In This Issue:

• Leading Change
• Profile
• Woman Talk
• Managing Diversity
• Management Tip of the Month
• Book Nook
• Ethics Dilemma

PROFILE:
Cara Brennan

Each month we will profile someone in the business, non-profit or government sector who has shown superior leadership or management skills. If you know someone who should be profiled, please send the person's name, title, organization and contact information to edgeline.

NAME: Cara Brennan
TITLE: Human Resources Director
COMPANY: Young & Rubicam, San Francisco

Cara Brennan established herself early in her career as a rising talent in Human Resources. She is an active Bay Area leader, working with Leadership Contra Costa and as fundraising campaign coordinator for United Way. She is involved in animal welfare organizations such as ARF (Animal Rescue Foundation) at the local and national level. She enjoys Pilates, yoga and hiking.

What is most exciting about your current role?

I feel a real connection to the marketplace as a part of an agency that develops campaigns for national brands like Dr Pepper, 7Up, Palm and Chevron. It’s great to turn on the TV and see the creative work of employees.

What is your biggest challenge?

The volatility of the advertising business creates an environment where long term human resource strategy can be difficult. We are a client-focused organization, so our client’s needs come first and they can change day to day. This affects staffing, compensation, employee morale - in other words all areas where I have responsibility.

Briefly describe an experience that taught you a lot about leadership or management.

As a management team, we had made a promise to employees and found we were unable to deliver on it. Team members became anxious and began devising scenarios of what and how to tell the team. When the president said, “We’re simply going to tell them the truth,” everybody took a breath of relief. It was the right thing to do. I learned that leadership is making the hard calls—and the right calls.

Describe someone who is a hero to you, or mentor or role model?

My heroes are people that show strength of character. Human resource professionals live in the gray area of judgment—between law, business needs, employee needs and market desires. I look for mentors that can navigate that space with integrity.

What personal strengths have led to your own success?

I am an optimist. I love what I do and this has made it easier for me to be resilient. I see success as being able to make it through the tough times and really enjoying the good times.

---

Cara Brennan

Born: Lexington, KY
Education: Master of Human Resources and Organization Development, University of San Francisco; Bachelor’s in English, University of Kentucky
Also worked at: Franklin Templeton Investments, Knight Ridder
Movie you found inspirational on the topic of leadership: Elizabeth I

Management Tip

Are you dealing with a vocal change resister? The person who sits in the back and grumbles whenever management launches a new initiative: “This won’t work.” “We’ve never done it that way.” Consider inviting this person into the process. Solicit her ideas about executing the change. Invite him to sit on the implementation task force. If the person is an opinion leader, weigh the pros and cons of assigning her a leadership role in the change initiative. Best, get the resister’s input before the change is announced. Send the message: There are no free passes in criticizing change. In your workplace, people can only identify problems if they are willing to work towards solutions

- Larry Olmstead

Ten key leadership skills

for times of transformation

By Larry Olmstead

New competitors are emerging. Innovative products and services are challenging your core business. Market share is eroding. Cost pressures are mounting. And everything is happening so quickly.

It is time to transform your organization. But do you — and your management colleagues —have the skills necessary to lead change?

That question sits squarely in front of media executives. Magazines, television and radio stations and especially newspapers face dramatic change as they cope with the combined impact of the digital information age, the Internet, globalization and demographic shifts that eat at once-comfortable profit margins and market share.

Against that backdrop, the Newspaper Association of America hired Leading Edge Associates to study the shifts in leadership-style needed to help media executives weather the storm. Working with Bigby Havis & Associates, an organizational psychology and assessment firm, LEA identified ten competencies that spell success for managers in the media business —a model whose themes resonate for other industries undergoing disruptive transformation.

Competencies are the skills, knowledge and traits needed to excel in a given job or role. The Leading Edge list for media executives:

1. Vision: Identifying strategic goals and championing innovation. Success means setting long-term goals, taking risks and encouraging diverse thoughts and contributions.

2. Customer Focus: Identifying customer needs and exceeding their expectations. Success means listening to customers, valuing their feedback and always seeking new customers and new markets.

3. Championing Change: Effectively promoting and implementing change initiatives. Success means committing resources to change initiatives, and staying resilient and upbeat.

4. Driving Results: Pushing the organization to excel and achieve measurable results. Success means setting challenging goals, overcoming obstacles and holding yourself and others accountable.

