There is a famous case study done by a Columbia Business School professor, in which he divided his class into two groups, and presented the same exact case study of a successful venture capitalist.  The only difference was that the person was presented as Howard to one group, and as Heidi to the other. Howard was regarded as smart, a great leader, and likable. However, Heidi was regarded as aggressive and disliked.

There is a double standard that makes it even more difficult for women to succeed.

It’s this double standard that make parents encourage boys to take risks and be adventurous, while discouraging girls to do so. Girls are told to be nice and pleasant by adults growing up.

The other day, I brought my younger daughter, a high school senior, to a Toastmasters meeting, where I gave a speech. She told me: “I voted for another person for the best speaker award. Your speech was good, but not the best.”

Ouch…but I’m glad that she is not a people/parent pleaser and I’m proud that she can express her opinions. And I do appreciate her honest opinion.

I only hope that my daughter knows how to deliver her opinions in a way that does not make her look “too aggressive.” She seems to be ok so far.

In the real world, you need to express your opinions to make meaningful contributions. At times, you need to be firm. But if we women use the same communication styles as men, we will be considered aggressive and disliked. What do we do? We have to find a way to be pleasant, while being outspoken and firm. Small things such as open gestures and smiles do help a lot. Maintain eye contact with your audience, so you will stay connected with them. We do not have to, and should not, communicate like men. We don’t have to work like men. We should communicate and work like women to add values to our work and society.

I spent about a half of 2015 in Mexico City. The bank I work for was establishing a Mexico subsidiary there, and I was in the project team to build IT solutions for the new bank. That was one of the most memorable projects in my 20+ years career as an IT professional. Despite all the differences, between Mexico and NY, we had a tightly-knit project team with the same goal. Despite all the challenges, we successfully established a new bank in Mexico.

There was a lot of exposure to Spanish language and Mexican culture. Communications at the management level, such as meetings with our Mexico office representatives, Mexican regulators, and the project leads from Mexican software vendors, were mostly English-based. However, the communication for the project execution was a different story. Communications happened at different levels with different stakeholders, to clarify Mexican regulatory requirements, to define business requirements, to develop system design, to develop systems, and to test systems. Some documents were in Spanish and most of the systems were Spanish-based. Although the project leads from the vendors spoke English, most of their tech guys did not. Moreover, because of differences in business practices between Mexico and U.S., some Spanish words did not have English equivalents, and it took our Mexican colleagues and vendors to explain what these words mean in the context of how things were done in Mexico. As a result, our meetings involved Spanish-to-English/English-to-Spanish translations by bilinguals, a lot of drawings on the white board, and a lot of body language. To clearly understand business requirements, to create system design, and to create and execute test scripts, we had to understand Spanish and how business is done in Mexico. My NY colleagues and I constantly used Google translate, and some of us downloaded Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish (and we were competing over our progress).

I was fascinated by people in Mexico (they truly knew how to relax to have fun, while working hard!) and the country so full of history and culture. It was such an interesting and rich experience.

Mexico and the U.S. are right next to each other; however, we do things differently! During the first visit to Mexico City, I went out to lunch with my NY colleagues around noon, only to find no restaurants were open. Their lunch time starts around 2 pm. Also, we learned that they usually take a 2-hour lunch break there (nice). While the most common payment term is Net 30 here in U.S., it is Net 3 in Mexico (or so I was told). One time, at the earliest stage of the project, since we did not process the payment within 3 days after the invoice was issued, the vendor refused to meet with us although we were already there from NY. (We successfully persuaded them to meet with us at the end and had a fruitful conversation.)

My NY colleagues and I were eager to learn the Spanish language and the Mexican business, life, and culture. My Mexican colleagues and vendors were happy to teach us. They were also eager to learn the American and Japanese cultures. I believe that this mindset to learn about each other and understand each other was what led to the successful project at the end, despite all the differences we had.

We should embrace differences. There are synergies that could be only produced by bringing in different views and thoughts. When you are open-minded and are willing to work with people from different backgrounds, great things can happen.

I published my first English Kindle book in August. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X2V8SLX

Between May and August this year, I published three Kindle books in Japanese. The first book was a memoir looking back at my life in the U.S. The second was about women at work and women in leadership. The third book was about my day-to-day experiences.

Since my daughters, who are non Japanese speakers, wanted to read their mother’s story, and I wanted them to know how I became myself today and how I struggled as a young woman, I translated my first Japanese book to English.

As I translated my work from Japanese to English, I had my older daughter, who had just finished her freshman year in college and was spending the summer break at home, proofread. We used Google Docs. I shared my translation, and my daughter directly corrected my grammatical errors or suggested better wording in comments. She is a lifetime reader and native English speaker, and I am very lucky to have such a trustful, reliable editor by my side (and her service was for free!). “Mom, I don’t know what you want to say here…it just does not make sense.” Her unfiltered feedback was at times painful, but helpful.

When the translation completed and the book cover image was delivered (I outsourced the creation of the book cover, knowing that I have zero design sense), the book was ready to be published. I wrote the book description for Amazon. I showed the draft to my younger daughter, a high school senior. She immediately expressed her disapproval (a funny face accompanied by “Ummm…..No…”). She volunteered to “elaborate”, and took over my computer. She ended up rewriting the whole thing, and I loved what she put together:

Suzie, after 26 years of living and never leaving Japan, finds herself moving to the U.S. 
In an unfamiliar land with an unknown language, this is the story of an immigrant woman finding a life in America, equipped with only her quick wit and determination.

It was like a summer mother-daughters project, and I enjoyed the process so much. My daughters are my biggest inspiration these days, and I am really grateful that I could share this kind of experience with them. They will eventually have their own stories to tell, and I will continue to add to my stories.

Hi, there!

My name is Suzie. I’m starting this blog because one of the Toastmasters Level 4 electives is to write a compelling blog. I’ve been writing Japanese blogs; however, writing an English blog is new to me, and to be honest, it will be quite challenging, since writing in English takes me twice as long as writing in Japanese.

I moved to the U.S. in 1995, as a 26-year-old Japanese woman, with little money and little English speaking skills. I adopted the nickname Suzie, since my real name, Shizuka, was often mistaken for “Suzuki”, a famous Japanese motorcycle brand.

I value:

• Grit – passion and perseverance for long-term and meaningful goals
• Courage to fail and not to be daunted by own imperfection
• Teamwork

These days, my daughters, a college sophomore and a high school senior, are my biggest inspirations. The fact that they will enter the real world in a few years also makes me think a lot about women at work and women in leadership.

I’ll be sharing my thoughts around these things. Hope you’ll enjoy.