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Female Founders Succeed Despite Sexism
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Phoenix tech scene also benefits by RaeAnne Marsh
Historically, a lot of business has transpired in social settings, high on the list of which is the golf course and private men’s lounges. Hence the term “the old boys’ club.” Transactions may or may not be brought to agreement in such settings, but certainly connections are facilitated that ultimately lead to business agreements. This is not news, but it is the reason women and minorities have had such a hard time breaking through the so-called glass ceiling even in companies with well-intentioned leadership.
Then there’s the not so well-intentioned business interactions that overtly denies or denigrates the talent of women and minorities.
For the women CEOs in this article, the success of their companies demonstrates the truth of their potential. Strengthening our business community overall, these Phoenix business founders found ways around the prejudice to contribute to a thriving and supportive tech scene for women.
Liz Mason, who has now founded five other Phoenixbased businesses, started High Rock Accounting in 2013 in a traditionally male-dominated industry and, rather than beat her head against that brick wall, took advantage of it in a subterfuge to sidestep the problem while getting her business off the ground.
“When I first opened the firm,” Mason relates, “I was working with an awesome growing startup. The company had very prominent investors who also sat on their board of directors. I would go to the board meetings as the acting CFO and would consistently get questioned on the fundamentals of accounting. The board as a whole lacked confidence in my calculations and presentations merely because I was a 29-year-old woman.
“I ended up hiring a friend of mine, a 45-year-old white male, to be our representative at the board meetings. I did all the work behind the scenes, spent 15 minutes telling him what to present to the board and the parts that mattered, and he would go give the presentations. The board as a whole accepted his reports without question and frequently praised his work. They had no idea that it was still me doing all the work behind the scenes and he was just the talking head.”
Her friend, she relates, was very frustrated by the whole experience and wanted to tell the board the true situation, but the ruse enabled her to service the client while avoiding what she characterizes as “a monthly tribunal focusing on diminishing my contributions and downplaying my abilities.”
Rebecca Clyde, co-founder and CEO of marketing software company Botco.ai, was recently named one 2020’s “Most
Influential Women in Arizona,” but remembers that, with her first Phoenix company, when she would attend networking events with her male co-founder, people would ask him about the business and her about her kids. The implied stereotype was similar to one she’d encountered as an employee, when she was passed over for projects while she was pregnant because people assumed she would not want the extra workload. “Please don’t do this to expectant mothers,” she insists. “We still value our careers!”
Are there negative stereotypes about men? Of course. And Rebecca Romanucci — who founded DynoSafe in 2017 to bring to market a smart, IoT, temperature- and climate-controlled container to hold packages delivered to an unattended address — refers to one that characterizes men as not liking to ask for directions and not reading instructions when putting something together as she describes herself as the polar opposite. “I took the time to complete a tremendous amount of research, and to apply for patents, prior to building, testing and presenting the prototypes at national conventions such as CES (the world’s largest consumer electronics show).”
BUILDING SUCCESS 'THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY — WE EARNED IT' (to co-opt John Houseman’s line from a 1980s advertising campaign)
“Our unique life experiences expose us to numerous pain points/ problems and sensitivity/compassion, and an entrepreneur becomes driven to solve the problem,” says Romanucci. “I identified the problem, obsessed about the solution, researched other solutions, identified that all other solutions lacked my differentiator — 'climate/temperaturecontrol' — and invested my own funds into securing IP, patenting my differentiator, building and securing a mote between my product and all others. Then, I spent 10 to 16 hours a day fully aware that I needed to establish myself as a leader in this industry, building trust and confidence in a male-dominated industry, while continuing to invest my own funds in the necessary, next steps.”
