Letter from your WICT Greater Chicago President
Welcome to summer, everyone. Can you believe we are already halfway through 2011? Where has the time gone?
Earlier this month, several of our Greater Chicago Board Members joined the National WICT staff to assist them during the WICT Signature Lunch, at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association show here in Chicago. It was a great opportunity to meet our national partners, meet our three scholarship winners and listen to Maria Bartiromo from CNBC. You can read more about their experience in this newsletter.
In our Q2 Newsletter, we also have some new columns, including a fantastic article from Billi Lee, the founder and CEO of The Savvy Institute and our Rising Star Mentoring program coach. Take a few moments to peruse this first edition and let us know what you think, or tell us what else you would like to see. Click here to share your feedback.
Cathy Traczek, President, WICT Greater Chicago Chapter
Just Tell It Like It Is!
by Billie Lee
With years of affirmative action, open doors, diversity training and special mentoring programs, many people the organization would like to see succeed, are still missing vital information.
Conscientious companies have encouraged the development of their workers with a wide variety of classes and programs ranging from basic technical skills to quasi-spiritual self-improvement seminars. With very few qualms, they have opened the company books for even the lowest ranked employee to examine, held town meetings where the top executives answered any and all questions from the floor, and even sacrificed senior management's dignity on team building raft trips. (Do we really need to see our bosses in bathing suits?)
Companies have flattened, access has widened, communications have improved, yet many employees who have been treated to the very latest in corporate training are still woefully unprepared for the cultural and political realities of the workplace.
It is no longer taboo to talk about families, health, addictions, and neurosis. Companies share the CEO's intimate visions about the future and top executives show no embarrassment revealing deeply held feelings about their own personal mission statements.
Business perestroika has reformed the organization, yet it is often still taboo to talk about company politics. Politics is the corporation's crazy aunt locked away in the attic, who everyone knows is there, yet never mentions her.
Whenever you have two or more people who have different views on how to do things, and different needs they are trying to fulfill, you will have politics in play. Politics is simply the system of artful influencing. Influencing abilities are not only necessary to get your job done, but to even keep it. Understanding and using leverage is part of influencing; so is knowing who the players are, who has power and who doesn't; so is a working knowledge of unspoken rules, untouchable sacred cows and hidden alliances.
But this entire subject is often not discussed or explained by those who know it and engage in it, with those they are trying to help up the organization.
I actually heard a very astute male CEO say to an audience of earnest women that they shouldn't have to play politics; that they should be above it. He never said it wasn't useful or that he never played, he just didn't want them to have to do it.
This is patronizing camouflaged as progressive concern. This CEO couldn't make it through his day without his savvy reading and negotiating the corporate waters.
The mistake that many well-intentioned mentors make is that they can't step outside their culture, analyze it and explain it to others. With very human egocentricity, the unidentified and unspoken set of savvy strategies they use every day appears to them as "common sense," which they expect everyone else to already have. But they don't seem to be aware that in this age of complex workforce diversity, not everyone else shares their common sense; "common" arising from similar shared experiences.
When I was in training for my Peace Corp post in an African village, the native teachers preparing us for our assignments left out important cultural (social and political) information. Without this information, many of us stumbled around, offending elders, making unnecessary mistakes, appearing less than intelligent, and a few of us were even arrested. Reacquainted with my former teachers at the end of my experience, I asked them why they didn't tell me about certain things I would have valued knowing. Very sincerely they all told me they just expected me to know such simple things. They assumed I shared their "common cultural sense."
I see the same, understandably human, yet unfortunate behavior, in very well-intentioned executives and managers. They don't coach their players in the social and political skills necessary for success. It's almost prudish behavior, like an uncomfortable parent discussing minimum sex facts with their child, hoping the child will pick up the rest of the information on their own.
