If you’ve been “leaning in” lately you know that women in business has been a hot topic of conversation. But where is the road map to get these women into the c-suite? Even the most popular books on this topic are missing this key aspect. Ten of the top female executives will gather in two weeks to solve this very problem.

Moxie has created a board of advisors featuring 10 key female executives from corporations including Cisco, Eli Lily and Turner Broadcasting, to name a few, who will gather for an inaugural summit on May 20 to create the missing bridge between where women and companies are “supposed to be” and how to get there. Moxie created the map and is connecting major corporations so they can use and improve upon that map.

To give you an idea of the caliber of this board of advisors,  they have Read the rest of this entry »

I love simple, powerful solutions and ideas. Kathleen Pringle and Lauren Burns, the fantastic duo who lead Moxie Rochester have a framework for aligning their board and membership that is all of those things. They call it the Four P’s.

Purpose: Why does our organization exist.

Picture: How things look now. The overall picture of how things are going as of today.

Plan: Where we are headed and how are we going to get there.

Part: What is is individuals role in making the plan happen so the organization can serve it’s purpose.

The 4 P’s are simple, elegant and easy, easy, easy to remember. If you have a group working with you, do a quick rundown of the P’s with them. The framework makes it easy to understand the why, how, where and what of what’s going on in the business. Everyone walks away with a very clear picture of both the big picture and their role in moving things forward. Ka-POW! Leadership doesn’t get much easier than this. Go forth and rock your moxie!

By Eryka Milligan, San Francisco

My first thought while listening to Tamara Kleinberg, our Power Thinker for April, was “I want to work for her.” But after more reflection–I want to own that creativity. I want to own my creativity – and drive people to want to work with me.

So what’s the next step? How can Moxies take this nibble of creativity and keep alive for the next four weeks? Even better how can we grow it from a nibble to healthy chunk?

My baseline is always research so I went to Tamara’s website. After checking to see if she was hiring, I dove in a little more. She has book out that looks invigorating: Think Sideways: game-changing playbook for disruptive thinking. I thought of a fellow Moxie who was looking to add creativity into her meetings and wondered if the activities in there would be transferable to a group setting. I started getting excited about application. Yes… AND one takeaway I took from Tamara was about the cycle of creativity and innovation.

Imagination leads to Creativity leads to Innovation and right back around again. If this one little exercise juiced up my creativity function, by seeking inspiration, imagining another possibility, and then creativity bubbling out of that … maybe for me the first step is making space for imagination by seeking out inspiration. So that’s what I’m going to do. At some point I’ll introduce you to Kelly, my SF Moxie accountability partner, and you can help her poke me. Here it is: I’m going to park two blocks farther away from work every morning, leave my cell phone in my bag, and look around me. I’m sure I’ll find something inspiring.

What are you going to do?

Guest Blogger Eryka Milligan is a member of San Francisco Moxie, and has an extensive background in entrepreneurial ventures. She is a creative problem solver who takes a long-range view and creates systems and processes to address big issues. Moxie Moment: Tend to happen when she just says ‘yes.’ A recent yes landed her as Assistant Coach to her son’s baseball team though she has never been on a sports team, “so it’s a forcing me to learn quickly, take risks, and be willing to make mistakes. I love the quiet message I’m sending my son about women and bravery and what my being there means for the one girl on the team.” Hidden Talents and Other Flair: Was a soloist with the Boston Pops in 1999 and can still hit a high C.

Woo hoo! It’s the start of a new quarter. I love new starts of any kind, whether real, symbolic or flat out frivolous. They give you a shot at starting again but with a new and improved outlook and ideas. New starts are also a great time to stop doing things that just aren’t working. Here are three ‘stop doings’ to help you rock what you’ve got over the next 12 weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

10 weeks of 2013 are toast. Gone. Never to be seen again. How are you doing on your plans? 42 big, bold, beautiful weeks lie ahead of us and, even if you got off to a slow start, with a few tweaks and a bit of massaging your year has a lot of life left in it. Take 10 minutes and give your plans a bit of juice.

Take stock. Right now is a great time to assess how you have done so far. Are you showing up for your own plans or have your efforts been half-a**ed? Michelangelo actually had to pick up his chisel for gorgeous David to become a reality. If you want your results at the end of the year to be a thing of beauty, consistent, disciplined effort need to take place. Block time in your calendar to work on your priorities and plans and protect it like a mama bear. Do the work.

Don’t perfume the pig. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve felt like I have squirrels running around in my brain the past few days. Moxie is firing on all cylinders, my kids are running at a million miles a minute, (as a total aside- when in the heck did being the parent of a high school athlete also mean the need to be an expert at shaking down friends and family (aka fundraising)? It’s a freaking full time job in and of itself making sure my kid can play America’s pastime for his school!), my folks are visiting from out of town and staying with us, my husband’s business is exploding (in a good way) and I’ve been strung out. In other words, life has been typical, wonderful, jam-packed life lately!

I needed to  Read the rest of this entry »

Five things I wish someone had shared with me when I was a teenager:

1) Your brains will get you a lot further in life than your boobs. Looks might open a door initially, but smarts get you a long-term seat at the leadership table.

2) Learn to ask for what you want in a clear, friendly and confident way. Your brother or guy friends are  Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a case study for high performing women who walk away from their corporate jobs to start their own business. I made the leap over 16 years ago and many more women are doing so today. I loved the company I worked for, and the people I worked with and still I walked. What gave? At the crux of my leaving was that I couldn’t figure out how to stay and and my company couldn’t figure out how to keep me. I could predict the future fairly well- a steady climb, more responsibility and even longer hours. More pay and less flexibility. I walked. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I wish I didn’t pay attention and walked around the world oblivious to certain things. Take, for instance, the fact that you almost never find women quoted on the topics of leadership and success.

I am a quote JUNKIE. I can take one quote and kick the ideas in it around in my head for a long time thinking about how they apply to me. I use them as CliffsNotes for ideas. My addiction has led me to pay attention more than most and to realize that things were seriously skewed in the guy’s direction.

Run a small test of your own. Read the rest of this entry »

I met last week with my ‘inner circle’. It’s a powerhouse group of seriously kick a** women whose brilliance and level of commitment to learning, growth and doing good in the world is ridiculously high. Every time we meet, they blow me away.

At one point in the meeting, there was an exchange between two of the other members that I felt in my bones was going to cause one of the women to head down one of her own personal rabbit holes. She is doing work and has intellectual property that she doesn’t realize is unique, powerful and puts her in what I call ‘rare air’- the top 5% of the top 5%. The other woman (who has a marketing background) was about to ask her what made her unique. She was coming at it from a ‘how will we position this in the market’ mindset, but I KNEW it would cause the other woman to question if what she had WAS unique.

I did the unthinkable. Read the rest of this entry »