“For me, growth comes from ‘leveling up’ continuously,” says Clyde. “This means taking on increasingly difficult challenges and using the experience and knowledge from the past to build something new. I started Botco. ai in 2017 with 20 years of industry experience in digital marketing and marketing automation. But what I didn’t have was experience building a high-growth, venture-funded software startup.” She believes one of the most important choices she made was to partner with people who did have experience building and scaling startups. “I surrounded myself with mentors, immersed myself in the learning process and joined two accelerators (Alchemist Accelerator and Venture Ready). I approached my startup with 100% curiosity and openness to learning.” She credits her coachability for helping her keep growing and expanding. “Plus,” she notes, “it’s so much more exciting to try new things and learn from new people in different fields! That has been the best part of this journey.”
Clyde took an approach she calls “co-creation”: “I consulted with my potential customers iteratively and with nearly 100 customer interviews through the early stages of Botco.ai. By taking this approach, productmarket fit was built in.” These potential customers also validated her company by helping fund the product. “My first checks came from early customers and angels that are in the industry I was selling into,” she says.
Says High Rock Accounting CEO Liz Mason, “People judge my company by the fact that we are woman-owned and assume it is some kind of lifestyle business.” But her leadership of her company follows a type of risk-taking that is typically seen as a male business trait, she says. “I have been bold in decision making — taking on large clients before having the right team members to handle it; opening new offices in foreign countries without a single client; believing in myself and my team’s ability to handle anything above all.
“Any business person needs to take a step back and align themselves with their goals, and to be successful they have to push through the limits of what is comfortable and easy and take risks,” says Mason. “I’ve done a lot of risk taking, and it has paid off in spades.”
However, Mason does embrace a mindset that she believes sets High Rock apart from a male-run company. This was underscored recently, when she asked her team for critical feedback on the company’s internal operations and received a lot of excellent ideas and areas to focus their efforts on improving. “When I acknowledged the team’s amazing ideas, I received a message from one of our male team members who spent the majority of his career in startups and then private equity back corporations run by men. He said, ‘Thank you, Liz, for asking how we all feel about how things are. Most businesses wouldn’t even ask or care what others thought, let alone take the feedback and use it to shift the business model. This separates your leadership style from the rest of the world and is why you are an amazing human being and mentor.’” Mason believes that statement is actually a reflection on a female-run company. “I have been more focused on building something great for all of us on the team collaboratively, rather than pushing them to build something for me.”
GROWING IN THE COMMUNITY; GROWING THE COMMUNITY
“Phoenix is generally an incredibly open and accepting community and, outwardly, I would say we experience little sexism compared to many parts of our country,” says Mason. “However, there is still an intense underlying bias that people have assuming women are not as successful, are not building things as big as men, are not capable of dealing with finances, and are inherently weaker.” Sharing, “I am extremely ambitious and have giant world-domination goals,” she also notes, “I battle the systemic sexism on a regular basis and I do it acknowledging what it is and that we will always have to deal with it intelligently to maintain success.”
Romanucci also finds Phoenix a thriving environment for entrepreneurial opportunities. Attending many Phoenix-area startup-community events, which she reports were male-dominated, with more than 90% male attendees, she says, “I didn’t take the time to identify with the lack of female representation, but instead I asserted myself, eagerly learned, formed a wide variety of connections and made it my priority to follow up with each connection.” Her point is that every entrepreneur must identify the resources available to them and make a concerted effort to make the most of every opportunity.
Pay disparity was part of the impetus for Clyde, whose investigation at “a large tech company in Chandler” where she was employed made it clear to her that she was getting paid about 30% less than her male counterparts. That was back in 2005, and she says the company recently announced it had achieved pay parity. However, she says she is happy she left the corporate world to start her own businesses and control her destiny because “it’s so much more fun to be an entrepreneur.”
For the future, says Clyde, “Now that I am in a leadership role and have the ability to have an influence on other leaders, I see it as a responsibility to ensure that women and minorities are included in all the opportunities that everyone else has, and that they also get to thrive based on their effort and merits.”