Come on CEO's, executives, managers, supervisors, and informal or formally assigned mentors...tell it like it is! Share the hard-earned information you didn't learn in a textbook. If you would really help your people read the organization and teach them how to navigate the shifting waters, you wouldn't have to send them to so many time consuming and sometimes silly workshops. Be honest with yourself and identify allit takes to succeed in your system. Then share the facts and the art of corporate life with those you'd like to see succeed. Doing so is also a very effective screening tool, helping you separate those who are coachable from those who are not. Your best people will eventually figure the political landscape out, but you could save them and yourself time, money and stress if you'd just tell it like it is.
Billi Lee is the founder and CEO of The Savvy Institute, dedicated to helping people become more effective by becoming more savvy! www.billilee.com
Billi will be coaching the WICT Greater Chicago Rising Star Mentoring Program starting this June.
My day at the WICT Signature Luncheon
WICT Greater Chicago was thrilled to be able to send three local members to the WICT National Signature Luncheon event held in conjunction with the NCTA Show at McCormick Place in Chicago. WICT Greater Chicago members were asked to submit answers to two questions for the chance at two scholarship opportunities to attend the event. The decision was just too difficult, and the board ended up selecting three winners: Claudia Cornelius, Regional Ops Instructor, Comcast; Michelle Scheuermann, Director of Communications, the Sportsman Channel; and Jane Moyer, Founder and Leader, New Century Leadership.
Observations by Jane Moyer:
I was so happy to be able to attend the luncheon. I so appreciate WICT Chicago's support and opportunities for growth and connection.
It was a very good day! First, I got to spend some time with the WICT Chicago Board members who were helping out at the event. Always good to catch up, not only on business, but on families and such.
It turned out that our tickets were for the same table as a favorite former colleague of mine - a wonderful surprise! So I got to connect with old friends, as well as make some new connections.
Maria Bartiromo's talk really hit home with me. She talked about how much growth is coming from global markets, which is giving me the impetus to consider adjusting those 401k allocations to include a bit more international focus. (Disclaimer - I've probably already made more financial mistakes than most, so take that for what it's worth.) Also, she quoted some astounding numbers of mobile communication devices around the world (phones and smartphones) - confirmation that the world will be getting more and more content and conducting more activities "on the go." Lastly, she touched on a subject near and dear to me - the importance of innovation. While the U.S. may not in the future be the largest economy, we can continue to play a leadership role in the global economic scene by encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship. Since showing individuals and organizations how to develop creativity and innovate is one of my passions, her comments affirmed for me that my efforts are toward a worthwhile cause.
Then, we got to see clips and hear from women involved in the production of award-winning programming that showed portrayals of inspiring women. Found a few new shows to check out and loved seeing women up there on the stage giving and receiving significant awards.
Lastly, I got to meet the other two scholarship winners, Michelle and Claudia. Our WICT Chapter has so many talented members - it is wonderful to have an opportunity to connect with them.
Thanks!
Observations by Michelle Scheuermann:
A huge THANK YOU to WICT Chicago for sponsoring my seat at the WICT Signature Luncheon at the NCTA Show! I was very excited that I was selected as one of the winners. At the luncheon, I was most pleased to meet up with a few of my fellow WICT Rising Leaders classmates. I didn't realize they would be there as well - so it was fun to see them and catch up for a few minutes. I love attending WICT functions - be it a monthly meeting or a special event like this. You get to meet and mingle with so many great women. At my table were peers from The Weather Channel and MTV Networks. Since I work for an emerging network, I'm fascinated by how business happens at a larger company.
Maria Bartiromo gave an interesting speech - although not what I expected at a women's lunch. I was expecting the usual rah-rah, woman-are-power-builders speech. But instead, Maria spoke about opportunities internationally and the trends she is seeing overseas in Brazil, India and China. She brought up the "mobility trend" and said there are 4.5 billion cell phones in the world, but only 1 billion PCs. She even joked she had her blackberry up at the podium with her! But the one item I took to heart is her belief in continuing our country's entrepreneurial spirit and innovation. She asked, "Where are the needs in the world?" And gave an example of how GE Healthcare asked that question and found India had high cases of breast cancer. They asked the question, found the problem, and worked on providing a solution. (The solution was a portable mammogram machine to detect cancer cells earlier.)
