In today’s ever-evolving world and workplace, and in the face of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, being flexible and adaptable has become a necessity. It also happens to be one of the most important attributes of career success for working women. According to this Randstad study, 51% of women list adaptability and flexibility as key attributes to succeed in their careers, even ahead of teamwork (35%) and technology (37%).
There have been lots of talks about Intellectual Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ), especially in the realm of professional success. However, much less has been discussed about Adaptability Quotient (AQ). According to this 2004 study published in the Institute of Health Records and Information Management (IHRIM)journal, AQ constitutes a “statistically significant predictor of business transformation success”, as derived from the study of 15 global corporations going through strategic change. Business growth company Advantage defines AQ in the business sense as “ the ability to adjust course, product, service, and strategy in response to unanticipated changes in the market”.
In simpler words, AQ measures one’s ability to adapt to change. In reality, this is nothing new. Humans have survived for millions of years because of our very capacity to adapt to constant climate change, as quoted in this article of Scientific American. In his global best-seller Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind, renowned historian and author Yuval Noah Harari describes the stories of humankind’s conquest of the world by thriving, surviving and adapting to changing conditions. At a gender level, Melinda Coetzee and Nisha Harris’ 2008 study of call center agents published in the South African Journal of Psychology demonstrates that females display higher levels of career adaptability than males. A more recent study exploring gender and personality traits as predictors of entrepreneurs’ cognitive adaptability also concludes significant differences exist between males and females.
As working women, we’re certainly gifted with unique adaptability skills. In order to continue turning these into competitive advantages for ourselves, as well as our personal and professional organizations, it’s important that we focus on a few principles:
Opportunity is everywhere
I once worked for a Senior Manager who had this inscription on her desk: OPPORTUNITYISNOWHERE. When I started working in her team, she asked me to read it aloud. Instead of seeing “Opportunity is now here”, I read “Opportunity is nowhere”. At the time, my mindset was reflected in what I was seeing in this seemingly innocuous inscription. Instead of seeing opportunity everywhere, I was tempted to dismiss it. So are many among us…
Developing adaptability is also a matter of seeing opportunity everywhere, especially in the places where there seems to be none. It’s seeing opportunity in the layoff, the job loss, the relationship breakdown, the economic downturn. Are you seeing opportunity in your current circumstances?
Curiosity does not kill the cat, it makes you more adaptable!
Remember the proverb: “Curiosity killed the cat”? Used to warn against the danger of experimentation, it’s also reflective of many a damaging mindset. As working women, we’re warned against overstepping the social boundaries restricting us away from areas, professions and even attitudes traditionally reserved for men. Little girls are admonished against stepping away from feminine territory…
When it comes to being adaptable, curiosity does not kill the cat. What it does kills are false, sexist, stereotypes, slow progress and lack of innovation. Curiosity creates innovation, enhances resourcefulness and engenders progress. Sounds like a win to me!
The BIG picture is the BEST picture
Adaptability requires being able to see the big picture, the entire forest as opposed to just a few trees. It is the best picture from which to create a context in which adaptability becomes a key advantage.
This is also the picture from which we can create systems allowing us to navigate complex and difficult realities, such as systems to tackle working motherhood effectively, or systems to move over glass ceilings and brick walls at work.
Now more than ever, working women must leverage and continue to develop their AQ to face and improve the ever-changing landscape of work and life we find ourselves in. Now more than ever, organizations everywhere and society at large must learn to empower working women to create the change needed to not just survive, but also thrive trough adaptability to times of change.
“Who does she think she is to…go for the promotion, speak up in the meeting, start the business, decide to run for office, buy that house/car/dress, decide to not get married, decide to take/quit the job, open her mouth and speak up, say no…etc?“The most prevalent and silent narrative for working women is the one in which we remain quiet, agree with the status quo, and appear non-threatening, whether at work, in our relationships or at home.
So many of us have been conditioned under this narrative, which makes us even question those among us who dare to even think they can be different, break barriers, chase her dreams or even speak up… And that requires courage to stand out, be disliked, lose out (in appearance)…but THAT is how we change the narrative, not just our own, but all of our narratives in the workplace, in the kitchen, in the our houses and the House of Representatives, on the street, for the kids, for the little girl who is not sure whether she should speak up or not…
Daring to succeed on your own terms as a working woman is a journey. One that may require you to un-learn many of the pre-conceived notions, re-define our own version of success, before moving forward:
Unlearn and let go of what is not serving you
What we perceive as our reality is often the product of notions and definitions we’ve received for as long as we can remember. For instance, the notion that a woman must reach certain milestones, such as being married or having children by a certain age, or being restricted to only certain careers, or attaining a certain professional level by a certain age.