High Rock Accounting highrock.co DynoSafe dynosafe.com Botco.ai botco.ai
VIRTUAL VOLUNTEERING
In these crazy times when isolation has become commonplace and charities are desperate to stay afloat there are still ways to volunteer safely. One source of information about virtual volunteer options is the VolunteerMatch site. Through VolunteerMatch, anyone can explore hundreds of virtual volunteer opportunities in cause areas like health and medicine, education, and community building, that can be done from a computer from home or anywhere. volunteermatch.org/ virtual-volunteering
Tyler Butler (“Tyler Butler | Giving in Style”), founder and CEO of 11Eleven Consulting, is a corporate social responsibility practitioner and expert leader in the corporate citizenship space. She has served on numerous national and local boards and is often cited as a subject matter expert by Forbes, Entrepreneur, U.S. News & World Report and more. 11elevenconsulting.com givinginstyle.net
Plexus Worldwide Volunteerism: Nourishing Health and Happiness
Health, wellness and a focused response to the needs of humanity by Tyler Butler
Plexus Worldwide is more than a health and wellness company. It is a company built from the belief that people should have the opportunity to meet their wellness and financial goals. Originally started with its flagship product, the Breast Chek Kit, which allowed women to easily perform their own monthly examinations, Plexus has a tradition of exploring solutions that help society in myriad ways. It was the implementation of Plexus Charities in 2018, however, that led to a focused response to the needs of humanity.
Through Plexus Charities, the company empowers employees to support causes that they are personally passionate about. Plexus realized that, while most employees are interested in volunteering, it may not always be viable with busy schedules. As a result, Plexus began providing 16 hours of paid volunteer time to be used during regular business hours at either company-planned events or on their own with eligible 501(c)(3) nonprofits.
Additionally, Plexus planned to have corporate-led initiatives that would complement and elevate the employee volunteerism that they take so much pride in. In 2018, Plexus launched its Nourish One™ initiative, where “a meal for you means a meal for a hungry child or family in need” as it contributes a donation equivalent to one meal for every serving sold of Plexus Lean. To date, Nourish One™ has already helped donate more than 16 million meals to children and families through this partnership. And Plexus has committed to designate a portion of the funds to its local Feeding America affiliate, St. Mary’s Food Bank.
In January 2019, Plexus set up an ongoing partnership with Mary’s Meals, a global charity that combats hunger in the world’s poorest communities. This was met with the creation of Plexus’ formal philanthropic program and support from its employees as the company identified three pillars of giving for all corporate sponsored events. These pillars are Healthy Eating, Healthy Communities and Healthy Environments, which are aligned with the company’s mission of Health and Happiness.
Plexus Worldwide employees volunteering to make pizza at St. Vincent de Paul Plexus Worldwide employees volunteer often at St. Mary's Food Bank and made the nonprofit the focus of their Week of Service in September 2019
“There is no greater joy than donating time to help those in need, and Plexus is proud to give back to the communities that helped us grow over the past decade,” says Tarl Robinson, founder and CEO. “I am proud of how enthusiastically employees have embraced this new spirit of giving.” The passion displayed by Plexus employees is evident through activities such as their meal prep and distribution at St. Mary’s Food Bank, the packing and organizing of presents for the Salvation Army and through the harvesting and planting at the St. Vincent de Paul Urban Farm. In fact, Plexus employees are so passionate about their community engagement efforts that they have logged more than 2,300 hours aiding causes they care about.
Plexus has not let COVID19 dampen its commitment to volunteerism, either. Since the beginning of the pandemic, employee in-person volunteer activities have had to adapt to virtual volunteer drives and activities. In this spirit, Plexus employees have been participating in company-led activities such as the creation of inspiration cards for the individuals served by Cancer Support Community Arizona, Ryan House and HandsOn Greater Phoenix. They have participated in a Kumomi painting class benefitting the participants at Cancer Support Community AZ. Finally, they helped a virtual heat relief campaign benefitting Salvation Army, which raised mor than $8,000 in donations and matching corporate contributions.