Women are innovative and how many of us dream of owning our own business someday? We need to believe in our ability to build business in the U.S. Plus, we must continue helping and promoting those with the smarts and ambition to help us get there.
I Am WICT...7 Questions with an Industry Leader/Mentor
Each quarter we will interview an industry leader to include their perspective on women in leadership. This quarter we introduce you to Patricia A. Kelly (Patty Kelly, or PK) the Regional Director for Comcast University, Greater Chicago Region. Patty is based in Schaumburg, Illinois and leads the Corporate Care and Corporate Tech Ops frontline training efforts for the Greater Chicago Region. She currently leads 33 full time employees who serve approximately 7000 employees providing training and training resources for Sales, Leadership, XOC and Workforce Operations.
7 Questions
1. How would you describe your leadership style today?
Overall, I would describe my leadership style as collaborative. I love helping people become whoever it is that they wish to become - and I have been very fortunate to work in organizations (most notably, Comcast) that support collaborative leadership styles. I love to problem-solve with my direct reports, with our GCR team - inside and outside Comcast University, Division teams, and Corporate. My leadership style is collaborative and inclusive.
2. How has your leadership style changed over the years, and why?
Yes - my leadership style continues to evolve, as I believe that learning about leading is an on-going process throughout one's career. I have been evolving my style very rapidly recently with the changing dynamics and generational differences in the workplace. I believe that is important to be able to relate to the ever-changing priorities of our talented workforce; which, to me, is the purest reflection of the communities that we serve. Evolving my leadership style in the present and in the future is a given as our global workplace evolves.
3. What is one lesson about leadership you learned from a boss or mentor?
Conversations that are not authentic do not serve your employees, nor do they serve your organization. The more quickly that you can establish an environment that is a balance of authenticity combined with compassion, the faster you will achieve the business results that you're after. People do "weird stuff" out of fear. If they are fearful of sharing the truth with you, if they fear being authentic in your workplace, then you're setting yourself up to forever getting close to success; and/or never discovering the root cause of what might be holding you back as leader, as a team, or as an organization.
4. What is one lesson you would like to pass on to other leaders?
Take yourself "off the grid" for at least four hours, twice a week. I have discovered that my evenings and weekends are so much more balanced if I am not responding to email that is non-critical or non-business impacting during a short planned time away from work. In addition to this, critical recharge time happens during this timeframe - and my best problem solving usually shows up in the times when I'm not "chasing an answer." Whether I'm taking a walk, hanging out with friends and family, or whatever it is that I'm doing that brings me joy outside of working - these times are critical to maintain good energy, and a balanced model for my team.
5. What is the best career or management decision you have made?
The best career decision that I ever made was to take a lateral move to a location in which I would learn how to operate an entire training function for a small cable communications system. This move took me from being specialized in one aspect of the training function (I was a Leadership Training Manager), to being able to conduct meaningful training analysis so that our training team would have the skills to understand the needs of Network (Line) Techs, Tech Ops, Construction, Engineering, Dispatch, Customer Care, and Sales. Though this experience was on a much smaller scale of what our local Comcast University Learning & Development team manages today, it was the catalyst that provided me the background of where I am today.
6. What is one career or management decision you would like to do over?
Anything that I would do over - even if I would like to do so - shaped my career trajectory to where I am today. I am grateful for both the many successes and the many failures that I've had in my career. Until you really know failure, I'm not sure if you can savor and appreciate success at its sweetest; and, that you can understand that setbacks are a natural part of all career evolutions. I still have so much to do, to learn, and to grow into as a leader - even though I'm a seasoned leader.
7. What is one thing you wish "they" would have told you, about being a leader?
I wish that "they" would have told me that we are always influencing people all around us, all of the time. Words of encouragement really do matter, and I wish that I would have started encouraging earlier in my leadership career. There is such great joy in watching someone who you had believed in go on to great, great things - whether it's work related or not. For example, a trainer whom I led 10 years ago phoned me up over the weekend and said, "I wanted you to be the first person I called to let you know that I just received my college diploma. You were the only person in my life who ever believed that I could do it - and after years of calling you and telling you, 'I can't do this,' and you saying, 'Of course you can do this,' - I DID IT!!!" Her joy was truly a moment of joy for me too. (And I can't wait to see what she does next!)