Having been accepted into our subconscious minds, these have become the ways in which we see our reality. Fortunately, as we evolve and grow in our personal and professional lives, many of these pre-conceived notions end up hindering us more than they help us.
Re-define your own vision of success
Learning to re-define our own vision of success can be quite the exercise if you’ve been accustomed to a certain view of what success means. Maybe you grew up in a family or community in which success is viewed as having the ideal family, the perfect white picket fenced home, and two and a half adorable kids. Maybe you were molded by an ambitious mother for whom professional success was a necessity.
Yet did you ever stop to define your own version of success? The one that fills you up with energy, motivation, but also a sense of fulfillment and purpose. It may not include a thriving career like your mother’s, or a thriving family life like your friend’s. Yet it must include what you define as success, independently of others’ opinions and thoughts.
Take action and move forward!
One of the most challenging parts of this process may be to actually dare to take action and turn your vision of success into reality. You may have to defy expectations and quit the job, or start the business, or move far away to achieve your dreams. Whatever it is, it will require you to act differently, and have the courage to move forward with your plans and dreams.
All in all, daring to succeed on your own terms is a difficult but rewarding journey, one that will test every pre-conceived idea you’ve had and challenge your view of yourself and the world around you. However, it is ultimately the one decision that will put your life on the most authentic and successful trajectory, on your own true, purposeful terms.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and in these times of pandemic it is taking on a special meaning for everyone. For working moms especially, who are highly impacted economically and whose load is multiplied on the home, work and health frontlines, it is taking on a larger and more critical meaning by the minute. Yet, more than the unfair share of work and home responsibilities, it’s the mental load working moms carry that threatens their well-being.
It’s becoming increasingly important for working moms to take care of themselves and protect their mental health. Juggling the demands of motherhood and employment, not to mention the related economic and physical impact, not only take a mental, but also an emotional toll on mothers. One that we don’t talk about enough, and repeatedly ignore as a society as we keep glorifying the motherly sacrifice that is hurting more than it is helping anyone.
Faced with increasing demands on our time, energy and sanity, from inside and outside our homes, from our daily to-do’s to the mediatized messages around “doing and having it all“, it’s harder and harder not to fall victim to the temptation of constantly pushing ourselves. All along, we pretend to be fine. We pretend everything is ok, that we’re unstoppable, that we can take the heat, that we can attend the boardroom meeting AND be there for the kids’ soccer game, get dinner AND prepare the brief, and so on and so forth…We’ve just got to keep it together, at all times, at all costs…
Truth is, we don’t have to keep it all together. We don’t even have to keep any of it together. What we have to keep together is our mental health. What we must preserve is our wholeness, the same wholeness that our kids learn from and our communities are strengthened by. What we must fight for is our pulse, our capacity to be, live, and grow fully…And none of it includes over-scheduling ourselves and our kids, working ourselves to the bone, and feeling like we’re failing in all areas at the same time…
While there is a lot of expert advice on mental health awareness, protecting our mental health as working moms can start at home:
Let’s check in with ourselves
We check in with everyone else around us, from our families to strangers on the street. Yet, how often do we check in with ourselves? How often do we stop once during the day to simply ask: “How am I doing today?” How often do we stop and simply sit in silence and breathe?
Checking in with ourselves will let us know when we’re not ok, when the tightness in our chest is more than indigestion, or the constant headaches may be hiding something deeper. It’s the first gateway to taking our mental pulse, and the first step towards better mental health and wholeness.
How about letting go of the need to keep it together?
Why is it that we must tidy up the house before we leave, even if that means stressing ourselves and running late? Why do we feel that we must keep our homes, our families and ourselves looking a certain way, at the expense of our own sanity? Why do we feel the need to prove that we are perfect homemakers and can bake a cake three different ways? Not that there is anything wrong with keeping a tidy home and looking great, on the contrary, these are great, especially if they make us feel better. Plus who doesn’t love cakes? Yet, if it’s unauthentic or it’s coming at the cost of violating our integrity and authenticity, it is never worth it…Nothing ever is…
Letting go of the need to keep it together is hard. It’s going against all the messages we’ve been endoctrinated with at a very early age. It’s going against the very voices of our mothers, sisters, and friends. Yet, it’s essential, so we can stop suffering in silence to maintain an image that was never us…
When help comes in the form of therapy…
Asking for help is complicated. Asking for help when help is wrapped under taboo concepts such as therapy is even more complicated. It’s ok to fear it, and not want it at first, and believe we don’t need it…Everyone has their own journey, and makes their own decisions.
