Executive Women's Networking Blog : Women Executive News & Information : Epstein Becker Green Law Firm : Business Development, Women Lawyers, Female Business Leaders

I was not surprised to see an article in The New York Times regarding the prevalence of insomnia among working mothers.

Last week, I attended a dinner of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) General Counsel Institute. At the dinner table, I enjoyed interesting conversation with some accomplished women. We shared anecdotes of work, work-related travel, children, homework, and sleep – or, more accurately, our lack of sleep.

Women lawyers are often skilled multitaskers, driven to succeed at work and in their personal lives. Along with the responsibilities of the multiple roles of professional, spouse, and mother (and perhaps caregiver, volunteer, and friend, too), comes stress. Difficulty sleeping is a natural but unfortunate consequence of stress. According to a study cited in the article, 80 percent of women reported “being just too stressed or worried to turn out the proverbial lights.” The irresistible urge to check BlackBerry devices and iPhones before bedtime makes it even more difficult to wind down and fall asleep. (I’m certain that I am not the only one who pretends that I will rest better if I am sure that I have seen every email that may have arrived during the evening hours.) Waking at 3 or 4 a.m. with worries about the day ahead is also common.

Many women are resorting to prescription and over-the-counter treatments for their insomnia. “Nearly 3 in 10 American women fess up to using some kind of sleep aid at least a few nights a week,” The New York Times stated. Among 40 to 59 year olds, twice the number of women than men use prescription sleep aids.

Are professional women destined to a sleepless fate in this hyper-connected, 24/7 world? Are we sufficiently motivated to find solutions apart from pharmaceuticals or wine? The first step may be prioritizing our own well-being, and recognizing that we will be better able to respond to the stresses of the day if we get a good night’s sleep.

Storytelling. It is an important component of a successful professional woman's life – in the boardroom, courtroom, or classroom, in theater and the arts, in research labs, and in any place we find ourselves imparting information. Recognizing the impact and art of articulating a cogent, comprehensive, and powerful presentation in any of these forums,the Epstein Becker Green Women's Initiative (WI) recently hosted 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning author Amy Nutt to share with us some insights from her own successful career as a journalist on enhancing our natural ability as women to weave a set of facts into a compelling narrative. (For more information about the WI event and Ms. Nutt’s book, Shadows Bright as Glass, click here.)

For some among us, storytelling may take the form of a personal journey whose iteration is borne out of adversity and challenge. Ingez Rameau, who works in Epstein Becker Green's Los Angeles office, is one such example. Ingez, an accomplished storyteller/actor, will be performing a very personal story of her poignant journey of love and healing during her incarceration as a child in a post-World War II camp for displaced persons. Her one-woman play, BURN, having opened in Hollywood, is headed for New York City for one night only – November 10, 2011, at 9:00 p.m. in the United Solo Theatre Festival at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street. (Reviews of the play at are available at The Tolucan Times website and Broadwayworld.com.) If you plan to be in Manhattan on November 10, I hope you will treat yourself to this inspirational theatrical event.

To the readers of our blog who may be in health care and its related fields and industry, we wanted to introduce you all to the Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation ("WBL"). This nonprofit's outreach and misson is to help senior executive women in the health care industry improve their businesses and continue to grow professionally. Our law partner Lynn Shapiro Synder is the founder of the WBL. Check out the website, and to those of us in the business of health care, the WBL might be an organization for you!

Wanted to give a “shout out” to the wonderful work of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL). On July 20, 2011, the EpsteinBeckerGreen Women’s Initiative was privileged to sponsor a “Night of Giving” in conjunction with NAWL's Annual Meeting. For those professional women who read this blog and who are lawyers, NAWL is an organization that is about us and for us and – another good and professional way to network with successful women! The “Night of Giving” is a way that women attorneys, all of whom are members of NAWL, assist women and girls in various projects and organizations around the country that espouse the cause and champion the efforts of women in various academic and professional disciplines.

This most recent NAWL event was dedicated to benefitting the work of the Young Women’s Leadership Network (YWLN), a nonprofit organization that supports programs focused on helping urban youth break the cycle of poverty through college readiness and college access. Attendees at the event, who had been asked to bring various school supplies – from pens and pencils to thumb drives and phone cards – chatted, laughed, and listened to speakers as they wrapped journals to which they added their personal words of encouragement for the recipients. Speaking at the event, EBG partner Amy J. Traub, expressed the firm’s appreciation for the strong partnership that exists between NAWL and the EpsteinBeckerGreen Women’s Initiative:

It is through the efforts of the Women’s Initiative that EpsteinBeckerGreen was first introduced to NAWL. We stand behind NAWL and have formed our own internal EBG-NAWL Committee to help promote and foster the professional empowerment of women in the law and in the boardroom. We continue to look for ways to support NAWL’s efforts, and tonight is just one way that we can do that.

