Workplace success strategies presentation by Madhu Krishnappa Maron

1. Power Dynamics and Workplace Success
Strategies
INN Days
June 14, 2018
By: Madhu Krishnappa Maron

2. Agenda
● Data and Context
● Framework for Understanding Power Dynamics
● Your Empowered Self
● Strategies for Empowered Communication

3. Outcomes
● Build greater awareness of power dynamics
● Gain clarity about your inner dialogue
● Make better choices about how to communicate
● Employ 4 strategies for empowered communication in all parts
of your life

4. The Data
● 42% of women report having faced discrimination*
● Supreme Court Men Interrupting Women**
1990 Justice Sandra Day O'Connor—35.7%
2002: O'Connor and Ginsburg—45.3%
2015: Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan—65.9%
● ⅔ of journalism students are women; ⅓ of journalism jobs held by women
*Pew Research Center, 2017
**Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, 2017
***Poynter.org “Women dominate journalism school but
newsrooms still a different story”, 2017

5. FRAMEWORK FOR
UNDERSTANDING POWER
DYNAMICS*
Global - the legacy, systems,
structures, that frame our ability to
exercise our voices and our power.
Relational - the group dynamics,
“the room scan”, how do I fit in?
Personal - feelings, reactions, inner
dialogue, experiences, values and
needs
*from Omega Women’s Leadership Center
Vestibulum congue Global
Relational
Personal

6. Personal level
● Empowered Self
○ wired for curiosity, possibility, growth and risk, determination
● Protective Self
○ wired for safety, predictability, belonging
● Cultivate self-awareness and make choices
● Good news! Within your control!

7. Your Milestones as Professional Woman
- What are three defining experiences you’ve had as a woman in the
workplace?
- What lessons did you draw from these experiences?
- How do these lessons inform your Empowered Self? Your Protective Self?

8. Madhu’s Milestone Experience
The Pay Gap
○ Empowered Self - Inequity is everywhere. Speak up when you see it!!
○ Protective Self - Don’t bother. Even when you are right you will not win

9. Your Empowered Self - Visualization
● Take a moment to breathe and center yourself.
● Get in touch with your Empowered Self, the part of you that is wired for
growth and change and risk.
● Remember all the times your Empowered Self has led the way to your
success.
● Know that your Empowered Self is expansive and is available to you at any
time, in any situation.
● Give your Empowered Self the microphone when it matters most.

10. POEM - Strategies for Empowered Communication
Project Physical Presence.
Own Your Abilities.
Embrace Confrontation.
Make Your Point.

11. Project Physical Confidence
The Problem:
● Underestimating the power of our physical presence
● Not knowing how to use our physical and energetic bodies with confidence
● Embedded expectations about appearance, feminine leadership
The Solution:
● Mindset: believe you belong.
● Breathe.
● Get the room. Use the space wisely.
● Modulate your tone and pace.

12. Own Your Abilities
The Problem:
● Women managers tend to attribute their achievement of work goals less to
their ability and more to hard work.*
● Embedded expectations to be humble, be of service, toil in the background
*Patrice Lowenthal, London School of Economics

13. Own Your Abilities
The Solution:
● Situation
● Behavior
● Impact
Credit: Center for Creative Leadership

14. Embrace Confrontation
The Problem:
● Women tend to avoid or come on too strong
● Embedded expectations to be nurturing, to put our own needs aside
The Solution:
● Ask questions.
● Name what you see.

15. Make Your Point
The Problem: over-explaining, apologizing in advance, stage-setting, minimizing.
The Solution:
Prime the pump:
● “What’s at stake here is…”
● “I feel strongly that…
● “Here’s what’s important…”

16. Your Empowered Communication Checklist
Identify the situation in which you want to show up more powerfully.
1. Check in with your Empowered Self. What is possible if you go for it?
2. Check in with Protective Self. What are the risks?
3. What do you need in order to go for it and manage the risks?
4. How can you meet those needs?
5. What’s the likely outcome if you don’t go for it?
6. Are you willing to live with that outcome?
7. What choice will you make?