Women 2.0 Summit

The Womens’s 2.0 Summit was arranged by Silicon India on 13th March . There were quite a few women achievers who doled out their success mantras. I have summarized a few here.

 Women must be decisive, have self-pride (vanity is good), be independent, give high priority to their needs, and network.

 GOAL can be an acronym and the expansion is Guts, Ownership, Ambition, and Learning.

 First identify your core capability. Then you need to augment, package, and position yourself. Learn to play chess with your career and life moves. Think three or six steps ahead.

 Seek out difficult or highly visible assignments.

 Look the part and act the part, before you get the part.

 Develop a style that male managers will be comfortable with. The right packaging and communication style plays a great role in collaborative working environments.

 Instead of breaking the glass ceiling, try and break the wooden table at a meeting.

 Quickly identify “Passes n Misses” and make your stand clear. Have a bunch of rakhis in your handbag and when you tie the rakhi, tell the men you really mean to be their sisters.

 Leave emotional baggage back at home. Identify support groups for sharing and mentoring.

 Be mentored and be a mentee too. But make sure that counselling does not turn into nagging. The mentor and prodigy must change their styles and get feedback from each other.

 Entrepreneurs need to be thrifty and measure using metrics.

 Do not expect support at all times. Pray to God and remain positive.

Case Study of Lijjat Pappad: The case study of Lijjat Pappad was discussed by Chandra Prabakar , VP  of Ramco. Gujarati housewives from Mumbai started Lijjat Pappad with a base fund of Rs 80. The annual sales for the first year was Rs 6196. They started a series of other businesses with hits and misses. Today, the annual sales are over Rs. 300 crore. Lijjat Pappad was featured in the Economic Times as the Business Woman of the Year in the year 2002.

Case Study of Wrong Perceptions: A women manager once called office reporting dizziness. When she returned to work in a few days she found a lateral hire taking on few of her responsibilities. When she attended a board meeting in a couple of months they asked her if she was in the family way. She was a bit surprised and put-off. Later, she came to know that a new hire was in place to take her seat when she went on maternity leave. So, the company had wasted money on hiring and training a new person when there was no need. Thus assumptions and perceptions had hit the bottomline.