Plexus has also continued to donate tens of thousands of products to organizations such as Food Banks Canada, Atlanta Community Food bank, St. Mary’s Food Bank, and St. Vincent de Paul Georgia and Phoenix. “Our vision to spread health and happiness extends beyond our community to people across the country and around the globe, and this initiative allows us to multiply our donations by giving Ambassadors and customers a way to get involved,” says Alec Clark, founder and president. It is companies like Plexus that are taking a leadership position in activating volunteers that is so valuable.
Leading and Living B.I.G.
Boundaries, integrity and generosity are the cornerstones of fulfilling leadership by Eileen Rogers
As human beings, we are meaning-making machines! To make sense of our daily lives, our brains are constantly on the hunt for a story that fits.
Yet, there is a problem with stories. Once we give ourselves a good guy and a bad guy, or a right way and a wrong way, our brains reward us with a hit of the feel-good neurotransmitter called dopamine. The brain doesn’t care if the story is true or not; it just wants to feel good again.
So, in the absence of data, we make up stories. A lot of stories. A lot of stories about the people and teams we lead.
Brené Brown, Ph.D., LMSW, author of the book Dare to Lead, found in her research that we fall roughly into two groups. Fifty percent of us assume and believe people are doing the best they can. The other 50% assume and believe, “Oh, hell no, they’re not!”
Leaders who assumed the “hell no” stance turned out not only to be hard on others, but often brutally perfectionistic and hard on themselves. They struggled with their egos and used shame, blame, cajoling and pushing others to get things done. They believed people were ignoring them, making them angry or driving them crazy on purpose, or that they were just lazy. By believing this, they gave themselves permission to be angry, so they could then choose to sidestep hard but potentially productive conversations.
The leaders who assumed positive intent were kinder and gentler not only on others but on themselves. They started with a generous hypothesis about other people’s thoughts, words and actions.
These two different kinds of leaders didn’t give up on excellence but approached their teams and organizations in very different ways.
B.I.G.: BOUNDARIES, INTEGRITY AND GENEROSITY
Dr. Brown’s work led to the concept of living “B.I.G.” As a daring leader, living the concept of B.I.G. means I believe that “people aren’t broken; systems are broken.”
There are, as might be imagined, three parts to living B.I.G.:
Boundaries: Getting clear on what’s OK and what’s not.
Integrity: Choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.
Generosity: Working from assumptions and intentions of compassion and grace. Operating with less judgement and more curiosity.
The leaders Dr. Brown interviewed who had the clearest boundaries were also the most generous and compassionate. Setting and maintaining boundaries is a skill set most of us were never taught, especially in the workplace. Setting clear boundaries means “I will have harder conversations and create greater accountability.” Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.
Assuming positive intent doesn’t mean leaders would stop helping others set goals, grow or change. It does mean that we commit to stopping the habit of respecting and evaluating people based only on what we think they should accomplish. Instead, we respect them for who they are and hold them accountable for what they’re actually doing.
It also means daring leaders who live B.I.G. focus on the difficult tasks of teaching their teams, reassessing skill gaps, reassigning them or letting them go. As crazy as it sounds, Dr. Brown’s research showed that many leaders choose to stay in resentment, disappointment and the frustrations that come with believing people aren’t trying rather than face a difficult conversation about real deficits.
REFLECTING ON A B.I.G. LIFE
“At the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of my life, I want to be able to say that I contributed more than I criticized.” —Dr. Brené Brown
Discovering Dr. Brown’s work became an inflection point for me. It caused me to ask, “What boundaries need to be put in place so I can work from a place of integrity and extend the most generous interpretations of the intentions, words and actions of others?”
It also caused me to ask myself, “How can I help my people develop and perform better without making negative assumptions?” It launched a process of discovery that led me to understand that if I’m generous to those around me, I can be equally generous to myself: “I am doing the very best I can with what I have right now.”
Showing up in my integrity; making generous assumptions about the actions, words and intent of others; and having established boundaries is what I strive for. When I provide clear expectations with set boundaries, people perform better. While I can’t guarantee everyone is always doing the best they can, I do know that my life is better when I assume that they are.