Yet, if at some fork of the winding road of motherhood, work, and life, we find ourselves needing an extra hand to take the next step, that may just be it…Even if it means someone else has to make the call for us, drive us, and wait for us at the door…
This is my son’s usual question towards the end of the day on the days I work remotely. With this current pandemic, it’s been promoted to a daily inquiry. One that has made my mother’s heart tighten up a bit on one hand, but on the other hand has pushed me to better manage my work remotely, and show up better at home and at work.
Whether you’ve been working from home for quite some time, or have been keeping safe at home under the current coronavirus pandemic, managing your career remotely requires some adjustments. This is especially important for working moms, for whom home also rhymes with an entire other set of family and administrative commitments. As we’ve seen and experienced all too well, this pandemic is taking its highest toll on working moms whose share of responsibilities has now been multiplied while their share of equity is once again being put on the backburner.
While I do work from home some of the time when I’m not teaching, transitioning to being fully online under the current crisis has been quite the adjustment. Like so many, I’ve had to start thinking about my career differently, and pivot to devising more effective ways to produce and deliver my work without negatively impacting its quality as well as the fulfillment I get from it. For me, it’s been learning to teach online and set up ways to communicate with my students, colleagues and consulting clients in a way that allows us to still maintain a sense of connection and humanity despite the virtual nature of our interactions. From virtual meetings to remote classes, it’s been not just a practical shift, but also a mental one. As a working mom, it also means adjusting to the new normal of homeschooling, sharing a space with my spouse and kids, and adjusting to mine and our family’s new needs and expectations.
It is well-known that working women and working moms have had a notoriously challenging time with remote careers. The lack of direct contact and feedback, as well as the many false assumptions around working women, coupled with the perpetuation of gender inequity in the workplace, have created difficult conditions for remote work for women in general, and moms in particular.
Yet, managing your career remotely does not have to be an exercise in painful adjustments, or result in a career crisis altogether. Here are a few tips I’m learning to implement when managing my own career remotely as a working mom:
Clarify expectations
In the whirlwind of email communications and remote assignments, miscommunication can easily occur and expectations can get lost in the shuffle. Whereas having a quick conversation to clarify goals and objectives in-between meetings can be easily achieved in person, doing so remotely is more challenging.
I’ve learnt to clarify expectations and assignments as soon as feasible, and preferably before planning for and tackling these. Ideally, doing so at the beginning of every period, be it weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly, helps set clear deliverables to strive towards. Keeping track of these clarifications via email or through another form of documentation can also go a long way to provide something to go back to in case of misunderstanding or if things veer off track.
Request regular feedback
Working remotely increases the chance for miscommunication and missed expectations. This is where requesting regular feedback can help reduce the gap in communication, while also providing a reliable source of information and evaluation.
It’s also important as a way to protect oneself in case of misunderstanding and miscommunication. In addition to just requesting feedback, ensuring it is documented helps with keeping a valuable resource to go back to, in addition to powerful protection for the future.
Keep track of your progress
When it comes to remote work, distance makes progress harder to track, especially for working moms, as we can be pulled in multiple directions at once. This is why keeping track of our progress becomes crucial. This can be done through regular notes, or by keeping a more or less traditional time tracker or timesheet.
Not only does keeping track of one’s progress help with addressing outside questions and requests, but also in terms of re-evaluating how we’ve used our time and if any adjustments are needed.
Overall, working remotely as a working woman and mom certainly carries with it its share of challenges. However, being proactive about clarifying expectations, requesting regular feedback, and keeping track of one’s progress, is key to not only ensuring that we’re productive and effective, but also to protect our careers.
What other tips do you have as a working woman and mom when it comes to managing your career remotely?
Welcome to Let It Be Friday!, where I say hello (and TGIF), and round up the lifestyle, career and business news that inspired, excited, made me smile (or laugh out loud).
