DARE: Straight Talk on Confidence, Courage, and Career
Based on Becky Blalock’s bestselling book, DARE: Straight Talk on Confidence, Courage and Career for Women in Charge (Wiley), this session focuses on proven strategies to build relationships, create opportunities and ultimately great careers. Gathered from Becky’s 33-years of experience at Southern Company, a Fortune 200 utility company, and from interviews with 100+ highly successful executives for her book, these time-tested themes and tips provide guidance for people at all stages of their career.
Key Takeaways:
- Begin within
- Be bold
- Invest in relationships
DARE to Take Charge of Your Career
During her 33-year career at Southern Company, a Fortune 200 utility company, Becky Blalock rose to become SVP & CIO in a traditionally male-dominated industry. In her book, DARE: Straight Talk on Confidence, Courage, and Career for Women in Charge (Wiley) she shares her hard-won advice on how you can gain confidence, find mentors, allies and manage others – and ultimately reach the highest tier of leadership. This session empowers attendees to take charge of their career using proven strategies to build relationships, promote potential, and ultimately create the opportunities on which great careers are founded, nurtured, and grown.
Key Takeaways:
- Dare to begin within: Know who you are and what you want
- Dare to be bold: Don’t be afraid to fail, take risks and go after what you want
- Dare to invest in relationships: The more you give, the more you get
DARE to be Bold and Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
Make your dreams come true. We all love being in our comfort zone. That’s the place where we feel safe, accepted and valued. But stepping outside that zone and trying new things is what enables us to grow and reach our potential in life and in our careers. Stepping outside the zone means we risk failure while gaining so much more.
Key Takeaways:
- Failure is not a failure, it’s feedback
- Women, in particular, must learn to step outside the zone in the corporate world
- How to create social safety nets
DARE to Blaze New Trails—Fireside Chat/Q&A
Host an interactive discussion with Becky Blalock and an emerging leader or senior leader in your organization. Becky shares her insights, stories, and tips in a dynamic conversation with the interviewer and the audience about her trailblazing career to the C-suite in the male-dominated utility industry. Drawing insights from her career and book, DARE: Straight Talk on Confidence, Courage and Career for Women in Charge (Wiley). This session is ideal for networks, diversity groups, and professional associations.
DARE to be BOLD—Fireside Chat/Q&A
How do you create change in your organization? In an interactive interview with an internal leader, Becky Blalock shares her own hard-won advice along with mentoring lessons from the twenty-eight top female executives who were interviewed for her bestselling book. This session explores how reaching the highest tier of leadership is only the beginning of the journey – mentorship, sponsorship, paying it forward and creating a path for the next generation of women are essential elements of bold leadership.
Including Women: What You Need To Know
This timely session is designed to help managers understand the unique challenges women face on the job. Women are leaving the STEM workforce in droves, Becky will illuminate the reasons why and highlight proven techniques to help women feel more included and valued. Attendees will leave with ideas they can implement immediately to make the work environment more rewarding, creative and productive for all members of the team.
Key Takeaways:
- How to identify the gaps and pitfalls in your work environment
- Proven techniques to retain women (and men) on your team
- Strategies on how to widen the conversation on inclusion
Women in Technology
Some of the fastest growing and best-paying jobs in the next 10 years will be in the information technology area. Yet, we are not seeing our young women pursue degrees in computer science. In fact, there are 3 states where no young women took the AP test for computer science. Nationwide only 20% of the test takers were women. IT has become branded as a field for geeks and nothing could be further from the truth.
Becky’s keynote focuses on the need for more women to pursue this exciting field and the opportunities it provides. Of the 28 women interviewed for her book, DARE Straight Talk on Confidence, Courage and Career for WOMEN IN CHARGE, 7 are the CIO or top IT professional in their organization. Highlighting great role models and showing it is possible for women to be very successful in this area is critical to recruiting and retaining them.
Where Are The Women?
We are entering a period with more open STEM jobs than there are candidates for those positions. What happened to the women who have STEM and computer science degrees? Why did they opt-out of this lucrative and growing field? And where are the current college graduates? Why aren’t they clamoring for these vital positions in a booming field? This keynote is a thought-provoking session for senior managers to assess what they can do to evolve their workforce.
Key Takeaways:
- Reasons why women are leaving the field (hint these reasons impact other minorities and men)
- Reasons young women are not seeing IT/ Computer Science as a career option
- Action steps for making immediate inroads within
DARE to Play Golf
Becky Blalock is teaming up with Jackie Cannizzo, PGA golf professional, top-ranked instructor, and tournament organizer, to offer programs for business women to get involved and advance in the game of golf. The programs are designed for schools, clinics, semi-private lessons or as a private coaching program. Focus is an essential element to success in golf and in business; each program includes business skill building in addition to golf concepts. These programs allow women of all abilities to learn the game and improve their proficiencies to use the game for recreation, business, and informal networking.
