Who owns the table?

Shirley Anita Chisholm was an American politician, educator, and author. In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to the United States Congress, and she represented New York’s 12th congressional district for seven terms from 1969 to 1983

It’s been a great start to the 2020 business-year, for this entrepreneur. I’ve been setting goals, planning projects, having meetings to set the agenda for the year, started catching up with the people that I need to engage with, etc etc. The business year is in high gear as we kick off a year that will realistically have lessons and blessings. We will be grateful for all.

In getting to the point of kick-starting, I always take the time to reflect on the previous year, and this this year, I reflected on the decade, patting myself on the back for the hard work keeping ethical and high standards in place in a world that has been increasingly lowering standards and ethics, I lamented the woes, I analysed the state of my business, and had an honest conversation with myself about my weaknesses and the things I could have done better.

This whole process requires a review and analysis of 2019…

This review revealed that a particular narrative occupied (too) many discussions with business partners, stakeholders, associates, and clients. It was about women “having a seat at the table”, or “making space for another woman”. Many times, these words came out of my own mouth, so this is not a blog about me contemplating this or the value of it, but it is definitely a blog about the unconscious bias that we have as women, held the world over … that we require someone’s permission, or that we have to have someone do us a favour, or we rely on someone else to create a space for us.

Why?

It got me thinking… so, whose permission do we need? Do they own this damn table we constantly refer to, or have they been put in a position where we assume they own the table, or have other unconscious bias led to them owning the table? Lots of questions about ‘the table’.

Shirley Anita Chisholm was an American politician, educator, and author. In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to the United States Congress, and she represented New York’s 12th congressional district for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. She is the author of 2 books : Unbought &Unbossed and The Good Fight, with a movie to her credit as well : Women — for America, for the world.

Shirley Chisholm, an American gender-activist politician, first made the statement,

“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” ~ 1972, Democratic National Convention

Today, this quote has been reinvented many times, and has had many, many iterations over the years, but essentially what this icon was fighting for in 1972, we’re still talking about in 2020, almost 50 years later.

Today, we use the term in the context of our reality. The fact that we still use the term, in some shape or form, is quite significant, because it symbolises the lack of growth and advancement, in almost 50 years.

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My view is that it is not about building a new ‘table’ at all. Why?

We need to own any and every table we sit at. Ownership is about responsibility and accountability, and leadership. It is about women working together, collaborating, partnering, working TOGETHER, so that the ownership of the table, whether in figurative or literal terms, is never questioned. The table should not be closed in the first place — being at the table should not require the permission of another, or requiring another to ‘make space’ for us, we should never be reliant on another. It should be ‘open’. But we know that ‘closed’ is about ego.

So, open-ness requires mindfulness and conscious awareness, of each of us…

… it requires giving up the glory for just yourself, but rather reaping the rewards for all at the table, as abundance for the collective.

… it requires critical thought about trusting yourself and other women to have each other’s backs in your absence.

… it requires continuously CREATING an AUTHENTIC sisterhood of business women who want to create wealth, power, influence, etc for everyone … not just for one.

… it requires knowing that even though you have the power, capacity, and ability to go it alone, you CHOOSE to collaborate and partner with other women because you believe that the tables will multiply.

…it requires understanding that it does not mean removing or attacking men or women who don’t have the same beliefs, but it does mean that the abundance mentality is so strong by everyone else or even just you, that they feel so uncomfortable that they ‘leave the table’ of their own volition, or change their ways.

For me, it also means that even if you are the only woman at the table, you ‘own your throne’ (ownership) at any table, and in sitting in that throne, you hold the responsibility of representing all other women.

As noble as the sentiment is about ‘making room at the table’ or ‘claiming a seat at the table’, we need to be doing this as a standard unconscious practise (it needs to be in the DNA of every woman (not only women in business), and if it’s not in your DNA, make a conscious effort to put it there!).

We simply cannot still be talking about the same thing in another 50 years. The way forward is about partnership and collaboration, because that is about trust, commitment, sustainability, and equality, which leads to empowerment and emancipation.

“Making space or extending a seat at the proverbial table, is a gesture … with an imbalance of power or control …and loaded with obligation.” ~ Yavi Madurai

Shirley Chisholm’s sentiment in 1972 was about a woman getting a seat, any seat, as long as a woman gets a seat. Tt assumed that a woman would speak for all women, and maybe in politics it did.

But, in the business world, women did not necessarily honour the collective when they got a seat at the table, and therefore the iterations of one woman bringing another in.

My belief is that we are at the cusp of another era, we need to shift even more, to a time when the table is not closed or has an unconscious bias. It can be owned by anyone, and not in the possession type of ownership, so that permission to be at the table is not required.

In my reflections I realised that in 2020, my business sisterhood and I … we own ‘the damn table’ … we already do!

Our table is infinite with perpetual room for anyone. It holds collective power through continuously building our thought processes, our emotions, and our EQ’s around abundance (there’s enough for everyone … enough power, enough wealth, enough control, enough legacy … there’s enough for all of us, and always will be). There is no qualifying criteria for our table, except the desire to ‘own the table’ as a collective, and committing to multiplying the ‘ownership of tables’. We’ll also visit your owned tables and you can visit ours, to build tables for the next generation to own.

Our table holds knowledge, skills, strengths, power, and influence.

But, our table has also seen weaknesses, debates, disagreements, moments of madness, and days of darkness. Things are never perfect and will never be, but it’s the desire for ‘owning the table’, that has made us rise above our challenges.

I’m sure Shirley Chisholm is smiling down on us today, as we take her folding chair and turn it into many equal thrones (ownership, power, influence, etc) around the infinity table. Thank you Shirley!

Here’s to a year of the infinity table owned by anyone … and may the decade ahead see us shift the unconscious bias to the point of not even having this conversation.

Wouldn’t it be nice?