On international Women’s Day 2021, there is a particular theme that was calling women to action with a very proactive ask, “Choose to Challenge” which came with an explanation:
A challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change – So let’s all choose to challenge!
With this “call to action” there were some other specific asks of women as outlined further in the IWD website:
How will you help forge a gender equal world?
- Celebrate women’s achievement.
- Raise awareness against bias
- Take action for equality.
Within Fuzion we encourage a challenging environment for all of the team, which is part of our core values, Bravery.
In every job description that we write, you will see it written and to us it is an important attribute, every bit as important as the basic skill sets required for each role.
We challenge each other, our opinions, our views and our ideas and we will challenge our clients to think differently and not to be afraid to disagree when we believe something is going in a wrong direction – you get that with us!
So, with all of that in mind I asked the team to record an episode of the Win Happy podcast to mark this years International Women’s Day, to discuss the theme and the different elements and to see how they felt about them.
For the record, I did offer to pass the hosting duty to anyone else and in the spirit of Fuzion, everyone, male and female were invited to participate but due to workload issues (and maybe a little shyness!) this episode featured Dee (Deirdre Waldron), Suzanne Meade and Niamh Lawlor who are all part of our Communications team.
The conversation was really interesting and revealing.
The team loved the “bold” call to action and spoke about how women can often be more reluctant than men to challenge.
They spoke about emotional leadership, a huge strength that women can bring to any organisation, Dee’s work and initiatives as President of Network Ireland, the huge role of mothers and friends as influencers, that men should be part of the conversation and not excluded, and thankfully they have not experienced bias in their careers.
However, they did acknowledge that the industry that we operate in might lend itself to that.
It makes for good listening.
Click on the link here or search for Win Happy on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts – we will be there!
For the record, some of the very best people that I work with are women and if I thought for a second that they were not prepared to challenge there would be something very wrong.
Just this morning on our weekly “hello” Monday morning team Zoom call, we had a very robust conversation about an opinion that I shared and they came at me in force!!
….if I told you what it was, I could have a busy day getting nothing done except arguing!
So today, I salute the brilliant women that I work with and the many brilliant women that I deal with on an ongoing basis. In particular, I salute my mum who is just incredible, such a positive driving force – you have no idea!
#ChooseToChallenge
(you won’t find me wanting!)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NfekwqJDiQ]
Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
