Elevating Women in Leadership through Specialized Groups with Dr. Mary Key

Welcome everyone to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. This is the podcast for you if you are wanting to create or already running peer groups. It's what we call PACs, Peer Advisory Councils. They might be known as mastermind groups, CEO peer groups, all the same. But this is the podcast if you want to run better PACs, that you want to be better at being a moderator, you want to up your game, learn advanced techniques, hear from myself as well as guests, what works, new concepts, trends, techniques. Also learn content, things you could take back to your meetings, different ways to do different things to solve problems that we all have when we're running groups. It will increase your retention, reduce your attrition, get you more members, make you more money. This is the podcast for you. I'm Tina Corner Stolz. The host. I've been doing this since 2005. I built a territory of 10+ groups, sold for a multiple, started Ellis Council, Leader Exchange Council, in 2012. We are a licensing model. We are the leading educator in the peer advisory council space. We have the podcast. I have a licensing program with certification.

I've written 2 books.

So today, when you hear this episode, each and every week it's a new podcast where we dive deep into a topic for 15, 20 minutes. One week it's me doing a deep dive on all the experience and insights from not only today with our entire licensed partner community or the past, what I've learned along the way, but we also have guests that are out there doing groups today that share their insights and new concepts. So let's get started with today's episode.

So welcome everyone to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. I'm your host, Tina Corner Stolz, and I have a guest today. That I'm excited to share with you because the topic is going to be something you want to listen to whether you're considering starting women-only groups or you're already running women-only groups. And if you are not in that category of either one of those, you should have women in your group and you're going to hear a little bit more why and also how that's important. And today I'm excited to have Dr. Mary Keys joining today. Of Mary Key Associates for so many reasons. Not only is she very knowledgeable about this topic, because clearly you've probably recognized that if I have a guest like this on, it's because she's doing the work and she's been very successful at it to the extent she even sold her business. So that's another woohoo. You know, see, you can run these groups and you can actually make money and have succession and sell. So Mary, welcome to the program.

Great to be here.

Great.

So is there anything in your background that you would love to share with the audience before we dive really quickly into women and women in groups that might be relevant for everybody to know?

Absolutely. Well, there's several things, but one thing that comes to mind is how I actually started the Women's Forums. I, since I was a child, had a heart condition and I had a faulty valve. And I went to have surgery in 2013 and seemed like everything was going fine except I contracted a bacterial infection and got endocarditis. And so I had open heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in South Florida. And what happened after that was I couldn't get well. And there's something in your heart called an ejection fraction, and it's the juice you have in your heart to make it pump. And mine was supposed to be between 55 and 70, and it was actually 26. So the doctor said to me, you know, Mary, you might want to consider scaling down what you do and think about the one thing you really like doing. And that was a watershed event for me. And I want to say to people listening to this that sometimes there are these challenges. You think things are over for you because at that point in my life, I had a very active career facilitating CEO roundtables, mostly male. I started thinking about— I tried to get women in the group, but I just didn't have as much luck at that time. I thought, "If I get well, I want to start a group for women." The thing that binds CEOs together is it's lonely at the top. It's going to be for women in leadership roles, whether they run their own business, or they're the CFO or the COO of an organization or any iteration of that. And so I started my first group. I got better. And it was that event that got me started working with women's forums. So, yeah.

So I want to dive a little more into that. And, and just so the audience knows, you're based in Tampa, so you're in my backyard, which I love. And When you started out with focusing then on women, women in leadership and doing these groups, did you find any nuances compared to the CEO groups you ran that were mostly men? And if you could share any of that, like the nuances, what might be different, what you found, what their needs might be. I know that's a big topic, so we— I know we realized might spend some time on this one.

How much time do you have, Tina? No, I'm happy to share some observations. So one of the things that women struggle with is that they are received differently than men. So for example, if I were to ask you what makes a successful leader, you might say assertive, decisive, handles stress well. And those things kind of line up with how we see men. Women, there's a bit of a mismatch there. We want women to be leaders, but we really want them to be collaborative and harmonizers and peacemakers. And so what we see in a woman many times is out of sync. In fact, Dr. Amy Cuddy at Harvard did some studies on likability and competence, and she found that the further up an organization, a woman moves up to CEO level, the less likeable she can become at a statistically significant level. So not all women, but that's an issue for women. And so I think women, first of all, walk in with feeling many times like, wow, I have to prove that I'm a good CEO or a good CFO, whereas their male counterparts As long as they have the title and don't screw up, people say, oh, okay, he's the CFO. So that's one thing. And then I think the second thing is that women are brought up many times— again, a generality— to be perfect or want things to be perfect. So many times we are anxious about performing and don't always have an opportunity to look stupid and maybe not perform well at first, you know, fall off that horse, so to speak, gymnastic horse, like we're looking at the Olympics this week. Because, you know, it's just not something that we're accepted as doing. So the forum is a place where women can rehearse things. They can, like, run a silly idea or a a crazy idea past the group and get really good feedback. I think those things, the way women are received and how they appear when they're being assertive, puts them a little bit in the negative. Then the second thing really is a place where they can not be perfect and build their confidence.

