WOMEN – FIND YOUR CORPORATE VOICE!

Speakers: Kerrie Halmi – Halmi Performance Consulting

On June 26th, we had our second local Forum event in Berkeley.  An amazing group of talented women attended our event and everyone was able to participate in our roundtable discussion. We shared insights, tips, and experiences and had a wonderful time!

Here are some highlights and a few audience questions we wanted to share.

Women are often held back by not having their corporate voice heard. If women are not heard, they can lose out on promotions, assignments, money, credit, and flexibility.

FOUR STRATEGIES TO FIND YOUR CORPORATE VOICE:

1. Improve your self-confidence
2. Increase your confidence image
3. Jump In
4. Use “side door” strategies to gain support.

Q: How do you deal with colleagues who interrupt or how do you defuse a situation where a person is aggressive?  Is making light of it and making the person comfortable the right response?
A: It’s a good idea to go up to the person later to discuss the situation. Ask the person what the situation was about and determine why they acted the way they did.  Build a relationship with that colleague to help address the problem and set boundaries where needed.

Q: How do you make communications via email effective?
A: It depends upon the individual. We tend to fall into the same roles along gender differences.  Being direct can be an effective tactic and you can look at results you get to determine if it’s working. You might need to look at how you are communicating and be more direct in your writing. Can your message fit into preview pane of Outlook? Keeping it short is often helpful.  In addition, try to do things in person when you’re trying to convince someone of something or to do something rather than relying on email.