After 40 years as president of her print and marketing company, Eileen Rogers’ encore career is now as a leadership coach and business advisor through her company One Creative View. She is a seasoned and accomplished entrepreneur and recognized community leader who is fiercely passionate about supporting and growing more vulnerable and courageous leaders. She is a certified Dare to Lead™ facilitator, Integrative Enneagram practitioner and executive coach. onecreativeview.com
Warning Signs of
Potential Violence
Signs include some or all of the following: • Excessive use of alcohol or drugs • Behavioral changes that include poor job performance • Depression or withdrawal • Complaints about unfair treatment • Violation of company policies • Mood swings and overreaction to criticism or evaluations • Paranoia
A nationally renowned Federal Crisis Negotiation Specialist, Doc Elliot is founder and president of Phoenix Training Group. Since 1976, Phoenix Training Group has been the nation’s leader in workplace violence prevention training, customizing effective anti-violence training programs for corporations across all industries. phoenixtraininggroup.com
Workplace: Making a Safe Environment
A step-by-step guide for business owners to create a threat-free zone by Doc Elliot
In the midst of COVID-19, workers in all industries are being affected by societal tensions, unprecedented stress and pressures at home. Those stressors find their way to the workplace, creating dangerous environments that put both employees and customers at great risk.
The following steps will help every business owner prevent workplace violence and keep employees and customers safe while instituting a culture of safety in the workplace.
Who Is at Risk for Workplace Violence?
There are four major types of workplace violence: • Criminal intent (e.g., robbery by someone with no relationship to the business) • Customer/client violence • Worker-on-worker • Personal relationship (i.e., domestic violence)
While workplace violence can affect anyone, there are certain risk factors that increase a person’s risk, including gender and occupation. Women in particular are vulnerable to domestic violence in the workplace — they are twice as often the victim of workplace homicides, with 32% of the homicides committed by a domestic partner.
While taxi drivers, healthcare workers and other social work occupations have some of the highest rates of workplace violence, other sectors of employment are seeing an increase in workplace violence, too. These include government, education and health services, professional and business services, and retail. For these employees, workplace violence is the third leading cause of death on the job.
Occupations with the highest risk of workplace violence include any that interact with the public, are open after dark and serve alcohol.
WHAT IS VIOLENCE PREVENTION TRAINING AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
In general, workplace violence is the product of the interaction between three factors: • The person committing the violence, • The triggering event that motivates the person, and • A workplace that is more conducive to allowing violence to happen.
WORKPLACE VIOLENCE PREVENTION TRAINING CAN HELP MITIGATE ALL THREE FACTORS.
7 Key Steps to Identify, Address and Prevent Violence in the Workplace 1. Analyze the workplace. A thorough assessment of the workplace is necessary to understand where the bulk of a business’s workplace violence prevention training should focus. This process is similar to risk management. Answering these questions will help business owners figure out where they are in terms of workplace violence prevention: • Has there been violence in the workplace before? When, what kind, and who was involved? How was it handled? What systems were put in place afterward, and were they effective? If there have been no violent incidents in the company’s history, what is the company doing well? Are there gaps in the company’s workplace violence policies? Where? How safe is the physical environment? Which doors stay locked? How are employees protected if they leave late at night?
2. Create a supportive environment. Every training program starts with developing a relationship with employees. It is important that company leadership, including the HR department, make employees feel heard and supported at work.
For example, this could help workers who are experiencing domestic violence to be more open with their employer. Should the domestic partner show up at work, the employer is then able to respond accordingly. This also means that workers reporting potential violence or verbally threatening remarks should be supported and not face reprisals, regardless of who they are reporting. Workplace violence policies apply all the way up the corporate ladder and with any client. 3. Offer communication and empathy training. Workplace violence training is often about how to handle a violent episode as it is occurring, but offering workers training in effective, empathetic training and coaching can prevent it before it starts.