Just to expand on that just a moment, Sure. Do you find that if a woman had the choice between being in a male-oriented, okay, group or a woman-only group, what causes them to go that woman-only group?

I had women that were in a competitive— I started out by facilitating CEO roundtables. I helped Inc. magazine set up CEO roundtables around the country. And so I had a lot of males in those groups. And those are the groups that are a little more difficult for me to find women because at the time there was a certain size requirement. But what I noticed with the women's forums, because we focus not only on your career and business issues but mind, body, spirit, and career integration, we had women that belonged to Vistage, which used to compete with us, as well as our key women's leadership forums because they said, you know, I can talk in women's forums, I can talk about EBITDA and then turn around and say, you know, what are you ladies doing? I think I'm going through menopause right now and I can't do that in my Vistage group. It's just not— it's— so the focus is on the whole person.

Yes.

Not on just the business. Now, there are wonderful things that you do in the business and we had very successful groups for Inc. And then when I had them on my own, I had something called CEO Florida Forums. And it was a similar dynamic with, with men wanting— and women, but mostly men— wanting to build their businesses, look at scalability, look at exit strategy, all of those things. So those are really important. The women's forums, you could do some of that, but you could also do these other holistic things that women really appreciated. And you deal with issues like the imposter syndrome, you know, where I don't feel I really deserve to be here. So I, you know, always attribute my success to external factors. And it's a never-ending thing to feed the Cookie Monster because, you know, you get an accolade, you don't think you deserve it, and then you get the next one. And so you're always feeling on edge. And that's a cycle that can be broken. So we'd have, you know, issues like that too. That wouldn't be the only issue. But that gives you an example of the diversity of things that you can cover in a women's forum. So I don't think, you know, do you need mixed forum groups? Do you need all women groups? Yes. And I think you could do an all men's group too. I think that there are issues that men face that are, you know, very men-oriented. Yeah. Like, like the ability to express intimacy. I was facilitating a CEO group where one of the guys broke down and everybody was shocked and announced that, you know, his wife was leaving him. And one of the big reasons was that he was never home and he was always working on his business. And, um, so, you know, but that, that nothing came up as a forerunner until that guy knew his wife was absolutely walking out on him, right? So it's, so there's, there are different things, different issues in our male and femaleness, I believe, uh, that are significant.

Yes.

And one of the things that are topics that are kind of open for debate a little bit. And debate's probably a strong word, but that the whole peer group concept is about the whole person because not just half shows up. You can't split the person in the middle. This is my work and that's all we're going to talk about. And personal doesn't impact it because we know that that's not the case. And people's health impacts, and just like their personal impacts business. So it's the whole person. And so what you're talking about is that, and that in the case of women, sometimes there's topics that are just not relatable.

Other than—

it's just the level of comfort. And a lot of women identify— you know, we did a study in my firm some years back on, you know, what are the factors that women in high-level leadership positions are most concerned about. And either the number 1 or number 2 factor was always feeling a pressure to perform. And when women feel that, they become in general now more risk-averse, where many times when men are feeling a lot of pressure, they kind of cast everything into the wind and say, well, what the hell, I'm going to try it. And so they, they are sometimes less risk-averse. And so they're just different things that you can feel comfortable with when you're in a like group. So is it better or worse? It's not. It's kind of where you are. But I used to talk about emotional intelligence and all of those things in my predominantly male CEO roundtables. But the level at which you talk about and what you talk about is different in an all-women's group. It just does.

Curiosity question.

Sure.

Can a man moderate a woman-only group?

I think so. If the man has good empathy skills, good listening skills, and is comfortable with people sharing at deep levels. And so I think a good facilitator, whether you're male, female, trans, whatever, As long as you have those core conditions of being able to empathize and ask good questions and not make it about you. And I think that that's very possible. Yes. But I think if you're a person that's, again, whatever your gender, this is our structure, this is what we're going to do, this is how it's going to be. You need to find people that are comfortable with that. Yes. And there are people that facilitate that are like that, and they're very successful.

