Our Turn

by Stewart, Kirstine;

  It’s a Woman’s World

  RECENTLY, THE NEWS WEBSITE Mashable featured a colourful graph illustrating the way social media is changing how companies have to do business. Taken from data from Soren Gordhamer, author of Wisdom 2.0, it highlights how companies have to shift from selling to connecting, from running large campaigns to small acts, from controlling the message to transparency, and from being hard to reach to being available virtually everywhere. What’s striking to me is that women usually excel at all the non-traditional ways that a company now has to position itself in the market. Women have already demonstrated, in dramatic fashion, that they are remarkably comfortable communicating and wielding influence in the digital sphere: they dominate the web. Several studies and surveys, from the Pew Research Centre, Nielsen and Burst Media, have found that women are the heaviest users of social media sites—and not just teenage girls, but women ages forty through sixty. They’re more likely than men to have a blog or a well-developed digital persona, to share photos and videos, to shop online, to consume news, comment and interact with brands.

  I also think that where some women might lack the time to reach out to strangers through old-school, face-to-face networking channels, or feel uncomfortable doing so, they have found in the web a new and liberating way to connect. I’m someone who is generally shy and often runs on a tight schedule; the digital sphere allows even a time-taxed introvert like me to be an extrovert, to engage and network. A Fast Company article from February 2015 suggests that introverts are, in fact, the best networkers on Twitter. It featured a marketing manager from Georgia who described herself as “extremely shy” and said that because of social media she had been able to advance professionally much faster and further than if she had been limited to face-to-face events. Even my mother, whose stroke cost her the ability to speak and move, is active online. With nothing more than the slight mobility of a single finger on her right hand, she taps out messages, tweets and loves to post pictures on Throwback Thursdays.

  The point is that women can thrive in the information age, as users of the technology and as entrepreneurs. They’ve been starting an average of more than five hundred companies a day in the last seven years, launching businesses at twice the rate of men, according to a 2014 report from American Express OPEN. Based on data from the US Census Bureau, the report also finds that between 1997 and 2014, the number of women-owned firms grew at one-and-a-half times the national average in the US. If that’s not a testament to women’s ability to go boldly into this information age, to take risks and lead in volatile times, I don’t know what is. Some of this growth can be explained by an increase in self-employed women benefiting from the flexibility tech provides to better juggle work and family, as in the rise of the “mompreneurs.” But that’s only part of the story. With the exception of large, publicly traded corporations, the report found that not only revenue, but employment growth among women-owned firms, topped that of all other firms. (Remarkable, too, is the double-digit growth in the number of companies launched by women of colour, who now own one in three of all firms started by women in the US.) In all, the report estimates that as of 2014 there were nearly 9.1 million enterprises owned by women, employing 7.9 million workers and generating $1.4 trillion in revenues.

  At the same time that women are branching out on their own in ever-growing numbers, they are also well placed to play a leading role in the economic sectors that will matter most in the coming years. The US Census Bureau estimates that women make up more than two-thirds of employees in ten of the fifteen job categories expected to grow most quickly over the next decade. These categories include health, social and educational services, but also technical occupations in accounting, science and law. Meanwhile, women are well placed to rise through the ranks in their chosen fields as they continue to acquire the lion’s share of post-secondary education. According to Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey, 55 percent of adults between the ages of 25 to 34 with a college diploma were women. Women also represented 59 percent of young adults with a university degree, 58 percent with a master’s degree, and 62 percent of adults with a medical degree. The only university-degree level at which young women are not the majority of holders are doctorates, but even there women are close to half, obtaining more than 47 percent of PhDs.

  Millennial women, some thirty million of them in North America alone, are making their way in the workforce, better educated, more optimistic and more confident than any generation of women before them. They aspire to leadership roles more than their grandmothers and mothers. By some accounts, such as research from the Pew Center, their aspirations still trail those of men. But this cohort of females, from their twenties and into their thirties, is almost as likely as their male counterparts to ask for a raise and a promotion. And more than half of them—61 percent—say they hope one day to be the boss. I suspect they’ll have their shot. These Gen Y women have grown up in a digital world. Not only do they naturally possess the skill set that I think modern leaders need, they’ve already forged a galaxy of connections and built a sphere of influence likely to carry them through the rest of their lives. They have swallowed whole from birth changes that older generations are still struggling to digest. And so, should they choose to, the new generation of women making their way into the workforce by the millions has the right stuff to lead in any sector, and conquer any cliff.

  [ IX ]

  Your Turn

  WHEN I MOVED MY FAMILY back from Denver to Toronto in the early 2000s, I took my youngest daughter to work with me at Alliance Atlantis one afternoon. The company had a sprawling studio and office set up in a midtown tower and as we stepped onto the elevator, my daughter, who was used to visiting my office at Hallmark, automatically pressed the button for the top floor.

