Women: Toot your horns!

Tooting isn't loud, doesn't shatter ear drums, doesn't require a parade but draws the attention of the folks standing near enough to hear.

• We need to start talking about the wins - personal or professional - and asking others about theirs.
• We need to hold up what we did that worked, that didn't, what happened with us and - most importantly - because of us.
• We need to start using language in a way that doesn't have us qualify our ideas before we've even stated them.
• We can stop apologizing for speaking up.
• We could stop turning statements into questions just so folks feel free to disagree? ...lol

Share the big project news, the small thank-you received, the moment of personal satisfaction.

We have become a society tuned to the critique but not the accomplishment and our tools in the workplace can reflect this imbalance. Meetings are looking for the issues, the red zones and rarely reflect on the daily and weekly accomplishments of the talent at the table.

Tooting your own horn can be a solo or team effort. It's more than your personal brand, it's modeling behaviours we need to see around us.

My mentors have been telling me the same thing all year: "start tooting...." So break out the kazoos because I'm going to try!