In today’s crisis-driven environment, some organizations are partnering with psychologists and therapists to offer employees a safe outlet for their feelings at work. 4. Establish a clear workplace violence policy. Employers should consider how they handle workplace violence — what supports or disciplinary actions are in place for verbal and nonverbal threats and actions? And they should let their employees know this information with consistent, constant training. 5. Commit to a non-violent workplace. Commitment to a non-violent workplace means regularly allocating resources — money and time — to training workers and preventing workplace violence. And this workplace violence prevention training should be annual. 6. Train employees to recognize warning signs. Training employees to be alert to warning signs of potential workplace violence can stop an incident before it starts. 7. Create an action plan, share it with employees, and practice. No one wants to think about the worst-case scenario, much less practice it regularly, but practicing drills for active shooters and other workplace emergencies and having a plan in place could save lives.
Workplace violence prevention training and techniques have evolved over the years to reflect the real-life situations we are facing in the business world today.
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Bruce Weber is founder and president/CEO at Weber Group. Weber brings more than 20 years of experience to the for-profit and nonprofit community, working with startup, growth and mature organizations. His focus is in strengthening organizations through strategic planning, organizational development, leadership and board development. He is a BoardSource Certified Governance trainer and a founding partner of the Nonprofit Lifecycles Institute. webergroupaz.com
Embracing Chaos
Turning stress into energy and movement forward by Bruce Weber
Chaos is defined as “a state of utter confusion, or disorder, a total lack of organization or order.” If there is one thing we are not missing right now is more chaos! The world has been turned upside-down in ways that we have never dreamed of! Things that once seemed normal, now require deep preparation, orchestration and facilitation like never before. The new normal is no longer new; it’s getting old, and the longing to return to even better days seems a distant probability. So how can we take advantage of this situation and turn the associated stress with chaos into energy?
It boils down to three things: clarity of vision, setting realistic expectations, and dedication to new approaches. Since the pandemic began, I have read and listened to many strategies in dealing with stress, people management, business management, and how to build plans to survive the period we now live in. The reality is that change is constant and the chaos it often brings along with it are with us all the time. I suggest viewing chaos as an opportunity, a chance to rethink and recalibrate and explore. Let’s dive into those three elements to take advantage of the turmoil.
First, where do you want to drive your business or organization forward? You don’t have to shoot for the moon (although there is nothing wrong with a setting high goals), it’s just that sometimes bite-sized chunks may be more realistic and enable you to chip away and experience interim progress. Take the time to be succinct about where you want to go and what that vision looks like along with the impact your organization is trying to make. Engage your employees and those outside the organization in those conversations. The more insight you can gather from your vital stakeholders, the greater chance you will discover a path that never existed.
Second, set realistic goals about what is achievable. Allow yourself permission to explore and imagine beyond what you would consider “normal” and remain within what is fundable and resource-able. Challenging times can be overwhelming, but taking time to reevaluate your goals and direction often provides unexpected clarity. Do not undertake this process alone; rather, include those who are invested in your business along with those you serve. Often, we can become intimidated by the unknown and our imagination begins to alter our thinking, and we begin to question the validity of new approaches. While you want to build a sustainable future, do it under the guise of success. Ask yourself, “What do I and my team need to build this new approach?” Avoid allowing negative thoughts to limit your potential.
Lastly, be dedicated to trying those new approaches and measuring their impact. One way to facilitate a new direction I mentioned earlier is to allow your staff to stretch outside their current job and take the lead on a new project. Staff participation provides a sense of ownership and inclusivity that is often elusive to most organizations. Often, being close to the client or customer, an organization’s staff recognize opportunities unseen by the leadership. This sense of inclusion and ownership brings your organization closer together and builds a strong bond with the vision of the organization. Create measurement metrics that are simple and understandable while providing a “real-time” evaluation of success.
Driving a hybrid car, the driver generates energy while braking to slow down or stop. Often, that process of slowing down in an organization offers a chance to create new energy to dream and imagine. Let’s work to turn that “slow down” into productive energy in our organizations and, ultimately, turn that energy into results.
