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Motivational speakers, I think, can get away with following the advice of my speaking coach. She told me to polish one message – and use it over and over. That advice may work for inspirational speakers, but not so much for people like me who design workshops for different audiences. I have one core message. But I address it from multiple angles. In the last two weeks I’ve given three totally different programs, and I have two more, also totally different, coming up.
My “basic” program is about appreciating both masculine and feminine strengths – and so (a) being more effective, (b) creating inclusive workplaces and (c) getting better results. But I shape and approach the core point many ways to fit the needs of a particular group. Here are facets I’m covering this spring:
- Last week I addressed the Colorado Women’s Bar Association about how successful women must “shift” and use both masculine and feminine strengths – and how to do that authentically and without burning out or losing one’s authenticity.
- Then I co-facilitated a workshop with Stewart Hirsch at the Association of Legal Administrators annual conference in Nashville. We worked on the value of increasing gender diversity and how law firm administrators can help their firms reduce gender bias. At the same conference, I did a talk on how to get the most powerful and influential people in the firm (generally men) involved in gender diversity efforts.
- I’m doing a program June 12 at the Harvard Women & Power 2015 Global Leaders’ Summit on women working with women – how and why women should but don’t always support other women. (I’ve written about women as supporters and “saboteurs.”)
- At the June “Savvy Salon” of the Leadership Investment, I’ll speak on the intersection of gender and generations – looking at the commonalities among women of the four generations in today’s workplace and where inter-generational tensions can be different or more intense for women than men.
Designing different workshops and speeches takes a lot more time and effort than delivering the same speech over and over. But I think the topic of gender diversity has lots of facets – many sub-topics and applications. I am willing to put in the work to approach the topic any way that works for forwarding my mission – to help create a world where both masculine and feminine strengths are valued and leveraged – and my vision – a world where gender diversity is the norm and organizations thrive as men and women succeed and lead together.