While some of us demonstrated better-honed wrapping skills than others, there was certainly no disparity when it came to generosity of spirit – just a group of women all giving of their time and energy to help smooth the path for the next generation of professional women – and having a really good time in the process!

Some new and interesting research by Anita Woolley (awoolley@cmu.edu) and Thomas Malone (malone@mit.edu) has been cited in June's Harvard Business Review. Woolley is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory at Carnegie Mellon University, and Malone is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founding Director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.

Their research of team behavior and problem solving makes an interesting business case for gender diversity, concluding that "there's little correlation between a group's collective intelligence and the IQs of its individual members. But if a group includes more women, its collective intelligence rises." Thus, where strategic business decisions are being made at a group or team level, the inclusion of women spikes the quotient of intelligence, making a positive difference in decision-making outcomes. As Malone states, "The standard argument is that diversity is good and you should have both men and women in a group. But so far, the data show, the more women, the better." Indeed, research shows teams with more women tended to fall above the average of the collective intelligence scores of the teams studied by Malone and Woolley; the teams populated by men were below average in the same regard.

The moral: It's a no-brainer! If you want smarter boards of directors, corporate committees, or strategic business teams, Woolley and Malone's research supports increasing the participation of women.

Here is an interesting article and assessment of at least 15 women entrepreneurs: "15 Female Entrepreneurs Who Are Incredibly Inspiring." Indeed, the article has an eclectic grouping of women. However, we are sure our readers might know at least 15 who have not made this list!

New findings by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University underscore the benefits of adding more women to corporate boards. Kellogg’s study, entitled “Chipping Away at the Glass Ceiling: Gender Spillovers in Corporate Leadership,” reveals that “a higher representation of women on a company’s board of directors directly increases the female share of and access to higher positions within the company.”

The news that putting more women on a company’s board leads to more women in top management positions at that company is very encouraging. As David Matsa, assistant professor of finance at Kellogg aptly points out, this is a situation of “‘women helping women’ at the highest level of company leadership.” However, on the flip side, the study found that increasing the number of female top-level managers at a company won’t result in more women occupying board seats.

The study’s findings were based on data from corporate boards and top executives at publicly traded companies during the years 1997-2009. To read a summary of the findings, go to Kellogg’s website.

At your company, have you seen any relationship between the gender makeup of its board and the ability of women to attain executive and managerial roles?

I'm thrilled to report that Goddess Shift: Women Leading for a Change just won the USA Book News “Best Books 2010” award in the Women’s Issues category, and was a finalist in the Anthologies Nonfiction category. 

Goddess Shift is an anthology of personal stories written by 43 women in leadership positions about how they have empowered themselves to create change in all walks of life. I am honored to be among the book's contributors, which include Oprah Winfrey, Suze Orman, Venus & Serena Williams, Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Barbara Walters, Olympia Dukakis, and Maya Angelou. 

All royalties from this book are going to three, exceptional non-profit organizations dedicated to improving the lives of girls and women: Capacitar, the Global Fund for Women, and Tostan. 

Go here to learn more about Goddess Shift. Additionally, you can read my entire chapter here. I hope the book will inspire you.

I was recently interviewed by Cindy Krischer Goodman, columnist of The Miami Herald's Work/Life Balance Act Blog, to discuss the EpsteinBeckerGreen Women’s Initiative, and what women in the workplace should be doing to help each other advance in their careers. Please go HERE to read the interview.

If you are in the New York City area and would like to strengthen your leadership skills and network with other women professionals, the Athena Leadership Lab at Barnard College (Columbia University's Liberal Arts College for Women), in Manhattan is offering hands-on courses designed to "teach women the practical elements of leadership – from the art of negotiation to effective public speaking, from financial fluency to management savvy." You don't need to be a current or past student of Barnard College to enroll.

