The Gender Blog

Last week,  I had a very interesting meeting with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women (CBFfW), a relatively new charity set up by barrister Cherie Blair, which aims to strengthen the capacity of women entrepreneurs in countries where they lack equal opportunities,  thus enabling them to grow their businesses and become greater contributors to their economies.

The Foundation aims to offer women better access to business development support networks and finance in areas of the world which include India, Israel, Kenya, Malawi and Palestine.

The CBFfW is now launching  their Mentoring Women in Business Pilot and if you’d like to be a Mentor … read on.

The 10-month pilot programme will support women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, India, Israel and Palestine through mentoring. Approximately 30 entrepreneurial women will be mentored by 40 successful entrepreneurs or professionals. The pilot aims to demonstrate that there are measurable and tangible benefits from partnering women with entrepreneurial potential in developing and transition countries with successful Mentors in the UK using Google’s online applications such as Sites, Docs, Chat and Gmail. The pilot will involve testing exciting new formats and applications, so the Foundation is  looking for Mentors who are willing to be at the forefront of the development of this extraordinary international programme.

Being a Mentor is a great opportunity to share your knowledge and experience while helping others to succeed and learn about other cultures, places, businesses and market opportunities. Your participation in the Mentoring Women in Business Pilot will require a minimum of one hour of your time every two weeks, and the more you engage,  the more you will help shape the future of the Mentoring Programme.  Some of the Mentors applying for the pilot will be matched with a Mentee by July and will be able to start the mentoring relationship right away, while others will be matched in October, when a second group of Mentees will be ready to participate in the programme. Some Mentors will not be matched with a Mentee, but their involvement in the programme will be crucial for the successful management of the mentoring Platform, as they will be able to contribute to the public forums and share their expertise with Mentors and Mentees alike. The pilot phase will finish in May 2011.

Mentors are asked to provide a minimum donation of £100 per year to help support the programme and will be given training from Google on how to use Google’s applications and from renowned experts, Clutterbuck Associates and the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Cambridge Judge Business School, on how to develop a strong and effective mentoring relationship. The one-day training course for the Mentors will be on July 14^th (it’s free) and will be a great opportunity to learn new skills and to network with like-minded people.

The Platform built with Google to run the Mentoring Women in Business Programme is now ready; if you would like additional information or have any questions, you can contact the programme’s project manager via gc@cherieblairfoundation.org

If, having browsed the site, you’d like to apply to become a Mentor, please apply now, as the the application deadline is 23^rdJune.

And please feel free to share this link with anyone who you think would be a great mentor for these women around the world.

This time last year, I was in Bangalore, India, participating in NASSCOM’s annual women in IT Leadership forum. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out to be the last ever business trip that I would take in my then job – so it’s particularly apt that it turned out to be both the most memorable trip of my career to date and also the most fun. I spoke on the opening panel about the business imperatives of gender diversity and also participated in Australian company emberin’s launch of their “my mentor: Challenging Indian Women to Step Up” toolkit. This is a box set of DVDs and CDs which enables women to both coach themselves and to learn from others as to the key steps and barriers which can help or hinder their career progression; here I am on the panel event where emberin founder Maureen Frank, pictured centre (and a woman so charismatic that she could found her own cult) led a roomful of 400 women in a debate around breaking the glass ceiling and crunching the pieces underfoot.

In my previous life/role, we used “my mentor” in Australia, South Africa and India and saw some amazing results amongst our women – huge increases in promotion rates, confidence levels and general happiness and life satisfaction. So I was thrilled to note that the innovative Ms Frank has taken the MM concept to another level and launched a new product, designed to support women through their parental leave. Aimed at ladies who are either pregnant or hoping to be pregnant soon, the kit, described as a “self paced one stop shop parental leave program” is a stand-alone CD, DVD and workbook kit designed for women planning to take parental leave at work.

 Key content includes:

• Before, during and after parental leave: strategies you will need to consider at work and at home in order to balance everything on your plate;
• Key advice on what to plan for, what to expect, how to negotiate, and how to communicate issues concerning parental leave;
• Practical tips, checklists, budgets and templates for busy working women about to embark on one of the biggest challenges of their careers – having a baby.

