Skills from one part of your life can transfer into another!

For twelve years, I lead a grassroots effort to prevent a superhighway (a toll road) from being built in front of my house. For many of those years, the naysayers said I was wasting my time; that we would lose; that we were only poking the bear. My response to all of this was that we very well might lose, but if that happened, I intended to go down swinging...

We were a rag tag group of residents from a very rural part of the county, the part of the county with some of the last farmlands in the region. Precisely because we were rural and sparsely populated is why the proponents of the highway thought that it would be pushed through easily. They soon found out that we weren’t simpletons and could put together a cogent argument against having the farmlands paved over. After twelve years, the roadway was declared dead.

How did we pull off this win? We organized our rural residents, our local government and our resources. We engaged our brains before our mouths. We found a small group of residents willing to work hard, many times around the clock. We spoke at public hearings and hosted press conferences. We made the argument that this was not just a local issue, but rather a statewide issue. And we persevered.

The details of this particular road battle are not relevant to anyone other than the people who would have been directly affected. The skills behind the win, however, are very relevant. And they are transferrable and important in the business world. Use your brain to set strategy before you take action. Use data presented by both sides of an issue to come to a logical conclusion. Hire people who can bring independent and diverse ideas to the table (not “yes men”). Hire people who have the desire to make a project succeed and who are willing to put in the effort.

 Cross functional skills are valuable and should not be underestimated. Put your “outside” life into your resume and be prepared to discuss how your particular skillset can be useful in a corporate role. You are not merely a corporate worker drone! You are a multi-faceted person with the ability to adapt and be successful anywhere. Use your brain and show your strengths!

A Look Back

After a 45-year career, mostly in Strategic Sourcing/Procurement, I have retired.  I managed to climb to upper middle management but never to the executive level.  This made me look back and to take stock in what women had to deal with in their careers that began in the 70’s and 80’s.  My guess is that the men in my Colgate University class didn’t have to deal with some (much) of the nonsense that the women did.  I have written some articles published on my LinkedIn account that address the nonsense. 

Both the men and women in our class were, and are, intelligent people.  We all proudly graduated from this elite university with our bachelor’s degrees and either moved on to graduate schools or the workforce.  I opted to go to work.  

In my first role, I was subjected to wage discrimination that was ultimately corrected by the EEOC several years later, after I lodged a formal complaint.  Imagine a man fresh out of Colgate with a degree in mathematics being told to multiply columns of numbers using a calculator and, oh by the way, “honey, this calculator might be different from the ones you’re used to so let me show you how to use it”.  Nope, a man would never be on the receiving end of this.

Imagine a man being told we can’t give you a raise even though you’re being paid 30% less than others because “they have families to support and you don’t”.  Nope, a man would never be on the receiving end of this.

Imagine a man being asked to “get me a cuppa coffee, honey”. Nope, a man would never be on the receiving end of this.

Imagine a man having his chest or rear-end grabbed without consequence to the grabber.  Nope, a man would never be on the receiving end of this.

Imagine a man being invited to a job interview and then, when he arrives, being told “um, that job has been filled but we DO have a clerical role open”. Nope, a man would never be on the receiving end of this.  They’d assumed my resume was a man’s or I’d never have even been offered the interview.... C.J. Schneider, with a degree in math from a school that only recently had been all male, shocked them when I arrived.  “We expected Mr. Schneider” I was told.  Surprise, you got Ms. Schneider (and, yes, I purposely used only my initials to see if it made a difference....and it did).

Imagine a man being asked “why do you want this job...all you’ll do is get married, have kids and stay home”.  Nope, a man would never be on the receiving end of this.

I could list many (many) more examples of how men and women were treated differently in those first 20 years following our graduation.  Many of the women I know from the “olden days” have similar stories.  We all kept on keeping on so that our daughters and granddaughters don’t have to be subjected to the same kind of discrimination.

Life is a Negotiation

Negotiation is a life skill that should be taught in our high schools!  It’s a skill that is used starting at home at a young age.  

Negotiation comes in very handy in everyone’s life.  Ever bought a car? Had a significant other? Had a kid or two? Been made a job offer? 

Even a 5-year-old knows to strike a deal with his or her parent….

Kid 5yo: “Mom, may I please have a snack?” 

Mom: “Dinner is in half an hour, so no.”

Kid: “Well, can I have a snack later if I eat some of my dinner?”

Mom: “Only if you eat ALL your dinner.”

Kid: “Ok, and will you read a book to me after my bath?”

Deal!

That is a simple negotiation.  And as most parents know, the negotiations get tougher as their kids hit their teen years!

Married life is not much different….

Person 1: Want to go out to eat? How about Chinese food?

Person 2: I’d rather go get some Italian food!

Person 1: Ok. If you agree to get Chinese food next weekend, I’ll go get Italian food tonight!

Deal!

A final example is buying a car.  I received great advice from work colleagues over a decade ago (thanks, Tom, Sharif and Gaetan).  

1. Know what the deal is worth (how much under sticker…or over…should the “real” price be?)

2. Know what is important to the other party (price? Making the sale at the end of a quarter? Getting rid of last year’s models?)