And I would think, too, in some cases, a different gender could add a whole complete different perspective as well to the group.

Well, being a woman running predominantly male groups, I had several all-male groups, and it was kind of funny.

I bet you had something to say.

They forgot that. And so they would, like, use male humor and just, you know, like, no holds barred and really be mean and funny with each other, sarcastic. And they all loved it, you know? So, you know, it was fun for them too. But for me, I really— I learned to develop thick skin, and I learned a lot. When that first occurred. I mean, now this is 25 years ago. Sure. But it was like, wow, okay, you can say that to somebody and they think it's funny. They think it's funny.

That is so true. That just happened to me this last week where I was in a male-oriented meeting and a comment was said and they looked directly at me and I'm like, why did you just do that? And it was interesting because it never occurred to them that they singled me out as a different gender on something that— so it created a whole new conversation that was very helpful to them.

If you were meeting with them on a regular basis, after a while, they wouldn't think of you as a gender. They would just think of you as someone who facilitates. Yes, there's discussion.

And excellent point.

It's a cool place to be into.

And to go back, is there anything in running the meetings you saw that needed to be different when the difference between women-only forums/groups versus mostly male-dominated? Did you do anything different in running those meetings, or no, they were the same?

Similar. I think just the check-in that we did. I've done this with men, but the check-in and the women really liked it. So it was like, what's the best thing that's happened this month personally? What's the most challenging? What's the best thing that's happened this month work-wise? What's most challenging? We actually had to kind of say, okay, you've got X amount of minutes because— but they love that part and they especially like to have the personal part. You know, like my kids are going back to school and da da da. And I found that when men were like, what's the best thing, what's the most challenging thing, most of the time it was their business stuff and that was— and they just kind of zipped along, you know? So that was a distinction, that opportunity to talk about personal. The other thing that I noticed too is that there were, I would say, a significant— not all or not necessarily the majority, but at least 40% of the women in the forums were what would traditionally be called the breadwinner in their family. So they might have had a partner, male or female, but their income was the chief income. And so the other thing that a lot of women struggle with that they need support on in forum groups is the fact— and Harvard did a study on this— about 70% of the household responsibilities fall on the shoulders of the woman, even if she's the person that has the more senior position. So that is different. And meaning, meaning by management of household, you know, you may have a partner that will pick up the kids from soccer or do stuff, but who thinks about, okay, this is the school year and this is where the kids are going to end this, you know, the shots and the, you know, the planning kind of things oftentimes fell on their shoulders. So I think the level of pressure coming at them, not just from work, shows up more in all women's groups.

Sure. Well, one other sidebar question before we kind of get into wrapping up, because I know we're coming up on time, but I think about women in different phases of their life and listening to you. So there's the phase of possibly when they're raising children. And the challenges of balance, right, if they're running the business and/or a senior leadership role. And then there's that whole phase of as you're older and transitioning to your point, menopause, and just even succession or what that looks like to them personally. Do you find though that women in those phases are more applicable to are more likely to have a women-only group be more helpful to them, or kind of just doesn't really matter?

Well, I originally thought that women sort of in the thick of their careers, either with children at home or children leaving home to go to college or whatever, that would be the target group. What I found was that we had women in all different phases. So we had women that were like, I think the oldest woman I had in one of my forums who was just a fantastic member, I think she was 66. And so she was talking about retirement and, you know, but the women really learn from each other, you know, and, you know, I would find like some of the older women sort of being the wise women for that session. You know, and then sometimes the, the younger women would bring these just fresh, crazy ideas that, you know, got some of the other people that were stuck in their ways thinking differently. So I was surprised at how the range of ages could come together.

Absolutely. Well, there's been so many takeaways that I hope our audience is listening for, even to the extent that women in your groups, that if you don't have an all-male, okay, and let's just say you have a woman, two women, etc., whatever, just being aware of what they might be going through in addition to whatever role they are playing professionally. I hope this kind of opens your eyes about to that. To opportunity, right, of a market segment out there and a need. And then, and also in moderating to how much the personal plays into this as well.

So in wrap-up, I just wanted to say one thing because I put on the information for you, what are the takeaways? And one of the takeaways I did not really say is directly the whole area of psychological safety is very, very much on the radar screens throughout all businesses now. Amy Edmondson writes about it. A lot of people talk about it. I'm involved with a firm that does assessments to help with that, so it's a big thing. The women's groups afford a level of psychological safety where you don't feel like you're going to be humiliated or ridiculed or challenged, like, you know, prove that, you know, like, and so this, I think psychological safety is a factor, whether it just be for the women's groups or in any group. That's really, really important. And the facilitator sets the tone for that.

