dare to dream

Kristy Williams: A Dream in Progress = Women in Business Conference

Kristy Williams is a former Bain management consultant and corporate strategist who now focuses her days on motherhood and planning the conference described in this post. She grew up in small town Alberta, Canada, enjoyed urban living for many years, and now lives in suburban Houston.  She is adjusting to using a car to get everywhere.  Her hobbies including most anything done outdoors, reading The Economist, traveling and planning parties.

Eighteen months ago I was fresh out of big dreams, and ready to embark on a journey to change my situation. Inspired by a post Whitney wrote, as I considered what my dreams might be (click here), and worked through the possibilities (click here), a whole new vision came to mind. None of my original dream ideas actually translated to dreams I want to pursue right now. But the process put me on the path that led to my current dream, the pursuit of which has been a fascinating (and at times frustrating) experience.

My dream is to plan and execute a Women in Business conference at BYU. Unlike some of the other dreams I considered, this concept met all of my “dream needs” (which, of course, I didn’t know I needed until I was working through the options). The conference filled a need in a community I care about - no other forum exists to connect LDS women in the business community (current professionals, students, and those on paid-work hiatus). Both the planning and the execution would connect me with interesting women (often a challenge for me as a SAHM). Most of the work in planning the event could be done from home, and during naptime (I decided at the outset that I did not want this dream to take away much from time with my children). Most importantly, pulling this off would require the use of many my talents and the development of some of my weaknesses.

Source:  istockphoto

I have never planned a conference, I live in Houston, TX, far away from Provo, Utah, and I have no strong connections to people currently at BYU. None of those issues concerned me when I began. I was confident in my leadership and communication abilities (two of my talents) and was certain the administration at BYU would readily embrace my idea (one of my weaknesses: assuming everyone values what I do). In April 2010 I began sharing my idea with a few people, reached out to a friend who ran a conference the year before, and set up an initial timeline. March 2011 seemed like a reasonable date for the event - almost a year away. March has come and gone, and the conference just received full approval. In the 15 months since idea inception, I’ve learned some important lessons:

1) Sharing your dream can be scary. I am a confident woman. Yet when it came time to my dream with others (even my husband and dear friends), I was nervous. What if they thought my idea was dumb, or that I wasn’t up to this task? I was really surprised to feel this way (junior high was long ago!), and it kept me from moving forward for a short while.

2) An internet connection and no-fee long distance are all you need to coordinate a big event like this (well, and an on-site supporter).  When I began to plan the conference, I contacted several women whom I thought might be interested in helping. Many of them were not in a position to contribute time, but they introduced me to other women. Within a short time I was connected with a strong group of women who share similar values, concerns, and goals. The conference organizing committee - a group of women with whom I’ve worked closely for upwards of 10 months - contains one of my best friends (mother of 2, works part-time), 3 women I’ve never met in person (2 SAHMs with MBAs, one woman who works full-time in private equity), and one woman I interacted with briefly 7 years ago (2 kids, works part-time from home).

Source: istockphoto

We live all over the country, from San Francisco to New York City.  Thanks to email and google docs (and a few phone calls), we’ve shared ideas and revised (again and again) proposals and themes and missions statements. The input and help of these women has been crucial - they’ve expanded my view of what topics are important and how we can best meet the needs of our target audience. They have enabled me to pursue this dream without neglecting my family, connected me with other great people, and have filled holes in my skill set.

3) Underestimating the challenges you will face is a blessing and a curse, but mostly a blessing. I first shared my idea for the conference in April 2010 and final approval from the school did not come until May 2011. I was always certain a “yes!” was just around the corner, so I never gave up and rarely became discouraged. The conference was important and top of mind for me, and initially I assumed the same would hold for everyone else (that weakness again). In time I realized that employees and administrators at BYU have full time jobs - and getting everything in order to work on and approve the conference was just one more thing to add to their plate. Finally, in December 2010, I was connected with the person who had the authority, desire, and interest-level to push this forward. Nine months into planning and the pieces were actually coming together!

 
Source:  istockphoto

4) Roadblocks can provide opportunities for fine-tuning. After finding the right champion, she still needed to receive support from her governing board. As always, I was certain they would love the idea and give the go-ahead. I was a bit disappointed when the group requested we put together a survey to gauge interest in the event. “Of course there is interest!” I thought! “Everyone I’ve talked to loves the idea!”  However, as I put the survey together, I realized that instead of a roadblock, this was actually a great way to publicize the event and ensure the topics I’d come up with were of interest to my intended demographic. And if no one wanted to come, it was best to learn this before detailed planning got underway. The survey results were wonderfully encouraging. Even the Marriott School dean was floored by the response. Over 700 people responded, and almost half said they were likely/very likely to attend.  The validation we needed came in droves.