The program is a self-guiding, advanced short course and can be done in a day, a weekend or over a few weeks. It takes a pragmatic and practical step by step approach and helps you face challenges, keeps you motivated and makes your parental leave journey a rewarding and successful one.

If you would like a chance to win a copy of emberin’s my mentor Parental Leave program, enter their competition between now and 29th November by sending an email (of 100 words or less) detailing why you feel you need guidance on taking parental leave.

Send your entry along with your name, address and email to magic@emberin.com

The winner will be notified by email and announced on the emberin website on Wednesday, 2nd December 2009.

Good luck!

What an interesting, if exhausting, weekend. I spent it at a venue in central London on an “Introduction to Personal Performance Coaching” course and felt, particularly at the end of the first day, as if I had, to quote me ould Irish granny, been “ridden hard and put away wet.”

(That’s a saying about horses. In case you were wondering).

Unlike, I think, about 98 of the 100 people there, I was pretty sure when I booked the course that I was unlikely to be paying for future coaching courses and so I went in with the mindset that learning more about what coaching is and how I could acquire those skills in order to be a better people manager in my next job would be a really good outcome for me. On Sunday afternoon, we were asked by the trainer if we saw ourselves having either a part-time coaching business (two thirds of the room), a full time business (most of the rest) or just using the skills: me and one other person.

So, what did I learn? Well, first of all, it was good to spend two days with a very nice and amazingly diverse group of people and to hear their stories. A lot of coaching is focussed on listening to the “client” and so, when we were having our “peer coaching” sessions, I, as the “coach” closed my mouth, opened my ears and really, truly, listened. At first, that felt, and here I’ll be brutally honest … extremely hard. But, like any other muscle, you can train it to do your bidding and so I felt that my listening skills were much improved by the end of the two days. We also had to act as “observers” to others when they were, respectively, the “coach” and the “client” and that was a great object lesson in listening, observing but also giving thoughtful and constructive feedback.

As my own life is still in something of a tsunami of thoughts, decisions, options and confusion following on from my redundancy, I found the sessions on goal setting to be really helpful, albeit they did open up quite a can of worms for me when I thought about what I’ve achieved so far and where I hope to be. The trainer-cum-coach, Ann Skidmore , was just fabulous at working with us as a group and helping us to understand so much more about the goal setting process and why people find it so hard.

We also spent time working with Pam Lidford on our beliefs and she explained to us that, when we align goals with our values, success will follow. Pam clarified all of this with a series of great exercises around the concept of moving from a comfort zone to a stretch zone to a panic zone (and back again) and helped us to recognise where we are and how we feel (familiar and cosy – or stressed and unhappy, depending!)

I was also fascinated to learn how those who wanted to set up their own coaching businesses planned to do so and I met several women who hope to, for example, coach and support other women who want to return to the workplace after a career break, or who would like some coaching help in coping with the curve ball that can be new motherhood. Others wanted to break into the corporate/executive coaching and leadership space and we had some interesting debates around the issues facing women in business. And some men and women wanted to do the youth coaching diploma and work with young people; it was wonderfully heartening to see their passion and commitment to making a difference to the lives of the next generation.

The final session was applicable to the 98% but not to the one other bloke and me who didn’t want to set up our own coaching business, as it was all about how to get going, how to get clients, what to charge and so on.

However, on the premise that nothing is ever wasted, I listened in and hence took away the suggestion that using Twitter can be a great way to connect with people and get your message out there. As I’m nothing if not a late adopter … The Gender Blog is now on Twitter and you can see a link to my “tweets” on the right of the screen. Come and find me and join in.

My tweets thus far have been about the “Girls’ Night In” charity event I’m organising for later this week; I’ll be blogging about that tomorrow and there’s also a link to my “Just Giving” page here and on the right under the “Blogroll” section.

Thank you in advance if you feel able to make a donation to support Plan International’s work for girls and women around the world.