Circor is a leading provider of products and services in the aerospace industry. Both the manufacturing and aerospace industries are heavily male-dominated, especially in leadership, which creates a need for further development of female employees. In order to address the unequal representation of women and diverse employees within Circor, the organization has launched diversity and inclusion initiatives, including the Women’s Employee Resource Group (ERG).
We partnered with Circor for International Women’s Day – March 8, 2021, the theme for which was #ChooseToChallenge. The theme reminded us that a challenged world is a changed world, and without individuals willing to challenge the status quo (which had led to gender inequity for so many, for so long), things would never truly change. For that reason, our focus in this workshop was on communicating effectively to encourage assertiveness in individuals raising these challenges.
Our focus for the session was on these objectives:
Building skills to advocate for oneself and others through assertive communication techniques.
Developing and practicing professional communication strategies that can be used in various workplace situations, increasing confidence in daily interactions with colleagues and managers.
Understanding personal strengths and communication styles to authentically demonstrate value to teams and networks.
We empowered participants to not only focus on their own communication style and preferences, but on the style and preferences of others, too – especially those with whom they had conflict in the past. Challenging others in a way to promote real change requires that we respect them and their points of view, even when it’s difficult. Participants had the opportunity to put this knowledge and assertive communication tools to work in responding to specific workplace scenarios.