Women's Initiatives Bulk Up

Most AmLaw 100 firms have established women's initiatives, also known as employee resource groups or affinity groups, by now. Meetings, held periodically, tend to be the hallmark of the typical women's initiative.

Traditionally, these meetings have been “event”-driven: substantive, serious events bringing in a speaker with expertise in an area of interest to women. On the other end of the spectrum, events may revolve around shopping or spa services and involve cocktails. Although these kinds of events can be productive and fun, they present challenges.

What Are the Challenges?

The first is one of engagement. Time-pressed lawyers with daunting billable hour goals have to make a choice between billing an hour or attending a women's initiative meeting. The decision point is whether or not they are convinced that their investment will be worthwhile. What will they gain by attending or lose by skipping it? If the payoff isn't clear, chances are the meeting will get skipped.

The second challenge is “stickiness.” What is the firm's return on investment if people enjoyed the meeting but didn't learn anything? Or, even worse, if they did learn something, but don't act on that knowledge? Firms support women's initiatives because they want to retain and advance women ' and women's initiatives can make a difference (see, e.g., Singh, V., Vinnicombe, S. and Kumra, S., “Women in Formal Corporate Networks: An Organisational Citizenship Perspective,” Women in Management Review, Vol. 21, No. 6, 2006). But women have a responsibility to do their part too.

And finally is the issue of budget. Notoriously under-funded, directors of women's initiatives find that producing quality events is time-consuming and expensive.

The Solution

We've worked with three firms, Foley & Lardner LLP, Vinson & Elkins LLP and Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, to launch an innovative solution called the Just Add Women' Initiative Toolkit Series. This turnkey programming equips women with the skills and strategies essential to managing their careers more successfully. The meetings, focused on critical workplace topics and designed for mid- to senior-level associates, are led internally by those who have participated in formal facilitator training. Designed to last only an hour, the meetings are fast-paced and highly interactive. Although we are still in the pilot phase, the results to date have been quite promising.

Two of the firms selected partners as facilitators; the third relies on professional support staff to facilitate the sessions and invites partners to provide “color commentary” based on their own experiences. Facilitators spend a few hours learning how to facilitate the meetings, including practice with optional video-taping. They are supported by a detailed meeting facilitator's guide, slides and participant meeting materials so it doesn't take them a lot of time to prepare to lead the sessions. Topics such as Building a Strategic Network, Getting Feedback You Can Use and Establishing Meaningful Mentoring Relationships, among others, resonate with women who are interested in how to navigate more successfully in the firm. As one facilitator/partner put it, “The examples in the materials were helpful in shaping the concepts; the concepts are provocative.”

Associates are clear that they appreciate the opportunity to discuss issues that affect them with partners and others. They enjoy the informality of the sessions as well as the real-life, personal examples shared. The opportunity to serve as a role-model, master new content with minimal time investment as well as to facilitate meetings (not necessarily a lawyerly competency!) provides the partners with strong reasons to get involved. One firm went a step further to explicitly position participation in the program as a leadership development opportunity for the partners involved.

Conclusion

Women's initiatives have been delivering value for some time but still have not realized their potential. Networks that succeed in moving the agenda ahead work simultaneously at two levels. They take a “big-picture” perspective to identify systemic barriers women face in the workplace and work to eliminate them. More immediately (systemic change takes time) and with a great deal of practicality, they also work to equip individual women with the skills and tools they need to successfully navigate the system as it is today. Making women's initiative meetings more engaging, richer in content and more accessible in format is an important step forward in this regard. When women's initiatives work well, the benefits inure not only to individual women but to their firms and to the profession more broadly. What's good for female attorneys is good for their male counterparts and good for business.

Carol Frohlinger, J.D., is an internationally recognized speaker, and co-author of “Her Place at the Table: A Woman's Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success” (Jossey-Bass/John Wiley, 2010). Ms. Frohlinger co-founded Negotiating Women, Inc., a consultancy focused on helping organizations to attract, retain and promote women into leadership roles. To learn more about the Just Add Women' Initiative Toolkit Series, visit http://www.justaddwomen.com/.

