Month: June 2016

CHANGING THE PLAYING FIELD – Part 3 of 3

On By paulinecrawfordpcIn Changing the Rules of the GameLeave a comment

THE NEW BLUEPRINT HAS ARRIVED…

By Dr Pauline Crawford International Speaker and Facilitator

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The Time Is Now …

The much discussed and fabled playing field that so many of my gender seem so committed to changing, is the one that we all walk out onto as we prepare to challenge the men of the world to another round of “He Said … She Said!” There is one word that I would like to define before we start to choose up sides, appoint referees and crouch down into that menacing stance as we prepare to go head-to-head. That word is procrastinate. According to the highly vaunted Oxford Unabridged, it is as follows: pro·cras·ti·nate (prō-krăs′tə-nāt′, prə-) –  v.intr. To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.  v.tr. To postpone or delay needlessly.

Okay, let’s get down to business. Wait a second … that’s the game we play that is so badly in need of changing, right? I think we can agree that, while the list of male-female inequities is not be growing at an alarming rate at this minute, nothing much has been done to reduce it over the past few years. We know, for example, that the pay gap issue remains, the opportunities continue to narrow for women as they move up the corporate ladder, and that life and work are uncomfortable playmates when women choose to have a family and work outside of the home. In that regard it’s interesting to note that in the US many companies do not offer employer-sponsored maternity plans while Nordic countries both dads and mums are given paid time off around the birth of their child. Such policies are there to help women succeed but they vary widely across the world if they are offered at all. It feels very piecemeal as it applies to core issues.

Religious and cultural pressures often defuse the female’s ability to be more independent. Everybody does something so that they can say, “We did something.” Large corporations hire token numbers of female applicants, governments, true to their heritage, establish “reasonable” quotas then throw money at the problem, while the companies, businesses and individuals that are left provide a few of the right sound-bites after which they will procrastinate in the hope that, by just leaving it alone, the problem it will go away. I mean … remember the advice your mum gave you when you found your first pimple … “If you pick it, it may become a boil … just leave it alone and it will go away.”

The Un-Level Playing FieldSo why, given good evidence to support changing the playing field by changing the rules of the game, do so many traditional corporations choose to follow the same path they have always followed? Why, when virtually everything around you has changed so fundamentally over the last 200+ years do they choose to cling so tenaciously to rules and policies and a paradigm that no longer works? Simple! The corporate world is run by men who lack common sense and the energy to re-engage life and change. The education system that led them there is unchanged and un-level when it comes to boys and girls. Yet girls are now in the lead both in numbers and qualifications in so many subject areas.  Maybe men have lost the entrepreneurial spirit that created ‘business’ in the first place 200 years ago.  Many have got caught up in ‘doing things right’ (i.e. to the rules of yesterday) and not paid attention to ‘doing the right things’ (i.e. acknowledging women are making the same or even greater contribution to current profitable markets as men do).

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Common sense must rule the changes and an intelligent mutually beneficial blueprint put into action. Procrastination can no longer be tolerated. The time to rethink and rewrite the rules it TODAY … not tomorrow!

 

 

PHOTO CRAWFORD-OMPSCOMING TO THE UK FROM JUNE 14TH – 13TH JULY  AUTHORS PAULINE CRAWFORD AND JAMES OMPS WILL BE SHARING THEIR BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS AND PREVIEW OF THEIR BOOK ‘WHO’S IN CHARGE?’  Their approach is invite you to share the conversation by stepping onto a new blueprint that encompasses men and women of all shapes ans sizes, personality types and ages. It is a blueprint core to business and life and addresses all diversity issues that current challenge organisations today.

For details of their tour schedule during that time, available in Brighton and London, please email paulinecrawford.pc@gmail.com or what’s app +60132352225

CONFERENCE OPPORTUNITY WITH VOICE AT THE TABLE IN THE UK JULY 8TH LONDON

Join us for an opportunity to explore the dynamics of the playing field and how you can engage in the evolution revolution of a mutually beneficial future.

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CHANGING THE PLAYING FIELD – Part 2 of 3

On By paulinecrawfordpcIn Changing the Rules of the GameLeave a comment

CHANGING THE RULES OF THE GAME 

By Dr Pauline Crawford, International Speaker & Facilitator

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Same-Old, Same-Old …

Okay … so you’ve been in a boardroom or two and you’re struck by how similar they are one to another. There is the imposing table that dominates the room with a dozen or so comfortable looking chairs surrounding it … whatever its shape. You also notice that the most comfortable looking of those chairs is located at one end of the table of the other. Now that we have a mental picture of the playing field that so many seem obsessed with changing, let me refer to my previous blog and reiterate the point that I made therein … the playing field is not the issue. More to the point, the goal must be – and the sooner the better – to consider, assess and change policy, procedure and dogma as warranted … in short … to change the rules of the game!

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What or who determines how one must play the corporate game? Is it a policy manual gathering dust on an office shelf somewhere? If so, who compiled, composed, created, authored, inscribed, transcribed, engraved, penned, carved in stone, scripted, entered, and/or recorded that document? More than that, how are existing laws, rules, guidelines, dogmata, and accepted courses of action amended, edited, corrected, revised, modified, and/or rewritten? How does a qualified candidate/employee make it to that coveted prize … the top rung of the ladder of success? Is it truly policy or are things more controlled by a vote or two from what is – generally speaking, of course – a predominately male group of voters? What are the rules of the game that determines just who gets to pull his or her chair up to that majestic table and be one of those who decide the direction of the organization … the strategies and the big picture? Whether or not it’s a boardroom or an office that sits on the top floor with the great view, we need to know that this part of building is not built upon a glass floor.