3. Negotiate everything separately (price of the car; financing (amount, length and rate); trade-in; additional upgrades)

4. READ the final contract carefully to make sure nothing that you’ve negotiated has been inadvertently omitted!  Yes, it happens!

The advice works for almost any kind of negotiation.  The car salesman I worked with thought it was “cute” when he asked me what I did for a living and I answered “strategic sourcing with an emphasis on contract negotiation”.  I knew I’d hit his bottom line for the car I wanted when, an hour later, he growled “if I give you another $500 for your trade-in, will you buy the car??!”.  I smiled sweetly and said “yes!”.  And I did….not so “cute” now is it?  😊

We All Turn Into Our Mothers

We all turn into our mothers.  There.  I’ve said it.  In a few days I will turn 70.  I hear mom coming out of my mouth more and more these days.  She’s been gone almost three years now and I sometimes stop and wonder if turning into her is a good thing or a bad thing.

Here’s what I know for sure.  I wouldn’t have been such an ardent feminist had she not pushed me starting at an early age.  There was never a question of whether I would go to college.  The choice of “where” I would go was up to me, but not “if” I would go.  I chose a college that had only recently started to accept women (Colgate).  I picked it because the male/female ratio was awesome….although it was interesting to sit front row center in classes and learn to deal with profs who said “good morning, gentlemen” to start the class…..  I never had a female professor in my four years there.  

Mom pushed my dad, a corporate executive in the satellite engineering industry, to hire a female Director (….a Black woman!) over the objections of his peers (Dad: She’s the best one for the job but the men who would report to her may have a problem.  Mom: That’s THEIR problem then, not yours.  Or hers.).  He promoted her….and this was in the late 60’s.  One of mom’s arguments was “What if she was your daughter? Would you want her excluded from the role because of her sex?”.  This pioneer, a Black female Director, did a great job, as we heard over dinner many times.  

When the company that hired me after college was found to be paying me 30% less than my male counterparts, mom pushed (and pushed and pushed) me to “do something…you have to do it for my granddaughter”.  She called me almost daily to give me the phone number for the EEOC.  At the time, I worked for the same company where dad was a senior executive.  I didn’t want to risk hurting his career but he told me to call the EEOC and “nail these people to the wall”.  Mom had turned him into a feminist, too!

So, turning into my mother means that I am a feminist.  That’s a good thing.  I am also not inclined to put up with political nonsense (thanks, mom….) or stupidity.  Are those good things?  The jury is still out, but I am who I am.  (With apologies to my daughter….it doesn’t bode well for you!)

Swagger!

I recently saw a meme on social media that said “Whatever you’re doing today, do it with the confidence of a 4-year-old in a Batman tee shirt.”  That, to me, is swagger.  

What do you think of when you hear the term “swagger”?  To some it means taking charge of a situation in a confident manner.  Swagger must be developed by mastering your craft over time, sharing your knowledge freely, earning the trust of your colleagues and clients, and presenting it in a way that is not arrogant.  To others, swagger isn’t thought of as a compliment.  To those people, it means being boastful or bragging about conquests, achievements, and successes. In my youth, eons ago, girls were raised to be demure and not to “blow your own horn”.  At the start of my career, Dad would tell me to “keep your head down, work hard, do a good job” and recognition (i.e. promotions/salary increases) would come.  In 1970’s and 1980’s corporate America, that didn’t happen for most women.

According to the Oxford Language Dictionary online, swagger is normally a verb – “they swaggered”, meaning that they “walked or behaved in a very confident and typically arrogant or aggressive way”. It can also be a negative term when used as a noun to describe someone who is inappropriately proud, arrogant, and over-fond of his own power and status.

In the 1990’s and 2000’s, I worked on a grassroots community project in central NJ and, ultimately, emerged as the resident leader and expert to stop a huge state road project from destroying the last remaining farmlands in southern Middlesex County.  It took twelve years to do so and involved learning new skills on the fly such as developing strategies, building an organization from the ground up and public speaking. In short, I had “swagger” during that project and I wasn’t afraid to speak out.  

Let’s fast forward about a dozen years to another corporate job where I worked for a manager who had a swagger that I envied.  Managers seem to either love someone with swagger or dislike them (intensely).  I am convinced the executive who hired my manager at one of my later gigs just loved someone with swagger.  The one who eventually let that same manager go was not as appreciative of that trait.  My manager and I spoke at length about swagger and how to bring what I’d learned during my civic project to the corporate environment.  

A very simple example of swagger in the corporate world is this:  I had sent an email to a supplier to let them know they were being eliminated as a bidder from an RFP during round two.  They emailed back, asking what their “next steps” were.  My proposed email reply said “unfortunately, you won’t be invited to the auction” (i.e. there are no next steps for you).  My manager told me to delete the word “unfortunately” and then send out the email.  Elimination of that one word, changed the tenor of the email and a light bulb went on for me. When the supplier panicked and called me (with his executive on the line), I was asked what they could have done differently.  With some sense of swagger, I responded that they “should have read the RFP instructions and taken them seriously”.  End of discussion.  