Most AmLaw 100 firms have established women's initiatives, also known as employee resource groups or affinity groups, by now. Meetings, held periodically, tend to be the hallmark of the typical women's initiative.

Traditionally, these meetings have been “event”-driven: substantive, serious events bringing in a speaker with expertise in an area of interest to women. On the other end of the spectrum, events may revolve around shopping or spa services and involve cocktails. Although these kinds of events can be productive and fun, they present challenges.

What Are the Challenges?

The first is one of engagement. Time-pressed lawyers with daunting billable hour goals have to make a choice between billing an hour or attending a women's initiative meeting. The decision point is whether or not they are convinced that their investment will be worthwhile. What will they gain by attending or lose by skipping it? If the payoff isn't clear, chances are the meeting will get skipped.

The second challenge is “stickiness.” What is the firm's return on investment if people enjoyed the meeting but didn't learn anything? Or, even worse, if they did learn something, but don't act on that knowledge? Firms support women's initiatives because they want to retain and advance women ' and women's initiatives can make a difference (see, e.g., Singh, V., Vinnicombe, S. and Kumra, S., “Women in Formal Corporate Networks: An Organisational Citizenship Perspective,” Women in Management Review, Vol. 21, No. 6, 2006). But women have a responsibility to do their part too.

And finally is the issue of budget. Notoriously under-funded, directors of women's initiatives find that producing quality events is time-consuming and expensive.

The Solution

We've worked with three firms, Foley & Lardner LLP, Vinson & Elkins LLP and Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, to launch an innovative solution called the Just Add Women' Initiative Toolkit Series. This turnkey programming equips women with the skills and strategies essential to managing their careers more successfully. The meetings, focused on critical workplace topics and designed for mid- to senior-level associates, are led internally by those who have participated in formal facilitator training. Designed to last only an hour, the meetings are fast-paced and highly interactive. Although we are still in the pilot phase, the results to date have been quite promising.

Two of the firms selected partners as facilitators; the third relies on professional support staff to facilitate the sessions and invites partners to provide “color commentary” based on their own experiences. Facilitators spend a few hours learning how to facilitate the meetings, including practice with optional video-taping. They are supported by a detailed meeting facilitator's guide, slides and participant meeting materials so it doesn't take them a lot of time to prepare to lead the sessions. Topics such as Building a Strategic Network, Getting Feedback You Can Use and Establishing Meaningful Mentoring Relationships, among others, resonate with women who are interested in how to navigate more successfully in the firm. As one facilitator/partner put it, “The examples in the materials were helpful in shaping the concepts; the concepts are provocative.”

Associates are clear that they appreciate the opportunity to discuss issues that affect them with partners and others. They enjoy the informality of the sessions as well as the real-life, personal examples shared. The opportunity to serve as a role-model, master new content with minimal time investment as well as to facilitate meetings (not necessarily a lawyerly competency!) provides the partners with strong reasons to get involved. One firm went a step further to explicitly position participation in the program as a leadership development opportunity for the partners involved.

Conclusion

Women's initiatives have been delivering value for some time but still have not realized their potential. Networks that succeed in moving the agenda ahead work simultaneously at two levels. They take a “big-picture” perspective to identify systemic barriers women face in the workplace and work to eliminate them. More immediately (systemic change takes time) and with a great deal of practicality, they also work to equip individual women with the skills and tools they need to successfully navigate the system as it is today. Making women's initiative meetings more engaging, richer in content and more accessible in format is an important step forward in this regard. When women's initiatives work well, the benefits inure not only to individual women but to their firms and to the profession more broadly. What's good for female attorneys is good for their male counterparts and good for business.

Carol Frohlinger, J.D., is an internationally recognized speaker, and co-author of “Her Place at the Table: A Woman's Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success” (Jossey-Bass/John Wiley, 2010). Ms. Frohlinger co-founded Negotiating Women, Inc., a consultancy focused on helping organizations to attract, retain and promote women into leadership roles. To learn more about the Just Add Women' Initiative Toolkit Series, visit http://www.justaddwomen.com/.