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Men and women around the table making the future grow in innovative ways

It is imperative that we work to change the rules of the game. In order to initiate the process, we can no longer buy into those old arguments that continue to crop up every time one of us has the temerity to broach the subject of changing the rules? Those “same-old, same-old” conversations have been designed to drain our resolve in challenging the status quo. “Why fix what clearly is not broken,” is an expression that has absolutely no traction given the mountain of evidence to the contrary.  The system that was implemented more than 200 years ago IS broken, and it is far beyond ‘fixing’ at this point in time. It must – and it will – be changed and replaced. This journey to our future is about MEN and WOMEN succeeding and thriving together. That degree of change mandates a new blueprint, a “We are in this together blueprint,” where the old last is thrown away rather than using it to repair a worn out shoe or to cobble a new one that simply duplicates it.  A shoe that fits exactly as the old one did is simply a reiteration of that ‘same-old, same-old’ argument that we’ve been hearing for decades if not centuries. And just when should we anticipate the needed change be implemented? Well … in my opinion … The Time Is Now!

 

COMING TO THE UK FROM JUNE 14TH TO JULY 13TH AUTHORS PAULINE CRAWFORD AND JAMES OMPS ARE SHARING THEIR BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS AND PREVIEW OF THEIR BOOK ‘WHO’S IN CHARGE?’  Their approach is invite you to share the conversation by stepping onto a new blueprint that encompasses men and women of all shapes ans sizes, personality types and ages. It is a blueprint core to business and life and addresses all diversity issues that current challenge organisations today.

For details of their tour schedule during that time, available in Brighton and London, please email paulinecrawford.pc@gmail.com or what’s app +60132352225

CHANGING THE PLAYING FIELD – Part 1 of 3

On By paulinecrawfordpcIn Changing the Rules of the GameLeave a comment

CHANGING THE PLAYING FIELD

By Dr Pauline Crawford International Speaker and Facilitator

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Are we misled by a lack of common sense?

As I watch the morning news on television, what I see is a world falling further into chaos with each passing day.  It causes me to reflect on the basic nature of men and women and the hope that something intrinsic and infinitely perfect will produce future generations of happy well-adjusted males and females who are truly counterparts. Still, my experience has been that men and women grow more contentious and antagonistic every day.

Today’s technology and the increasing exposure to global commerce can be very enabling. This digital equity – for lack of a better term – makes it possible for virtually everybody to access the global marketplace, regardless of ethnicity, culture or gender type. One would think that this, in and of itself, changes the playing field. Interestingly – and in my opinion – it does. One can actually see that the playing field has been changing all along. It’s kind of like when we were all kids … you could play your games in the house, in the garden, in the street or on a local playing field. The playing fields of our memories and those that exist today have changed right along with us.

Now let me ask you a question: are we all the same? In obvious ways, no we are not all the same. In other ways, however, we are. One of the key components we are apparently born with – and studies bear me out on this – is our innate desire to achieve.  Animals do not necessarily have this particular desire. Animals eat, sleep, hunt, procreate and die. We, on the other hand, have an inborn instinct to achieve, and when that desire goes unfulfilled, frustration and depression set in. This, in turn, can lead the male ego to engender anger, dissatisfaction and violence. These are all consequences of male depression. The sad reality is, if the male ego is blunted, females will, all too often, bear the brunt of the situation cheating10by being subjugated and disallowed the opportunity to explore their potential beyond the domestic setting to which they are consigned.

In our current and supposedly liberated and connected, world where globalization and social media often brings us news faster than we can cope with it, there are, in my considered opinion, too many women stuck in places and thrust into situations where men simply fail to value the resource that women are. Such situations will and do occur at home, in relationships, in a team environment and at work. The impact is always negative and always inhibitive.

Okay, so let’s say that we can accept the fact that the playing field – any playing field – is adequate for the larger purposes of our discourse on commerce and the myriad inequities and inequalities exposed therein. Let’s also agree not to pursue the argument that we need a level playing field or a better playing field or a new playing field. Consensus here is key to moving on to the more important issues. What – I’m sure some of you are thinking – is more important than a level playing field? How about … changing the rules of the game?

 

 

CONFERENCE OPPORTUNITY WITH VOICE AT THE TABLE IN THE UK JULY 8TH LONDON

Join us for an opportunity to explore the dynamics of the playing field and how you can engage in the evolution revolution of a mutually beneficial future.

 

COMING TO THE UK FROM JUNE 14TH TO JULY 13TH AUTHORS PAULINE CRAWFORD AND JAMES OMPS ARE SHARING THEIR BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS AND PREVIEW OF THEIR BOOK ‘WHO’S IN CHARGE?’  Their approach is invite you to share the conversation by stepping onto a new blueprint that encompasses men and women of all shapes ans sizes, personality types and ages. It is a blueprint core to business and life and addresses all diversity issues that current challenge organisations today.

For details of their tour schedule during that time, available in Brighton and London, please email paulinecrawford.pc@gmail.com or what’s app +60132352225