Bonus Question:
You are a Mentor in the WICT Mentoring Program. Can you describe your experiences or what you have gained from the program/relationship.
It is important to me, as a woman in business, to work with other women in our industry who want to continue to grow their careers and their lives. I have gained a chance to help empower women through the WICT Mentoring Program with other women or men who are at a place where being able to talk about where they are in their careers, develop action plans, and/or shadow people will gain them (and me) helps glean insight into several different areas of a communications organizations. The entire experienced is truly valuable to mentees - and to me as a mentor.
One last thing: Can you describe why you got involved with WICT and/or the WICT Mentoring program?
I believe that everyone needs someone in their life who is a coach who is not family, friend, boss, or peer. I learn so much from mentees, and I look forward to continuing to grow as a mentor.
I Am WICT...Get to know your WICT Board
Fun facts you never knew about Christian Aponte our WICT Greater Chicago Webmaster and XOC Network Technician with Comcast.
Tell us something no one knows about you?
Whenever I get the chance...I like to play the guitar, both electric and acoustic.
What is your Must See TV show?
Now that Lost and 24 have ended their long successful runs, my attention has been shifted to How I Met Your Mother and Game of Thrones.
What leadership books do you recommend to colleagues?
TRIBES by Seth Godin. The book mainly reflects on how changes can be influenced by "tribes" within organizations and even corporations. This can be attributed to a sense of "tribal knowledge" where similarly minded individuals help each other to attain the next level in leadership.
Who are you rooting for?
Chicago Bulls, D-Rose, and the Bench Mob!
What was the best/worst advice (professional or personal) you ever received?
Best advice: "Do nothing, and nothing will happen."
Worst advice: "You are not in control."
What do you do on the WICT Board?
I am part of the Communications team, mainly dealing with designing and maintaining any WICT-related media portals such as the WICT Greater Chicago website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. My main goal is to distribute our chapter's information online all the time!
Why are you involved with WICT?
For several reasons: keeps me updated on the current and future cable technologies, professional and leadership development opportunities, and it allows me to enhance my network.
Click here to see your WICT Greater Chicago Board.
Membership Update: Welcome new members
by Andrea Oden and Allen Roscoe, Membership Co-Chairs
The Greater Chicago Chapter had a strong new and renewal membership drive in 2011. We have exceeded our renewal goal and are nearing 100% for our new member goal. In total, we are on track to exceed our total membership goals. We recently added 39 new members to our Chapter! Thank you to everyone for your commitment in growing our membership.
Growing membership is a contribution every Chapter member can make to WICT. Andrea or Allen can help you with your membership efforts or work with an individual you have already identified. We are an e-mail away. Andrea can be reached at andrea_oden-wilson@cable.comcast.com and Allen at allen_roscoe@cable.comcast.com. Thank you to everyone who has helped drive membership.
We would like to welcome our new members: Antoinette Akers, Carlos Arizmendi, Daniele Bellamy, Leena Bhojwani, Schellyce Blake, Ruby Brown, Thea Camara, Samra Cejvan, Vu Chan, Gerren Christian, Jack Christie, Steven Clay, Tracy Curran, Retrola Davis, Pam Drews, Karen Finley, Cheryl Frazier, Pamela Grossman, Brandon Jones, Tonnellie Jones, Iyaz Ali Khan, Andy Kula, James Kwon, Andrew Linski, Kashonda Little, David Martinez, Mark Menke, Stephanie Mitchell, Julie Muwwakkil, Aaron Nowakowski, Amy Rasmussen, Jack Segal, Alan Shinkunas, Osama Syed, Sheree Teller, Sherrell Terrell, Hilda Torres, Juan Velasquez and Monique Wallace. Congratulations!
We look forward to having them join us at the upcoming Chapter events. And remember, if you know someone who should joins WICT, and really who shouldn't, we will be soliciting new members through the end of the third quarter.
