E-mail a friendDr. Lois Frankel
airdate June 21, 2007
Dr. Lois Frankel is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of workplace behavior and female empowerment. A licensed psychotherapist, she's president of Corporate Coaching International, with a client list that reads like a who's who of multinational corporations. Frankel is also a best-selling author whose books have been translated into more than 20 languages. She provides pro bono services to several nonprofit community agencies, including Motivating Our Students through Experience.
Full interview. (10:19)
Dr. Lois Frankel
Tavis: Lois Frankel is a bestselling author and business consultant who serves as president of Corporate Coaching International. Her previous books include "Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office," which was named one of the top 10 business books back in 2004. Her latest is called "See Jane Lead: 99 Ways for Women to Take Charge at Work." Lois Frankel, nice to have you on.
Dr. Lois Frankel: I'm delighted to be here.
Tavis: Why only 99?
Frankel: Well you know what? We don't need much more than that, we're so good.
Tavis: Yeah. (Laughter) Touché, touché, I like that. There's a lot of good stuff in here. I want to start by asking whether or not more women are leading, or whether or not those who are leading are getting so much exposure that we're reading and hearing more about them. And I ask that question only because it seems to me that we do ourselves a disservice to buy into the fact that the playing field is level. That more women, more African Americans, are doing this than ever before, when comparatively speaking, the numbers may still be very, very small.
Frankel: Exactly, they are very, very small. And when you say are more women leading, the fact is is that women throughout history have made tremendous leaders. We wouldn't have a Red Cross, we wouldn't have a PTA, we wouldn't have a Planned Parenthood if it wasn't for women. That's the fact, and that's the truth. On the other hand, when you look at corporations, there's only about seven female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
So something's very wrong. The ones who are there are getting more attention, but there's a lot of women leading every day who just don't have the confidence to call themselves leaders.
Tavis: I want to come back to that point in just a second. Let me ask you, though, beyond the obvious sexism and the patriarchal society that we live in, why in 2007 aren't there more women heading major corporations?
Frankel: Well when you say besides the sexism, that's -
Tavis: That's pretty big.
Frankel: That's a pretty big one.
Tavis: Exactly.
Frankel: But I am going to say that there's things that women do, they get in their own way. And I need to make that clear, too; that it's not just things that people do to women. Women buy in to messages, whether they hear them in childhood or they hear them through social messages which can be songs or television or movies, that really make them think that they're less than, and they're not. And when they buy into that, they're never going to be able to step up to the leadership plate with confidence.
Tavis: I figured if I asked that question you might end up at that place to let me follow up now, so thank you for indulging me. Let me follow up now. What kinds of things do women buy into that makes them ultimately feel less than?
Frankel: Well, it's messages like you have to do good rather than do well. Now, in my book "Nice Girls Don't Get Rich," this is one of the things that I talked about, is that one of the reasons why women don't have more wealth in this world is because they believe they have to be doing good. It's why you see women go into professions like social work, like teaching, like nursing.
And those are traditionally low-paid professions. So there's just one message, which is you don't have to worry about money because you're going to be married to somebody who's going to worry about that. They get messages like you can't be too smart or boys won't like you. Now, even girls who get the right message in childhood from parents, when they get to be about 12 or 13, then the social messages come in where they're hearing that, and all of a sudden they realize you know what? Maybe I can't be too smart and still have boys like me.
Tavis: Before we go further, if you're a woman, how do you break through that?
Frankel: What I say is that for all women there's messages playing in the back of their heads, and they need to tape those over with new messages. A woman's biggest fear is that if she's assertive, she's going to get called the dreaded "B" word. And what I try to help women see is that you're going to get called names anyway.
You're either going to get called not competent or you can't step up to the plate, or you're going to get called the "B" word, right? So pick your poison. (Laughter) I would much rather achieve my goals and have some people not like that than to never really achieve my full potential, and that's my message for women.
Tavis: And besides that, pretty logical to me - if you become the CEO and you get called the "B" word, you can fire the fool who called you that.
Frankel: There you go. (Laughter) There you go.
Tavis: I hate these kinds of questions; I'm going to ask it anyway because I think that people watching want these kinds of examples from time to time. I don't like putting people out as litmus tests, but you do in fact talk about the kinds of women - examples specifically of women who you think are strong leaders. Give me two or three, and tell me why.
Frankel: Yeah, I think somebody like Hillary Clinton is a strong leader. She's bright, she looks to reach consensus. This is one of the things that we need in society today. I happen to think that Elizabeth Dole is a strong leader. I think that Nancy Pelosi is a strong leader. Just in politics, there are some strong leaders.
