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Lisa was only on slide six but already knew she didn’t have the attention of the group. She was ready to call it quits. In the darkened meeting room at Stanley’s Restaurant, there were mutterings, little giggles, and one outburst of laughter, even though her presentation was not at all funny.
“Hush!” Terry, Director of Procurement for Brown Cow Dairy, finally interrupted. “I want all of us to pay attention to what Lisa’s saying about this ad campaign. It could mean a make-or-break year for each of you as independent contractors.”
It was 1979, and the women’s movement of the 1960s had not yet reached rural Wisconsin. As the corporate communication coordinator for the regional dairy cooperative, newly hired Lisa was excited about leading the organization’s corporate marketing program. She was the first woman in the entire company to hold a job beyond the clerical level.
But she was finding the clerical culture challenge was only a small part of the problem — beyond the tendency of the women to call the men “Mr. Chester” or “Mr. Luther,” while the men addressed the “girls” by their first names.
The real challenge was that she felt invisible. She felt invisible even though she worked hard to come across crisp and confident in front of the organization’s men – such as those milk truck haulers, who have probably unloaded hundred-pound cans of milk at the plant by hand since high school.
Feeling invisible was not just a problem with the milk haulers; it was the whole corporate culture.
One day, while meeting with representatives from another dairy cooperative, Mike, president of Brown Cow Dairy, failed to introduce Lisa to the visiting group, again all men. Lisa was just there but invisible when Mike did not recognize her. She didn’t count.
Lisa was ready to quit. Terry, her boss, was also frustrated. The next day after the haulers meeting, he sat down with Lisa to figure out what went wrong. Lisa had worked for hours on her presentation, showing how everyday conversations with milk producer members could complement and reinforce the cooperative’s new ad campaign for gaining more milk from its competitors.
“Make a list of the words you used last night which might have turned these guys off,” Terry finally said. “They’re not used to hearing words of authority from a woman — words they consider aggressive.”
Together, they came up with a list of directives (”hot button” words and phrases) to avoid and tried to think of viable alternatives, such as “we can get this done by ...” instead of “I encourage each of you to ...,” for example.
However, Lisa could see that “hot button” words were not the main problem. She felt invisible in that corporate environment, yet, at the same time, Mike hinted she was coming across as too aggressive and too intense. She couldn’t understand why she could be both ignored (invisible) and perceived as an unapproachable authoritarian (aggressive/intense) at the same time.
In her mind, she was caught in a “Catch-22.” How come Mike didn’t seem to get the same reaction from others when he used those exact same words and phrases?
The next day provided an answer. While walking through the accounting department, she noticed a group of guys gathered around the Thermo-Fax machine. They quickly scattered as she walked by, leaving an extra sheet of what they had been copying.
It was a four-color, letter-sized poster copyrighted as “Calco Productions 1966.” It showed a blonde standing at a urinal, her backside to the audience, in calf-length black boots, a tight, black leather mini-skirt, and a red, free-flowing blouse. With both hands in front of her, she mirrored the stance of the brawny male counterpart three urinals to her left. It was all Lisa needed to know. She decided to truly become “invisible” — she quit her job at Brown Cow Dairy.
Over several years as an account executive for marketing firms in Milwaukee and Chicago, Lisa learned the fundamentals of managing an advertising agency and leading a staff of creative people.
Now, at 67, she can look back on 30 years of successfully owning and managing her own advertising and marketing agency in Houston. Along the way, she learned the difference between being aggressive and assertive.
She also learned how to listen to both genuine concerns and suggestions as well as gripes and distractions, taking notes on her cell phone about individual queries. Her routine, simple reply: “I hear what you’re saying, and I need time to think about your concerns. I’ll get back to you shortly.” And she did so, promptly.
But, more than 40 years after her experiences at Brown Cow Dairy, Lisa now realizes the most important skill she learned in leading an enterprise is hiring people who reflected her values on an everyday basis.
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Here’s to mature-adult living!
Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF retired, author of “52 Shades of Growing Together”
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Remember when diversity became a hot topic in business circles during the 1990s? During the decade before that, we heard very little about diversity in business.
But teamwork in the workplace and “giving workers a share of the pie” through gainsharing programs such as the Scanlon plan were a big part of university continuing education programs in the 1980s.
I was working as a vice president in a top-down management environment back then and felt we had to change our corporate culture to stay competitive in attracting both suppliers and employees. Plus, I wanted to add to my business acumen to stay abreast with my colleagues.
So, I took all kinds of “new management” workshops and courses in Madison. After all, the Japanese seemed so far ahead of us Americans in producing quality cars etc. at that time.
I felt enlightened but had little success in transferring into actual practice what I was convinced at the time would be best for Wisconsin’s rural business environment.
However, two good things came out of my dalliance with leadership and management philosophy during the 1980s:
- A realization that corporate culture does not change much without complete buy-in from the top person in charge (and perhaps a corporate shock brought on through something like a merger or buyout).
- An appreciation for the tradition of "The Wisconsin Idea," first articulated by UW–Madison President Charles Van Hise in 1904, when he declared "I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the University reaches every home in the state."
* When have you felt you were out in the forefront of an important social issue?