taking on assignments, and even harder to do it confidently at a time when media companies are struggling. But last month I asked, literally saying in my email, ‘I have to ask. I’m leaning in.’ It worked.”

Lieutenant Colonel Erika Cashin, of Minneapolis, knew men would outnumber her when she joined the Air Force in 1996 but never gave much thought to the lack of support she would encounter. She started a Lean In Circle to mentor other women in the military and provide mutual support on issues they face. “It’s not just about the mentorship we give through telling our stories, but also what we receive from listening to each other’s experiences,” Lt Col Cashin explained. “No matter what age, or stage of life and career, we’re all able to gain insight on something we weren’t aware of or didn’t know. There’s mutual benefit, and the Circle’s an open door to start discussion.”

In addition to a growing community, LeanIn.Org has forged partnerships with over 250 corporations and non-profits. These partners have committed to rolling out Lean In’s education content and Circle programs within their organizations and working toward equality in their leadership ranks.

“We wanted our employees to drive the Lean In movement internally and that’s exactly what they’ve done,” said Melinda Narciso, the director of human resources at Red Ventures, a South Carolina-based direct marketing company.

“The response has been incredible; nearly 200 employees have signed up to participate. Interns, members of the senior leadership team, sales professionals, men and women all stepped up to join a Lean In Circle – the diversity of employees is so rich. Discussions about women in the workplace are long overdue, and we’re so excited Sheryl and her team have given our employees the tools to begin the dialogue.” Over 60,000 people have also viewed the free expert lectures available at leanin.org, on topics ranging from overcoming gender bias to the body language of leadership. 

“I didn’t realize until reading this book and watching [the videos] that saying something like ‘I have no idea how she does it’ is actually rooted in stereotype,” said Johnny Brackett, a Senior Manager for Marketing & Communications at TaskRabbit who viewed the videos with his colleagues. “I would never look at a male COO who’s also a father and comment on how incredible it is that he juggles it all.

Why do I do this with a woman COO?” Sandberg released the latest Lean In numbers on Saturday during her keynote address at BlogHer. Following the address, conference attendees were invited to participate in a workshop to discuss the power of peer mentoring and Lean In Circles.  LeanIn.Org by the numbers:

  • Over 250,000 Lean In community members on Facebook
  • Nearly 1 million visitors to leanin.org
  • Over 7,000 registered Lean In Circles
  • Circles in all 50 states and at least 50 countries
  • Over 250 Lean In corporate and non-profit Partners
  • Over 60,000 views of Lean In’s Expert Lectures  

Lean In Circles in action:

  • Partners such as Tesco, Estee Lauder and American Express are organizing Lean In Circles for their employees.
  • We have heard from military Circles, Circles among college students, and even a father-daughter Circle.
  • In Massachusetts, 40 high school students hosted a Circle slumber party to help reach their goals.
  • In Berlin, over 100 women and men in the startup community have organized Circles to give each other the confidence they need to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.
  • In Kenya and South Africa, women have formed Circles to encourage each other to reach the C-suite.

 Lean In by the numbers:

  • Over 1 million books sold
  • Currently published in 11 languages and will be published in at least 19 more by the end of 2014

 

My Heroes? Young Millennial Leaders

Posted on by Deb Mills-Scofield

I bet you’re asking yourself if I’m nuts. I am and I’m happily addicted to these kids too! The stereotype of Gen-Y/Millennials is one of entitlement. There certainly are those who fall into this category and I’d submit there are plenty of Baby Boomers too (hum… look at Washington DC’s problem openly discussing Medicare and Medicaid!). I see this all the time in corporations with people of all ages.

You may say my heroes are self-selecting and I’m limiting my scope. You may be right. That doesn’t diminish the hope and encouragement they provide for our future. My heroes experiment-learn-apply-iterate in ways that befuddle most of us yet create impact we wouldn’t dare try. They turn the definition of entitlement on its head. T

hese kids (yes, they are in their 20’s so they are ‘kids’) feel very entitled… to change the world. They feel they have a right to try to make this a better world and don’t take ‘no’ as an answer.

This is why they are my heroes: Their default focus is on others, not themselves. They see problems in the world-globally and locally-and strive to understand, learn and discover instead of impose a solution. This has a profound impact on creating meaningful, valuable and sustainable solutions for customers in their world and shifts the lens of success from only outputs to outputs and outcomes.

My heroes also apply this framework to how they recruit, retain and develop their employees. In addition to Runa, two of my heroes are Pierre Ivan Arreola & Emily Goldman who created Hip Hop 4, a social business using Hip Hop to cultivate leadership with disadvantaged youth (in Los Angeles, California and Providence, Rhode Island) by partnering with local artists and youth programs employing a multi-sided and revenue generating business model for sustainability.

They challenge orthodoxy.

Because of their youth and naivety, they question everything, including long-held assumptions. This leads to innovative business models, partnerships, collaborations, organizational structures, products and services. I learn so much from how they think about their businesses and their definition of leadership as it pertains to them personally and to their organizatiosn in its ecosystem.

Two college juniors, Han Sheng Chia & Jayson Marwaha, founded of my favorite examples, MED International. This NGO assesses the current equipment, clinical needs and infrastructure capacity of hospitals in Zanzibar and ships over the appropriate surplus/used equipment from the USA, such as incubators that are now saving lives. They created an inventory and maintenance workflow system with the Zanzibar Ministry of Health and have trained technicians to repair the equipment.

Their currencies are trust and learning.

While these kids obviously need to raise money for their ventures, their baseline currencies are how well they can trust the people they work with and what they can learn, in real time, from these partners. Since they take their leadership seriously because their works impact, their need to trust and continually learn-learn about their customers and circumstances-is paramount. Trust and learning are also tied together-we find it easier to learn from those we trust. Another hero, Kona Shen, epitomizes the need for trust and learning with her successful venture, GOALSHaiti.

Kona combined her passion for the Haitian people with her love of soccer. GOALSHaiti improves the education, health and sanitation of over 600 kids and their families (nearly 5,000 people in total) in the Leogane region of Haiti. The program uses soccer as a vehicle for academic learning, community service, and learning healthy living , resulting in leadership. I could list so many more heroes.

We have so much to learn from them if we are willing to open our eyes, suspend disbelief, and check our over-sized egos at the door. The lessons these kids have taught me are now benefitting my clients and colleagues as we strive to rush to understand our customers’ needs, challenge the status quo, and base our relationship on the currencies of trust and learning. It isn’t easy for us ‘older’ folks to do, so get to know a few of my heroes and let them help you.

This post first appeared on Switch and Shift. Deb’s other posts can be found on her website.

0