5. Interpersonal Communication: Communicating clearly and effectively with people inside and outside the organization. Success means possessing strong speaking, writing and listening skills, and sharing information readily.

6. Relationship Management: Building and maintaining positive relationships inside and outside the organization to accomplish business objectives. Success involves setting aside sufficient time to interact with internal and external customers, helping others accomplish objectives and displaying good social skills.

7. Coaching and Developing: Helping employees improve their skills and encouraging their long-term career growth. Success means conveying high expectations, giving useful and consistent feedback and providing opportunities to try new things.

8. Integrity: Upholding a high standard of fairness and ethics. Success means being honest and ethical in all business dealings, having the courage to stand for beliefs, and delivering on promises.

9. Business Acumen: Understanding general business and financial concepts and how they apply to the organization. Success means applying business principles to achieve strong results, knowing how the organization is performing and being able to explain it to others.

10. Learning Agility: The ability to learn and adapt in a way that improves performance. Success means learning from experience, looking for opportunities to develop new skills and sharing knowledge and ideas freely.

Competency models help drive success when they are used to develop hiring and selection criteria, and to help in design of training initiatives.

Leading Edge has developed consulting tools and training modules around the new model. The ASSESS alliance is important to Leading Edge, as the Dallas firm’s computer-administered personality tests and 360-degree instruments evaluate these competencies. Participants receive a computerized report, modeling the judgment of an organizational psychologist, that explains their strengths in leading change and suggests ways to develop their weaknesses.

For more information about leading change or using this model, please contact Larry Olmstead. To read the NAA study on leading change in media, click here.

WOMAN TALK: Show Her the Money

By Dinah Eng

Barbara Stanny believes that wealth is not measured by dollars, but by your ability to live the life you want. That said, she also believes that women are ambivalent about money and undervalue their net worth.

“One of the biggest surprises I had when writing ‘Secrets of Six-Figure Women” was learning that few women in six-figure positions had significant savings,” says Stanny, a motivational speaker and author of “Prince Charming Isn’t Coming” and “Overcoming Underearning.”

“They were so busy making money, they had little time or interest in managing it. As these women climbed up the pay scale, the majority hit the illusion of affluence. But it’s not what you make, it’s what you do with what you make.”
Stanny, who gives seminars for women on how to earn more money, advises female executives to educate themselves about money and to save a percentage of every paycheck— putting money into retirement savings first, then personal savings.

“Max out that 401(k) first because that’s the only gift from the government gods we’ve got,” Stanny says. “Then pay off the credit card debts and stop further debt, period. It’s difficult to attain the next level of your career while you’re incurring debt: it drains your energy and creativity.”

Stanny says it is critical to work with a financial professional, and to develop a financial plan that reviews a woman’s overall financial picture, and how she can accomplish her goals and dreams.

“It doesn’t take a lot of time to get smart, or a lot of money to create wealth,” Stanny says. “To me, wealth is when you can live life on your own terms. That’s different for every person. To make a conscious choice to earn less because doing something feeds your soul is one thing, but under-earning never leads to a saner life. Women under-earn far more than men do.” This is partly due to glass ceiling issues, she says, but the biggest obstacle to earning more is really our own attitudes. “Women devalue ourselves,” she says. “We give away our time, our expertise, our knowledge and skills for free or bargain prices because we don’t feel we deserve more. We put everybody’s needs before our own, and putting ourselves first is a prerequisite to earning more.”

Stanny says one key to overcoming under-earning is having a profit motive—moving past subconscious feelings that having money is bad and that people who have it are greedy, insensitive or feel superior.

“Once you decide you want to earn more, you begin to see opportunities that may lie outside your comfort zone,” Stanny says. “It’s all about a woman’s right to power, and how our attitudes about money hold us back in our life goals and dreams. Understanding that, you can use your money to make a difference in the world.”

MANAGING DIVERSITY: Gay issues advance in the workplace

By Jacqui Love Marshall

Major corporations appear to be making progress in efforts tto create a hospitable workplace for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people.

“Last June the gay rights movement quietly achieved a milestone," reported Fortune magazine in its November 30, 2006 issue. "For the first time, more than half of Fortune 500 companies—263, to be precise—offered health benefits for domestic partners, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Ten years ago only 28 did.”

Inside many big companies, GLBT people now find health benefits for their families, bereavement leave when their partner dies, adoption assistance or paid leave if they have children and relocation assistance for their partners if they are transferred.

