Navigating the glass maze
Any woman in a SET (science,engineering, and technology) career can attest that sometimes we see where we want to go in our career– but sometimes we have trouble navigating just how to do this. When I read “The Athena Factor” (published by the Harvard Business Review ) I realized I was not alone. I was also shocked at the statistics for how many women leave SET careers mid-career (52%!!!!). As a woman in science, any opportunity to learn how we can achieve career bests while balancing the needs of our family is of interest to me – particularly at this point in my career.
Last week, a group of ten of us at Global Research packed into a small conference room over lunch to participate in the New York State Capital District Society of Women Engineers and Excelsior College’s webinar “Negotiating the Glass Maze”. Local women in technology and academia served as panelists sharing with us their experiences of how they achieved career success- despite the staggering odds. I captured some of the comments from the panelists that I thought were interesting during the discussion.
On balancing work and home, especially raising young children while working in and engineering industry, Adrian Skinner (GE Wind) advised us not to try to do too much, and don’t set our expectations too high– just be the best you can put forth. Great advice to all of us perfectionist-types out there that are used to great attention to detail (at work and at home). Adrian also recommended integrating your job into your family as much as possible, using her own experience with wind turbines as an example. Debra Brovich (GE Global Research) suggested to ask for workplace flexibility. It came up more than once during the panel discussion on a variety of topics that you will never get something if you never ask.
On the topic of navigating the glass maze, Debra recognized that HR needs to help managers understand what building blocks young women in SET need and have those discussions early. Sheila Brey (Entergy Corporation) admitted that there will be dead ends and roadblocks in your career– but they have to be viewed as an opportunity.
On the topic of what skill sets make a you stand out as a leader, Tobi Saulnier (1st Playable Productions) suggested to know the subtleties between traits such as stubbornness and perseverance (while they sound similar, a great leader displays perseverance). Also she suggested to constantly put yourself in others positions and really try to understand your people.
Afterward, there was some discussion amongst my colleagues at GE on the topics and it was largely agreed upon that we like the idea that integrating our family into our work as much as possible. We also agreed that during times where family needs take precedent for period of time(birth of a new baby, for example) that we can’t expect to be perfect during these times – and talking honestly about our imperfect experiences with other women (especially young women technologists) will help all of us realize that we aren’t alone- and give us a support network that we need.
Overall, the webinar was informative and we all appreciated the panelists taking their time to share with us their experiences. A big thanks to SWE and Excelsior College for hosting the webinar and Laura Hudy for organizing us on-site at GE Global Research to watch and discuss the topics. I hope it is the first of many on this topic! I’ll be sure to post future webinars on my twitter @kristenbrosnan. If you have any experiences or advice to share, please comment below, I would love to hear from you.
On a side note, on Monday the White House and National Science Foundation announced new workplace flexibilities to support American scientists and their families. One of the benefits is being able to delay or suspend grants for up to one year after a birth of a child. Details about this announcement can be found here. Sounds like a step in the right direction for women in science!
Remember – if you are a woman in a SET career, you are not in it alone!
