I desire to leave a legacy of elevated opportunities for professional women, particularly women in technology.

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To create a better world for others, I actively participate in educational forums, mentoring relationships, on boards, and in policy making. I focus upon action-oriented advising. Below in an except of a recent interview in Women in Tech: A Study into Tech Brands' Perception and Impact.

 

This year’s IWD theme is #BreaktheBias, what does that mean to you? I’m a pragmatist. I’m ready for less talk and more action! Every single one of us can do things each day to #breakthebias. For example:

 

• EVERYONE: When a woman is spoken over top of in a meeting, speak up and point the discussion back to her. Simply say, “Tiarne, I believe that you were interrupted. Please finish sharing your thoughts.”

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• SMEs: If you’re participating on an interviewing team, refuse to conduct interviews until a diverse group of candidates is assembled. Do not accept the argument that not enough candidates exist. Get creative! Look places where you aren’t currently looking. Engage new networks, peruse slack communities, overtly request ideas from your social media followers. Make it a priority to find the many undiscovered talents!

 

• LEADERS: Insist that a gender salary audit be held annually and adjust for inequities. You’ll likely be quite surprised by what you learn from this exercise.

 

• EXECUTIVES: When you’re undertaking an organizational redesign, thoughtfully select promising women staffers and place them into leadership roles. Then, wrap them in resources to ensure their success. Powerful resources include internal executive sponsors, peer mentors, and professional development training/coaching. These moments of inflection open immediate opportunities to improve representation and they must be maximized!

 

Have you faced any barriers in your career due to being a woman? If so, how did you overcome them?

 

Personally, I found that meritocracy served me well as I was climbing the ladder. Yes, I’ve always had to be more educated, more prepared, and producing greater results than male peers, but I was still able to advance through hard work and strategic career management. Despite challenges, being a woman has also worked to my advantage at times as I have easily created relationships and opened communication channels that were more difficult for men.

 

Though my journey was often difficult, I was able to systematically progress. My most significant barriers appeared in the move from management into executive leadership. To make that step, you need someone already in power to sponsor you. You need someone to pull you up.

 

If you’re a woman in power, I challenge you to consistently promote women. Please don’t leave them to face the same odds that you did. If you’re a man in power, and this is far more statistically likely, who have you identified to pull up? Are there women on your list? If not, fix that…today. If you’re a woman waiting for someone to sponsor you. Stop waiting! You must reach out, repeatedly, until you find those people in power who will extend you a hand up.

 

This may require you to change teams, change companies, or even change industries. Invest in yourself. Don’t give up!

 

What advice would you give to a woman starting a career in tech?

 

Always promote your own work! When you do great work and no one outside of your immediate team is aware of it, your career potential is limited, and your broader organization is deprived of the diverse perspective included in it. This need for self-advocating is amplified in #wfh situations. So, the next time that you complete something that you’re proud of, ask yourself, “who else could benefit from seeing this?” Then, share it with them! 

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Lisa Palmer, Diversity Champion

Sales Success Stories: 60 Stories from 20 Top 1% Sales Professionals Vol. 2

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My friend, Scott Ingram, orignator of the first volume of curated stories from top global sellers, asked me to write a chapter in his soon-to-be-released second volume. Here's a snippet of one of the action-oriented stories that I share in his book.

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While a high school student, one of my most admired educators made reference to an H. G. Wells’ dictum: “no passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft.” Fast forward to my first corporate leadership role where I learned the depth of this wisdom.

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Charged with implementing a new enterprise system that impacted every business unit (BU), the equivalencies of political land mines surrounded me. Wanting to make each BU leader feel included in design decisions, I held sessions where I posed open-ended questions intended to collaboratively build a solution. After weeks of these deep discussions, little progress had been made. My error? I started from a blank sheet of paper.

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After reflecting and regrouping, I altered my approach and built what I called a “visual dartboard”. This was literally a graphic of one proposed system design. Next, I reassembled the BU leaders and focused discussions around this graphic. It was an instant success! Leaders immediately took out their pens and began editing my design, robustly discussing their own ideas for altering it for improvement. Within a few hours, we had hammered out a design that everyone supported.

 

I’ve applied this visual dartboarding technique repeatedly throughout my career in simple to complex problem solving situations. Without exception, this approach has brought together stakeholders, shortened the solutioning phase, and led to strong business outcomes.

 

To leverage this technique, do the following:

1. Create a first draft of your plan (visual dartboard)

2. Mentally prepare for others to criticize / edit your draft – the lack of ego here is critical to your success!

3. Send out your visual dartboard as a meeting pre-read to allow stakeholders to reflect on their desired alterations

4. Assemble your stakeholders with clearly set expectations that their changes are anticipated and encouraged. Interactive workshop formatting of this step is the most effective.

5. Gather input, synthesize into Version 2, reassemble the team for edits/approval. Be prepared to iterate with an open and accepting demeanor.

 

I hope that you’ll be able to apply this technique to propel your career forward!

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Lisa Palmer, Author (anthology)

“I’m laying out an approach that encourages public/private interconnectivity at a previously unmatched level while maintaining competitive advantage for all involved parties.

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My goal is to help business leaders to envision simultaneously driving profits and purpose by activating society’s interest in solving our most complex problems (climate change, food and water access, diversity/equity/inclusion, income disparity, global supply chain, etc.) through the lens of technology possibilities.

 

Within a framework of specific industry examples, I’ll cover technologies including AI, cloud, synthetic data, homomorphic encryption, security, connectivity, and others…all aimed at creating positive human outcomes.” 

 

Lisa Palmer, Author

Thesis Defense Slated for February 2023

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Thesis: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - ARE FOR-PROFIT ENTITIES USING "DO THE RIGHT THING" GOVERNANCE TO DRIVE BUSINESS RESULTS? 

 

Data Method: Given the proliferation of podcasts recorded and made publicly available over the preceding 24+ months, I am carefully curating a set of podcast interviews of business leaders and consultants responsible for applying AI to yield business benefits. In a nod to the need for poetry in life, I’m using AI technology for data identification, gathering, and processing.

 

Purpose: Lessons learned will create best practices findings and conclusions for business leaders, government leaders, and politicians to inform wise creation of standards, policies, regulations, and laws. These lessons will also inform AI/ML product developers, GTM positioning, and buyer’s journey selling.

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Lisa Palmer, Researcher

As someone who deeply believes in the power of data to solve the world's most complex problems, I loved hosting this podcast! 

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Data is everywhere. In fact, studies suggest we produce over 1.145 trillion MB of data daily. How many of your daily activities are powered by data? How does data impact your family, your community and your business? 

And while data drives our economy, impacts governments around the world and attacks complex problems like climate change and poverty – it also creates global debates around issues including privacy rights, workforce disruption and ethics. 

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As Splunk’s Chief Technical Advisor, I enjoyed hosting their podcast, Much Ado About Data, sharing insights and inspiration through conversations that bring data to life and feature data doers — just like you. We focused on data-driven outcomes with some of the foremost experts in their respective fields and industries, providing “a-ha!” moments of aspiration and connection through the power and human impact of data.

 

The guest lineup highlighted data experts from across a wide range of disciplines and industries to understand how they’re using data to understand consumer behavior, drive innovation and plan for the future.

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Lisa Palmer, Podcast Host