By Susan Owicki
An extraordinary group of senior women leaders in mathematics and technology came together in January for the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) Leadership Workshop held on January 15th & 16th. The fifty participants — executives, professors, researchers, and deans — gathered at IPAM’s Los Angeles center for a rare opportunity to talk with their peers about the challenges they face and the wisdom they have gained from experience.
“This group of women technology thought leaders have the power to change the world.” said Maria Klawe, Dean of Engineering at Princeton University, “but many feel very alone. The chance to come together and share their issues and solutions with their peers was extraordinary.”
The Workshop program was designed with participants’ needs in mind. In an advance questionnaire, the women were asked to identify what they most wanted from the meeting. Networking stood out as a high priority, so plenty of time was allowed for informal conversations. Participants appreciated the chance to develop new connections and strengthen old ones. “It was a powerful and very positive experience to get all of us together,” observed one participant. “I had no idea there were so many interesting and dynamic women at senior levels in Computer Science and Math.” The Anita Borg Institute will provide an email distribution list, called girlgrid, to help participants stay in touch with each other after the Workshop.
Besides networking, the women wanted to learn about effective leadership from each other’s experience. The heart of the Workshop was a set of breakout sessions organized around themes that emerged from the advance questionnaire, and supplemented by a summary of current leadership models. In each of these sessions, participants described their current challenges and shared stories of their successes and failures. Confidentiality was emphasized, and conversations were honest, insightful, and supportive. “The real value [of the Workshop] was having very FRANK discussions about the work environment,” reported one participant. “We don’t normally get that in a typical leadership workshop.”
“The issues faced by women leaders in technical fields are unique,” said Telle Whitney, President and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute. “The typical leadership programs just don’t meet their needs, even the ones aimed at women. We knew from the Senior Women’s Summit at the Grace Hopper Conference how much these women are energized by talking with each other. We wanted to provide a day where they could do that and focus on leadership.”
As the women shared the stories, they often spoke of pragmatic concerns: time management, fund-raising, politics, and personnel issues. Yet there was also a larger focus. These women want to change culture: the culture of their own organizations and the culture beyond. They want to promote more diversity in the workplace, especially bringing more women into technical roles. And they are committed to having the benefits of the workshop extend beyond the set of women in attendance.
In talking about their leadership style, participants stressed consensus and collaboration. Many see the key to their job as helping people work together, within a department or across organizational boundaries. Building community is essential.
Participants were concerned about developing their roles as leaders. They wondered whether women lead differently than men and how being female affects technical leadership. They are aware that women’s contributions as leaders may look different from men’s and may “disappear” because their value isn’t recognized. And they shared their experience with ways of maintaining visibility.
Although the leaders expressed frustration at some of the obstacles they still face, their success stories were filled with optimism and humor. Here is a sampling of their ideas. A more detailed summary of the break-out sessions is available here.
- The most important tool for building community: Food. Donuts on an employee’s first day of work, barbeques at the beginning of a new quarter, weekly coffee hours, regularly scheduled lunches. Sharing food brings people together.
- Leveling: Take an idea from the way our kids play video games. When they succeed at one level in the game, they get bumped up to the next level, where they have to face new and harder challenges. And as soon as they learn how to beat that level, they move up again. Sometimes we think that we need to know how to do the job before we take it on, but that isn’t true. We can learn by doing.
- Scouts: When working in an unfamiliar area, “send out scouts”. Find someone who has relationships in the area and let them find out the lay of the land.
- Socializing ideas: Like children, ideas may need some refinement before they are well received in society. Talk to others to find out where you ideas need to be refined.
- Sharing ownership: Identify someone who is inclined to support your idea, and hand it over to them. When people feel ownership of an idea, they will take more responsibility for carrying it out. “The machine oils itself.”
- Carrots and sticks: Both rewards and punishments can be motivators when you don’t have the power to order change. Use a phased approach: if a few attempts at offering rewards don’t win cooperation, switch to a stick.
- Managing up: The biggest carrot is the fact that those above you want to succeed. Help them do so, and align your goals so that you will succeed together. The corresponding stick is withdrawing your services, e.g. by changing your focus or even taking another job offer. Use it sparingly.
The response to the Workshop was so positive that the Anita Borg Institute and IPAM are committed to offering further leadership workshops. A Senior Women’s Leadership Summit at the next Grace Hopper Conference will be patterned after the current Leadership Workshop. It will include additional training, probably on negotiation, which many participants requested. Further possibilities include a Leadership workshop on the East Coast and a reunion meeting for women from the current Workshop. A future workshop may target a mix of up-and-coming and senior leaders, so that those earlier in their careers can learn from those with more experience. The day closed with a commitment of the participants to stay in touch, and optimism about the future.