Bold & Balanced – Winning Tips for Women in Business
While women still face overt sexism in some instances, it’s the subtler, everyday slights that females typically find are more pervasive and in some ways harder to combat. Gina Radke, a business entrepreneur and author, gave an online audience of nearly 50 women from TRSA member companies a slew of useful tips for dealing with these challenges during TRSA’s Jan. 14 Virtual Roundtable: Women in the Linen, Uniform and Facility Services Industry.
TRSA Chair Noël Hammer Richardson, the association’s first female top elected leader, introduced Radke, noting that her talk and a 90-minute open forum that followed it was the latest example of the association’s efforts to help women in the industry. “Hopefully, you’ll take away from this some fresh ideas on navigating the business world, enhance our innovative thinking and make some new friends in the industry,” Hammer Richardson said.
Radke kicked off the session with a brief overview of her own background. She’s the owner and president of Galley Support Innovations, a company based in Sherwood, AR, that manufactures interior hardware for aircraft. And like the linen, uniform and facility services industry, aerospace manufacturing is a male-dominated field.
When she was starting out in business, Radke got a taste of how the modern world views female entrepreneurs. Borrowing money was a major hurdle for Radke and her husband, who is Native American. They went to several bank managers, all of whom were middle-aged white men. On paper, they should have qualified for the loan, based on their ability to pay, product line, etc. but they were turned down. Radke sought the advice of a male friend in the banking industry to ask why. “He went and he talked to one of the bankers and said ‘Why aren’t you giving these guys loans? It just doesn’t make sense to me.’ Radke said. “The banker told him, he said ‘I like to give loans to people that I can see myself in.’ Well, he couldn’t see himself in a man of color and a woman.’ He never looked at us and said, ‘Man you remind me of me when I was young.’’’
That was an “aha” moment for Radke. The men that turned her and her husband down for the loan weren’t evil or overtly racist or sexist. The problem was that Radke and her husband were different. They didn’t fit the pattern that the bankers were used to, and this made them reluctant to approve the loan. “The dominant force in lending are white men,” she said. “Again, nothing against white men, but the thought with this guy was ‘I don’t see myself in them.’ The science behind that is we go to what we know. We go to what feels comfortable to us. We go to what is our surroundings, our environments that we grew up with.”
One lesson Radke learned from this experience is the importance of male allies. She reached out to another man who approached the banker, and this effort helped get the loan approved. Male allies can help women in business by providing a second set of eyes and ears in the workplace. One example of how this can help is in cases of “mansplaining.” Radke says this happens when a woman is making a point during a meeting, which is ignored by the men in the room. A short time later a man makes the same point, and everyone perks up and engages in a lively discussion. A male ally can help women deal with this problem and perhaps undo this variety of “unconscious bias.” “Ask a male colleague to comment on this phenomenon,” she said. “You will be shocked and amazed at how their eyes will be open to it, when they would have never thought in a million years about it prior to you asking.”
A third form of bias against women – whether unconscious or overt – centers on attitudes about emotions. The stereotype of women is that they’re unable to control their feelings. Radke rejects this view, noting that anger is an emotion that men often show. Men also have their share of emotional “fits” as women sometimes do.
As a practical response, however, she suggests that when women do become upset about something at work, they need to tell colleagues they’re taking a brief break and will return shortly. “The one thing I never do is say, ‘I’ve had a rough day and I need to step away, period.’ I always give a timeline. If I just say ‘I’m having a bad day and I’m stepping away … When I walk out of the room what do they think? ‘Well, she’s having an emotional outbreak.’ When I say ‘Hey, I need a moment and I’m stepping away and I’ll be back in five minutes, I will have this project done by close of business.’ When I give them a timeline, I am respecting the fact that I need to take a moment to inventory my emotions.”
These examples reflect elements of a strategy for women in the workplace that Radke elaborates on in her book More Than: How to be Bold and Balanced in Life and Business.
It’s an approach that one might call assertive but not pushy. Radke makes her interests known to men as well as women, seek allies of both genders and works to build an effective network. In essence, she’s bold but balanced. Radke says her mantra is “Your network is your ‘net worth.’ That’s what I tell everybody.”
After her talk, several women on the call shared stories on several of these topics and others from their personal experiences in the laundry business. Examples included dealing with male relatives in a family business setting, not having your experience/education taken seriously by men with similar qualifications, and not getting a fair hearing for your ideas, among others.
TRSA plans to offer more virtual roundtable opportunities for women in the industry this year. Keep an eye out for future roundtable offerings on topics such as:
- Helping Men Help Us
- Seeing Ourselves as Leaders
- Strategies to Survive in a Male Dominated Industry
- Navigating Conflict at Work