Another roadblock came when more and more people requested to be involved in the approval process. Though this certainly pushed back my timeline, it also forced me to ensure I was clearly communicating the value of the event and the quality of the women who could potentially speak. Speaker approval is still underway (again, pushing back the timeline), but as I’ve prepared the speaker bios (and provided more and more information as requested) I’ve moved from a strong list of speakers to an amazing list of speakers. Now I just hope some of them will agree to participate.

This event will be a valuable tool for professional women (those currently in the workforce and those taking a hiatus)--providing an opportunity to expand networks, make interesting personal connections, and explore ways to live in faith while developing talents and maintaining skills. In addition, the conference will help students better understand the various paths available to them in management and identify role models and mentors who can help them as they make important career and life decisions.

In addition to several keynote speakers, we will have presentations and panels discussing topics such as How to Find and What to Look for in a Mentor, Femininity in a Rough-and-Tumble World, Making it Work: Creating a Workplace that Works for Families, Up & Running: Starting Your Own Business, Using Your Skills for Service: Serving in the Church and in the Community, Does Work/Life Balance Even Exist, and several others.

I don’t yet know how this will all turn out, but the journey thus far has been exhilarating. I’ve learned that I can pursue a big dream and still fulfill my role as a full-time mom and that big dreams take time and perseverance. Most importantly, I’ve developed a repeatable model for identifying dreams worthy of pursuing. One dream in the works, many more to come.

There is so much to learn from Kristy's process of pursuing her dream. 

What is do you find is applicable as you pursue your dreams?

P.S.  When the website is up for registration, I will post a link.  In the meantime, if you want to be on the mailing list for the conferene, you can e-mail Kristy at kristy dot rae dot williams at gmail dot com.

Who I'd Want on My Advisory Board

We have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us. – Joseph Campbell.

***

Matt Langdon, the founder of the Hero Construction Company, is doing profoundly important work -- teaching us, and especially our children, how to be heroes.  So important, in my opinion, that I urged my children's school to invite him to give a workshop a few years ago, one that my 14 year-old son still remembers.

As a consequence, when Matt asks me write something for him, I gladly do it.   He asked me to write about my childhood heroes a few years ago.  I did.  More recently, he asked me submit a list of who I'd want at my roundtable, as in knights of the roundtable.

Here's a link to my list, and a few observations:

1)  As I assembled my roundtable/advisory board, I tried to choose people that I obviously could learn from, but also that based on my experience of them are interested in engaging, and perhaps most importantly, my sense is that I can trust them.

2)  On the list you'll see who I'd have at the roundtable now, but a year from now there would likely be a rotation -- some stay, some go, depending on what I'm trying to figure out.

3)  As I am reflecting on my list, I wonder if I am missing a category of "heroes of support;"  Perhaps that's because there is overlap with the truth-tellers, which I do have: the people who tend to tell me what they really think are often my biggest supporters.

May you enjoy this list of "my telling you who I admire, and then you'll know who I want to be" to paraphrase Thomas Carlyle.

Who would be at your roundtable?

There are many criteria one can choose to construct a roundtable?  What criteria would you use?

P.S.  If you liked this post, you may enjoy Elmira Bayrasli's interview with Lucy Marcus titled How to Build a Non-Profit Board.

 

The Optimist Challenge (Update)

Whoops.

I promised that I would report back on Memorial Day Weekend re: the Optimist's Challenge, and here it is Father's Day.

Public accountability is a beautiful thing -- except when it's not.

Here's what I committed to do for one month:

1. Wake up and write down what I am worrying about -- just the facts.
2. Write down the story I am telling myself about the facts.
3. Work to write the most conceivably optimistic story I can tell myself based on the same incontrovertible facts.

Here's what I can report:

1. I completed the actual exercise 2-3x a week, less than I aspired to do, more than I would have otherwise done.
2. I was overly optimistic about my ability to be optimistic.
3. What I think I'm pessimistic about can be symptomatic:  I often need to peel the onion some before discovering why I'm really pessimistic. 
4. Even when I didn't write things down, I observed myself a lot, my patterns of thinking -- revealing.
5. On the days when I wrote an optimist's version, I felt immediately more sunny, and physically more energetic -- staggeringly so.

***

Beause this is something new to me, baby steps seem to be required.  So, I'm going to provide another update on July 3, compress the timeframe. 

In the meantime, here is some of what I've been reading/thinking on the topic: 

Seth Godin's Linchpin:  I especially love page 127 -- Signs that your lizard brain is at work.  Here's a YouTube video preview of his book. 

For something totally different and more personal, read Laurel Christensen's blog post: Optimist Experiment

Or, organizational psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson's Be an Optimist Without Being a Fool.

***

For those of you that took this Challenge, what have you learned?  Or in the words of Tom DeLong, have you, as have I, had the opportunity to do poorly along your way to doing well?