At my next gig, I was asked to draft a policy that would affect many departments in the company and present that policy to the President/CEO and all his direct reports.  During the presentation, he asked me how “emergencies” would be handled (i.e. would the policy have exception criteria if a contract was needed quickly).  My response was to say “yes, but if everything is an emergency then nothing is an emergency”.  He sat back in silence for a second before saying that he agreed with that.  Swagger achieved.

Don't Be Afraid to Try Something New

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”  This quote has been attributable to many people over the years, but the fact is that it’s true.  If you want to shake things up in your organization, you need to do some things differently.  Don’t be constrained by others who say “you can’t” or “you shouldn’t” or “it won’t work”.  Give it a shot!  Most of us don’t work in life-or-death industries, so all you have to lose is a bit of time.  Give it a try!  This means sourcing commodities that you may not think possible to bid out.  Think outside the proverbial box and develop your RFP in different ways.  

A majority of the work is done before an event occurs.  RFPs can be very time consuming and, once completed, you still have to negotiate contract language with the winner or winners.  What if there was a way to prepare the RFP, the Statement of Work AND the contract before the Reverse Auction takes place?  There is, but you and your team have to be prepared to try something new.

Consider sending bidders, including your incumbents, a simple RFI with “kill” questions that are table stakes to the success of your event.  These are contract terms and conditions that are showstoppers, as well as a requirement to receive the RFP or to move forward in the Reverse Auction.  This establishes your minimum viable acceptance criteria and helps you separate the contenders from the pretenders.  

While you work with your Business Unit(s) to prepare the Statement of Work, your standard contract language should be sent to each proposed bidder with the instruction that an RFP will be forthcoming and that they must redline the contract language as if they were in final negotiations with your company.  Set a deadline for receiving their proposed redlines (and be firm with it!).  Carefully review all redlines from each bidder, caucus with your Business Unit and legal team and accept what you can from each redline to combine into a single new version of the contract.  

Round One of the RFP should be sent out with the Statement of Work, Price Grid and single new version of the contract.  Instructions to the bidders must include a deadline by which they must return their pricing and their final set of contract redlines to you. Be firm in these requirements.  Take the bidder’s newest contract redlines and work with your Business Unit and legal counsel to accept what you can from each bidder, combine into a single FINAL version of the contract.

Pricing from each bidder received in response to Round One will be used as their starting bid in the Reverse Auction (“Round Two” of the RFP).  The final version of the contract must be executed by each bidder, without edits, or they will not be allowed access to the Reverse Auction!  The executed contract is the bidder’s “ticket” to participate.  No signed contract means no participation in the reverse auction and eliminates the bidder from consideration.  This includes incumbent bidders!  

Once the Reverse Auction is completed and the winning bidder(s) are selected, you will need only to countersign the contract and you’re done!  And, if you have multiple suppliers, each contract will be as close to identical as possible, which makes things easier for the businesses to manage.

  

Older Workers

 Your “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” program needs to actively include older workers! It already does, you say? I beg to differ….corporations in the northeastern and southeastern parts of the US, NJ in particular, are doing a poor job of hiring and keeping older workers (see WSJ article entitled “Worried About Ageism? Where You Live Matters”).

Older workers may be paid a bit more than their younger counterparts but we’re worth it. Why, you may ask? We bring many things to a team that others may not and we are way more tech savvy than you think. I have hired older people for many roles and have not been let down by any of them. 

So, here is my reasoning (in no particular order):

·        If you don’t know history, you are doomed to repeat it. Older workers have “been there, done that”. We have the ability to tell a team that yes, we’ve tried that before and it didn’t work. But we don’t stop there. We can tell you why it didn’t work and what can be tweaked to make it work. We bring solutions, not problems, to the table.

·        Many times, older workers come up to speed more quickly than others. Why? Because we know the process (buzz words may change but the work itself does not) and understand what is important to have a successful outcome. Most of the older workers I’ve hired have come to me within a few days asking for “real work” to do. They’re tired of reading the online manuals and want to dig into the work and meet their business partners.

·        We are way more tech savvy than you give us credit for! I would pit my technology skills against many younger workers. Remember, I was involved in my field early in the advent of desktop computers in the workplace. I may even have designed and programmed electronic business systems that were precursors to what is used today. Our learning didn’t stop just because we’ve had more birthdays than you have. So, yes, we can use email, the Microsoft Office Suite, Zoom and any other software application or EDI you want us to use.

·        We make terrific team managers not only because we know the business but also because we understand better than most that work/life balance is important. What I want on my tombstone isn’t “Here lies the body of Cathy, who came to work even though her kid was sick”. I’d rather have mine read “Beloved daughter, wife, mom and grannie” and would work hard to ensure that my team has the same outlook.

·        You may think that I’m not worth training because, after all, I’ll just leave in a few years’ time. My comment here is that many in the younger generation tend to “job hop” (as we used to say). An older worker would likely stay with you for at least as long as their younger counterparts….it’s hard to find another gig!

·        And finally, there’s no need to have the “where do you want to be in five years” discussion! I no longer want to be the CEO. I want to be on the beach with a mojito in hand!