  “Nooo,” I said. “My office is down here.” As I pushed the button for a lower floor, she shot me a look of surprise that basically said, “What’s up with that?” (This was the same daughter who, when I announced I was Top 40 Under 40, responded with “Well, what number are you?” Tough audience.) In her mind, I would be on the top floor because I was the boss. But at Alliance Atlantis, I was “back a step” and I was good with that. My job put me on the creative side of the table and it was a position that made me happy, no matter what floor my office was on.

  It’s natural to think you haven’t made it until you reach the top of your field. But what’s truer today than ever before is that the dispersal of power within business means you don’t have to be the boss to be a leader. And “having it all” could mean staying for a while at a job that makes you happy. What’s key to feeling successful is drawing satisfaction from the contributions you make at whatever level you choose to work. A career worth having is not about collecting titles, but about the experience you get along the way. Yes, I went from girl Friday to president before I was thirty, but the thread that runs through my career is not straight up. Leading involves the ability to inspire others to contribute, but to do that, I think you first have to be inspired yourself. I may have found natural footing in the higher levels of management, but if those responsibilities took me too far away from involvement in creative content—searching for it, developing it, promoting it—I lost interest. That’s what motivated me. I know that when my interest dwindles so does my desire, and my ability, to contribute. That’s why I left behind the president title at Paragon and why, after having a more senior job at Hallmark, I chose to work lower down the corporate ladder at Alliance Atlantis. The substance of the work I was doing always mattered more to me than status and title, and that, ultimately, is why I also left the top job at the CBC.

  I was barely two years into my tenure as executive vice-president when the leader’s ledge had shrunk to a razor’s edge at the public broadcaster. The deep budget cuts that came in 2012 suddenly made my job more about balance-sheet management than creative leadership. It also meant that there was little chance of good work being rewarded. There was talk of innovation, but no reso
urces to invest in it. I didn’t slip from a glass cliff, I looked over the edge into an unfair future and I walked away. It wasn’t a difficult decision. I love exploring new possibilities in the media world: I was there at the dawn of cable programming, and the advent of digital offerings too. Joining Twitter, and starting a new business for them, gave me an opening into the tech world that’s completely redefining how we produce and consume content. It’s not one-way broadcast, it’s a multidirectional platform upon which anyone can contribute, create and share. I left a narrowing place for a wide-open playing field.

  If we’re honest with ourselves, I think we all know what drives our happiness. But it’s what we do with that knowledge that can make all the difference. Through the course of your career, you need to keep asking yourself whether you are satisfied. What makes you satisfied can change radically with experience and with age. Do you have a position that allows you to contribute in ways that matter to you right now? Do you feel your talents are well applied? What is success to you? Is it personal growth, money, recognition? If you feel successful then you are successful—and you are where you are meant to be. If you don’t, then change is the answer.

  But change comes in many forms. It might mean you move to a new firm, or take on a different job in your existing organization, vie for a more senior role or switch jobs completely. No one, especially not me, has all the answers. There’s no one size that fits us all when it comes to decisions in the personal or professional sphere. What I ask is that you consider what “getting ahead” means to you, and that you don’t let pressures from others or society as a whole dictate what success looks like to you. We spend enough time at work that we need to spend that time being happy with what we do and how we do it. If you want to advance your career by taking on more responsibility at work, then feel free to look for it, ask for it; let your higher-ups know when you’re ready to take on bigger challenges, and be clear about what you want. And get ready to work hard.

  To distinguish yourself as a leader you need to show that your goals align with the company’s trajectory. That you can harness the resources, and, when needed, build a team you can empower and motivate to help you achieve success. To stand out as a valuable member of the team you have to make sure you understand what you’re playing for and that you can see the big picture. Educate yourself about the aims and needs of your organization and then work strategically to meet them.

  Back at Alliance Atlantis, for instance, I knew the lifestyle channels needed a shakeup and I’d seen the trends in the US toward dramatic storytelling over the traditional how-to, and its potential to resonate with audiences. I also knew that Canada was desperately short on its star-making system, and here was this completely unplowed field of talent in a genre that was just taking off. And so I forged a plan, and then shared my thinking with the team of how we might build the audience and the network’s brand by developing our own homegrown celebrities. It paid off, but it was about taking a chance to do something in my department that would be of benefit to the organization overall. If you can make your outfit look good or make the life of your boss easier, your efforts will be noticed.

  This all factored into the strategy that earned me my first major promotion at Paragon, although, at the time, I’m not sure I recognized it as a strategy. Isme Bennie received dozens of calls in a day and I thought, “Why not do more than take a message? Why not do more to help?” I’d overheard enough of her conversations to know which questions to ask. So I tried them out: “What type of content are you interested in? Who is your audience? Here’s a few of the shows we have that might work for you and here’s why.” I had no inkling that my boss was within earshot, sizing me up. All I knew was that I was hungry for bigger challenges than answering phones and sending faxes. And I was determined to prove that I could handle more, to myself as much as anyone.