Michelle Mumford: My Journey as a Political Mother

Michelle Quist Mumford holds a degree in Political Science and a J.D. from J. Reuben Clark Law School, BYU and has worked as a commercial litigator in New York City at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. After the birth of her 1st child Michelle put her legal career on hold to rear her family.  She now has four children ages 2, 4, 6, and 8.  Michelle is the current Vice Chair of the Salt Lake County Republican Party and is admitted to the New York, California and Utah state bars. She writes a daily news column for Holly on the Hill, and maintains an individual blog, Utah Vanguard.

It was a typical warm and breezy Sunday morning in Los Angeles. Three weeks after the 2008 elections. Obama won LA county with almost 70%; Proposition 8 passed in LA county as well, defining marriage in the California constitution as “between a man and a woman.”

To many, those results seemed incongruent. Regardless, the gay community in LA was angry and looking for a scapegoat. Who did they blame? Not Obama, for his tepid, inconsistent support. Not the black churches that had mobilized against Prop 8 in South Central LA. One pastor from South Central appeared on TV explaining that any protestors knew better than to come into his neighborhood. No, they targeted the Mormons.

Source:  The Great Seal

Mormons had been active in support of Prop 8. But we were far from lockstep. Prominent families in the Mormon Church I attended in Westwood opposed it. When a letter was read earlier in the summer stating the church’s official position, one of our gay members stood silently in protest – and a number of members approached him afterward with words of respect and encouragement. Anyone attending the church on the Sunday before the election expecting to hear political sermons would have been disappointed. Not a peep about the election from the pulpit. No, it was only the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Nevertheless, in the days following the election, protestors surrounded our Mormon temple in Westwood. Their signs extinguished any hope that they were there in furtherance of tolerance: “Mormon Maggots” and “Tax the Cult.” They burned sacred Mormon symbols: Books of Mormon and Mormon temple garments.

So, on that Sunday morning, I breathed a little sigh of relief when I turned on Santa Monica Boulevard, the road fronting the temple. My kids (3 under the age of 6) and I were packed in the Subaru on our way to the chapel behind the temple. I was 7 months pregnant in heels. The kids were particularly excited. They were going to be singing in church and had speaking roles in the annual Children’s Program.

All clear. Maybe the tide had subsided. But then I turned the corner and my heart sank. Two hundred protestors lined the street leading up to the chapel property with large signs and costumes. Angry faces shouting.At that moment, I heard my daughter’s excited voice behind me: “Are all these people here to hear us sing?” I responded, quickly rolling up the window: “Yes, Grace, isn’t that fun?” Oh, the innocence of a 5-year-old.

Would that they were, but no, they weren’t there to hear Grace sing.
Source: Photozo

The protests at my church were formative for me, politically. First, the targeting of Mormons was unfair and historically ignorant. I mean, protesting at a church? In a nation founded on religious liberty? The protestors picked Mormons as easy targets, sure. Polls leading up to the 2008 election consistently showed Mormons as one of the least popular groups in America (only American Muslims rated less popular as a religious group). But in piling on, did the protestors understand America’s ugly history of persecuting Mormons for their beliefs? The Mormon Extermination Order of 1838? The Supreme Court’s 1890 ruling that Mormons could be excluded from voting or public office on account of their beliefs? Did they know that decision wasn’t overturned until 1996? You think we don’t know how to circle wagons?

There are other reasons why the experience was formative. It was the first time I viewed politics from the perspective of a mother. My kids were in the car driving through a crowd using dehumanizing names and chants. To commemorate Mother’s Day earlier this year, Dana Loesch wrote an article titled “Motherhood is Political.” And it is. Loesch explained why so many mothers have recently become politically active: “It’s unconscionable to me that I would protect my children from running out into a busy street but not protect their right to be free.”

We spend time with band-aids, helmets and scrutinizing snacks for high fructose corn syrup. We suffer through moments of watching our kids fail – struggling with homework and friends – in the hopes that they learn success from that failure. How can we be any less vigilant in protecting them in the political sphere? If we’re not going to bail them out, our government shouldn’t either.

Source:  The Great Seal

Finally, my experience that day was a bracing contradiction to what I had been taught regarding American tolerance. I grew up in Southern California. Ronald Reagan was the first president I remembered. I was conservative, sure, but I was a happy warrior. My husband and I married in New York. I worked at the time as an attorney at a large law firm on Wall Street. In both New York City and Los Angeles, I knew my political beliefs put me in the minority among my friends and work colleagues. I had many experiences of defending, and advocating for, my minority political views with my friends and colleagues. And yet, in almost every instance, I was enriched, challenged and loved. And I believe they were equally enlightened by me. As my husband says: “E pluribus frickin’ unum.” We can’t forget that.