News & Notes
What are you doing out there? We want to know. Do you have a happy announcement to share in the next newsletter? Send member promotions, award, marriage, baby, career change, etc., news, or any other great accomplishment to WICTChicago@gmail.com . You are WICT and we want to share your news with your fellow WICT members.
Christian Aponte graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Mathematics. He participated in the spring 2011 commencement at the UIC Pavilion and completed his degree with a GPA of 3.8.
Christine Delestowicz, Distribution Field Manager for Crown Media Networks (Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel), has been accepted into the September session of WICT National's Rising Leaders Program.
Brandon Jones was recently promoted to Fulfillment Supervisor in the Workforce Operations Inbound Dispatch department with Comcast, from the Billing and Repair Team in Care in Woodridge.
Craig Oznick was promoted to Senior Channel Guide Account Manager for Tribune Media Services. In his new role, Craig will be responsible for mentoring and training new account managers and work on call center management to increase Channel Guide Magazine sales.
Sharisse Sheridan has accepted the position of HFC Service Desk Manager for the Comcast's Chicago XOC. Sharisse will be responsible for ensuring that all XOC/Network metrics are achieved.
Adam Tangle has joined Tribune Media Services (TMS) as Channel Guide Magazine Account Manager. Adam will be visit Time Warner and Cox call centers to increase awareness off and grow Channel Guide Magazine monthly sales. Before joining TMS, Adam worked for Time Warner Wisconsin on their telesales team.
Cathy Traczek, President of the WICT Greater Chicago Chapter and Senior Director of Workforce Operations for the Chicago Region of Comcast, is a very proud mother right now. Her son, Zach, graduated from Bolingbrook High School and is headed to Iowa State University to major in Architecture. At the recent Spring Sports Awards, Zach was also awarded the "Pride of the Program" award by the baseball coaches.
Upcoming WICT Greater Chicago Events
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Get Savvy: Become Politically Astute
Introduction by LeAnn Talbot, Senior Regional Vice President, Comcast Greater Chicago Region
Hosted by Billi Lee, CEO and Founder of the Savvy Institute and leader of our Rising Star Mentoring Program.
Wednesday, August 10
Educational Series: Multicultural Awareness
Thursday, September 15
Negotiating/Influencing: Get What You Want
Hosted by Billi Lee, CEO and Founder of the Savvy Institute and leader of our Rising Star Mentoring Program.
October, 2011
Case Study: Change Management
Thursday, December 8
Holiday Wrap Up & Reflection benefitting Toys with Tots - Party with a Purpose
Upcoming WICT National Events
Nominations Sought For 2011 Women In Technology Award - click here for more.
Nominations Sought For 2011 Woman of the Year and Woman to Watch awards - Click here for more
October 3-4
WICT Leadership Conference - click here for more.
October 20 at 12:00 pm (Central)
Searching for Yoda - Why Mentors Matter and How to Find Them
Executive recruiter and career coach, Ann Carlsen, will present "Searching for Yoda - Why Mentors Matter and How to Find Them." In this webinar about mentorship, the not-so-secret ingredient in most successful careers, Ann will discuss why everyone needs a mentor and how to cultivate and sustain a mentoring relationship, recruit sponsors, and mentor others. Click here for more information and to register for this free webinar!
Connect with WICT
· Network with your colleagues across the country through WICT Connects
· Friend us on Facebook and share with your friends
· Follow-us on Twitter
· Get LinkedIn with other professionals
· Subscribe to WICT Chicago's YouTube channel
· And make our WICT Greater Chicago page one of your favorites!
· Check out photos from our events on our Photo Page
News you can use!
Check out these great resources from around the web.
Women Success Coaching: A blog from success coach Bonnie Marcus, Women's Success Coaching weighs in on the many building blocks of empowering women in business, from assertive communication to self promotion to sensitivity training.
Womenetics: A networking platform for professional women that features daily content on business and personal relationships.
Share your favorite resources too and we may use them in our next newsletter. Click here to send us a note.