The Athena Leadership Lab's "Knowledge and Know-How for Women" Fall 2010 Course Catalogue is available online. In it, you will find over 70 workshops divided into the following categories: "Communications," "Nonprofit Management," "Financial Fluency," "Negotiation," "Courage and Resilience," and "Entrepreneurial Skills." For more details, click here.

You may have read a controversial and thought-provoking article in the July/August issue of The Atlantic magazine called "The End of Men." The article poses the following question: "What if the modern, postindustrial economy is simply more congenial to women than to men?" After all, as author Hanna Rosin points out, many more men than women lost their jobs during the recent recession, women now make up the majority of the U.S. workforce, most of the job categories that are expected to grow in the next decade are dominated by women, and women are obtaining more B.A. degrees than men. Ms. Rosin believes that all of these developments suggest that "the modern economy is becoming a place where women hold the cards."

But is the picture really that rosy for women?

Although more women than men are in the workforce, it is of note that the percentage of women in senior executive and board positions is low and has remained stagnant. According the "2009 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500 Women Board Directors," women held only 15.2 percent of board of director seats at Fortune 500 companies in 2009—the same percentage as the prior year. Also, according to the "2009 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500 Women Executive Officers and Top Earners," women held 13.5 percent of executive officer positions at Fortune 500 companies in 2009 and just 6.3 percent of top-earner positions.

In her article, Ms. Rosin concedes that “prominent female CEOs, past and present, are so rare that they count as minor celebrities.” The only bright side—which offers little consolation—is that female CEOs tend to earn more than their male counterparts and get bigger raises. Ms. Rosin doesn’t even mention that few women are being appointed to board seats or adequately confront the existence of the significant wage disparity in the workforce between men and women, CEO positions notwithstanding.

Is the fact that women have overtaken men in the workplace really just an unfortunate reality that women are simply less expensive to employ then men? As the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently pointed out, "In 2009, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median weekly earnings that were about 80 percent of the earnings of their male counterparts." While the wage gap was not as wide among younger workers, women who were 35 years and older earned "roughly three-fourths as much as their male counterparts" last year. (See the BLS' report on women's earnings in 2009.)

Perhaps it may be premature to declare, as Ms. Rosin believes, that the economy is becoming “more congenial to women” and “a place where women hold the cards.”

Please CLICK HERE to read about PowerPlay NYC's exciting, upcoming event--"What It Takes to Be a Winner"--which will be held on July 6, 2010, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at The Yale Club (50 Vanderbilt Avenue in Manhattan).  The event will feature a conversation with Venus Williams, who is celebrating the publication of her new book entitled Come to Win: How Sports Can Help You Ace Your Goals and Top Your Profession, and lunch and leadership conversations with PowerPlay's Summer Leadership Academy participants.

PowerPlay NYC is a nonprofit organization that is committed to educating and empowering girls through sports, teaching life skills and building self-confidence and self-esteem for life.

I am excited to bring to your attention an inspirational new book about women leaders, the proceeds of which will support several women's organizations globally. The book, Goddess Shift: Women Leading for a Change, is an anthology of personal stories written by 43 women in leadership positions about how they have empowered themselves to create change in all walks of life.

I am honored to be one of the contributors to the book. Other contributors include women leaders in many fields, including entertainment (Oprah Winfrey), finance (Suze Orman), government (Sonia Gandhi), sports (Venus & Serena Williams), social change and philanthropy (Angelina Jolie), journalism (Barbara Walters), and literature (Sue Monk Kidd). In my chapter, I discuss the driving forces that have shaped my professional journey from corporate executive to the convent of the Maryknoll Sisters to living and working in Japan to law school and, finally, to a career as a trial lawyer and co-founder of a women’s initiative.

I felt compelled to contribute my personal story because all royalties from this book will be used to support three, exceptional non-profit organizations dedicated to improving the lives of girls and women: Capacitar, the Global Fund for Women and Tostan.

Last week, the Fox News TV show “FOX & Friends” asked Oscar-winning actress Olympia Dukakis (another Goddess Shift contributor) and me to discuss, among other things, what the book's title means. I told the interviewers that the word "Goddess" in the title refers to all women and that, to me, the phrase "Goddess Shift" means that women have moved from "setting the table" to "negotiating at the table." However, women still need to make the existential leap from participating in the corporate world as leaders to running our country. (Our FOX & Friends interviews (both the on-air and after-the-show interviews) are posted below.)

You can find more information about Goddess Shift, including sample chapters, here. I hope the book inspires more women to become leaders!