Recently, Taffy Brodeser-Akner wrote a piece for Salon that created quite a buzz, titled “I Can’t Believe My Best Friend is a Republican.”  The article was about a Republican and a Democrat – friends who, despite their differences, found inspiration and, mostly, love, from their seemingly incompatible backgrounds and views. I identified with this article. In New York and Los Angeles, I was that Republican friend.

My husband’s work brought us recently to Salt Lake City, Utah. I enjoy the easy living of smaller-city life. I quickly became involved in my community and in the political process. I got behind an upstart conservative who defeated a sitting Republican senator in the earliest stages and won the general election in 2010. I threw a tea party at my home, with speeches decrying our “federal masters” and everything. The CNN cameras were rolling.

Source:  Etsy

Last month, I was elected as Vice Chair of the Salt Lake County Republican Party. In my campaign, the divisive immigration issue loomed large. I faced a strong challenge from organized Republicans who took a harder line on the issue – feeling that my stance was too accommodating towards illegal immigration. They tried to mobilize against me. I did not compromise my views, but I demonstrated the importance of tone and tolerance. I persuaded some of them, and even those I could not persuade agreed with me that our issue disagreements were small in contrast to the principles that bind us together.

How did I become so involved in such a short period of time? I drew on my education and professional experience. I used Twitter to become a kind of citizen reporter. I volunteered to write a daily news update for a blog that has hundreds of daily readers (hollyonthehill.com). And I showed up. We can all do that.

My husband mentioned once that my political involvement is teaching my children the importance of civic participation. My daughters especially are seeing a mother busy in good things who is happy and involved. My kids ask where I’m going when my husband rushes home early from work to be with them, and they know that I value my civic participation. And hopefully they will value theirs.

E Pluribus Unum quilt (Out of Many, One) from Follow the White Bunny

But honestly, I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for me. I love it. I feel active and involved. And to my sisters out there, whether you agree with me or not, join me: E pluribus frickin’ unum.

***

"We spend time with band-aids, helmets, and scrutinizing snacks for high-fructose syrup, how can we be any less vigilant in the political sphere?" --- what a great line.

Have you become more political in recent years?  Any particular trigger?

Isn't it true that the best dreams are those that are for us -- and for the people we love?  

HBR Blog: Collaboration is Risky. Now, Get on With It.

Here's my latest HBR blog.

After you read the piece, I'd love for you to weigh in, here or there.

In the meantime, it occurrs to me there are other reasons we choose to work alone.  Someone approaches us, our children, for example.  Why do we often opt out? 

Thoughts?

***

P.S.  The following paragraph ended up in the delete bin.  I think it does hamper the flow, but I do like it.  It comes right after the first paragraph ending with "child's play."

We praise championship teams such as Barcelona’s Football Club (Barca) and applaud bi-partisan legislation, holding up these models of teamwork like tween girls waving posters of Justin Bieber, hoping if we make it look easy enough, we’ll tilt the global zeitgeist from one of conflict to cooperation.   And yet, when collaboration is essential to get something done in our sphere of influence, more often than not, rather than behaving like world champion soccer players, we approach the task at hand like children in the sandbox tussling over who gets the shovel.

Self-direction and problem-solving: a foundation for dreaming

Summer vacation is a carefree, buoyant season.

But who of us hasn't felt a smidgen of guilt because our children are, in our view not theirs, enjoying too much unstructured time?  Alternatively, we may find ourselves in a whirl, exhausted from so many activities, wishing we would give ourselves permission to slow down.

Regardless of which camp you tend to, I'd recommend this thought-provoking, if not comforting, piece It's Not About You by NY Times reporter David Brooks.  Here's an excerpt:

This year’s graduates are members of the most supervised generation in American history. Through their childhoods and teenage years, they have been monitored, tutored, coached and honed to an unprecedented degree. Yet upon graduation they will enter a world that is unprecedentedly wide open and unstructured... No one would design a system of extreme supervision to prepare people for a decade of extreme openness. But this is exactly what has emerged in modern America.

***

Another takeaway:  I re-remembered that most of us don't find our dreams; our dreams instead find us in the guise of problems to be solved. (Though my experience is consistent with his thesis, I wonder if in my mind, I've actually framed it this way.)  As we solve our problems, and gain competencies, we build the foundation upon which our dreams can be achieved.

Most successful young people don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life. A relative suffers from Alzheimer’s and a young woman feels called to help cure that disease. A young man works under a miserable boss and must develop management skills so his department can function. Another young woman finds herself confronted by an opportunity she never thought of in a job category she never imagined. This wasn’t in her plans, but this is where she can make her contribution. Most people don’t form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling.

Problems summon our dreams, our life.  And, it's in the unstructured time that we learn to self-direct, to learn to problem-solve. 

What's your take?

What problems have you solved that laid the foundation for your dreams?  What opportunities are you providing you children to self-direct? 

If you enjoyed this Brooks' op-ed, you may also enjoy The Summoned Self.