Go Lean Commentary
The last 12 months (June 2015 to June 2016) is turning out to be a topsy-turvy year for women. On the one hand, the US has the first ever woman Presidential Candidate from a major party – Democrat Hillary Clinton. On the other hand, the Caribbean lost (in election defeat) it’s two women Heads of State (Jamaican – Portia Simpson-Miller; Trinidad – Kamla Persad-Bissessar). Canada has chimed into this discussion as well, with their new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, appointing women to half of the roles in his Cabinet.
That’s the government arena; in the business arena, there has been a good number of promotions for women CEO’s for Fortune 500 companies during this past year, bringing the total now to 22. See list here:
Source: Retrieved June 23, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_women_CEOs_of_Fortune_500_companies
With women amounting to 50 percent of the population, 22 of 500 (4.4%) must only be a start. So how to propel forward? One person who have purported a strategy is Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, author and advocate Sheryl Sandberg. She published her groundbreaking book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. This book inspired the composition of another book, Go Lean … Caribbean, to help the women … and men of the Caribbean by elevating their societal engines (economics, security and governance) of the region. The Go Lean book quotes this review of the Lean In book with these words on Page 5:
Thirty years after women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in government and industry. This means that women’s voices are still not heard equally in the decisions that most affect our lives. In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg examines why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes, and offers compelling, commonsense solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential.
Sandberg is the chief operating officer of Facebook and is ranked on Fortune’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.…
Since the release of Ms. Sandberg’s book in 2013, she has since invited other impactful women to join her advocacy. The call has been answered. See a related news article here:
Title: Washington, Dunham, Gomez are faces of new Lean-In campaign
By: AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kerry Washington, Lena Dunham, Emma Watson, Selena Gomez and Serena Williams say help from other women has been critical to their success.
The stars appear in a video released Thursday by LeanIn.org to promote its new “Together Women Can ” campaign.
Washington says she’s “not really sure what my life would look like if it were not for Shonda Rhimes,” who cast her as the lead in “Scandal.”
Williams cited her sister Venus as her guide. Watson said Sofia Coppola was a mentor: “She supported my work and made me believe I could do more.”
Eva Longoria, newscaster Megyn Kelly and soccer star Abby Wambach also appear in the video.
LeanIn.org founder Sheryl Sandberg said the campaign is meant to raise awareness of the ways women can support each other in the workplace and encourage confidence and leadership skills in girls.
Women working together leads to more women in leadership positions, a key objective of LeanIn.org, Sandberg said.
The video is among several set to appear on the campaign’s website, which also includes tips for mentors and those they mentor and guidance for modeling leadership skills for girls.
“When women are CEOs, when women run for office, we inspire girls and women everywhere to believe they can do more,” Sandberg, a self-made billionaire and top executive at Facebook, said in an interview. “And we still have a very small percentage of leadership roles anywhere, in any industry, in any government anywhere in the world. Our goal is to change that. And while the gap may be big, the numbers change one by one.”
Source: Associated Press; posted June 23, 2016 at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/washington-dunham-gomez-faces-leanin-campaign-110033640.html?ref=gs
The Caribbean region needs to include more women in leadership roles so as to include maximum representation in the stewardship of Caribbean society. We need their voices in as policy-makers, that means politics and government.
The Caribbean region needs more women pursuing business and entrepreneurial opportunities. We need their insights and investment of their time, talent and treasuries. With their earnest contributions, the whole community will benefit.
Our Caribbean women need to lean-in. And the supportive men in their lives, need to lean-in too.
This issue in the foregoing news article relate more participation than they do feminism. This consideration is being brought into focus as it relates to the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The roadmap solicits full participation from women and men as stakeholders in the new Caribbean. This is a mandate! We cannot marginalized women in our society. Otherwise, we run the risk of losing them; watching them abandon their ancestral homelands to seek refuge in foreign countries. This has been happening far too often.