Correct. Absolutely. And it's an extremely good point, particularly now where we are in society as well. And, and Mary, as we always wrap up episodes, is what one piece of advice would you love to give our listeners today that could be about anything? Your experience in running groups. It could be about women's forms, whatever it might be. But what would you kind of share with your piece of wisdom?

Well, I think for people, the old adage, it's lonely at the top, it really plays out or forms, whether it be that you're lonely because you don't really have anybody that's a peer that can share with you and understands and gets where you've been. So I think seeking out resources where you don't feel by yourself and you feel supported in whatever form that is, is very important.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much today for sharing this on, on a specific topic that I know so many people have had questions about, about women-oriented groups and why and are they different and all of those. And I, um, am very hopeful that this helped clear some of that up. And if anyone wanted to contact with— contact you, um, how can they do that? And Second, you've written many books, and so talk a little bit about that because we're going to put all of this in the show notes, everyone, so you can reach out to Mary with her contact information and books that we're going to talk about. But Mary, how can people reach you?

Well, you have my email and you also have a cell for text. I know a lot of people prefer to text, and I'm open if people want to reach out. I wrote my latest book, it's called Seizing Success: A Woman's Guide to Transformational Leadership. And in it, I talk about a lot of the things that you and I were talking about here, Tina, and expand on them. And I think that might be a great resource for anyone who is wanting to start a women's forum. In fact, I share a lot of the things I do in women's forums very specifically there. So that might be a great resource as well.

Excellent. Well, I love that. And again, this will all be in the notes in the episode. And thank you for joining us, Mary. Appreciate that. And to everyone out there, thank you for spending time again with us this week. And until next week's episode, go make it happen.

Hello, listeners, and this is a quick promo because we have our national conference Live Exchange 2024 coming up in October in St. Petersburg, Florida. One day you can attend for a mere $500 and interact with your peers, others that are running groups, network with them, find out best practices, all those challenges that you're having, get insights that can help you personally in addition to hearing a phenomenal list of speakers. I will open up that day with some insights in regards to moderating, and it will turn it over to Vern Harnish, who, if you do not know him, you know, he's the one who founded Entrepreneur Organization. He understands peer groups extremely well, and he runs Scaling Up. You will take away phenomenal information that will help you run your groups, not only to scale your own practice practice, but to help your business owners in those groups with the content Vern is going to share. You will also hear on two other subjects, one about the importance of preparing your members for exiting the business, whatever that transition may be, and how do you do that. You will also hear about making change. How do you manage change? How do you facilitate change? Which is required in today's environment. Again, content you're going to be able to take back to your groups and use yourself. And last, we're going to end it with Horse Soldier and 12 Strong. So if you don't know that story, that is the 12 soldiers that went into Afghanistan on horseback prior to us invading Afghanistan. You will hear their story about leadership and how they have transitioned that into a phenomenally successful bourbon brand called Horse Soldier. And you will hear how they have scaled that business, and we will end the conference with bourbon tasting. Again, a very packed day. I encourage all of you, if you are serious about your own personal development, I will see you. And I will love to meet you personally, October 18th, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Go to our website and you can get all the details, see the details of the agenda and register. Thank you everyone for listening to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. And to get access to today's episodes, not only the show notes, but any tools and resources, encourage you to— not only will you find them in the episode show notes, but also you can go to the website www.lxcounsel.com, so LXCouncil.com, and you will find a plethora of articles and content and tools and resources and worksheets and things like that that can be helpful to you in creating and running successful possible paths. I want to leave you with one thing that we end and teach to do in every single meeting, and that is the very last thing is to ask, what is your takeaway from today's episode? I encourage you to give that thought. Take advantage of the time you just invested in listening to the episode, and what can you do to move one step closer to the vision that you have and goals that you're trying to achieve with your groups. So again, take a step back. What's your key takeaways? What can you actually act on? And I leave this with one note. And those of you that have read my book, Your Seat at the Table, you know that I ended the book with a story about my mentor. He always, when he met people, had a pebble in his pocket that he passed to them when there was knowledge shared. And so I ask you today to think about that Pebble concept and to pass what you learned today on to someone else, which could be your members, or take it internally to yourself and act on it. So now go do something with those takeaways.