IBM, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, Raytheon and Chevron are responding to advocacy efforts from GLBT employee groups. Working internally, gay employees with a strong performance history and high credibility are able to lobby for better benefits, career opportunities and workplace resources. Chevron produced an eight-page brochure, Transgender@Chevron, which outlines issues that arise when an employee goes through a change in gender identity. The guide includes helpful information like when to shift using restrooms or get a new photo ID.

Companies also seek out the GLBT community in recruitment efforts for well-educated, experienced professionals, particularly computer engineers, lawyers, accountants and MBA grads. In 2006, Ernst & Young sponsored a gay and lesbian recruiting event to reach MBA students; IBM sponsored an event to help students organize a national gay organization for students in science and technology.

Here are suggestions for improving your company's positioning on GLBT issues:

• True diversity goes beyond tolerance to respecting, then valuing and leveraging the power of GLBT employees to support the business.

• Some employees perceive sexual orientation to be in conflict with their religious and social beliefs. The workplace cannot regulate religious/social beliefs, but companies should establish firm policies that prohibit harassment of employees, including GLBT employees.

• Negative stereotypes of GLBT people are a natural consequence of bias and lack of knowledge. Diversity training can surface and address the lack of information and understanding.

• When employees raise questions or concerns about another employee’s sexual orientation, guide him/her to think out loud about whether the other person's sexual orientation has anything to do with his/her ability to complete a task or work with others professionally.

• Don’t assume that all GLBT employees are public regarding their orientation. Privacy issues, plus long-standing history of stigma and backlash, lead many to prefer silence. Don’t “out” someone inadvertently. Discourage others from doing so.

Diversity in the corporate workplace continues to evolve and each of us has a role. As the workplace increasingly welcomes people in the GLBT community, you can be a good role model or a negative one. Which will you be?

BOOK NOOK

As a classic overachiever, Carly Fiorina has crammed several major themes within this 309-page hardback tome. One is how she rose from modest middle-class roots to become chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and Fortune Magazine’s “Most Powerful Woman in Business.” Second is the tale of the woman who had to break through the glass ceiling—and all the double standards endured along the way to the top. Next comes the story of Fiorina’s tenure at HP, including the controversial blockbuster Compaq acquisition and ultimately her dismissal by the board of directors in 2005. (This book definitely helps explain the HP board spying scandal that unraveled after Fiorina’s departure.) Finally, this is a book about business and leadership that should be required reading for anyone vying to be CEO. “Tough Choices” is a forthright book. Fiorina has no problem citing by name her supporters and detractors from childhood to the present. Yet, by page 309, she is still unable to clearly explain why she was forced out at HP. Perhaps that is the point: in her mind, there was no clear reason. Unfortunately, this creates an unsatisfying end to an otherwise satisfying read.

- Larry Olmstead

ETHICS DILEMMA: Look What I Found on the Internet!

Jerry Ceppos will answer questions about ethical issues every month. Along with two others, he received the first Ethics in Journalism Award of the Society of Professional Journalists. Write Jerry at jceppos@aol.com. Tell him if you don't want your name used.

Q. My recruiting manager went to MySpace and found compromising materials (with pictures on one of our strong candidates. We were ready to make an offer, but this give us pause. Is it legal, ethical and proper to factor in MySpace information in the hiring process?

A. We remember a case in simpler pre-Internet times, when the sure-fire applicant for a mid-level professional job didn’t get it—because he asked his future boss’s secretary to go out with him while interviewing. (He didn’t get the date either.)

Stupidity has been a perfectly legal, ethical and proper argument against hiring someone. It is just easier now to track down that stupidity—for example, compromising pictures posted on a semi-public site.

The Boston Globe says that looking at social-networking sites is routine for many hiring managers. “For potential employees, it is not uncommon for senior executives to have a media search conducted that would include all public statements the individual has made,” said Tal Moise, chief executive of VerifiedPerson.

However, remember that the old ethical and legal rules apply online. Don’t make your hiring choices based on ethnicity, appearance, age or religion—all of which might be easier to determine online.

Edgeline is published the second Tuesday of each month by Leading Edge Associates, a consulting firm engaged in management training, organizational change, succession planning, executive coaching, diversity and media. Rebecca Kuiken, managing editor of Edgeline, can be reached at (408) 960-9472.