  Stepping up and showing initiative is the most concrete way for anyone to demonstrate that they are all in, a true team player with an understanding and willingness to move the puck up the ice. At every place I’ve worked, the employees I value most are the ones who come to me and say, “I was thinking that it might be worth approaching such and such this way.” People who recognize problems but approach me about them ready to offer solutions hold a special place on my teams. These are the kinds of gestures that can help build your personal capital. And, down the road, that can pay huge dividends.

  It’s in You to Give

  PERSONAL CAPITAL IS YOUR CURRENCY. It’s what you build and use when you put yourself up for a new role, suggest a way forward or successfully present an idea—especially an unpopular one. (You know the stakes are high when you’re willing to risk your personal capital to back a strategy with opinion stacked against it.) Personal capital is tied to your authority, credibility and reputation. It represents the total value of your professional experience, your network, knowledge and know-how, your wins and all that you’ve learned from your losses. The only way to make more of it is to spend it wisely. The more expertise and experience you accumulate, the more chances you take and the more initiative you show, the more capital you stand to earn and the more you have to spend. And you have to spend it. In that way, at least, it’s not like money—personal capital earns no interest just sitting in your account.

  Not long after I became executive VP at CBC, I had to make a call about how much of mine I was willing to gamble. Despite four years in charge of television programming I’d never had much to do with the production of Hockey Night in Canada, far and away CBC’s most popular and lucrative show. Richard Stursberg had overseen that area personally and, together with the sports department, ran a fairly closed shop. Hockey was, after all, Canada’s game, and Hockey Night in Canada quite possibly the most “Canadian show of all time,” as one pundit put it. That meant there were rules around the way things were done, and you didn’t mess with the rules. Only after I replaced Richard did I have my first look inside the world he had fiercely protected. And what I saw was a show in danger of becoming stale, that had been produced and executed in the same style for years, largely by a group of white guys. A fresh approach was overdue. For starters, our audience wasn’t just a bunch of white-guy sports fanatics. Families watched—I watched, as did other women, men and kids of all colours. If we were going to offer the NHL a reason to keep airing its games on the public broadcaster, then the CBC had to demonstrate that we knew how to leverage our cultural significance to give the games a broad viewer base—certainly broader than the hard-core male fans that dominated the sports audiences of private networks.

  The first thing I did was put a woman in charge of production at HNIC, a clear signal of a new direction. Julie Bristow was a great production leader, and she brought in Andi Petrillo as a host and reporter, the show’s first full-time female staff member, and Kevin Weekes, a former NHL goalie and already a star on the NHL Network, joined the desk. I put Jeffrey Orridge in charge of managing the CBC’s relationship with the NHL. (Orridge, a New York–born lawyer, has since been named the first African-American commissioner of the Canadian Football League—in fact, the first African-American commissioner of any pro sports league in North America.) Making the changes was not an easy sell. I was a newcomer to a precious realm, and a woman amongst men (mostly). But my job was made easier because of the track record I had to trade on: I’d spearheaded changes to CBC television that had helped to increase ratings and revenues and make great shows.

  I’d put my personal capital to work, but that was just the start of the spending spree. HNIC’s future at the CBC was about to face its greatest threat. The NHL broadcast rights contract was less than three years away from renewal and things didn’t look good. Broadcast licensing fees were skyrocketing as TV execs saw the prize in capturing rapt audiences in real time when so many viewers were slipping away to watch DVDs or stuff on the Internet or were dumping TV altogether. For their part, the sports staff at CBC were fiercely proud and some even felt that the brand of Hockey Night in Canada
was more important to Canadians than the NHL’s. By the time I took over, the relationship between the CBC and the NHL had been strained to the point that it seemed no matter what money we brought to the table, Commissioner Gary Bettman would be just as happy to take his games someplace else.

  I needed to do something to fix this, and I drew on my love of another sport entirely. I’d been a long-time fan of the National Football League, and during the season, from Thursday through to Monday Night Football, I watched all the games I could. I watched not just as a football fan but as a TV exec who admired the way CBS and NBC produced their broadcasts. Along with a catchy opening number from the likes of Faith Hill or Carrie Underwood, every game started with, “This is a presentation of the NFL,” with its logo looming large. But Hockey Night in Canada didn’t lead any of its broadcasts by stressing that NHL connection. No one makes changes to HNIC lightly, but I made a call and said its time we showed the NHL we are their partners, and are invested in growing their brand in the same way we are interested in growing ours.

  That season the NHL shield shone brightly beside our HNIC logo and on air we reinforced what I had told Gary Bettman we would do going forward: we weren’t the partners with the biggest chequebook, but we would be the ones who invested in their brand alongside ours. In sports, teamwork is respected: the NHL noticed this first step of many we then took in working together to bring Canadians the best of hockey.