Posts Tagged ‘carpe the chaos’
Friday Round Up: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
It’s been quite a week between the lawmakers in Washington taking the debt-ceiling deal to the 11th hour and yesterday being one of the worst days in the financial markets since 2008. Yet despite all the chaos, this Friday’s Round Up is going deploy Power Tool #5 ‘Carpe the Chaos’ and keep marching forward to highlight some of the good, not just the bad and the ugly – we’ve had quite enough of that…
She's Doing It: And in combat boots!!
Did you know women are the fastest growing group of armed forces veterans with estimates of growing from 1.8 million in 2010 to 2.1 million by 2036? I didn’t until I read some recent reports.
Women have made great strides throughout the U.S. Military, serving in almost every position now. This is a big change in an organizational culture designed by men for men. Change as we know, can create chaos, or at least the feeling of chaos. This week’s “She’s Doing It” celebrates those brave women in uniform, and looks at how they are using No Excuses Power Tool #5, “carpe the chaos” when Janie comes marching home.
Read MoreOne Way Women Should Not Change How We Think About Power
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Had you noticed? Today is the 51st anniversary of the U. S. Supreme Court Griswold v Connecticut decision legalizing birth control for married couples under the Constitutional principle of a right to privacy. Nah, probably not.
Figure the odds that anyone is going to pay an iota of attention today to the Griswold anniversary or the new poll that also found voters angry about the Republicans’ attempts to defund Title X family planning services for low income women. Not when they have Weinergate. Talk about someone who has not just lost but thrown away his privacy!
Read More5 Tips to Carpe the Chaos and Thrive
NAFE, the National Association of Female Executives asked me to write a “Five Tips” article for their latest newsletter.
I chose to write about 5 tips for using chaos as opportunity, or as I’ve put it in No Excuses power tool #5: Carpe the Chaos. I recently spoke on this topic to the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce Women’s Roundtable and the International Museum of Women. In my experience as a leader, it’s a useful concept that got me through tough times when many people thought there was no way to succeed.
There IS always a way, and it really helps to see the opportunity when others see only negativity in change and chaos! Here’s the post:
Gloria Feldt’s No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power has stood near the top of Amazon’s leadership booklist since it was published last October. A teen mom who became CEO of the world’s largest reproductive health provider and advocacy organization, Gloria learned leadership on the job. Now she’s a sought-after speaker, author, and consultant. Here are her tips on how to turn chaos into opportunity:
1. Think positive. Be like Monty Python: Always look at the bright side of life. You might as well. Chaos is inevitable because change is inevitable. And whoever is most comfortable with the ambiguity change creates is most likely to thrive, not just survive.
Read MorePower Tool #5: Carpe the Chaos
Political talking heads slicing and dicing Nov. 2’s election results had previously declared this to be the year of the Republican rightwing woman. It wasn’t quite. Still, it’s a dagger to the heart of social justice feminism that the nation’s first two women of color elected governor are not women who support women’s rights to economic and reproductive justice–the two fundamental building blocks of women’s power and agency in this world. We have a lot of work to do.
It’s our job to find the opportunity–to carpe the chaos. To be a beacon of light when so many of our leaders are co-opted rather than courageous, and to take the initiative without delay. Post-election regrouping with its inevitable jockeying for power is the perfect launching pad for future victories. On the positive side, the Colorado ballot initiative that would have given personhood rights to the fertilized egg but not to the woman failed by a three-to-one margin. So let’s build on that to foster the paradigm shift in gender power that is sorely needed.
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