The situation is so bad, that the Caribbean is now in crisis. Among the crises that the region battles is the brain drain or abandonment of the highly educated citizenry. Why do they leave? For “push-and-pull” reasons!
“Push” refers for deficient conditions at home that makes people want to flee. “Pull” refers to the presumption of better conditions abroad. Our Caribbean women gleaning the information of a possible women President in the US and a growing list of women CEO’s in the Fortune 500, may entice them for a better life, to pursue dreams abroad in the Diaspora.
Dissuading this human flight is a mission of the Go Lean/CU (including incentives for the Diaspora to repatriate). This point is pronounced early in the book with this Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14), with these opening statements:
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. …
xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. …
xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.
xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries …
The subject of fostering gender equality, equal access and equal protections for women have been directly addressed and further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8155 | Bahamas Referendum Outcome: Impact on the ‘Brain Drain’ |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7490 | Push Factor: Interpersonal Violence / Domestic |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6937 | Women in Politics – Yes, They Can! |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6836 | Role Model – #FatGirlsCan – Empowering Women |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6434 | ‘Good Hair’ and the Strong Black Woman |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6422 | Getting More Women Interested in Science/Technology Careers |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5720 | Role Model/Disability Advocate Urging Reasonable Accommodations |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3078 | Bad Case Study: Bill Cosby’s Accusers – Why They Weren’t Believed |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2709 | Caribbean Study: 58% Of Boys Agree to Female ‘Discipline’ |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2201 | Students developing nail polish to detect date rape drugs |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=809 | Muslim officials condemn abductions of Nigerian girls |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=695 | Help for Abused Women Depicts Societal Defects |
The Go Lean book posits that every woman has a right to work towards making their homeland a better place to life, work and play. The Caribbean community needs their participation. So the book details the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates to help women to impact the homeland:
| Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification | Page 21 |
| Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices | Page 21 |
| Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future | Page 21 |
| Community Ethos – Anti Bullying & Mitigations | Page 23 |
| Community Ethos – Minority Equalizations | Page 24 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good | Page 37 |
| Strategy – Fix the broken systems of governance | Page 46 |
| Tactical – Separation of Powers – Member-states versus CU Federal Government | Page 71 |
| Implementation – Reason to Repatriate | Page 118 |
| Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Law Enforcement Oversight | Page 134 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract | Page 170 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora – Encourage Repatriation | Page 218 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations – NGO’s for Women Causes | Page 219 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights – Women’s Rights | Page 220 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Improve Elder-Care – Needs of Widows | Page 225 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Empower Women | Page 226 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth – Steering Young Girls to STEM Careers | Page 227 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities | Page 228 |
There are serious issues impacting the Caribbean; these must be addressed . Since many of these issues affect women, it is better to have women as stakeholders, as leaders and policy-makers. This applies to work and play activities, like sports.
Women represent 50% of the population in most communities. To effectively engage a population, we must effectively engage women. But, we need the women to engage back as well. As Sheryl Sandberg’s movement states, we need them to “lean-in”. See Appendix for Sheryl Sandberg’s follow-up TEDTalk interview entitled: “So we leaned in … now what?” The Go Lean movement needs the Caribbean women (and men) to lean-in to this roadmap to elevate the societal engines of the region. This is our prime directive, defined as follows:
- Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
- Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
- Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.
This CU/Go Lean roadmap is a conceivable, believable and achievable business plan. With the right commitment of time, talent and treasuries from women and men to support them, they can succeed in making the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play. This is something everybody wants. 🙂
Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
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Appendix VIDEO – Sheryl Sandberg: So we leaned in … now what? – https://youtu.be/YraU52j3y8s
Published on Jan 15, 2014 – Sheryl Sandberg admits she was terrified to step onto the TED stage in 2010 — because she was going to talk, for the first time, about the lonely experience of being a woman in the top tiers of business. Millions of views (and a best-selling book) later, the Facebook COO talks with the woman who pushed her to give that first talk, Pat Mitchell. Sandberg opens up about the reaction to her idea, and explores the ways that women still struggle with success.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.