Mary Kay from Mary Kay Cosmetics, now passed away. She was one of the strongest leaders I knew. Mary Kay had a vision, which was to make sure women could become financially independent and God could come first, family could come second, work could come third. It made her a multimillionaire. How many people are out there saying work could come third?
A leader who can say that has a lot of self-confidence. Also Meg Whitman, chief of eBay. Strong leader, very humble, brings people together, and yet knows what her vision is and how she wants to achieve it.
Tavis: You talk in this text about something that I enjoy delving into, because it's not just good advice for women, it's good advice for any of us - not that being liked ought to be, again, the litmus test, not that being liked ought to be the goal. But if you're going to operate and get along with people, better to be liked than disliked. And you talk about how to enhance your likeability quotient; tell me about that.
Frankel: Yeah, what I say is that likeability is necessary; it's not sufficient. Now on one end of the spectrum we have Sally Field. We remember her from the Academy Awards where she said, "You like me. You really like me." Well, that's one end of the spectrum. On the other end of the spectrum you have somebody like Leona Helmsley, right? Who was kind of the queen of mean.
And you've got to find a place in the middle. And some ways that you can do that is to give your opinion in direct and straightforward ways, but then add a tagline that says, “You can hear I feel strongly about that. I'd also like to know what you think.” This is what we expect from women in our society.
We expect them to be inclusive and when they're not, that's when they get called the "B" word. It's not about giving your opinion in a direct, straightforward manner; it's about not caring about what other people have to think. So when you put those two things together, it's really a secret weapon.
Tavis: To follow up on that point, you offer some real practical advice which again, I appreciate, about how to enhance your relationships with employees, with colleagues. And you talk about very simple things, and I laughed inwardly when you walked up on the stage here before we started this conversation, because you did.
I was checking to see if you were going to do what you advise others to do, and to the point, you did it. You walked up here, you gave me a firm handshake, you looked me straight in my eye, you smiled at me, you repeated my name, "Tavis, it's nice to meet you." Talk about how those small things can advance you in the -
Frankel: Oh, absolutely. In our office, we have a test. It's a very scientific test, and it's called the beer test. And it's when I meet you, would I actually like to go out and have a beer with you, or a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine? And if not, then you really don't pass the likeability test. So the things you just described are things that we tell people to do.
But some other things that you can do is you want to remember that people really want you to be interested in who they are as a person. Tavis, if we had more time - as a matter of fact, I did ask you. I said, "How long have you been doing this show?" And you gave me the answer. For the little bit of time we had, I expressed and interest in you.
I wasn't interested in talking about me; I wanted to get to know you. That's something that women do really well. They should continue doing it, and do more of it.
Something else women do really well is they make great coaches, right? When we think about coaching - any mother who ever taught a kid to ride a bicycle or do anything else has been a coach. But we've always put ourselves in the role of cheerleader. So what you can do, if you want to think about it, if you want to be a great coach, you want to build relationships, you've got to engage in what I call the seven-to-one rule of feedback.
And that's for every piece of negative feedback, you have to give someone - and I don't care if it's a child, a volunteer, an employee - you have to have given seven pieces of positive so that person doesn't see you as overly critical. And I think again, that's something women do really well. And that's the whole point of the book, which is that we live in a day and age when women's leadership is essential and we know how to do it.
Tavis: What specific advice do you offer for women who are interested in being entrepreneurs?
Frankel: Yeah, for entrepreneurs, the first thing I say is you have to have something you want to do that you are so passionate about that you are willing to spend your life doing this. A lot of times people come up to me and say, "I want to start a business, how do I do it?" My first question is, "What are you passionate about?" And they say, "I don't know."
Well then guess what? You're not ready to start a business. (Laughter) And when you are ready, you need to understand that you are going to do this with persistence. You're going to do it to perfection, and you're going to put all of your passion into it. And that's the way to do it. Now, there's a number of things that women can think about, though.
Maybe you don't have a particular skill, but what you want to do is have your own business. Go to one of these franchise expos. See whether you can buy into a business. See if you can become part of an affiliated business. I just go back to Mary Kay again because she was a wonderful example of somebody who said, "You know what? I can help you become financially independent on about $100 investment." Those are the kinds of things women should be thinking about.
Tavis: My mother told me when I was a kid something I never forgot, Lois. She said to me, "If you want something done right, get a woman to do it." And so all of my enterprises, quite frankly, are run by women. That said, I was happy this book came across my desk, because I can always learn something from women.
The book is called "See Jane Lead: 99 Ways for Women to Take Charge at Work," by Dr. Lois P. Frankel, and I'm honored to have you on the program.
Frankel: It's been my pleasure, thank you.
Tavis: Nice to have you here.
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