Networking for Women Rainmakers Part 5, Recognize the Female Advantage
This article is by Mimi Spangler, a partner at Harding & Company. Some of the material in this posting appears in the second edition of Ford Harding’s book, Rain Making, which will be published in February and contains about 40 percent new content.
This is the fifth in a series of eight blog posts on networking for women. These entries originally appeared as an article in Management Consulting News.
5. Recognize the Female Advantage
A majority of the women interviewed referred to their industries as still male-dominated, and noticeably so at the senior levels. A director of a national consulting firm described her first CEO conference. “I was the only woman in our firm’s leadership group and we went to a CEO conference where everyone was an old, white guy. First I was uncomfortable thinking about how I would fit in, but it became easy because I was different, being the only woman. I didn’t try to blend in; I took advantage of this recognition in the group and just met lots of people.”
Similarly, a leading rainmaker of another consulting firm described her participation in an industry group. “Women were rare there. I stuck out like a sore thumb and people remembered me.”
While uniqueness was sometimes viewed as a positive attribute in male-dominated venues, the ease with which women relate to other women was recognized by almost all of the women interviewed. “Women in leadership roles connect to other women in leadership, largely because there are so few of us,” commented one rainmaker.
One woman rainmaker in her 50’s said, “I recoiled from attaching to women’s groups early in my career because I did not want to segregate myself from the men. Now I feel that there is a broader group of women established and thought of in the industry and there is a real reason for networking versus the thought that the group is a women’s movement.”
Several also said that it was easy to break the ice and form natural bonds with women prospects or clients by discussing common personal topics such as children and related professional work challenges.
Mimi Spangler is a partner at Harding & Company, which helps professionals learn to develop business. She has worked with consultants at many firms, both large and small. For more information, visit the company’s web site at http://www.hardingco.com/ and blog at www.hardingco.com/blog. Spangler can be reached at mspangler@hardingco.com.
